Our readers write

Make cameras campaign issue

To The Editor:
I’d like to add my 2 cents’ worth concerning Union City’s traffic and speeding cameras. First of all, let me state that I have not received a ticket from one of these cameras so you can’t call this letter “sour grapes.”
People of  Union City are not completely powerless concerning this situation. The most effective thng that you can do is simply vote for another candidate in the next city council election. Or better yet, run yourself. You can demand that these cameras be made an issue during the campaigning process and vote for the candidate who doesn’t support their use.
For the citizens of Obion County and surrounding areas who don’t live in Union City, you can make a point to shop elsewhere. This is very effective when the city and council officials start realizing that they are losing tax revenue. It is very easy to go to Martin, Fulton or Dyersburg to Walmart. You can make it a point to buy your “big ticket” items elsewhere. It won’t take many purchases of things like vehicles, appliances or electronics to negate that $50 ticket. When you do this be sure to tell your local merchants and dealers that you are shopping elsewhere and why you are doing this.
Most of us have seen the effects that these camera/speed trap type of situations create.
People will not visit or shop at a place where they have unpleasant experiences. All that I can say to the Union City Council members is enjoy the extra income now because it will haunt you further down the road.
Ralph Nichols
Kenton
Jab at Obama
inappropriate

To The Editor:
If the folks fighting the BP oil spill in the Gulf could have packaged all the hot air spouted by “experts” on bringing peace to the Middle East and pumped it down the shaft of the gushing leak, the oil flow could have easily been capped off. Whether it is politician, political pundit or academic professional, everyone seems to have a solution.
However, today the region is in spreading turmoil and no one has any idea how things are going to play out.
So Ivy Scarborough’s panning of President Obama’s proposal to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse is for Israel to consider a return to the territorial boundaries that existed before it captured territory as a result of the 1967 Six Day War (really the 1949 armistice lines that were in place up until the June 1967 Six Day War) must be evaluated in the context of what others have said on the same issue.
For example, United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 say the same thing — that Israel must move back to the 1949 lines; as did President George W. Bush in his April 14, 2004 letter to Israel’s then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon; the House and Senate Resolutions passed in support thereof; the April 30, 2003 Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict that President Bush referred to in his letter; as well as the Bush Israel Peace Plan of June 24, 2002.
Will the Palestinians and Israelis be willing to agree to such possibility? Certainly it seems to be a very difficult nut to crack. However, there are those elements of the population of both sides who seem to be willing to earnestly negotiate toward some type of agreement. No less respectable source than The New York Review of Books reported in a 2008 review of the Middle East situation “throughout the years, polls consistently showed respectable Israeli and Palestinian majorities in favor of a negotiated two-state settlement.”
The average American citizen does not have geopolitical history or awareness of political events to understand or appreciate the complexities that must be taken into any final settlement or the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. However, the continuing bloodshed, political turmoil and civil unrest that is generated b¥ conditions that exist there and have the potential to spread throughout the Middle East make the issue one that cannot be walked away from.
What I do not understand about Scarborough’s essay is that he uses it as a jumping off point to attack the leadership and personal qualities of President Obama. It is as if only he has failed to achieve a negotiated settlement and has done so for some ulterior motive. As a Democrat and supporter of the president, I consider his personal attack on him inappropriate and unfair considering the failures of the leaders of both American political parties, their negotiating emissaries and numerous international leaders to do any better in finding an acceptable solution.
Richard Chesteen
Union City

Published in The Messenger 6.1.11

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