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Gorecki the victim of endless public stoning

Daily Herald Reports

Posted on June 17, 2001

Regarding your June 8 editorial on State's Attorney Meg Gorecki, I, too, remain concerned, but not about Gorecki. My concern is about a news organization, the Daily Herald, whose mission is to inform the public in a factual and honorable manner.

The Daily Herald once again surrendered its integrity by defending its Steffen endorsement instead of having the courage and integrity to admit its assessment of Gorecki was wrong, particularly the assessment of your editorial writer.

Gorecki, according to your own news reporter, has made good on every campaign promise, promises your editorial writer said she could never possibly keep. When the Daily Herald requested a six-month review and proclaimed a job well-done, your editorial writer couldn't resist the proverbial cheap shot by stating that "there is still doubt about whether Gorecki can see this to the end of the four-year term" and, my personal favorite, "we remain concerned about the bad judgment and lack of candor ..."

Bad judgment? Lack of candor? Editorial writers who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. And make no mistake about it. That is what this has turned into - an endless public stoning.

Steve Catlin

St. Charles

Logic, history show folly of reparations

An upcoming United Nations conference on racism is expected to demand massive financial reparations from Western nations for the "terrible exploitation" of slavery, but the U.S. government should refuse to take money from taxpayers to pay for such misdeeds.

Reparations will not right a historic wrong; they would only impose a modern wrong on Americans who are not responsible for the historic crimes of slavery. Even worse, reparations would obscure the fact that slavery is not merely something that Western nations did to Africans, but is a worldwide phenomenon existing for thousands of years.

Reparations also would deflect attention away from the fact that millions of people still live in bondage - not to slave masters, but their own governments.

As U.N. representatives from around the world prepare to meet in Durban, South Africa, for the World Conference Against Racism, Aug. 31 to Sept. 8, African nations have begun to lobby for a proposal that declares slavery a crime against humanity and calls for former slave-trading nations to make "restitution." The exact nature of the restitution is not specified, but at preconference meetings in Geneva, Switzerland, some representatives of the African group's 53 nations proposed no-strings-attached foreign aid from Western nations, perhaps running into the billions of dollars. The African representatives argued that their countries were "devastated" by slavery, so they deserve compensation.

The U.N. high commissioner on human rights, Mary Robinson, has said the West "must pay for past mistakes on slavery," perhaps through a "broad sweep of measures (such as) development aid." However, the whole concept of paying financial reparations for crimes committed hundreds of years ago is fundamentally flawed.

Slavery in the United States was abolished in 1863, so using tax money to pay reparations for slavery will punish innocent people today for crimes committed by slave owners who have been dead for more than 100 years. In addition, a large percentage of modern Americans - perhaps a majority - are descendants of people who came to the United States in the great waves of immigration in the 1880s and after 1960. Why should those new Americans, many of whom are descendants of refugees, pay for the actions of Dutch and English slave traders in the 1700s, or for U.S. slave owners in the 1800s?

Reparations for relatively modern slavery also ignores the fact that individuals, tribes and nations have enslaved others for all of recorded history. Slavery wasn't something invented by U.S. plantation owners in the South. Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans, the Islam religion, West Africa and Zanzibar all practiced or supported slavery. There is practically no nation that can "cast the first stone" when it comes to accusing other nations of exploiting human slaves. And the American Anti-Slavery Group estimates that 27 million people currently "live in bondage" around the world.

Ironically, many of the African nations demanding reparations for past slavery are enslaving their own people. According to a recent Index of Economic Freedom report issued by the Heritage Foundation, of the 42 sub-Saharan African countries, 27 are "mostly un-free" and eight are rated "repressed." If there are reparations to be paid, perhaps it should come from the dictators, tyrants and presidents-for-life who rule those 35 un-free and repressed African nations.

The best way to pay for the sins of slavery is to work to create a world where all people can live in freedom, free of slave masters, forced bondage and oppressive governments. The greatest gift we can give to the descendants of slaves is a lifetime of real freedom.

Austin Hough

Chairman

Libertarian Party of Illinois

East Dundee

O'Hare should be no larger than it already is

The time for power grabs and special-interest cronyism has run out. O'Hare International Airport is as large as it should ever become. Suburban residents - many of whom have lived in the proximity of this aeronautic megalith for decades - will agree to land purchases and more runways at O'Hare right after Mayor Daley buys up acreage around Midway and extends its runways, multiplying flights at Chicago's South Side airport!

A regional approach to airport development must take precedence over any "I won't land there" tantrums United Airlines or any other company threatens. It is folly to force more flights and runways down the throats of suburban residents.

1. Rockford has demonstrated its ability to handle a Concord-type aircraft. Developing this northern Illinois airport will enable growth west of the Fox River while increasing opportunities for south-central Wisconsin and eastern Iowa.

2. Gary can handle more air traffic now. Developing this asset would promote much-needed economic growth in northwest Indiana, Joliet and the South Side of Chicago, while serving southern suburbs.

3. Mitchell already handles the transportation needs of savvy northern Illinois business travelers and residents. Expanding the Milwaukee-area airport should benefit southeastern Wisconsin and the Waukegan area while extending the burgeoning expansion of corporations locating in Lake County to the Illinois state line.

Develop these assets now. The basic infrastructure is in place, and within five years, these existing airports can join O'Hare as world-class facilities. For O'Hare will always remain a critically important facility. Peotone is not a viable alternative. Twenty years is too long to wait, and the destruction of prime farmland would be a travesty.

Sheila M. Barrett

Elk Grove Village

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