letters

A SLAP AT MOVEON.ORG

And the Constitution

Last week's U.S. Senate condemnation of a political advertisement in a newspaper is a blatant effort to use the power of the federal government to stifle dissent. Whatever you think of the MoveOn.org ad, this vote should frighten you.

Last I checked, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids Congress from passing laws like this. Do we really want to become a country where the citizens are afraid to challenge the military? Where citizens are afraid to speak out at all?

I am especially ashamed of my Sen. Amy Klobuchar for supporting this bill.

BOB TREUMANN, ST. PAUL

POVERTY IN THE U.S.

Lewis isn't looking

It's not too difficult to find poverty in Minnesota, let alone the United States. Thank goodness there are organizations like the Heritage Foundation, cited by Jason Lewis ("Give us your poor -- if you can find them," Sept. 16), to manipulate figures and tell us that starvation doesn't actually exist in our country. In fact, it's a relief to hear that most poor people can actually afford a VCR (I sold mine at a garage sale last summer for 25 cents).

Now that we have the real information about poverty in the United States I can sleep soundly, knowing the next time I drive by, I can just smile and wave at those people holding cardboard signs at every busy intersection in Minneapolis and St. Paul. But I'm wondering if there are outlets under the bridges where they can plug in their VCRs.

AARON BLECHERT, MINNEAPOLIS

A white advantage

Notable in Jason Lewis' good news review on poverty is the absence of data on people of color. The historic advantages of whites, built in no small measure on the enslavement of blacks and the genocide of American Indians, are still visible in the form of gross disparities in our welfare, education, child protection, shelter and corrections systems.

If we are to have an accounting, let's at least be honest about it. For some segments of America, poverty is still ugly and real.

GREG OWEN, MINNEAPOLIS

BEING GAY

In religious community

God bless Charlotte Sullivan. Her column of Sept. 16 ("An unavoidable truth") was one of the best written articles about coming out and being authentically gay I have ever read.