Readers Respond

COWBOYS Calling Bush and his cronies “cowboys” is a dire insult to cowboys. I come from a cowboy family and take great offense at this mischaracterization . They have no cows. What does Bush even grow on his ranch other than the brush he’s always clearing? I even heard he can’t ride and is deathly afraid of horses. Him, a cowboy??? Oh, please! Nora Coryell viaemail BASEBALLANDDARFUR God bless Tikkun for pointing to the other “Blood Diamond” story: the connection between Major League Baseball owners Charles Johnson and Sue Burns and their investments in Franklin Templeton Funds, which is helping underwrite the atrocities and jaw-dropping violence now occurring in Darfur, Sudan. A point that needs to be stressed is that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Burns are affirmatively making a choice, and that choice is to give “the big wink” to a twenty first-century genocide. Perhaps such people have always been with us—the Swiss bankers who dealt in ingots made from the gold smashed out of human teeth come to mind. But Ms. Burns and Mr. Johnson should realize that 65 years after that horror, we are still talking about it, and unlike Switzerland’s bankers, America ’s baseball moguls cannot hide behas obscured these owners’ understanding of their true responsibility for the social consequences of their investments , and call upon them now to see themselves as having a unique opportunity to set an example for sports teams around the country by divesting altogether from activities causing human suffering. OBAMATHENOMINEE Ever since Clinton dropped out of the race, I have been increasingly disturbed by Obama’s movement to the right. In light of his pandering to AIPAC, refusal of public financing, support of the recent FISA legislation, and statements last week that he might slow the pace of troop withdrawals from Iraq, I find my enthusiasm for Obama waning. Pundits like Daniel Schorr say a presumptive nominee has to move toward the center to get elected . But isn’t McCain moving generally to the right to appease the right wing of his party? Why must progressive Democrats always settle for centrist candidates ? Is Obama a true progressive? I would love to know other Tikkun members’ opinions. Here’s hoping for a candidate we can feel proud and excited about! Melissa Mueller Ithaca,NY For months I had been really getting into the Obama campaign. All that came to a screeching halt as I read one line (one line!), to wit: that Obama believed that Jerusalem should remain undivided and in Israeli hand. I could not believe it! To make matters worse, a day later, under pressure from outraged Palestinians and liberals, Obama gave some idiotic “clarification” to his stance, namely that it was more LETTERS hind the veil of anonymity. Nor can they now claim ignorance. To save face, they can only divest, and do it soon. The world is watching. Patrick Burns & Carolyn Sargent-Burns Arlington,Virginia Editorreplies: The Giants story is an important one, but we must remember that investors like the Giants’ owners have been encouraged by our society precisely NOT to see their involvement in supporting social violence like that occurring in Darfur. They have been taught that they are merely making private investment decisions in a mutual fund with a good rate of return, like millions of others who invest in Franklin Templeton and other funds and companies with flawed portfolios. Think of all the U.S. investors from the very wealthy to those who just own a few stocks and bonds who don’t even know what their money is invested in, much less think that they are personally responsible for the social consequences of each investment. What’s good about Peter Gabel’s and Jack Ucciferi’s articles is that they bring out the role of baseball as an aspect of a city’s public life and link that public dimension of the sport to a duty of social responsibility on the part of a team’s owners. But instead of denouncing them, we should have compassion for the ideological conditioning that ANOTEONLETTERSTOTHEEDITOR: As Tikkun increases its web presence both at www.tikkun.org and at www.spiritualprogressives.org and...