The nation that imprisons the highest percentage of its population, an astounding 3 percent; that executes the highest proportion of it's population; that has the most radically unequal earning differentials and the most uneven distribution of wealth and resources of any advanced industrial state is the United States.

I live in Delaware, the state with the highest per capita income in the United States, but where 18 out of every 1,000 infants born die in their first year of life. In Havana, Cuba, six of every 1,000 infants born die in their first year of life.

Delaware leads the U.S. in both imprisonment and executions. The last time Cuba sentenced someone to death was about five years ago, a mercenary from El Salvador who had bombed hotels and restaurants and had killed and wounded a number of people. The last time Delaware sentenced someone to death was about six weeks ago. The state of Delaware puts someone to death every other month. Cuba, with a population 20 times larger, puts someone to death every decade or so. The USA has nothing to teach anyone about human rights!

Roy Inglee
Elsmere, Delaware
 
 
Support Nancy Oden
After reading about the harassment of Nancy Oden at the airport in Bangor, Maine, in the Militant, I would like to express my solidarity with the Green Party's right to express opinions that criticize the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. is murdering a lot of innocent people in Afghanistan without finding any "justice." If Nancy Oden doesn't have her freedom of speech then none of us are free. Although I am not a supporter of the Green Party, I feel an injury against one is an injury against all!

Stephen Maupin
by e-mail
 
 
Green Party candidate?
Nancy Oden was not the Green Party candidate for governor of Maine in 1998. The Green Party candidate was Patricia LaMarche who garnered 6 percent of the vote and retained ballot status for the Maine Greens.  
 
Nancy Allen
Maine Independent Green Party

Editor's note: We confirmed with Nancy Oden that she was an independent candidate for governor in 1998 in Maine for the Green Party USA. The Militant's stance is that every supporter of constitutional rights has an elementary obligation to defend anyone whose rights are being trampled on by the U.S. government or the employers. This is true whether they belong to one Green Party or another, or no party at all, especially as the U.S. rulers escalate their assault on workers' rights.

Those who devote more effort to distinguishing themselves from Oden than to defending her are elevating factional considerations above a fundamental question of solidarity, which only aids the enemies of the struggles for social justice.

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of interest to working people.

Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.  
 
 
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