Cusack’s absurdity with ‘war profiteers’

FROM THE safety of his stateside home, John Cusack has made a movie to mock people like Blackwater contractors who, at great personal risk, provide a service to their country in time of war [“Cusack Goes to War,” by Tina Daunt, May 23]. Since they get paid, he considers them “war profiteers” who “should be sent to prison.” How infantile.

Yes, people rise to provide needed goods and services in wartime; it doesn’t follow that wars are started so such people can make a buck. That paranoid, Vietnam-era delusion aside, does Cusack really think it a crime for people to be paid for wartime labors? How about the soldiers who put their lives on the line? They’re paid. Or farmers who grow food those soldiers consume? Or people who make the troops’ boots and clothes? Or workers who build military vehicles? Or journalists who cover the war? Greedy war profiteers all? What patent nonsense.

But if you can’t beat ‘em, you join ‘em. So, seizing the opportunity of war, Cusack offers a film he no doubt hopes will make a profit. Sure, war profiteers “can all go to hell.” Except for Cusack, who ridicules them all – all the way to the bank.

Steven Zak

Sunland

Paparazzi go away

RACHEL ABRAMOWITZ does not go far enough: Under no uncertain terms should Miley Cyrus be hounded by paparazzi [“All Lenses Are on Miley,” May 28].

If we as a society can determine that someone under 21 is too young to drink, then we should be able to decide that stalking/photographing children by paparazzi is also illegal. No child, whether a celebrity, the child of a celebrity or the classmate of a celebrity, should be subjected to paparazzo intrusion. Enough is enough. Stop.

Christine Apostolina

Beirne

Ojai

A global America

FAREED ZAKARIA has some things right [“Talking About What Ails America,” by Utku Cakirozer, May 23]. California is a “basket case.” But “blaming foreigners – in the case of California, blaming Mexicans” isn’t a groundless connection.

The decline in the socioeconomics of this once great state can directly be attributed to our wonderful illegal “visitors” and the millions of their children given citizenship by accident of birth. The majority of whom just happen to be from Mexico.

From the collapse of older family neighborhoods into crime-invested boardinghouses, to schools so busy catering to teaching the Spanish-speaking population that English speakers are neglected, to overburdened human service organizations, these “foreigners” have a direct link to the destruction of this state, and it is unfortunate that Zakaria doesn’t see the connection and therefore cannot understand that the California of his childhood memories and the California that exists today are a direct result of his idealized “globalization.”

Judy McLaughlin

Simi Valley

THIS high-sounding analysis of global changes that have occurred and will continue to occur does not acknowledge primary economic problems such as the huge trade deficits with countries like China caused by American manufacturers moving their plants overseas and the resulting vast numbers of higher-paying American manufacturing jobs that have been lost to overseas manufacturing facilities.

It is one thing to adopt a sweeping, historical, altruistic, theoretical and even resigned attitude toward the effects of globalization that help countries like China and India while hurting America.

It is a totally different thing to put America’s interests first by establishing fair systems to keep America at the forefront of globalization.

China and India and other countries are not shy when it comes to capitalizing on the changes taking place and benefiting from them.

What America needs is not more theories and generalizations but rather national and international actions by the Congress and next administration that will help restore America’s preeminence and prevent its further decline in the inevitably widening effects of the new global economy.

Sam McCarver

San Juan Capistrano

Tabloid fame

SO Dina Lohan and Denise Richards believe that the best way to set the record straight is to subject their families, and the public, to the train wrecks they call their lives [“Looking for a Little Sympathy,” by Greg Braxton, May 26]. The public can change the channel. Their families can’t.

To watch them both demonstrate their insatiable need for attention and cling to celebrity with a death grip would be somewhat humorous if there were not children involved. The only fame these two have ever accomplished has been at the expense of others.

They both cry foul at the tabloids, yet both do everything possible to garner their attention.

Scott Schuele

Los Feliz

IF “reality shows” starring Denise Richards and Dina Lohan are the best that TV can come up with, TV is doomed.

And if the news media see fit to report on this drivel, they deserve the same fate.

Tom Burton

Van Nuys