letters

I have been searching for my sister, Laurie Cohen, who disappeared in Panama on 4/15/94. It is coming up on the 10-year anniversary and we still have no clue as to what may have happened to her.

Originally in 1994, we spoke to the US Embassy in Panama and filed a missing persons report. They in turn filed a report with the police. Over the years, we have had contact with numerous people in your country trying to find Laurie.

A picture and article ran in several of the local Panamanian papers and on the local television stations in both Spanish and English.

Laurie's last contact with the family was on April 15, 1994 from the Republic of Panama. Laurie was last seen in the company of Sgt. Algracia Alvarado, US Army. She had told of us a threat and was asked to come home to The United States. She has never left Panama.

Laurie has brown hair, medium length, brown eyes, multiple pierced ears and wears glasses or contacts. X-rays will show a healed break in her femur.

Anyone with information as to Laurie's whereabouts, contact the US Embassy, the Panamanian police, or dcaterer@aol.com. All sources will be confidential.

I will not rest until we find my sister.

Pamela G. DiSchiavi

Just thought I'd let you know that as a client of SCLD company, and one who has just re-visited our land for the second time, we feel Tom is making an honest effort to make good on his promises. We just walked our land and found that it indeed has been completely planted with Noni and Teak. And although things with the government move slowly, we feel confident that we will possess Title shortly.

We appreciate your retraction in the Panama News. We believe in Tom's integrity and his desire to make this business venture succeed.

Debbie Keipper

Editor's note: The use of the word "fugitive" in the two articles published last year needed to be explained and qualified as a matter of fairness and accuracy, which was done. However, I understand that some people are spinning last issue's front page in ridiculous ways.

For the record, I believe that any person who would buy a farm with intentions to make money from its production without having seen it, tested its soil, verified its hydrology and researched the agricultural history of the area, and moreover without getting title at the time of purchase, is a fool.

I recommend that anyone considering investing their life's savings into a farm anywhere ponder the meaning of the bumper sticker that I used to see a lot around Michigan: "Crime doesn't pay --- neither does farming" --- espectially when evaluating non-farmer Tom McMurrain's claim that the farms he is selling in Bocas will yield 20 to 30 percent per year return on investment. Not that this editor, who just brought in a saril crop, would want to denigrate the ancient profession of farming, but if you aren't an experienced farmer and have romantic notions and wild expectations about the business of agriculture you should probably stay out of that line of work.

I am writing to you in my capacity as General Counsel of San Cristobal International Limited, a BVI company which is the parent company of San Cristobal Land Development ("SCLD"). Tom McMurrain has asked me to provide information about SCLD to you in furtherance of the conversation that you had with him several days ago about SCLD generally and two articles by Okke Ornstein that appeared in the Panama News in particular.

The basic allegations made in these articles may be summarized as follows:

1. SCLD owns no land.

2. SCLD is not conveying land.

3. SCLD is not clearing and planting land.

4. Tom McMurrain is a fugitive from American justice.

5. Teak won't grow and noni won't sell.

6. SCLD is a gangster organization.

Our responses to these allegations are as follows:

1. No Land.

Attached are copies of two deeds for properties in Bocas del Toro. (See Attachment A, parts 1 and 2.) One has been filed and the other, to which an official receipt is attached, is in the process of being filed. SCLD is the purchaser under several contracts that have not yet culminated in transfers of land or possessory rights. Some of these contracts relate to titled land; others to possessory rights land.

We prefer titled land, but it is not always available in Bocas del Toro. In addition, the process of assembling a salable tract will often require that we purchase possessory rights land. All of our contracts with our customers require that we ultimately deliver titled land. We have been working diligently to obtain deeds to possessory rights property through a local attorney.

We have also used a so-called "contrato de promeso" as a means of obtaining rights to property that is then sold to customers. (See Attachment B.) Underlying this contract, which is recorded, is an unrecorded private agreement which provides that, as SCLD pays for the lots into which the property is subdivided, the owner will deed these lots directly to our customers. I attach a copy of the recorded contract for a 92-hectare property on Isla de Colon; if you wish to examine the private agreement, I will make it available to you. Last week, a subdivision map dividing this property into 22 subfincas was filed and you should be able to see it in a few days.

In all, SCLD owns, or has possessory or contractual rights in, approximately 390 hectares of land.

If you would like to meet with our attorney, examine the deeds and other documents in her possession and learn in detail of our progress in obtaining titles, I will arrange for it.

SCLD has never bought land from Indians or in Indian areas, as Ornstein once suggested.

2. No Conveyances.

I attach as Attachment C, parts 1, 2, 3 and 4, copies of deeds that were delivered last year to customers. I expect that further deeds will be delivered within the next few weeks.

We have moved more slowly in this area than we would have liked because of timing problems with possessory rights property. In addition, several of the titled properties have had problems that have required remediation --- typically of a testamentary nature in which an heir had failed to take the actions required to obtain proper title.

An exception is the titled 92-hectare property described above. A subdivision map has been filed; after it is approved, we will be able to deliver deeds within normal time frames, together with title insurance.

3. No Clearing and Planting.

To date, we have cleared and planted approximately 120 hectares. Of these, 74 have been cleared and planted using the services of Geo Forestal SA. If you wish to verify this, I will arrange for you to examine the contracts with Geo Forestal and speak with its officials. The remaining land was cleared and planted through an affiliate of SCLD and I will be happy for you to meet with the person responsible for this.

For 2004, we already have plans to clear and plant an additional 130 hectares. We expect that new sales during 2004 will increase this amount. We invite you to travel to Bocas del Toro with us and view our properties and the work that has been performed on them in person.

4. The Fugitive.

I gather that the submission of the LEIN report on Mr. McMurrain has settled this matter. I should add, however, that I attempted to obtain copies of the purported warrants from the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, by several means, including using the services of a well regarded local law firm. I did see an application for a warrant. The gist of the application is that a company in which Mr. McMurrain was a shareholder had borrowed money, had failed to repay it and that Mr. McMurrain had taken the company into bankruptcy; therefore, the application concludes, he was guilty of a crime. In my view, this application is merely an attempt to criminalize a matter that would normally be the subject of civil litigation. The law firm recounted several instances of attempts to use the law that provides for such warrants as a means to attain, by the criminal process, ends that would be expensive or time consuming using civil means.

There were also two civil suits in which Mr. McMurrain was one of the defendants related to the above and another business failure. Ornstein was assiduous in publishing these suits and their allegations; he seems to have concealed (which is intellectually dishonest) or perhaps never realized (which for a "journalist" is still worse) the fact that both of these suits were dismissed.

5. Teak Won't Grow, Etc.

Teak does not always grow well in Bocas. Great care is required in choosing areas with proper soil and good drainage if good results are to be obtained. We do exercise the requisite degree of care. We do not and never have planted only teak, as Ornstein seems to have assumed. We have also planted Amarillo, cocobolo, zapatera, ronron, and zuayacan, not only for the reasons set forth above, but for considerations of diversification of crops and risk.

We expect the market for noni to continue to be good, but, as is the case with the hardwood trees, we are exploring the planting of other medicinal shrubs as well.

6. Gangsterism.

Ornstein started early on his "gangster" theme. First, he obtained police reports on some of the persons that we hired in Bocas for menial work. As is common there, many of them had had brushes with the law; many were only the subject of police interest. Based on this and the fact that these persons used a vehicle owned by SCLD that had tinted windows --- who except the American readers for whom Ornsteinís articles were intended would find tinted windows in Panama remarkable? --- the label "Gangster" was applied.

Ornstein then moved to "threats," using as a vehicle for this purpose a rather impressionable Canadian who had fallen under his spell. Threats were purportedly made against this man and his girlfriend in restaurants and by telephone, his hotel room was claimed to have been broken into and goons were alleged to be following him around Panama City. Ornstein knew the way to PTJ and quickly took the Canadian there. (Ornstein seems to have relationships with police agencies and local embassies that are so remarkable for a person who has been in Panama for only a few years as to raise speculation as to what he may be doing for them.) Ornstein also used a few angry email messages written in response to his article as further evidence of "threats" --- Ornstein's temper never cools, so it was easy for him to imagine that others are so constituted.

Next an article appeared in a Panamanian newspaper, El Siglo. It speculated on whether SCLD might be linked to the death of Ornstein's attorney. The police ruled he had died by suicide and no one suggested why SCLD would wish the man dead, let alone murder him, but no matter --- if a tale is good, tell it, irrespective of facts. Ornstein has never confirmed that he was the source of this speculation, but I can conceive of no other person who would or could make such a link.

The sheer inanity of these fictionalized events became apparent when I received an email from the Canadian, who had by then returned to Toronto, to the effect that over breakfast that very day he had discovered for the first time from reading a local newspaper that Colombia was a dangerous place (he must have been very loosely educated!), that his girlfriend was visiting her family in Colombia and that he wished to be assured that she would be safe from SCLD's goons. Sure enough, a few days later, I received a message from him claiming that shots had been fired near her. No details ever followed, although I asked for them.

Thus was SCLD branded as a group of gangsters.

6. Conclusion.

Before Ornstein published his articles, he attacked SCLD rather extensively on the message board operated by Offshore Business. In the belief that Ornstein had been misinformed, Mr. McMurrain offered to show Ornstein the land that had been contracted for, cleared and planted and Ornstein refused the invitation. I attach copies of these messages as Attachment D. Ornstein was more interested in publishing a preconceived story than in the facts. So far as we know, he has never traveled to Bocas; the content of his articles suggests that he did not travel there before publishing or that he ignored what he discovered. I hope that you will publish Ornstein's response to Mr. McMurrain's invitation in its entirety. Rarely have I found so fine an example of a piece that unknowingly reveals more about its author than its subject. Its tone, which I leave to others to characterize, suggests that there was more than a journalistic endeavor involved and was certainly not called for by anything in the invitation. Ornstein was simply indulging in bombast to conceal the fact that he did not wish to make a journey on which he would be presented with undesired facts.

We asked David Marchant, the editor of Offshore Business, to ban Ornstein from the message board. He declined to do so, but published a cautionary message, a portion of which reads:

"[M]y personal experience of [Ornstein], which is extensive, is that he is a compulsive liar with few or any ethics who surrounds himself with crooks, frequently supports them and thinks nothing of committing illegal acts himself.

He appears to be unable to separate fact from fantasy...."

Your readers may find the full text of Mr. Marchant's message at http://www.offshorebusiness.com/message_board_detail.asp?id=8390&page=1. (There is also a wealth of other material concerning Ornstein on that site.) A paragraph in that message suggests that Ornstein's motivation for these articles may not have been journalistic and it is not inconceivable that this entire business was the result of reaction of a failure to the success of a competitor. (Ornstein has denied that he is a competitor, but the brochure of The Tulip Fund, which he operated, is at variance with that denial. The brochure is attached as Attachment E --- see especially the section on reforestation.) It is worth mentioning in this respect that, at the time that Ornstein was preparing his articles, the Comision Nacional de Valores had focused its attention on his business and, by means of an investors' advisory, had effectively shut it down.

SCLD made its first sale on July 3, 2002, and then started to make sales at the rate of two or three per month. This success was beyond our fondest dreams, but also beyond our ability to absorb, principally for reasons of understaffing and our unfamiliarity as Americans with the Panamanian legal system and the time frames for accomplishing tasks that are regarded as routine in the US. We have learned from our mistakes and are now operating at a proper level. Our customers are made aware, both as a matter of our sales practices and our contracts, that the period between the signing of documents and the delivery of a plantation may be extensive.

I hope that this letter clarifies matters and that, after you have verified its statements, you will publish an updating article. Meanwhile, I will appreciate your publishing this letter as SCLD's response to Ornstein's articles. At the least, this letter merits that SCLD should not be dismissed as gangsters and scamsters upon the word of a person who has attempted to conceal the fact that he is a competitor and who prepared damaging stories without giving us an opportunity to comment or show him our operations.

Barry Miller
Attorney for SCLD

Editor's note: I will leave the claims and representations in the above letter to be taken by you, the readers, however you will, but I advise you to in addition to what Mr. Miller has written above and the documents he presents, consider what The Panama News actually published, Panamanian laws and realities, and the logic of the arguments made before reaching any conclusion. I will also add that Tom McMurrain offered to help me "monetize" The Panama News, an offer that I did not accept.

I saw your begrudging correction about San Cristobal, whereby you incorrectly published that there was an arrest warrant against someone when there was not --- one of the biggest mistakes a publisher can make.

No responsible journalist would report that there is an arrest warrant against someone unless they had credible proof. And, if the inaccuracy of the report is exposed, the correction should be much more sincere than the half-hearted 'we "stand corrected" but he's still a crook' one that you published.

If you put it in the context of the fact that the person who wrote the story was, at the time, an illegal fund manager and teak project operator writing about a rival teak project operator, without disclosing it, it is as reprehensible as any of the negative commentary that The Panama News routinely publishes about others.

David Marchant

Editor's note: First, one may want to read what I actually wrote in the last issue, what actually appeared in last year's stories and what San Cristobal's lawyer actually writes above before accepting Marchant's interpretation of events. Second, Marchant's allegations about Ornstein, like Ornstein's allegations about Marchant, are their food fight rather than mine, but I would note that, although the Comision Nacional de Valores did take notice that a fund that Ornstein created was not licensed to deal in securities, I know of no civil or criminal accusation that Ornstein actually violated Panama's securities laws. Finally, I will note that some time ago Marchant offered to pay me to include stories from The Panama News archives in his website, an offer that I did not accept.

How interesting to see this all unfold at the same time. San Cristobal is campaigning to get me expelled from Panama, they're having articles put up in La Critica and El Siglo, this lawyer appears on RCM TV this morning, and at exactly the same time you run a "correction" and you're mentioned nowhere!

Are you still in the calumnia case, Eric? You have a couple of hours to answer this (and all the rest) before I will find out myself.

And do you know that [San Cristobal publicist Tomás] Cabal is distributing your "correction" in his pro-San Cristobal propaganda outlets?

This looks, smells and feels like corruption Eric, a case of bought, sold and paid for. What are you gonna do about it?

Okke Ornstein

Editor's note: I have not accepted nor will I accept any sort of bribe to influence any article or editorial decision. Tom McMurrain says that he still has criminal defamation charges pending against me, but he and his website have been saying that for the better part of a year and I have yet to be served with any papers. If the English-language translation of San Cristobal's alleged complaint against me that has appeared on the Internet is an accurate translation of a criminal charge that has really been filed, it utterly fails to state a case against me. Of course, almost anything can be bought in the Panamanian legal system, but I'm still not worried about it. Finally, I will point out that Mr. Ornstein offered to buy The Panama News --- really, to have me give the name of this publication to him and go to work for him --- which offer I did not accept.

Uncle Sam has perpetrated nothing but chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan during the last 40 years. Millions of Iraqi and Afghan families are now in deep financial trouble and are stranded inside Iraq and Afghanistan with no access to representative government.

American voters are supposed to carefully review all actions of their elected representatives to ensure that they are defending the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. How, then, does the American voter justify allowing the US to wage British Empire around the globe?

The voters say they granted a license to "King" George to wage global state terrorism due to "pressure" from corporate media. That may be true, but it is still the voter --- and only the voter --- that makes the final decision. The voters could have chosen to ignore the "pressure" and do the job that their Founding Fathers entrusted them to do. But they didn't. They caved in and allowed the state terrorists to ruin the lives of foreign families and the families of our own military personnel while further tarnishing the US's international reputation.

Voters should ensure it will never happen again.

Robert Williams
Oberlin, Ohio

OK, so there were no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and UNSCOM had been effective in deterring Iraq WMD programs.

But both Bush and Blair, their governments, and most everybody else still had good reason to think that Saddam had WMDs, and Saddam was a bad guy, so the invasion of Iraq was still warranted.

Not so fast.

All of the evidence out there suggests that Iraq was invaded for a bundle of reasons and that WMDs were just part of an official self-defense excuse for war. Former Treasury Secretary Robert O'Neil was in the Bush cabinet in 2001:

"'From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country,' ... And if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, 'Fine. Go find me a way to do this.'"

Now, in hindsight, it is far more plausible to see WMDs and the hype about Saddam as a threat to the US as part of the excuse for invasion tailored to take advantage of the closing window of opportunity of UN resolutions dating from the first Gulf War.

Toronto Star columnist Jim Travers was being realistic in suggesting soon after the invasion that the Bush Administration couldn't resist the temptation of war against Iraq. There were many tempting interlocking reasons why a war to remove a minor local tyrant in a particularly key strategic location was advantageous to the United States and the Bush Administration in particular.

The bundle of reasons that surely influenced (tempted) the Bush Administration's decision to attack Iraq included:

• the present, intermediate and future oil reasons for possessing Iraq as a client state (the importance of these oil reasons should not be underestimated);

• the utility of military bases in Iraq in aiding the States' key Middle-East ally, Israel;

• the deterring influence on any nations (particularly in the Muslim world) who might have harbored or otherwise supported or condoned terrorists;

• the military/industrial opportunity to deploy, test and demonstrate weapon systems.

There is no shortage of pertinent evidence of Bush Administration premeditation and planning for war in Iraq for non self-defense reasons available on the Internet --- type oil and "illegal war" into Google for just one example --- but, so far, there has been little major media investigation of these realpolitic reasons for war. Even with the WMD excuse for war in tatters and the pathetic reality of Saddam and his military capacity, commentary about the Iraq invasion in the US is still almost totally within the Bush Administration's self-defense rationale.

The military deterrence reasons for war in Iraq have to be understood within the context of the world's supreme military power with over 700 foreign bases world-wide, conventional weapon firepower estimated to be some 70 times that of its closest potential competitor, and with a defense budget close to half of total global defense spending. Since the Second World War the US has used its military forces to violently intervene in foreign countries more than two hundred times. US forces were employed setting up client states in the Middle East and elsewhere for US political and economic interest many decades before the Bush Administration neocons formulated their present imperial strategy.

You cannot posses this military capacity, have this history of military intervention, and have powerful people in your Administration strongly advocating the use of American military power to secure needed resources such as oil without conceding that there may have been other than self-defense reasons for war.

The US has used its supreme military position to act as a global cop of a new world order, a Pax Americana that is especially needed by US corporate business that are in the forefront of global economic integration.

Like the perhaps overzealous, perhaps criminal cop who breaks in and shoots what turns out to be innocent citizens or at least citizens not in possession of weapons or drugs (with no warrant because he doesn't think he needs one), behaving like a bad cop is potentially far more destructive to this new world order and to American self-interest then the weapons or drug dealer or terrorist. Such actions must be prosecuted if the rule of law is to be upheld. If there is evidence of criminal premeditation or personal gain, the bad cop's actions are especially corrosive.

Given that there were no WMDs and that Saddam was at worst a minor local tyrant, the question is who is going to look closely at the evidence, look deeper into the Bush Administration motivation for war, and judge whether the Bush Administration committed the US to an illegal war?

If the Bush Administration misled the American people and the world about the real reasons for war --- there were no WMDs and no connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda; there is also solid evidence that the war was not just concerned with self-defense but with imperial ambition --- then the Bush Administration broke the UN Charter which is part of US law and should be impeachable.

But will the American people, the only court that matters, have the opportunity to hear all the evidence? And do they have the stomach to look at themselves in the mirror as perhaps addicted to war? As perhaps imperialists who waged an "old colonial war" killing and maiming thousands of innocent Iraqis?

Bill Henderson
Gibsons, British Columbia

In all that long speech by Martín Torrijos that you published in Las Noticias de Panama, the Spanish section of The Panama News, I still can't tell what it is he stands for.

Name withheld
Panama

Any Democrat is better than that lying President we have now, but Dean is the best! As an openly gay and very pround US Citizen, I am ashamed that the President of the United States would use, albeit directly, homophobic rhetoric in the State of the Union Speech. The President used his speech to single out a group of people --- something that hasn't been done in decades!

My vote goes to Dean because he is passionate about this country and supports ALL people. Dean does not discriminate like the President. The President feels that it is still ok to treat gays as second class citizens. It is time that the President learned that "we are here, we are queer, get used to it, don't mess with us!"

My vote also goes to Dean because he knows what is good for this country. From health care to education to foreign policy, Dean knows how to keep US interests protected, while NOT creating enemies with our allies. Dean is also good for the environment. While Bush has relaxed all environmental laws to keep polluters happy, Dean has plans to protect the environment while keeping our economy growing.

Joseph Clift
Takoma Park, Maryland

1. Bush himself may in fact be an imbecile, but Karl Rove is not. Kerry is every bit as scripted as Bush is. This brings me to....

2. The script Karl Rove will develop against Kerry. It's going to be incredibly powerful, and it will go as follows:

(a) "No child left behind". Can Kerry criticize Bush on this in a debate? If he does, he's going to face an answer that makes him look like a giant hypocrite: "Yes John, I understand you're saying that now because you think that's what your followers want to hear, so tell me why you voted for it? Did you not read the bill?

(b) "The tax cuts". Same deal.

(c) "The war on Iraq". Same deal.

3. Here's the big one: HONESTY. Kerry ISN'T. It's so bad that at one time when he was under consideration as a possible VP to Clinton, the Clinton campaign NIXED him as an almost certain cause of loss if they went with him.

Kerry lied about something most people consider sacred; war medals. Now claiming that someone else's war medals are your own, and publicly desecrating them by pitching them onto the White House lawn is NOT something that's EVER going to go away. The minute Kerry attempts to go after Bush's record of service to his country, THAT is coming back to bite him HARD. No veteran who served in Nam is going to appreciate it, and it does INDEED speak VOLUMES about the man's character or lack thereof.

Kerry is on the record as having claimed Irish ancestry for over ten years, presumably to get the Irish vote in Mass. He's ALSO on the record as DENYING ever claiming to be Irish. A man who can be shown to be so disingenuous as to not even acknowledge the truth about his own background isn't going to fair too well against a master political assassin like Karl Rove.

So Kerry can't beat Bush because he's got a past that's extremely questionable, and Karl Rove is NOT going to let those questions go unasked. John Kerry is a crippled candidate and although it's not widely known among the electorate, by the time the Bush boys get done with him, he's going to be in deep shit.
Finally there is the matter of personal charisma. It's an opinion, but this guy has all the charm of a funeral home director. While Bush may be an idiot, at the end of the day he comes across as more alive than Kerry. Kerry takes ten minutes to respond to a question because he's NOT a straight shooter. While Bush will inevitably LIE through his teeth, Bush's three-second lies against Kerry's ten-minute evasions of the question are NOT going to go over well with average people. There is an equation: The LONGER the answer to a straight question, the LESS believable it seems to most people. Kerry's style is going to get him destroyed by a man who issues simple answers, EVEN THOUGH they're WRONG answers or even lies. Kerry just can't get his story straight and it's PAINFULLY obvious. And Kerry can NEVER challenge Bush's allegiances to the political agenda of the Skull and Bones because he's one of them. Kerry has BOTH ARMS TIED BEHIND HIS BACK BEFORE HE EVEN STARTS. Rove is going to leave him bleeding to death.

There is also the matter of the ability to win in the south. Kerry just claimed that it doesn't matter, he can be elected without the south. Aside from being a tragically STUPID thing to say just before South Carolina, he can't. A democrat who can win nationally will either have to win SOME southern states, OR, he will have to bring new voters to the table. Kerry isn't going to bring new voters to the table. He is the ultimate political "insider" and he is NOT liked by the core of Dean Supporters. If Kerry is the nominee of the Democratic Party, enough REAL Democrats are going to be disappointed enough to stay home to matter. He's already run for President, he's already been defeated, he's OLD NEWS. And Senators do NOT get elected President if you look around at who's won national elections. GOVERNORS with REAL records do get elected.

I'm NOT writing Dean off yet. YES, he was badly damaged by a viscous media who took 15 seconds of video with unbalanced sound, and who twisted into thousands of airings over a week to destroy the guy who's promised to UNDO the media mergers and break up the media consolidation. But he HAS the commitment and the money from his organization and most importantly, DEAN IS CLEAN and is the ONLY candidate who can hit Bush hard without being VULNERABLE on the extremely important points I listed.

John Kerry simply will not withstand Bush's blows in the ring.

Jay Esbe
Seattle Washington

I was not originally a Howard Dean supporter, but as someone who sees the bleakness of another Bush election on the horizon, as well as the cold icy grip of corporations upon our media and political process, you can bet I'm supporting the outsider now.

The speech given by Dean following the Iowa Caucus was a demonstration of exactly why we should choose him to run against President Bush. The twisted and manipulated portrayal of that speech obscures the truth. The special interests and "corporatized" media are distorting what was a fun moment with his supporters into a display of anger because they are afraid of him. Howard Dean is the only candidate that is not being handled. He is the only candidate that is human enough to understand the plight of the American people. In showing that he was able to feel the dejection on the part of his young supporters, and the fact that he would roll up his sleeves and make it his business to invigorate them, speaks volumes of him as a person. Despite what the pundits say, he clearly was not angry. He achieved his objective of restoring the morale in the room. In this day and age where so many people, especially the young, are apathetic with regard to politics, the spirit that Dean instilled in those young voters is so valuable to our democracy!

Democrats and independent voters must remember why Howard Dean's campaign caught on in the first place. In this dark era of American history, where the corporations are seizing control of the nation and its formerly democratic processes, Howard Dean has indeed run a campaign that could "give us our country back." He was the first person to comeout forcefully against the war. He raised his money the old fashioned way --- family to family, small donation by small donation --- without the huge donations from the very corporations that are benefiting from Bush's war, while still ruining our food, our water, our air, and our political process.

Dean was the first Democrat to truly give us an alternative to President Bush. All of the candidates that now regularly bash Bush did not have the fortitude to do so before Dean's arrival. It is apparent that he is the candidate that is most likely to be his own man in the White House, now more than ever. When considering the fact that the media has beat up on him, and that he has raised most of his money from ordinary Americans, it is obvious that if we really want to "Take our country back," we should vote for Howard Dean.

David Di Padova
Fresh Meadows, New York

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