New US mood
published: Thursday | October 16, 2003

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I AM deeply grateful to George Garwood, a teacher in Florida, for his letter that appeared in The Gleaner October 4, a letter I should otherwise have had to write myself. He tells us that American taxpayers are not at all happy about being forced to kick in US$87 billion (and more later) for the privilege of exposing their children and grandchildren to the risk of being killed in a distant war that ought never to have happened.

Having just returned from a family visit in the United States, I can report a new mood of optimism stirring the decent, good-hearted Americans who are my friends and relatives. They see that even the inert, politically unaware majority ­ on whom candidates always depend for their electoral majorities ­ have come to see the current US administration as shabby and sleazy. Add to them the extra alert voters, especially in Florida, who are determined not to let the Supreme Court hand Bush a victory he did not win at the polls even the first time.

I am, etc.,

JOHN SEARS

96 3/4 Old Hope Road

Kingston 6