Madam, - America is neither the hell-hole nor the scourge of humanity which Alan McPartland suggests in his blanket denunciation of 260 million people and the complex society they form (May 25th). Nor is the US the worldly utopia laid out in its mythic founding documents. Rather, I regard my homeland as a sort of international stage on which the best and worst features of human nature are allowed to play out.
Crude simplification is a wonderful thing, and Mr McPartland indulges himself quite liberally in this regard when writing about the US. After 12 years in Ireland, I have formed a few unflattering generalities myself, and if I were to follow his example, I might suggest to my US friends that this State's prevailing emblems are now the criminal academy known as Mountjoy Prison, the interminable tribunals investigating institutional corruption and incompetence, and the petty theatrics acted out regularly in the Dáil. But where would that get us?
George Bush and Co are a political phenomenon that will soon pass. But American ideals, however tarnished, will endure. To believe otherwise is to succumb to a view of the world that is hardly worth contemplating. - Yours, etc.,
STEVE CORONELLA, Shankill, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Whenever I read another report about Bush's imbecilic White House, I turn to Doonesbury and reassure myself that there is still intelligent life on Planet America. - Yours, etc.,
KEITH NOLAN, Caldragh, Co Leitrim.