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Rail gardens a great idea

Re: Urban farm sprouts up along rail DART teams with nonprofits to plant community gardens, Monday Metro story.

Love this article! I ride trains a lot in Europe and at the edge of towns and cities I see many garden plots along the tracks; most complete with small tool sheds, some even with decorative window boxes. Urban farms along the rails: what a great idea.

Shirley Lewis, Arlington

Re: Reverchon ballpark revival strikes out, by Robert Wilonsky, Friday Metro & Business column.

I am so disgusted with the city of Dallas. No wonder it keeps losing people. Ive kept abreast of this issue and am very disappointed. How is it the city can have freeway parks and not allow an intercity park to exist? Maybe council member Adam Medrano or others have something in their pocket.

This would be a great place for citizens in these and other areas to enjoy with their families. Dallas, do not allow this to happen! I am not resident of Dallas (I used to be), but am still concerned that all be equally shared especially since all Dallas appears to do is appeal to the rich and young. They forget that it took the older generation to get where it is today.

Marie C. Hogeda, Grand Prairie

The impeachment articles and pending trial are misguided, and not just because it is doomed in a GOP-controlled Senate. What the Democrats fail to grasp is that Trump is not the problem. He is a symptom. Trump is exactly what he has always been, exactly what anyone should have expected. To keep attacking Trump is counter-productive and energizes his supporters. Not only will impeachment fail, but acquittal will embolden Trump to take further liberties, and will also probably lead to his re-election.

The questions that the Democratic National Committee and Democratic congressional leaders should be addressing are: What are the beliefs, attitudes and conditions that facilitated his election in the first place? What do the 40%+ who approve of and defend his actions believe? What message can be formulated that will provide a clear vision of how things should and can be better?

A primary focus in my work experience was that you dont just complain about poor performance or a bad situation, you present a plan to fix things. That should be the Democrats primary focus: present something voters can believe in and rally around, something that will win at the polls. If they dont or cant do that, Trump wins.

John Gahan, McKinney

Re: Query a question of politics Texans Are you a socialist or a capitalist? is a new spin on old GOP tactic, Monday news story.

Congressman Roger Williams kept asking banking CEOs if they were capitalists or socialist. Wait, they get loans from the federal government at the fed rate (socialism) and complain when they get reeled in for literally gambling with that and investors money (sub-prime lending)? Then, we bailed them out (more socialism).

Williams cites socialist states of Venezuela and Russia, both of which are corrupt. As for Cuba, they are doing surprisingly well given the near obscene restrictions we put on them for overthrowing a corrupt government over 50 years ago.

We have a lot of socialism in the U.S. Fire, police, education, parks, roads, military, Social Security and tax breaks for corporations all fit the description. Are we going to privatize or eliminate it all, or shall we stick with some socialism?

John C. Jacobs, Carrollton

Instead of bringing up terms that incite emotional reactions as is being done by the far-right Republicans, lets ask that question another way. Do we want the laws of this country written to ensure that everyone who is willing to work hard and is able to find a job that pays a living wage will share in the results of the marketplace or do we want to let those who have little conscience and are overly ambitious and/or greedy reap 99% of it?

LeRoy White, Denton

Re: 2 Texas Dems will vote aye Reps. Allred and Fletcher are facing tough races in 2020," Sunday news story.

Texas Reps Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred and now Michigans Elissa Slotkin also have made courageous decisions to vote in favor of impeachment, even though they are aware that a significant number of constituents will disapprove of their decisions. They are upholding their sworn oath of office, made by every elected official on both sides of the aisle, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

I believe the evidence of the presidents offenses against his oath of office is overwhelming, and I call on my own Rep. Kenny Marchant, and other members of Congress both Democrats and Republicans to follow the example of Allred, Fletcher and Slotkin, even if it jeopardizes their re-election.

This is one of those times when standing up for principle is necessary, even if it carries significant personal cost. Standing bravely together in defense of the principle that the power of the presidency must not be hijacked for personal gain would restore some faith in our battered institutions and provide some healing in our current time of polarization. Wouldnt it be a splendid reuniting if both Democrats and Republicans stood together?

Eulaine Hall, Northwest Dallas

As I write this, I am on my way to see my 92-year-old father, who is a disabled veteran of two wars and a man who loves his country. For the first time in decades, I will be able to tell him I am being represented in the House by a representative who cares more about the people of Texas than about the bribes he is getting from businessmen and maybe even Vladimir Putin.

I am grateful for Colin Allreds vote to impeach Donald Trump, the symptom of the cancer of greed in the Republican Party. I will never support another member of the corrupt GOP.

Alicea Lynn Fletcher, University Park

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Letters to the Editor Urban farms, Reverchon ballpark, a plan for Democrats, socialism, US Rep. Roger Williams, US Rep. Colin Allred - The Dallas...

For once, Labour has been quick off the mark. It is only 10 days since the party lost a fourth consecutive general election and it is already preparing for its next defeat.

Despite the obvious truth that Jeremy Corbyn must take the blame for the worst result in almost 100 years, Rebecca Long Bailey, his anointed successor, is the favourite to succeed him as party leader. Her election would be the public statement that Corbyn has gone but Corbynism lives on.

Labour supporters, who want to win the next election, should not despair. The partys future success, perhaps even its survival, depends on the genuine democratic socialists in the parliamentary party seizing control of the political agenda. The elevation of Long Bailey would provide an early opportunity to demonstrate that they mean business.

The cause would be best served by an outright refusal to accept the imposition of a leader who does not command their confidence. A formal protest with a recorded vote would be almost as effective. Emboldened, they must then insist that the shadow cabinet is, once again, elected giving its members an independent authority that they would not possess as the leaders nominees. With their status restored, they would be free to challenge the strategy and tactics of both the leader and the advisers who, with Corbyn, must take some of the blame for the bloodbath of black Thursday and are, even now, arranging to remain surrogate leaders in the new regime.

Labour MPs are notorious for their reluctance to fight the ideological battle for democratic socialism. The common response to the complaint that they have watched, but not opposed, the triumphant progress of the far left is the claim that at least they stayed and fought. More often than not, they stayed without fighting.

If they fight now they will, of course, be accused of splitting the party. In truth they will be preventing, or at worst postponing, the real split that is bound to follow a further drift to the unelectable left. The second accusation will be the creation of a party within a party. A distinct and separate party of the far left has been a cuckoo in Labours nest ever since Ed Milibands invention of cut-price membership. Men and women who had spent long, dark nights outside Labour meetings hawking revolutionary newspapers came in from the cold bringing their sectarian intolerance with them.

They became the pathfinders for the most extensive and, it must be admitted, most successful takeover bid in Labour history. At its heart was Momentum, which began life under the guise of Corbyns Praetorian Guard but swiftly evolved into a vehicle for moving the party to what turned out to be the unelectable left. Momentum infiltrated constituency parties, enrolled enough delegates to successive annual conferences to gain a stranglehold on party policy, took effective control of Labours national executive committee and attempted with a measure of success to deselect Labour MPs who did not share its prejudices. Momentum found natural allies in recent conversions from Marxist and Trotskyite factions who, encouraged by the hope of colonising a real and functioning political party, suddenly saw the light.

Compared with Momentum, the Militant tendency which attempted to subvert Labour in the 1980s was a ragbag of second-rate conspirators who took corrupt control of Liverpool but were only an irritant in other parts of the country. No Militant sympathisers were employed in the Labour party headquarters or in its regional offices, and no major trade union leader supported Militants aims. Now full-time officials openly boast of their Momentum membership. Militant remained an obscure sect.

Thanks in part to Momentum, the Corbyn project was endorsed by thousands of good democratic socialists. The radical rhetoric obscured the fatal flaws of Corbyns philosophy the blanket opposition to private enterprise, the support for any tinpot dictator who called himself a socialist, the intolerance of disagreement, the failure to cleanse Labour of antisemitism which proved that, although he hated racial prejudice, there were some racial prejudices that he did not hate enough. There is no doubt that there is still an army of Labour party members who cannot bring themselves to believe that the Corbyn project was destined to end in disaster. They have to be persuaded that Corbyns way could only ever lead to the disappointment of defeat and the betrayal of the millions of families who need a Labour government. No doubt Momentums leaders are still rejoicing about the control they achieved over the party machine. The celebrations are not being replicated in the food bank queues that, following Labours defeat, will only lengthen.

Before the brilliance of Neil Kinnocks Bournemouth conference speech in 1985 extinguished the hopes of Militant, outriders spent two years preparing the ground for his final assault. For Labour to become a party of government again it needs another army of genuine democratic socialist MPs mounting a similar onslaught on the great ideals false friends. Their task will be more than the recruitment of new party members to become a counterweight to infiltrators from the unelectable extremes. They must convince floating voters that democratic socialism is alive, well and ready to wake from its slumbers and is worth voting for. Thanks to the Corbyn project, few people believe that today.

It may be that the parliamentary party is not in a mood to heed the calls to arms. The self-styled moderates have always suffered from an excess of caution. But if there is to be a fight, have no doubt that the real democratic socialists will occupy the high ground.

We are the apostles of true equality and the personal freedom that it must sustain. And we offer the politics of hope not empty slogans about the better world we hope to build but a real chance of bringing it about. A genuine democratic socialist party can win elections. The time has come to rise up against all who stand in our way.

Roy Hattersley served in James Callaghans cabinet and later became deputy leader of the Labour party

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We fought Militant in the 1980s. The far lefts hold is now much worse - The Guardian

The name was on the tip of our tongues.

Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner suggested Harold Wilson, but neither of us thought that sounded quite right.

We were chatting in Parliament trying to remember who said: The language of priorities is the religion of socialism.

Yes, us political anoraks really do stand around having that kind of conversation.

Perhaps we need to get a life.

The answer was Nye Bevan, founder of the NHS, and the Labour Partys greatest post-war hero.

As Labour begins its soul searching over why everything went so catastrophically wrong , first indications suggest not giving voters clear priorities for government played its part in stopping Jeremy Corbyn forming one.

Was it nationalisation of public services and utilities? A huge job on its own.

Or free full-fibre broadband for all at a cost of 20billion?

Or compensation for the Waspi women for lost pensions at 58billion?

While certain promises were attractive - up to 31,000 for 3.8million Waspis was tempting indeed - the package as a whole seemed an undeliverable mishmash of wildly expensive goodies.

So it wasnt just Corbyns honest broker Brexit position which Nye anticipated 20 years before the UK even joined the Common Market when he said: People who stay in the middle of the road get run down.

Blaming Brexit for defeat is like citing the Falklands for the failure of Labours last foray into red in tooth and claw socialism under Michael Foot.

In 2019, as in 1983, the voters gave the offer of socialist revolution two fingers.

Britain does not want it and the next Labour leader must grasp that.

Nyes creation of the welfare state in 1948 was very much about priorities, and top of the list was universal health care free at the point of use which changed everyones life.

Winston Churchill might have motivated the voters in wartime, but he failed to prepare for peace.

They returned from battle knowing what theyd fought against, but unsure of the kind of country they were fighting for because Churchill never told them.

It was the 1945 Labour government which showed the way, by making the nation voters came home to better than the one they left.

If Labour is not to be out in the cold for a decade its new leader cannot rely on a strategy of one more push to create a socialist paradise.

The message of hope must be credible.

Bevan also said: Toryism is organised spivvery.

For the next five years we must endure Spiv-in-Chief Boris Johnson as organiser.

But Labour must not allow five to turn into ten.

I was Christmas shopping and piles of Greta Thunberg books were everywhere.

Theres Gretas speeches and Gretas memoirs.

Not bad for a 16 year old.

Cant be long now before we get Gretas Vegan Cookbook, Gretas Keep Fit, and Weather Forecasting with Greta.

While I find the teenagers hectoring irritating I do now buy her climate change message as the planet faces its sixth mass extinction.

The first, 439 million years ago caused by glaciation, wiped out 86 per cent of life, while the third due to volcanic eruptions, was worse, killing 96 per cent of living things.

And 65 million years ago No5 was a monster asteroid which did in the dinosaurs.

This paved the way for us.

And even before the wheel was invented wed driven half the planets big beasts to extinction.

Time to stop being ecological serial killers destroying 200 species a day.

And while I shall still drive, fly and eat meat I resolve, Greta, to recycle more in 2020.

Fridays Withdrawal Bill vote means we are now on course to leave the EU on 31st January.

Tories credit that ability for their election success, while Labour MPs moan how Brexit cost them votes.

But what they all agree on is that they never, ever want to campaign in the depths of winter again.

To hear them talk last week youd think theyd just returned from an expedition to the North Pole.

So theyre jumping for joy at the repeal of the Fixed Term Parliament Act which sets election dates every five years.

It means the poor lambs wont have to wade through snow, ice and drizzle in December, 2024.

The FTPA was only introduced by David Cameron in 2011 to reassure Lib Dem coalition partners he wouldnt stab them in the back by suddenly scuttling to the polls.

Another chunk of Daves legacy Boris Johnson is delighted to strip away.

Tory whip Stuart Andrew told me: I got through six weeks of the election without a cross word with my partner.

"Then we fell out putting up the Christmas tree.

The shepherd boy in the St Mildreds Church, Tenterden, Kent crib scene drew crowds because of his uncanny resemblance to Boris Johnson.

Rev Canon Lindsay Hammond reassured his flock: The shepherd boy is safely in the care of a grown-up shepherd.

Pity we cant say the same of our PM.

MPs returned to the Commons with entertaining Tales of Spoiled Ballot Papers which theyre allowed to check at counts.

Tory Alec Shelbrooke had one defaced with: Jeffrey Epstein did not commit suicide.

But best was the one spotted by Romseys Caroline Nokes on which was written: Not voting for this evil, stupid woman!!

But those !!s were in the box where the X goes. So counted as a vote for Caroline.

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Nelson's Column: why the end could be Nye for Labour's socialist revolution - Mirror Online

BAGHDAD For 12 weeks, Iraqi protesters have massed in the streets of Baghdad and cities in southern Iraq to demand the ouster of the government, an end to corruption and a halt to the overweening influence of Iran.

And for 12 weeks, the government has foundered in its response, alternating vague promises of reform with brutal treatment of protesters by its security forces. More than 500 protesters have been killed and 19,000 wounded, according to the United Nations special envoy to Iraq, but the violent response has only deepened protesters resolve.

The prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, has resigned but has remained in a caretaker role, and Parliament has yet to come up with someone to replace him

The political crisis that now confronts Iraq is as serious as any since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein 16 years ago, and its leaders appear ill-equipped to reckon with it. No consensus has emerged for a plan to reform the government to meet the protesters demands.

Parliament has not seriously considered even the proposed changes to the election law put forward by President Barham Saleh, which would reduce the influence of parties and the corruption they foster.

This week, a constitutional deadline for Parliament to nominate a new prime minister came and went. Even finding an acceptable candidate for prime minister is a tall order.

Its very difficult to find someone who is both broadly acceptable to the street, to the protesters, but who also has the party support, the political support to navigate the transition, said Maria Fantappie, a senior adviser on Iraq and Syria for the International Crisis Group.

Even if they did, that would hardly begin to address the protesters sweeping demands.

Our goal is not to have Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi resign, said Mehdi Chassin, a college student from Amara, in southern Iraq, who came to Baghdad to join the protests. That makes no difference because another guy will come who will be just the same. We want them all to go.

But Parliament is unlikely to adopt reforms that would end the careers of everyone in it, and the protesters are unlikely to accept anything less.

What the parties want is rejected by the Iraqi people and what the Iraqi people want is rejected by the parties, said Karim al-Nuri, a senior official in the Badr Organization, one of the parties that is close to Iran, but has a diverse membership.

So there are two alternatives: either to change the Iraqi people or to change some of the political class and make some change in the political process.

Parliament also seems unprepared to find a way to reduce Iranian influence.

Iranian political and military operatives including senior figures like Qassim Soleimani, the head of the powerful Quds Force that reports to Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have been in and out of Baghdad trying to ensure that whomever is nominated for prime minister meets Irans needs.

Finding someone acceptable to the Iraqi street, to Shiite political parties and to Iran seems quite insurmountable, Ms. Fantappie said.

So, rather than debate the protesters demands directly, members of Parliament talk about how much they are doing passing legislation to limit salaries of the ministers for instance.

Qais Al-Khazali, the leader of one of the Shiite parliamentary blocs close to Iran, said, We have enacted legislation, that is our responsibility, now the governments responsibility is to enforce it.

When the protests started on Oct. 1, many who came to demonstrate in Baghdad and across southern Iraq were demanding jobs and services such as electricity and clean water.

But after the government opened fire on them, killing more than 100 in the first five days, the number of protesters multiplied and they began to agitate for more far-reaching changes.

Overhauling the entire system of government seems far from politically possible. But the protesters focus reflects their frustration with the governments failure to foster economic opportunity or deal with entrenched corruption. These grievances unite all of those who have come to the street: the young people, the workers, the poor, the educated and the barely literate, the tribal leaders as well as urban street sweepers.

Some members of Parliament acknowledge that they are engaged in a different struggle: the allocation of spoils in the next government. The discussions over choosing a new prime minister, they said, have centered less on the ideals and desires of the Iraqi people than on political power and money.

Theres a lot of division about who comes next as prime minister, and thats a problem because the political parties are redividing up the ministries, looking to figure out who gets which ministry share, said Haithem al-Jubori the head of Parliaments finance committee.

Iran is particularly concerned that it maintain influence in Iraqs ministries, especially those dealing with security and economic matters. With Americas tight sanctions against Iran, Tehran increasingly needs Iraq in order to breathe economically both for its markets and for military purposes, to protect its interests in Syria and Lebanon.

The parties that are most powerful and closest to Iran are those that grew out of the armed Shiite groups. It is militia units from ministries controlled by those parties, or agencies of the prime minister, that are blamed by human rights activists for the most violent attacks on the protesters.

In responding to the protests with violence, these forces are taking a page from the Iranian playbook: When Tehran was faced with protests over gas prices in November, it crushed them brutally, killing as many as 450 people in four days and imprisoning 7,000.

While the pace of killings in Iraq has ebbed and flowed, the attacks have become more brutal and there has been an increase in kidnappings, arrests and disappearances of protest leaders, doctors who treat wounded protesters, and journalists.

Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Human Rights Commission have called on the government to halt its lawless crackdown. Human Rights Watch has demanded that the United States and Europe to do more to censure the government.

For those demonstrating, the more comrades they lose, the harder it is to give up, said Haithem al-Mayahi, a protest leader from Karbala, who said he tried for years to work within the political system.

The protesters lost hundreds of their friends, their brothers, their family members, he said. Its either you fight to win or you die.

What remains uncertain is whether such continued fighting will lead to political change. One longtime Iraq watcher, the former American ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, said of the protesters, Unless some leader or cadre of leaders emerges, not much is going to happen and the overthrow of the government is highly unlikely.

The prime minister has resigned and no one else probably will be named quickly, Mr. Crocker said. And that, in a perverse way, keeps the government safe because there is nothing to overthrow, so things just keep going along.

Falih Hassan contributed reporting.

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Iraq in Worst Political Crisis in Years as Death Toll Mounts From Protests - The New York Times

Key Point:Neither country came anywhere near achieving even the most modest of its war aims.

The world awoke to ominous news on September 22, 1980. Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein had launched a massive armored and air attack across the Iraq-Iran border. Believing that his Islamic fundamentalist neighbor to the east had been weakened by the ongoing revolutionary turmoil that in February 1979 had toppled the Shah, Hussein was confident that his forces would win a lightning victory and restore long-disputed territory to Iraqi control. Such a victory, not incidentally, would put Hussein at the forefront of a resurgent Middle Eastern pan-Arabism.

Among the causes of the warthe ruthless ambition of Saddam Hussein; ongoing disputes over control of the strategic Shatt al-Arab waterway, a shipping lane formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that created the southern borders of both countries; the struggle for dominance in the Persian Gulf regionthe overriding issue was a centuries-old dispute regarding sovereignty over oil-rich Khuzestan Province in southwestern Iran. Khuzestan was the ancient home of the empire of Elam, an independent, non-Semitic, non-Indo-European-speaking kingdom whose territory spanned almost all of present-day southwestern Iran. Khuzestan had been attacked and occupied many times by various Arab kingdoms of Mesopotamia, the precursors of modern-day Iraq.

A Centuries-Old Rivalry

The rivalry between Mesopotamia and Persia had lasted for centuries. Before the Ottoman Empire, Iraq was part of Persia. This changed when Murad IV annexed Iraq from the weakening Safavids of Persia in 1638, making it the easternmost province of the Ottoman Empire. Border disputes between Persia and the Ottomans persisted. Between 1555 and 1918 Persia and the Ottomans signed 18 different treaties delineating their disputed borders.

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Billions Spent and a Million Dead: The Iran-Iraq War Was An Enormous Waste Of Everything - Yahoo News