Letters to the Editor 8/15

No Congress vacation

When all the talking, posturing and bickering stops amongst our elected representatives in the United States House of Representatives and the Senate, there will still need to be something done to solve our economic crisis.

While Congress is on vacation, there are still people unemployed, lacking food and housing as well as proper health care. The problem here is that our government lacks compassion.

The United States still has the best system of government in the world, but that government is more concerned about special interests than the people who are supposed to be represented.

Enough already! I am tired of seeing people night after night suffer needlessly, without anything being done to solve the many problems we have. We need action, we need leadership and we need someone to show compassion.

I ask you to write your congressmen or your senators, or even President Barack Obama, and tell them to stop pointing fingers at one another and start doing something!

I will make the first suggestion: Call Congress back into session to deal with the problems we have, because they do not need a vacation — they need to have compassion.

Mark Sobowits

Paso Robles

A hidden war

For more than 30 years, actually much longer than that, we have been engaged in a hidden war that has been more devastating than all the rest. It is the war fought by a wealthy, powerful elite against everyone else. In fact, it could be argued that all the other wars are a product of this one.

This stealth war is fought in the media, in the courts and in the halls of government. Its war room is called a “think tank.” Its driving force is corporate law and multi-national corporations. Its weapons of choice are marketing and branding, propaganda and brainwashing. One of the reasons it is so hidden is because it’s fought by proxy; its generals are CEOs, and its foot soldiers are lobbyists.

Its strategy is to make what has been illegal legal. Then, who can complain?

Its biggest targets are taxes, tax codes and government regulations. Its gods are unrestrained private enterprise and the “free market.”

It is particularly insidious because it recruits unsuspecting victims and uses their justified frustration and anger to further its own selfish ends. The current recruits are known as the “tea party.”

Its slogan is “government is the problem.” But, of course, it controls (or rather, owns) the government, and that is the problem.

Donald Archer

Cambria

Tea party mission

We of the tea party patriots have a three-pronged mission:

1. Have a constitutionally limited government.

2. Have free markets with limited government involvement.

3. Have a fiscally responsible government.

In order to achieve those goals, it is necessary to make our views known to the elected representatives who make the laws. We encourage those who stand up and support our goals, but we, as a group, do not support candidates nor get involved with social issues.

The Declaration of Independence was a promise; the Constitution was the fulfillment.

The declaration states that we are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

There are those who call us terrorists for making our views known.

They call me a terrorist for once serving in the Navy. What is it that I say or do that some would label me a terrorist?

Why are we called terrorists by this administration and others? Is it possible that they are the terrorists who don’t believe in the American Constitution?

Ed Veek

Atascadero

Willful sabotage

Extremist right-wing Republicans, particularly the so-called tea partiers, are nearly completely to blame for our current economic downturn. With their aggressive power-seeking, pushy, Type A personalities and misplaced arrogance, they seem to be willfully sabotaging our nation state. Patriotism and human decency demand that they wise up and change their destructive ways.

We should hold them accountable at every turn until they are removed from control of the House of Representatives in the fall of 2012. It is very disappointing that House Whip Kevin McCarthy has been fronting for the extremists. McCarthy has voted to end Medicare and stop funding for Planned Parenthood, NPR and Americorps, among numerous other backward votes.

Instead of cutting services and jobs for Californians and charging college and university students excessive tuition, we need to further tax the millionaires, billionaires and giant corporations. The lack of fairness is amazing! By returning the tax rates of the wealthiest Americans to those of the past two budget surplus years of President Bill Clinton, we can reduce the deficit, restore budget balance and help protect our middle class and those in even greater need.

Bob McAfee

San Luis Obispo

Kindergarten Congress

I am really getting disgusted listening to the ranting and raving of this kindergarten Congress we have today. They want to cure our debt crisis by cutting education, health care, infrastructure and entitlements, all on the backs of the middle class and the poor. Have they ever considered or even mentioned stopping the two wars that we cannot win and bringing our men and women home? How about the absurd subsidies to big oil, the agribusinesses, etc.?

Let us not forget the ridiculous tax cuts to the very wealthy, tax breaks for corporate jets and the tax-free corporations operating overseas to avoid paying taxes here. What wonderful Americans they are!

Do they ever mention the costs of mercenaries such as Blackwater and others who are being paid far more than our own soldiers? Read the book “Blackwater” by Jeremy Scahill if you get a chance. The past 20 or so years, our government has given our money away to warmongers who look at us as their own private bank.

There is a new movement going on right now that is very interesting and enlightening called “Americans elect.” You can read about it on the Internet by typing in www.americanselect.org.

Bob Powers

Atascadero

Buy them out now

Regarding the efforts of House Republicans to put together an Interior appropriations bill for 2012 that will give the shaft to endangered species and dismantle environmental laws, I have an idea: How about we offer generous pensions to every one of these clowns, on the condition that they leave office immediately and never again allow their names anywhere near a ballot?

I bet it would be a cost savings compared to how much these slaves to industry and the oil companies will cost the country by trying to please their corporate masters. And it would give us a chance to start over with a clean slate and elect serious lawmakers who understand their obligations to protect our natural resources, our health and our children.

Joan Carter

San Luis Obispo

Must be an answer

I wanted to tell Bob Cuddy that his piece on the Planning Commission on July 31 was right on the mark.

I thought I came from a bureaucratic county (Los Angeles County), but San Luis Obispo County holds the title of most egregious.

From what colors your house must be, to what you have to plant and where you have to place your house — my God, talk about governmental meddling. I was a cop for nearly thirty years, and during the hard days of the 1960s and ’70s, I would hear people say we were living in a police state. Hah, it seems the people who were throwing rocks and beer bottles at us then are the orchestrators of what we see now in this county. I think there must be an answer to this.

Dick Rogers

Templeton

Thanks for the help

While taking my 18-month-old granddaughter on the shuttle bus to the fair to see the livestock for the first time, I realized that I needed some help with the stroller. A couple also waiting for the fair shuttle bus at the Lowe’s pick-up location in Paso Robles offered their help in getting it into and then out of the bus cargo area. Then, on the return trip back to Lowe’s on the bus, a very kind gentleman helped unload the stroller.

Thank you to all the people who helped me Thursday. It’s so refreshing to know that strangers will make the effort and take the time to help others. Paso Robles may be growing, but we still have that small town atmosphere of helping one another.

Ann Johnson

Paso Robles

Don’t trash the bags

Does no one care about retaining jobs? There are plastic bag manufacturers here in the United States — several in California. And, of course, there are warehousemen who stock them and truckers who deliver them.

It’s similar for paper bags. Knowing this, how can the county Integrated Waste Management Authority even contemplate banning these types of bags?

The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.2 percent; California’s is 11.8 percent. It seems counterproductive to our economy to consider an ordinance that could negatively impact any job — especially now.

And why would the county’s Integrated Waste Management Authority want to ban paper bags? They are biodegradable, recyclable and reusable. Plastic bags are also recyclable and reusable. They degrade faster than some other materials put in our landfill, and they take up much less space.

A solution designed to retain jobs, although it would make plastic bag recycling more cumbersome, is to retain paper bags and replace plastic bags with biodegradable plastic bags. If, however, these bags cost more, this might not be good for retail businesses or consumers.

Another solution would be the one our state legislators took: Maintain the status quo and do not pass the ordinance. Once we are out of this recession, we could look at making changes without the negative impacts that concern us today.

Sandra Rowley

San Luis Obispo