Faithful friends need not worry
Friday, November 14, 2008 12:32 AM PST
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Faithful friends need not worry
My friends, now that our FHATT Party (Fear, Hatred, Anger, Terror and Taxes) has taken such a state and national drumming, how are we to get back to such country-not-party-first, honest, ethical, law-abiding leadership we were so blessed with for eight long years? Having already lost the likes of Armey, Bolten, Cunningham, DeLay, Frist, Gonzo, Hastert, Lott, Nye, Perle, Rummy, Rove, Safavian, Tenet, Vitter, Zunni, and only a few dozen more, we must now face losing Craig, Dole, G.W., Stevens, and others, including Shooter, if he’s not already gone.
How, as friends, can we avoid falling deeper into this popular pit of progressive hope? How might we return to fearing the unknown and unfamiliar, being angry at dissent and disapproval, hating those resisting our impositions, or blaming terrorism and taxation upon all that interferes with our ideological quest?
The answer, fellow friends, lies in the faith that a pretty, populist, propagandist will, in a few gestation periods, swoop down from the North, “Joe Americanizing” all of us again, especially the newly-positioned intellectuals hell-bent upon lifting our global respect or national spirit. Fate will save us from ourselves. Just remember: within R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N lies Cure B. Palin.
Gary Finkas
Toutle
Problem cured
My sympathy to the 10-year-old girl that has such serious health problems (Oct. 30 Daily News). Once I was diagnosed with leukemia. The doctor was just waiting for it to get worse before proceeding. However, I started taking selenium. How I knew what to take is a long story, but I didn’t get worse, I got better.
How I thought to take selenium is a long story, so I won’t go into that. Anyway, it cured my problem. Now I take vitamins for everything. I went to the doctor here last year so he would recommend a handicap parking ticket for me. I went for a checkup then and he said, “You are in better health than I am. Go home and don’t come back for another year.” So, the year won’t be over for some time yet. I am 98 years old, feel fine and live in Vancouver with my son.
Rosamae Sterling
Vancouver
Lacking the basics
The proposed Longview approach to homeless camps is not without precedent in human history. There were German citizens in the 1930s who objected to beggars, vagabonds, panderers, deadbeats, free-loaders, work-shy and alcoholics in their midst.
The National Socialist Party government, then in power, dealt with the problem. Both the regular police and the Gestapo made sweeps through towns in 1934 to 1937 and hauled away thousands to work camps where most died of exposure, illness, malnutrition and overwork. New camps were added to accommodate the thousands of “asocials” rounded up in special operations code named “Operation Work Shy” during the summer of 1938.
Some German Catholics and Lutherans still hung on to the notion that what you do for the least of these you do unto me and that we are our brothers’ keepers. To discourage these lingering religious sentiments, Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick went on the radio and urged citizens to accept the incarceration and removal of the unworthy and to abandon the “outmoded” command to “love thy neighbor.” He cautioned against excessive empathy.
The reality of people living in tents does not say to me that there is an excess of social services in Longview. Rather it makes clear the lack of a basic survival network and maybe a lack of something even more basic. Compassion.
Tedine Roos
Longview
Government is to blame
Angela Piland’s Nov. 13 letter deserves a bit of enlightenment. She claims, “It wasn’t our government who brought the U.S. to the tip of a recession, but the greedy bankers, etc.” In reality, our government was the enabler that made it possible for the banksters and lenders to be as greedy as they were.
It began early in the Carter administration when the desire to make it possible for all to buy a home of their own. Laws were changed to make it much easier that ever for lower income folks to secure a loan. Then in the early ‘90s, Clinton and his enablers made it even easier to make loans to folks who could not possibly repay them. The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got completely out of control, squandering millions by buying off politicians.
When Bush asked for some oversight in ‘03, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and the media raised a big flap and prevented an investigation. Again in about ‘06, John McCain requested that Fannie & Freddie be put under some kind of control; the same two politicians again prevented it and we ended up just where we are today.
I should also add, “If Bush and/or McCain had taken the initiative to press the issue as a real leader should have, we may not be in this mess today.” So, it really was our government who is totally responsible for our woes.
Allan Schwindt
Silver Lake
Paper tilts to the right
I just finished reading the editorial page in my newest copy of the Longview Republican Daily News. You know, about how president-elect Obama won’t be able to uphold his campaign promises but should be held accountable by the voters (Nov. 12 editorial).
For years I’ve observed that your editorial page was loaded with right-wing hate writers. Your own staff endorsed a Republican for governor and you let it be known in every way you can that you are all about the Republican Party. When, in these last eight years of destruction of our country, our economy and our freedoms, did this paper call for any accountability for the people in power who have brought this all about? And now, before he even takes office, you try to destroy the faith and hope most Americans finally feel with this new leader.
It’s your right to support any person and policies you want, of course. But it seems to me that you would eventually see that Democrats pay their money to keep your partisan publication afloat, too. We would love a bit of fair representation of our opinions and ideals. But, at the very least, recognize that as your right-wing heroes take away all means of revenue the average citizen counts on, the number of households who can afford this paper will diminish, too. Then what? Are there enough wealthy Republican subscribers around to keep your rhetoric going?
Myrna Dillinger Johnson
Longview
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