Letters
Aug. 14, 2010 

What now?

Consider “Democracy,” an idea that was germinated here in what came to be known as the United States of America. Today, I experience this still-fledgling democracy slowly dissipating through lack of care, into a cloud of rhetoric.

I arrived on a student visa in San Francisco on the Marine Adder on Jan. 23, 1947, and assumed that by this time you would have had a thriving democracy here. Instead, I found that your democracy was still evolving and had to be carefully nurtured, and definitely was not to be taken for granted.

The pilgrims who landed in America brought their English culture with them and used what they deemed necessary for themselves. Eventually, the original 13 states broke away from England and the Revolutionary War began. With the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, women still did not have the right to vote and slavery was condoned.

After a bloody civil war, slavery was abolished, and decades later women gained their right to vote. Two more steps were taken on the road to a true democracy: a government of the people, for the people, by the people.

BEWARE! There is a real danger here of losing this hard-won democracy to special interests.

Democracy is also a breeding ground for capitalism and capitalism feeds on profit — the more profit the better — breeding corruption; and this has become a well-established way of conducting business.

Now democracy has been turned into firmly entrenched, legalized capitalism, through laws passed by Congress and supported by the Supreme Court of the United States of America. What now? What is your solution?

Anatole S. Fetisoff
Hood River

Drones’ dark side

A $40 million-plus U.S. Navy contract won by Bingen, Wash., robot drone builder Boeing/Insitu (Boeing is Earth’s number two war racketeer) puts us all in league with the Germans who, desperate for “good jobs,” built the fences encircling “work camps” in Germany  in the 1930s.

 Imagine the German government talking about the economic benefits and better life soon to be had once the “problem of Jews and Gypsies” was dealt with in the same way I hear talk about Insitu drones “saving lives” because they “aren’t armed” and promote national security and the economy by “eliminating terrorists and protecting our troops” who shouldn’t be there anyway but “oh well, pass me some more chicken.”

Those fences around Auschwitz didn’t hurt anybody either, did they? It was the chlorine gas that hurt those Jews. Not those fences. “Our drones” aren’t armed so we can go shop and party with a clear conscience, too, just like those fence builders.

Never mind that they (Insitu drones) are used in conjunction with other robot drones (Reaper and Predator) that actually fire the missiles that maim the bodies of thousands of innocent women, children and men in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Colombia and ?

A small price to pay for “freedom and democracy” and besides, their skin is dark and their God is phony. I say we should, at least, change the names of Insitu drones from Integrator and ScanEagle to Instigator and ScamEager. Gee whiz, much more modern and honest, I think.

Insitu drones could be used to better understand global warming or fight fires but instead this contract cements war-racketeering onto center stage in the greater Columbia River Gorge. Just what is the difference between the U.S. building robot drones to cage and kill people overseas and the Germans fencing and vaporizing Jews and Gypsies at Auschwitz?

Rollean
Lyle, Wash.

Less taxes

I thought the big bailouts kept us out of a Depression. The date on our library, I believe, is 1913? How was it able to stay open during “The Great Depression,” when we’re only in a recession?

My guess is government, small to large, didn’t spend our tax dollars in some of the ways they do now. In too many ways; badly. I’m actually a Hood River resident that did use the library more than most. I don’t own a computer. I knew when I voted no that it was going to cost me approximately three years of my tax increase to pay for a computer, all at once. It ended up closer to four years’ worth of tax increase.

 I would still vote no for more tax increases. I was and am thinking of the citizens who live here. No more fat left to be cut from our local government? Let’s look there for a change.

Robert Jones (Les Taksez)
Hood River

Shop locally

This is not just a statement or an occasional “tossed bone” but something that needs to become a local habit.

We have become a society of online buyers (or we drive to Portland) for items that are carried locally and for no better reason than an assumed “better deal.“ But we fail to realize or remember many reasons why buying locally is a better deal and beneficial to everyone.

Do you know exactly what you are getting when you order online; is it blemished, a factory second or a counterfeit? Can you look into a dot com eye or pound on a dot com desk? Will a dot com go out of its way to make sure you are satisfied; do they even care?

Is it convenient to run back to Portland if something isn’t right? Did you know that for every $100 spent in a local business, $68 will stay in the community? You also help create jobs, nurture the community and invest in entrepreneurship.

So serve your community, your neighbors and your friends by buying locally.

Craig Holloway
Hood River