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Letter to the editor
As published Sept. 17, 2008
Those illegal immigrants stole my summer vacation
I am told that my income is in the top 25% of Americans. I find that surprising. I can’t afford the things and activities I could afford in the 1990’s. I can not afford my hobby any longer. I can’t afford our customary week of summer vacation. I have checked my spending, and there is nothing new there since the 1990’s. What has happened?
According to Morningstar Inc., a provider of investment research (article 5/27/08) the effective inflation rate in the USA is 26%, not the 3% advertised Bush. The government has changed the way inflation is calculated. If it was calculated the same as in the 1970s, the official number would be 12%.
From the recent book “Moyers on Democracy” by Bill Moyers, I have learned that the distribution of wealth in the USA has shifted dramatically from what it was in the 1970s. About 60% of the nations wealth is now held by 10% of the population, and 70% of Americans have essentially no net worth. If this doesn’t bother you because you believe you are snuggly the in middle-class 20%, you are wrong. You are just one disaster away from being in the zero-wealth 70%.
In high school, a very conservative civics teacher, Mr. Heyer, taught me that the quality of a civilization could be measured by how evenly it distributes the wealth. America today is on a par with the Roman Empire when it fell. We have about the same difference in wealth between the haves and the have-nots as forth century Rome. America, between the progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt and the 1970s, was a different place. The gulf between the haves and the have-nots was decreasing. Today laissez faire capitalism is back with a vengeance; only today we call it “free market capitalism.”
Who do we blame for the current economic condition? If you listen to conservative talk commentators Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O’Reilly it is clear: undocumented immigrants are to blame for America’s low wages. But wait; these immigrants didn’t start coming to America in significant numbers until the North American Free Trade Agreement drove them off their farms in the mid-1990s. The decline of wages started before 1980. The last pages of Senator Jim Webb’s book, “A Time to Fight,” explain what is going on.
“Not accidentally, too much time is being spent in the American political process in distracting our citizens from the true issues that confront our future in favor of the emotional issues that actually mask the difficulties we face.
"Should we imprison people for burning the flag? Should gays be allowed to marry? Should Britney Spears be allowed to keep her kids? Should illegal immigrants be allowed to apply for citizenship?
"The cynical manipulation of people’s emotions is as old as politics itself. For generations it was believed that the American South was divided purely along racial lines. In truth, the long history of the American South was that of a small veneer at the top, deliberately keeping less fortunate whites and blacks at each others throats to the point that neither group could fully comprehend the extent of what was happening above them. And this is what is happening on a larger scale in American politics today.”
Roscoe Bartlett has been in office for 16 years, for 14 of those years his party was in control. Free Market Capitalism has been his mantra. After a few of terms he achieved seniority with the power to effect change. He has not used that power for our good. He has done nothing to slow the concentration of wealth at the top. We are poorer, our Congressmen is richer. He needs to retire.
Greald Castellucci, Mt. Airy
Letters to the editor
As published Sept. 3, 2008
Thanks for successful carnival
The Mt. Airy Volunteer Fire Company wishes to thank the public for their support of our Annual Carnival, which took place from July 21 to July 26. This year's carnival was the most successful in our history!
We wish to congratulate our $4,000 "Giant Cash Raffle" winner, Bernice Ruppalt of Mt. Airy, and our $1,000 Cash Raffle winner, Pauline Yenason, also of Mt. Airy. Sara Clark of Mt. Airy won our Junior Raffle, a trip for two to Cozumel!
Katie Murphy of Mt. Airy won $500 in our Karaoke Contest on Wednesday evening. Congratulations to you, Katie!
Again, thanks to everyone for their support!
Mt. Airy Volunteer Fire Company
Ridge Seals grateful for support
The Ridge Seals Swim Team completed its 2008 season by hosting the Frederick Summer Swim League Division Ill Championship Meet at the Ridge Swim Club in Mt. Airy on July 19. A total of four teams, consisting of 418 swimmers, and their families converged upon the small club on Beck Drive making the day's logistics for parking an interesting feat!
The team would like to especially thank the neighbors of the Ridge Swim Club and the rest of Mt. Airy for understanding any inconvenience caused by the increase in traffic and street parking on the day of the Divisional Meet.
The team also thanks the Civil Air Patrol commanded by Lt. Ron Long for assisting with parking issues and the Senior Center for offering parking at their facility. We could not have hosted the event without your help and understanding!
Thank you again to Mt. Airy for your support and we're looking forward to our 2009 season. See you at the pool!
Julie Carter, vice president, Ridge Seals Swim Team
and the Ridge Seals Swim Team Board of Directors
McCain gets my support
I will be supporting John McCain and Sarah Palin as our president and vice president this fall. After what the Democratic party did to the history making opportunity of making Hillary Clinton Obama's VP. and winning the November election in a landmark landslide, by having the first African American and woman in the White House, choosing instead to give it to that plagiarist, arrogant, nonstop talking Joe Biden, who suffers from that age old plaque of "Air Bloat", reaffirms my gut instinct that these 'new age' Democrats are nothing more now than left wing socialist types, funded by deep pocketed Marxist's radicals, and run by the main stream, drive by media machine cartel.
How can any black American ever support Joe Biden after how he, along with the help of Ted Kennedy, in the words of Justice Clarence Thomas, "tried to do a high tech lynching of a black man”?
His (Biden's) nomination as the vice president of the United States is the biggest insult that the Democrats have done since the fighting in the civil war in order for them to keep their slaves.
And now…they have found a real good one, haven't they? May we never lose sight of the fact that it was the Republican Party who fought in the Civil War to end slavery and let us never forget that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican.
Tina Grogg, Mt. Airy
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