General welfare
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social contract culminated the millennia from Greco-Roman justice and Jewish responsibility through Christian charity and Muslim sharia. The U.S. codified it with its constitutional commitment to the "general welfare."
But the chameleon rightist strong man, ever diabolical in his defense of greed, has now fixed "spending" as our socio-economic enemy. The more strange and ludicrous, like the billionaire Koch brothers and their Rand-Gault offspring, never mention the waste of many homes, mansions, cars, bank accounts or girlfriends and boyfriends. Their overpaid and grandiose lifestyles elude the spending put-down in the world of plush, lush and casino capitalism.
The issue is the greed of the uncharitable few, not the necessary spending for the survival of the 95 percent. Its effect has been and remains the maldistribution of income and wealth. Until wealth escapes the treasure lairds of the 5 percent who deserve less, the 95 percent of us who should have more will continue to suffer.
It is time we shook the rhinestones of wealth for the few in favor of the riveting social well-being of the many.
Anyone who advocates the end of social progress that has brought humanitarian well-being to the many is obviously ill in outlook and capability. His message is the cry of the bestial ancestors he wishes to revisit. We must reject that Jurassic contract.
MARCIALITO CAM
Winston-Salem
Good police work
If I lived in a high-crime area, I would not call it profiling. I would call it good police work ("City: ACLU erred on checkpoints," Nov. 5). I would call it being there to maybe stop something from going down or catch someone at the scene of the crime. It would give me a feeling of safety for me and my family.
Those who are not guilty of anything shouldn't be bothered by the stops. It's just a small delay and well worth feeling safer.
RICK COVINGTON
Winston-Salem
Economic injustice
I have participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests and applaud what the movement is accomplishing in highlighting issues of economic injustice. Its voice has galvanized a nation. Yet let's not forget to occupy Congress and our statehouses, where Wall Street has its branch offices.
Congress has been entrusted with the economic oversight of this nation. A corporate coup d'etat could not have happened without the absolute complicity of our elected officials: the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the hundreds of other pieces of corrupt legislation that have sold our system to the highest bidder.
Wall Street is not going to protect us from Wall Street. What we need most is campaign-finance reform: publicly funded elections that will drain all that intoxicating swill out of the trough. We need elected officials who will pass legislation to rein in Wall Street, rather than allowing Wall Street to reign over us. We need to hold our leaders accountable so that they can hold corporate America accountable.
Our senators and representatives want to win re-election, and they need our vote to do that. Real change happens from the bottom up, but it has to go up. We need our elected officials, just as they need us. The alternative is revolution and bloodshed.
All of us can take the battle to where real change can happen, to the halls of Congress, with phone calls, letters, emails and even protests at their local offices.
THE REV. S.J. MUNSON
Winston-Salem
Supporting the neighborhood
A sincere thank you to Wanda Merschel and the other members of the Winston-Salem City Council for voting the change at Transou and Yadkinville roads into the West Suburban Area Plan and supporting our neighborhood ("Council approves plan for western area," Nov. 7).
The great blue herons, owls, green herons, raccoons and deer thank you, too.
NANCY HUETTEL
Pfafftown
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social contract culminated the millennia from Greco-Roman justice and Jewish responsibility through Christian charity and Muslim sharia. The U.S. codified it with its constitutional commitment to the "general welfare."
But the chameleon rightist strong man, ever diabolical in his defense of greed, has now fixed "spending" as our socio-economic enemy. The more strange and ludicrous, like the billionaire Koch brothers and their Rand-Gault offspring, never mention the waste of many homes, mansions, cars, bank accounts or girlfriends and boyfriends. Their overpaid and grandiose lifestyles elude the spending put-down in the world of plush, lush and casino capitalism.
The issue is the greed of the uncharitable few, not the necessary spending for the survival of the 95 percent. Its effect has been and remains the maldistribution of income and wealth. Until wealth escapes the treasure lairds of the 5 percent who deserve less, the 95 percent of us who should have more will continue to suffer.
It is time we shook the rhinestones of wealth for the few in favor of the riveting social well-being of the many.
Anyone who advocates the end of social progress that has brought humanitarian well-being to the many is obviously ill in outlook and capability. His message is the cry of the bestial ancestors he wishes to revisit. We must reject that Jurassic contract.
MARCIALITO CAM
Winston-Salem
Good police work
If I lived in a high-crime area, I would not call it profiling. I would call it good police work ("City: ACLU erred on checkpoints," Nov. 5). I would call it being there to maybe stop something from going down or catch someone at the scene of the crime. It would give me a feeling of safety for me and my family.
Those who are not guilty of anything shouldn't be bothered by the stops. It's just a small delay and well worth feeling safer.
RICK COVINGTON
Winston-Salem
Economic injustice
I have participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests and applaud what the movement is accomplishing in highlighting issues of economic injustice. Its voice has galvanized a nation. Yet let's not forget to occupy Congress and our statehouses, where Wall Street has its branch offices.
Congress has been entrusted with the economic oversight of this nation. A corporate coup d'etat could not have happened without the absolute complicity of our elected officials: the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the hundreds of other pieces of corrupt legislation that have sold our system to the highest bidder.
Wall Street is not going to protect us from Wall Street. What we need most is campaign-finance reform: publicly funded elections that will drain all that intoxicating swill out of the trough. We need elected officials who will pass legislation to rein in Wall Street, rather than allowing Wall Street to reign over us. We need to hold our leaders accountable so that they can hold corporate America accountable.
Our senators and representatives want to win re-election, and they need our vote to do that. Real change happens from the bottom up, but it has to go up. We need our elected officials, just as they need us. The alternative is revolution and bloodshed.
All of us can take the battle to where real change can happen, to the halls of Congress, with phone calls, letters, emails and even protests at their local offices.
THE REV. S.J. MUNSON
Winston-Salem
Supporting the neighborhood
A sincere thank you to Wanda Merschel and the other members of the Winston-Salem City Council for voting the change at Transou and Yadkinville roads into the West Suburban Area Plan and supporting our neighborhood ("Council approves plan for western area," Nov. 7).
The great blue herons, owls, green herons, raccoons and deer thank you, too.
NANCY HUETTEL
Pfafftown
Libya, who's Libya, does she work for the NRA too?
ReplyDeleteLte1...I don't know where he gets his jibberish from but the textbook he is reading is worn out and needs to be put away with all the rest of its worn out doctrine. The greed of the uncharitable few...IE,the half of the population that pays no Federal taxes is being unfairly burdened by the half of the population that does not pay "its fair share"?
ReplyDeleteGood police work.I live in the county and sometimes we have sheriff patrol stop points. I don't mind as long as the officer doesn't snicker at my photo.
ReplyDeleteEconomic injustice. Your "occupy" movement has galvanized enough disgust and been shown for what it always was going to be: an opportunity for anarchists, losers and criminals to devolve into nothing but a crime wave. Some of us were and are doing what you said, "change from the bottom up". That is the TEA party movement. Are you going to join us? Revolution and bloodshed? Bullfeathers. That will just get you dead. In our country, the Mob will always be put down, and put down hard if need be.
ReplyDeleteOver 5000 books in the OWS library were destroyed in Bloomberg's crackdown:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/11/occupy_wall_street_library.php
To paraphrase Sean Connery in Indiana Jones III, the goosestepping morons should try reading books instead of burning them.
Hmm, it is odd that that many copies of "Rules for Radicals" could be found in one location. It is really odd that so many of those mouth breathers can read.
ReplyDeleteGood afternoon folks! Good to see the Journal providing LTE's to comment on today. Read the LTE's in the paper and wasn't much to comment on yesterday anyway.
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: "Until wealth escapes the treasure lairds of the 5 percent who deserve less, the 95 percent of us who should have more will continue to suffer." - Pretty much out of Marx. The questions about who "deserves" or what's "fair" are really beside the point because they are unquantifiable therefore unanswerable. The questions should be about how to generate sufficient number of jobs that pay enough to enable people to contribute to the economy without need for govt assistance.
LTE 2: Not familiar enough with the planning that goes into scheduling these stops to comment on the ACLU's belief the police may be illegally profiling certain area. If the stats are way out of skew for certain places in relation to the amount of crime, there may be cause for concern.
LTE 3: Citizen's United poses a major obstacle for campaign finance reform. It may be more accurate to say which corporation or union a representative belongs to and represents instead of which party and which district/state.
LTE 4: Again, not familiar with what's going on there, but apparently the wildlife will be happy..assuming they stay in the green areas and out of traffic.
@dotnet's 1332hrs ref LTE 2: I don't think there would be any checkpoint stats. Law enforcement is required to report traffic stops to Raleigh for statistical purposes, ie profile tracking, but not required to do so for checkpoints.
ReplyDelete@dotnet: I guess what this means is that unless LEO has to go beyond the checking of driver's license (probable cause, I guess) no stats are collected. If the checkpoint produces arrests, etc, THEN stats are collected.
ReplyDeleteWhitewall's' lower intestines empties directly into his skull ... explains the bull$shit that comes outa his mouth
ReplyDeleteGood evening,folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE1: Leftwing claptrap.
LTE2: I would like to see the Perennially Indignant stop whining about supposed racism because police hang out in high-crime areas. The liars and panderers who keep playing the race card would do well to stop that, and start telling their flocks and constituents to behave themselves. Then, perhaps the cops would go elsewhere. To have checkpoints in so-called white areas where there is no crime to speak of is pandering in reverse, and feel-good liberalism.
LTE3: Galvanized the nation? Bah, humbug. I'd say the galvanization is turning to rust. The authorities are finally ending these crap-ins here and there, and having to pressure wash the feces and crab lice out of the parks turned public toilets.
As for the 5K books Arthur mentioned, like WW I see no loss in the destruction of "Das Kapital," the "Communist Manifesto," "The Anarchist's Cookbook," etc. They can be found in profusion on college campuses. Setting up a library on someone else's property does not mandate the so-called library's permanence. The librarians could have rented a storefront, and y'know, like, man, maybe paid for a place to lend their books. Oh wow, far out, that's way too capitalist, dude.
LTE4: Not familiar with this initiative, but we indulge bulldozers in enough places. If the herons, et al, like it, fine with me.
Stab and WW (and JHLion), this one's for you guys:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M8fOwHnwg0