Letters to the Editor: 08.18.11

+ Change still needed for less debt and taxes
Dear Editor:
In response to your reader’s letter to editor titled, “We’re getting what we voted for,” I offer the following: When we voted for Obama and the Democratic Congress, we thought we’d get change; i.e. less war, less taxes, less corporate bailouts, less government control and more liberty. Instead we got just the opposite. So, then we ran to the Republicans hoping for some change this time, again we got more of the same. More government, more debt and taxes, more war, less liberty and more citizen surveillance.

I’m not sure which economists your reader is referring to, but Econ 101 says that the more money that you keep in the economy, the more it cycles and grows. But when taxes are taken from our productive and given to the military industry, foreign nation building, foreign banks and foreign manufacturing, then you will see domestic economic doom. The fact that we borrow our currency from a private bank at interest merely exacerbates the deleterious effect by compounding the economic drain with a $14-plus trillion debt that we can never repay.

Ask yourself this, Who benefits from the debt and taxes? Answer: The politically connected class, banks and multi-national corporations who’ve used our money to bail themselves out, fund foreign war and military adventures, move our manufacturing to foreign counties who rape their labor and environment, then ship the cheap goods to us with no tariffs, all bought with the very debt-based currency that funded them in the first place.

Considering that Congress and the administration are heavily invested in the debt-based, welfare-warfare state and off-shore corporate economy, do you think that either party organization will really change the status quo? More likely, they will attack their greatest threat, a well-informed middle class, who will be demonized as the greedy rich, by creating an underclass of uneducated dependants and hostile foreign immigrants.

This divide and conquer neo-feudalism is being played out now as they buy votes with government handouts. Meanwhile the real greedy rich avail themselves to corporate welfare, thriving on off-shoring deals and foreign banks and corrupt regimes, hiding their assets in tax-exempt offshore accounts and large “charitable” foundations.

The answer does not lie in more debt and taxes for us. First, track and retrieve all bailout money that went to private or foreign interests. Prosecute all those who conspired in such treasonous arrangements. Forbid national debt and establish a new national dividend currency based on our national assets and productivity, spend it into existence to extinguish or settle all fed-based debts, pay-down mortgages and fund large domestic industry and infrastructure projects.

Secure entitlement programs that we’ve been forced to pay into, then continue them on a voluntary basis only. Stop the insane wars, bring all our troops home to defend our borders and force Congress to live by the same burdens they impose on the rest of us. Eliminate the IRS and fund constitutionally limited national government functions with modest excise taxes and trade tariffs. Finally, resume state sovereignty with state appointed senators subject to recall for poor representation or treasonous activity.
Henry Roberts
Sarasota

+ Kudos for showing ‘Ruskin Sky’ painting
Dear Editor:
Regarding the “Ruskin Sky” painting in the Aug. 5 Diversions section, at first, the title suggested to me it was inspired by John Ruskin, whose advocacy of J.M.W. Turner created the phrase: “a Turner sky” — the moniker for a spectacular sky view — in nature or created in a studio.

Reading the article, I realize “Ruskin Sky” may refer to a spectacular Turner sky over Ruskin, or anywhere else, congratulations for showing a spectacular Turner sky!
Douglass Montrose-Graem
Founder The J.M.W. Turner Museum
Sarasota