Casino Rationale Disingenuous
It saddens me to see casinos legalized in this state. What’s happening here? Have we gone mad?
I have to hear how we need the jobs. Come on. We had a Massachusetts Miracle not long ago. This valley was crawling with jobs. What happened to them? Our fearless leaders, who Michael Moore believes wake up at 5 a.m. to ruin life for most of us, foisted free trade on us and even helped companies set up shop in, say, China.
They keep insisting cutting taxes creates jobs, even though this policy has never worked. So we watch as jobs for policemen, firemen, postal workers, teachers, social workers, road and bridge construction workers go up in smoke. All the lovely tax breaks in the world haven’t prevented Bank of America from laying off 30,000 people recently. Our government refuses to invest in innovation. We forget how the Internet was created with government investment, and how many businesses have thrived as a result.
So China and Germany will lead the world in green technologies. Their folks will be working. How are we going to solve our financial problems? Austerity: cutting Social Security and Medicare/ Medicaid, eliminating our safety net. How do you make the streets of Boston look like Calcutta? Cut Social Security. Just see how many folks will be sleeping in the streets.
Massachusetts was the hub of innovation. We were leaders in the computer industry. We fired off the first modern rocket. Fiber optics was born here. We were leaders in education and medicine. Bill Gates got his start here. We’re giving this up to be Mass Vegas.
Our plutocracy sees that we have a nickel left after paying megabucks for all their scams: 30 percent interest on credit cards, outrageous college tuitions and the loans that go with them, mortgage schemes and resulting bailouts and foreclosures, ridiculously high medical costs, immoral and illegal wars. They see that nickel and they want that nickel. And they think they’ll get it from us with their sleazy, thieving, engineered-for-addiction slot machines. People in this country need to wake up and tell these destructos where to go.
Charlotte Burns
Palmer
Reporters Should Challenge the Mayor
I agree with what you’ve written [that Northampton Mayor Clare Higgins left office too soon; see “Classic Higgins,” September 15, 2011]. But in reading your piece, I couldn’t help but wonder why you didn’t write it months ago, when Higgins first announced she was bailing.
Maybe I’m getting this completely wrong, but I have long felt that the reporters in town haven’t done an effective job of writing more critical analysis of Higgins and her positions, a few boners of which you mentioned. Is it that they were frightened of offending her or afraid of her powerful supporters?
Let’s hope that in the next administration, regardless of who wins, reporters grow a pair and challenge the mayor in their reporting. After all, making nice with the mayor isn’t what you’re supposed to do.
John Ciavarella
via Internet
After the Disaster: An Open Letter from the Vermont Workers’ Center
As members of the Vermont Workers’ Center have worked to dig ourselves and our neighbors out of the thick, toxic mud left by tropical storm Irene’s flooding, we have been inspired by the solidarity, caring and resolve of our fellow Vermonters. But it is clear to us that it is going to take much more than a neighbor’s helping hand to rebuild from this crisis.
We recognize a familiar pattern. Those communities most affected by this latest crisis are those already suffering most from the ongoing economic crisis: people with disabilities, people who are homeless, people living in mobile home parks, people with no or low incomes. Irene both exposed and deepened the economic and human rights crisis that people in our communities already face every day. Six years ago, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, federal and state politicians not only failed to respond to the needs of people in New Orleans but capitalized on that crisis by imposing a radical new agenda of privatization of government responsibilities. In Vermont, the public services that many rely on have been systematically cut back year after year, along with the jobs of the Vermonters who provided those services.
These cutbacks were justified by the need to “balance the budget,” but what our spending decisions really represent is a decision, at the expense of the rest of us, not to adequately tax those who can most afford to pay. Flooding aside, we have been drowning in the politics of greed. To truly rebuild, we must address both the immediate crisis and the long-term crisis. We must not allow this “natural” disaster to be followed by a manmade disaster of inadequate and harmful reactions from state and federal governments. The force of Irene, like the unusual flooding in late spring, was likely a result of another man-made crisis, global climate change. Our efforts to rebuild must include organizing to change our energy policy and stand up against corporations that profit from destroying our natural environment and our communities.
In early 2011, the Vermont Workers’ Center launched the Put People First campaign, an umbrella for grassroots organizing efforts including the People’s Budget Campaign and our Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign. With the historic passage of our universal healthcare law this year, Vermont has demonstrated its recognition of government’s obligation to ensure people’s right to live in dignity by protecting their health. Now we must hold our government accountable to enable us all to build dignified lives in the wake of Irene’s flooding.
Vermonters understand that solidarity means more than lending a hand. It means recognizing our interdependence and our stake in each other’s welfare. It also means recognizing that many current crises have common roots. It means carrying the relationships that we build in these difficult weeks into a long-term struggle against policies that cause further hardship.
Peg Franzen, President
Vermont Workers’ Center
