LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Don't pick at old wounds

As a three-tour combat veteran of the Vietnam War, I have seen enough commentaries like "A late 'sorry' isn't good enough" by Joseph L. Galloway written by people who continually scrape the scabs of war.

I do not know what ax Galloway has to grind. As a fact, the village of My Lai was considered a Viet Cong village by everyone who walked the mined and boobytrapped trails that surrounded it. I walked those trails. I saw soldiers maimed and vaporized many times. Searches of the villages produced hidden weapons and munitions.

Rusty Calley is like you and me-an American. He was the fall guy, offered up as sacrifice for the gutless politicians and liberals of that era. He has lived, as all Vietnam veterans have, with the stigma of baby-killing, no-good individuals. Galloway never was a soldier in combat. He was a correspondent. He was not at My Lai. Never saw the place. He needs to pick on someone like the Enola Gay crew of World War II, who killed thousands of the enemy with one bomb, or the World War II combat veterans who shot and killed Nazi and Japanese soldiers standing with their hands up.

Ask all of them why they did what they did. War is simply hell. It's unfortunate that you would print cowardly, muckraking drivel like this.

DOUG ODOM Greenbrier

Socialism is here now

We don't need the public option to improve health care. But so long as we have a third party, insurance companies, handling the cost, the price of health care will remain high.

To protect the patient, the public will have to set the standards for coverage, so it may as well process the paperwork as well. Including insurance companies in the mix will only add 20 to 31 percent to the cost of health care because they have to pay their stockholders and paperwork handlers.

By removing the third party, costs will tumble, thus allowing more people to be covered, and at a lower cost to the recipient. It is as simple as that.

We can wrap ourselves in the blanket of free-market ideology and defy anything that resembles socialism, thus denying health care for some of our citizens, or we can open our eyes and see that we already have socialism in our post office, veterans' hospitals, police and fire protection, highways and bridges, forests and parks services, national defense and justice systems. You could say that we are socialist and don't know it. The truth is, we are a mix of socialism and free market. That is the way it has always been and that is the way it should always remain.

Let us swallow our ideology and cover our brothers and sisters in the most efficient and cost-saving way-the public option.

MAX R. GREENWOOD Fayetteville

Bill brings more jobs

Recently retired Murphy Oil CEO Claiborne Deming's recent presentation opposing cap-and-trade was shortsighted and not entirely accurate.

Renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass show enormous potential for the future of energy needs in our country. The climate and energy legislation that Deming spoke against would actually help the Arkansas economy while reducing the pollution causing global warming.

A Pew study found that in 2007 Arkansas had about 4,500 clean-energy industry jobs. That number doesn't include the recently announced energy pellet plant in Camden that is estimated to create 450 jobs in the area.

The Waxman-Markey energy bill would mean more jobs created in solar, wind and energy efficiency businesses. Deming calls the bill a tax on consumers, but cap-and-trade is a free-market funding mechanism. Further, the bill calls for huge investments in energy efficiency programs that will lower energy usage. The result will be that monthly bills should not change that much.

Reportedly, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that Waxman-Markey would cost the average consumer two-10ths of a percent of their after-tax household income. Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor should support Waxman-Markey, a bill that protects our environment and creates Arkansas jobs.

ELLEN McNULTY Pine Bluff

Call-in informative

There was recently a town hall meeting for Sen. Mark Pryor, as well as a call-in. They called me. I listened the whole time. My call did not get answers as time ran out. I was very enlightened. One lady was talking about Medicare and the scooter chair.

Without the scooter, I would be bedridden. I have had the chair for five years now. My husband cannot see well and cannot drive. He takes good care of me. He lifts my legs and helps me in and out of the bed. Together we are a team.

Our children live eight miles from us. They check on us two, three times a day. We would be in the nursing home if we didn't have each other. I am 87 and my husband Edward is 89. We have been married 68 years.

ANNE DUNN Mena

Where is the action?

Recently on the governor's monthly radio show, he was asked where we stand with private employment vs. government employment. I did not hear an answer.

State finances will remain under severe pressure. Other states already talk about furloughs and layoffs. Be aware that growth in state and local government jobs will not help offset job losses without weighted cost.

Ask to see that chart on how government employment and salary track above inflation and private employment. What are our state numbers for retired eligible (double-dippers), management, administration, first-year employees, part-time jobs, medical costs? How about relatives by birth and marriage also employed? Some politicians tap-danced around that one. What are the figures for the first-time buyer vs. the investment buyer? Are 50 percent of the state taxpayers making less than $33,000? How are our taxes to support this overweight system of employment, medical and retirement?

Where is that stewardship, government action? The state answered with raised taxes (please, shifting taxes is not cutting), a lottery with highly paid buddies for staff and more lip service. We need to hire people who actually have calluses on their hands now. If my taxes are paying for employee health programs, should I stand in line hoping to have my teeth or eyes looked at?

DAVID LANDES Austin

Missions should end

What became of the plan to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan? Have we not had enough fighting suicidal maniacs with radical ideas in their heads? The cost in American lives and money has grown enormous.

Speaking of lives and money, U.S. health reform is at a standstill. People die because they cannot afford to go to a hospital. If we had back one-10th of what we have spent lately waging useless wars, health care here would not be an issue.

America's dogged determination to take democracy to the rest of the world has been a failure. Those people do not understand it and the cost of their freedom is leading to our enslavement.

Tax increases loom, and I do not believe Americans will tolerate a 50 or 60 percent tax rate.

LLOYD HEDDEN Benton

Leave out the party

With interest and in agreement, I read Austin Stewart's letter that voiced disapproval with Sen. Blanche Lincoln and her apparent disregard for her constituents.

I, too, wish to see Lincoln out of office, but am always concerned when a citizen declares that "If there is no Democratic alternative, I will simply not vote." I have heard Republicans make this statement in similar fashion.

While understanding the sentiment, I implore those who feel that way to rethink their position. Voting has always been a matter of utmost importance, but possibly never more than now. The current administrationneeds to hear our collective voices louder than ever, and simply not voting will not get that done.

Hopefully, there will be an independent for consideration, or maybe people will be able to take out the party factor and vote with someone they believe will get their voices heard, issues on the table and the job done.

All that having been said, the single most important reason to vote, even when we feel there is no good choice, is that people have fought and died so that we can vote. God forbid, should we ever lose this right that we so often take for granted, we will wish that we hadn't.

RHONDA SOOBY Little Rock

Some items essential

August with its health care sound and fury is over. Now Democrats must move quickly on their own. They must pass real health care reform this fall.

Why so quickly and why on their own? Because the Republicans have adopted a stop-atnothing approach to defeat healthcare reform, period.

Three zingers:

In the words of Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., "If we're able to stop [President] Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. We will break him."

The Senate Finance Committee rump six supposedly working on a bipartisan compromise are a total sham. Sen. Michael Enzi of Wyoming says he won't vote for a bill unless it can win 75 or 80 senators. That's a joke, partner.

More delay in the name of compromise would be politically stupid.Next year will be twice as contentious with campaigns heating up rapidly.

Remember, co-ops are just another diversion. A public option is essential. So are complete portability, guaranteed issue and affordability. Costs and benefits will balance out in favor of reform over the first decade. Go, Congress!

BILL MILLAGER Rogers

Just say no to China

It is a shame that a good, hard worker-American, that is-has to work for such low pay that he has to have his wife work, too. And cook, clean house and take care of the kids. Her job is from before daylight until way after dark. But if companies like Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl's and a host of others were to pay a decent wage, they might have to raise the price of a pair of jeans made in China by 15 cents.

Everyone should look in any of the stores, see if they can find anything made in America. No, they can't. That's why our economy is in such bad shape. If the clothing and shoe manufacturing companies would go back to work and cut off China, along with some others, our economy would bounce back. Remember a while back when the Chinese made coats out of dog hair? Then came tainted baby food, then poisoned toothpaste? I am very careful not to buy anything from China.

General Motors has some of its auto engines made in China. No wonder they went belly-up. I went to the store yesterday to get a ground fault circuit interrupter and none was made in the U.S.A., so I had to buy one made in China. It would not work. What next?

WILLIAM H. MITCHELL Guy

Feedback Take another look

Of all the countries conceived by man, the United States of America seems to be the best with the realization that problems exist, e.g. more people are in jail in this August in the nation than any other, race prevails as a problem after at least 400 years of data and this nation gets involved in wars (Iraq and Vietnam) that should have never happened.

Now a sizable group has complained loudly about a speech concerning education offered by President Obama. Nothing in it proposed any action anathema to the goals and objectives of any informed source, including former presidents of the United States.

I suggest that all who are interested read carefully the full text of the speech and come to some objective conclusion. Hopefully, the exercise will quiet the criticism and move them on to better ideas. How crass can one get?

ROBERT HYMER Little Rock