LETTERS

Fearing wrong people

Who needs terrorists these days? After all, Big Business is doing the job of terrorists for them. We have Freedom Industries poisoning the water supply of a large part of West Virginia. We have numerous oil companies setting off their dirty bombs of crude all along North America’s railroad network, even destroying one town in Canada. We have a largely unregulated fertilizer company in Texas igniting an explosion that would have made Timothy McVeigh weep with envy.

Is the Chamber of Commerce trying to outdo al-Qaida?

You know, I would not mind at all Barack Obama and the NSA spying on American citizens, just so long as they could keep us safe from all the capitalists out there, lurking in the shadows, just waiting for the chance to poison our lakes or destroy our economy.

Surely, with all the high-tech equipment they have, the NSA can catch these evildoers before the Axis of Greed strikes again.

GUY LANCASTER Little Rock

Smile, giggle each day

When the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette first substituted Wumo for a cartoon (unnamed because I did not read it and have forgotten its name), I was annoyed at all the letters the paper received about the change. I thought that Wumo must be horrible.

I finally got around to reading it, and whamo! I’m hooked and get a smile or a giggle each day.

I didn’t read the old cartoon, and it may have been great, but I’m a fan of Wumo. I hope the fans of the old one have come around.

DORIS SARVER Little Rock

Pie would be larger

Arthur Luck writes, “… at any given time the total wealth of a nation is a finite quantity,” with just one size pie to be divided up. I’ve heard this dribble suggested before and hearing it again makes it no less absurd to me.

I believe if, in fact, a nation’s wealth was a finite quantity, there would be no growth at all in the economy. Yet even Barack Obama’s tepid economy has some growth. It seems to me Obama’s policies and programs (Obamacare, for just one) have put a choke hold on growth and are the reasons we have 10.4 million unemployed and a real unemployment rate of 13.1 percent after five years of his mismanagement.

If we had a real leader instead of a permanent campaigner in the White House, I think the pie would be much larger by now.

JIM LAUX Sherwood Can doom and gloom

What’s to be done with Professor Bradley Gitz? In his recent columns of quotations, he omitted what was probably the most profound statement ever made by a conservative: Let them eat cake.

Widely, and erroneously, attributed to Marie Antoinette, I think it sums up, in brief, the concepts that he apparently holds dearest. But Queen Marie’s fate portends the ultimate result of that attitude.

If we don’t take care of the lesser among us, eventually they’ll take care of us, and not necessarily pleasantly.

Care doesn’t mean endless entitlements, an unlimited cell-phone plan in every pot or a Cadillac to drive to the welfare office. It means health care, food, education, opportunity and an overall sense of fairness for everyone.

Right now these things are in short supply for an embarrassingly high fraction of our people.

We aren’t all equal, nor should we strive to be. Differences are good. We can’t all be Bill Gates or LeBron James, but we should all be hopeful.

Sadly, it seems that today one of our political parties is decidedly the voice of unhope and the other assumes there really is a free lunch. Wrong on both counts, but the gloom-and-doom view is the more pernicious and, frankly, self-defeating. After all, if the future really is hopeless, why spend time working now just to see it all disappear down the road?

The 1950s are gone forever. Bradley and his philosophical kinfolk really need to look for a little sunshine in the present. They’ll feel better.

DENNIS BARRY Little Rock

Must come together

People often fall victim to the taxonomies they were labeled as since day one. We’ve got the rich, the poor, the whites, the blacks, the educated, the non-educated, etc.

Worst of all-and that which we’ve failed as a society to address-is the dissonance between the Democrats and the Republicans.

If Democrats want to fight the war on poverty, they are labeled as giving money to the poor instead of giving them opportunity.

If Republicans want to fight the war on poverty, they are labeled as rich white people always trying to redeem the blacks.

Our environment dictates our behavior. If children are raised in homes that place no emphasis on the value of education, chances are those children will probably not pursue education-but it’s not just education. It’s learning how to be financially responsible and learning how to accrue wealth by spending less than you make.

Implementing policy after policy is not the solution. Instead of starting big, try starting small. Volunteer at local nonprofits. Those who have the time and resources, look into creating nonprofits. If we rely solely on our decision-makers, then we are allowing them to place a Band-Aid over the wound instead of diagnosing the issue.

It’s time to stop acting like petulant children. It’s time to be proactive. Are we going to sit back and watch Republicans and Democrats fight over policies, or are we going to take a stance and come together as a community?

BETHANY LESTER Little Rock

Disposing of needles

Re Laura Aaron’s letter about disposal of used needles: This is a very real problem that Ms. Aaron, her son and grandson have. I think it needs to be addressed at the legislative level or, at the very least, by the medical community.

There should be a place to purchase the waste-disposal buckets from a medical supply store. While I do not have diabetes, I can understand and empathize with Ms. Aaron. Good luck to you all.

DONNA B. GREEN West Memphis

Editorial, Pages 11 on 01/27/2014

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