Print edition: 
Harder to live American dream
It’s not nearly as easy today to live the American dream as it was 40 years ago. Ask anyone who is retired and trying to survive on a fixed income, or someone whose job has been outsourced, or someone who lost his health benefits and has the misfortune of getting sick.
The cost of living has far outpaced wages since the 1960s and ’70s. Today, middle-class Americans are struggling just to provide the basics.
My mother worked alongside my father in our family business for 40 years. They were hardworking, responsible and able to provide for their family. After my father passed away and my mother became elderly and sick, her medications totaled nearly $1,200 per month before Medicare Part D was implemented and gave her relief from the cost. How many senior citizens can afford to pay out of pocket for their medications?
Corporations have quadrupled their earnings in the past 10 years. Even with those staggering profits, American workers’ wages have stagnated and unemployment is 9 percent. So much for the “trickle-down” theory of economics.
It’s long past time that Americans stand up to the corporate greed that has played a huge part in ruining our economy and our way of life. This is why I support Occupy Wall Street.
MARY CARUSO
Goddard
Chaotic babble
Occupiers are loud, incoherent people who dress silly, need stronger deodorants and demand 24/7 squatter’s rights on choice public properties. Individually and collectively, they speak in a chaotic babble that fails miserably to express what it is they want.
They won’t be satisfied until the 1 percent with all the nation’s wealth returns all, or at least most of it, to the 99 percent. Never mind that even though the dough the occupiers demand was never theirs, they want it back. And after the transfer is complete, the occupiers will then work out the details of how all that money will be divided. In their minds, then and only then will true justice prevail. And America’s ship of state will sail blithely along under the command of ex-occupiers now resting from their labors in the ship’s luxury quarters, with other people’s money in their pockets.
Now, without a care in the world, they have set a course that is certain to bring them back to a place called reality where everyone is broke. And when there is no one left to blame, it’s time for all of us to remember what that wonderful comic-page character Pogo once quipped: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
It’s time to choose. Don’t give up the ship.
PATRIC ROWLEY
Wichita
Strengthen unions
Since I came to Kansas in the early 1980s, what has stood out to me about Kansas workers is how anti-union they are. It amazes me how many of the aircraft workers I know like to complain about the raw deal they are getting from the company. But then when you ask them if they are union members, the answer is “no.”
If not for the struggles of the union organizers and members of the early 20th century, the middle class as we know it would not exist. The “1 percenters” would have had the rest of us completely under their thumbs long ago.
The whole Occupy Wall Street movement seems to be a good idea, but seems unorganized and without a clear agenda. The only proven means of fighting corporate greed is through strong labor unions.
For many people, strengthening unions is as simple as stopping by the union office on the way home from work and signing up. For a lot of others, it’s going to involve taking the lead to organize the people you work with. It won’t be easy, because of this anti-union attitude that has been taught to Kansas folks from birth. But it wasn’t easy for those folks long ago.
JOE JONES
Wichita
Protect the people
Today we have what seems like 10 million judges and lawyers who have dedicated their lives to the task of ensuring that “the accused” are protected. What we need are 10 million judges and lawyers who will dedicate their lives to ensuring that “the people” are protected.
JAMES A. HULL
Wichita
