Letters to the Editor (Nov. 26)

Tax plan defies logic

The GOP tax plan in a nutshell: huge tax cuts for the very rich and big businesses; tax increases for the rest of us.

Does tax cuts for the rich and big business result in job creation? Of course not. We have done this now since the Reagan years and all that happens is that the rich get richer, the poor poorer and the rest squeezed.

The GOP tax plan will cut funds from Medicare and Medicaid. Ask yourself why Republicans believe that the answer to every problem is tax cuts for the rich and making war?

Please write, call, email your senators and representatives, and demand they vote no on the GOP tax plan.

Humanitarian crisis in Yemen

Yemen in the Middle East is truly experiencing the highly negative. It has been bombed heavily and is experiencing an air, sea and land embargo of the necessities of food and medical supplies.

Yemeni children and adults are starving and dying of disease. Saudi Arabia bombs and embargoes Yemen. Saudi Arabia is Sunni Muslimm whereas Yemen, basically, is Shia Muslim, which has made for problems between the two nations. There are other issues, such as Yemen being backed by Iran, an enemy of Saudi Arabia. Then, too, Saudi Arabia is militarily much more superior as compared to a weak Yemen.

The United States has concluded a military deal with Saudi Arabia involving sales of $1.1 billion in arms. Having served as a relief worker and teacher on the West Bank and in Jordan, I am strong on alleviating pain and suffering whichever nations are involved. Viewing refugees in camps is not a delightful scene.

There’s more to Tyson opposition

Let’s be honest. Those “No Tyson” signs mean no Hispanics in our area. They can say pollution, ground water or traffic, but really it’s racism. To me, those signs look like Confederate flags.

I saw a news clip of them protesting in Old Town recently. They even had their kids with them. Do you think they would do that at 21st and Broadway or 21st and Waco? I doubt it.

Too bad it reveals humans’ all-too-frequent tendency to negatively define a group that is “other.” It needs to stop.

Proclamation too little, too late for Kansas

After reading the Nov. 18 Eagle article, “Invoking Lincoln, Brownback urges Kansans to make peace,” I am glad that any governor makes a Thanksgiving proclamation to relay good sentiments to the populace, but Gov. Sam Brownback issues flowery words that he doesn’t live by himself.

When it comes to Kansans making “peace.” Brownback may be talking about healing generic divides such as the heated debates between those of differing races, genders, sexual orientations and income brackets. Perhaps Brownback would have been well-advised to remember a different Lincoln quote: “I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.” Brownback has stirred ire among judges, fellow politicians, the elderly, the disabled, the downtrodden and the underserved.

If Brownback really had reconciliation and friendship in his soul, he’d stick out his full term and reverse his ways to repair the damage his failed economic experiment has caused. Instead, he wants to deploy the golden parachute, exit to another venue and draw another pension.

Tyson would create water problems

Even the Arkansas River Coalition believes that a Tyson plant in Sedgwick County, and for that matter Kansas, would be so detrimental for our water.

Is this what you want for your citizens? Do you want another Flint, Mich.? Tyson is not good for our county or state.

Doublespeak in Washington

While reading a new book on monetary theory, I found it filled with phrases like “insecure rational dictator preferences for fiscal revenues” and “anticipated remedies for the implicit suboptimalities.”

My head was spinning until I come across an isolated phrase

near the end which the author had apparently thrown in to summarize what he had been trying to say all along, “the equivalent of legalized counterfeiting.” Finally, I understood and agreed. But I was troubled that he spent an entire chapter trying to explain why our government would rationally do what it has done to us. Did he really believe he could make sense of something that is senseless and quite simply wrong?

We’ve been looking for a leader that calls a spade a spade … that cuts through the government gibberish which (so they tell us) exposes our deplorable inability to understand the civil cancers that are eating away at our country. We’ve been hoping that honesty, transparency and some life form from outside Washington will somehow rescue us from our problems. But it feels like the doublespeak is growing even stranger than before.

Harassment cannot be ignored

Women and men must continue to report sex crimes. To be silent gives the sexual offenders freedom to seek out more victims.

The MeToo movement is a blessing that gives survivors a voice and courage. I am also a MeToo survivor.

There is strength in numbers.

This story was originally published November 26, 2017 at 4:57 AM with the headline "Letters to the Editor (Nov. 26)."