Discussion of common sense lacking
I can understand the urgency of preventing a massacre in the stock market, so I can understand why we need a bailout. I don’t want anyone to lose their retirement savings because they are invested in stocks.
However, I am dismayed that missing from President Bush’s speeches and missing from the statements of members of Congress is any meaningful discussion of the total lack of common sense employed by citizens buying homes and cars.
Sure, it’s more fun to buy a new car than a used one, and a big house gives a person a sense of accomplishment, but we all need to have more self control or this crisis will just return the next time we’re maxed out.
Rachel Saltzstein, Missoula
Insane economy far from healthy
Capitalism, as it has evolved in the United States, depends on not just consumption but ever-expanding consumption to maintain ever-expanding profits so that Wall Street will be an attractive place for investors to grow their money for re-investment.
In order to create a healthy environment for ever-expanding consumption there are three basic needs: insatiable want (the always-hungry consumer), a means of feeding that insatiable want (the infinitely expanding market), and a means of paying for it (the money lenders who provide ever-expanding money).
If we slow our consumption (i.e. actually be a “conservative” and conserve) then we are harming the economy. Since our basic needs are relatively easy to satisfy we must be spurred on to consume more and more things we don’t need, or things that will wear out before we finish paying for them. And since the owners of the market (investors) can’t grow their money if the companies they own spend those profits on wages, the wage earner must borrow money to buy more and more things he or she doesn’t need or will wear out faster and faster.
Tell me again why I should pay thousands of dollars more in tax money (that I already don’t have) to the government so they can give it to the lenders so that I can borrow even more money to keep this insatiable and insane economy “healthy.”
James Watts, Missoula
Replace those who voted in favor
Why should be bail out the rich folk who have got themselves into a mess? They are the ones with money, not us common folk!
I think we should replace every single senator and House representative who voted to bail out these rich people!
Marty Howe, Missoula
Get facts on zoning, Barack Obama
As I sit here listening to the lovely music of the band playing as the great Titanic sinks, I cannot help but wonder how someone who has as little formal education as myself can see fairly clearly what has caused our current economic problems, yet all the leading minds of the country haven’t a clue.
We have sat by blindly as industry after industry has been regulated out of business or shipped overseas.
We cannot just sit around selling fresh air and sunshine to each other. We have to produce something viable.
It is wonderful that we are so dedicated to protecting our environment, but all that protection costs money and must be payed for. The environmentalists have shot themselves in the foot by shutting down once-strong industry that financed it all.
These people, while well-intentioned, are clueless. Any eighth-grade science teacher will tell you that in order for a parasite to flourish, the host must remain alive. When the parasite overwhelms the host, he must die also!
I don’t believe that these fine friends and neighbors of ours who have promoted the policies which have strangled the economy are totally to blame. There are others in this country and around the world who have instigated and drawn the game plan to bring the U.S. down so that we will be forced to play on their terms.
Here in the Bitterroot, I ask that you all think very carefully before you go vote for a county-wide infusion of mass regulation called zoning, and I would also ask that you all see what the National Rifle Association has to say about Barack Obama regarding his Second Amendment record.
This election is very crucial to a way of life that our predecessors have sacrificed for us.
Ed Hackett, Stevensville
Rookie cop thinks he should be chief
Barack Hussein Obama reminds me of a rookie cop who thinks he should be the chief after his first day on the street.
James Johnson, Missoula
Democrats did better on the economy
Try to get past the “attack-distract” campaign ads that characterize the McCain-Palin type of information on TV.
Think back to when gas averaged $1.50 a gallon and oil was about $17 a gallon. Our government wasn’t perfect, but by most accounts the Democratic economic team was doing much better than what we’ve had to deal with lately.
What have we got to show for the past eight years? The Phil Gramm crowd weakened our regulation of the lending-mortgage laws and caused the implosion of Enron and other institutions that have led to the “too big to fail” bailout in the biggest cash-for-crap giveaway ever. Do we now have socialized lending and banking? We’re spending $14 million per hour to keep Iraq solvent in a Bush Doctrine pre-emptive war that was sold to the Congress on the basis of “weapons of mass deception.” We’ve had our Constitution trampled and impeachable offenses committed; pardoning of Scooter Libby for revealing the identity of a CIA covert agent and the sneak-and-peek type warrantless wiretapping permitted by the Patriot Act.
The drums are beating that we need to “drill, baby, drill” and that it should occur in some of the most environmentally sensitive areas of the planet. Sarah Palin says that Alaska supplies 20 percent of our oil, when in fact most oil experts say its closer to 3.5 percent. A question that has gone unanswered is what percent of oil being presently pumped in Alaska is sold to Asian countries along the Pacific Rim?
Our once-proud country needs great leadership more than ever. Ask yourself why John McCain has only given two unscripted press opportunities for questions, for a total of 20 minutes. Ask why the press corp now calls McCain’s campaign the No Talk Express, rather that the Straight Talk Express.
Bill Sweet, Darby
McCain was willing to work on solution
I saw some leadership qualities this past week that scare the heck out of me.
You have Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader, telling Sen. John McCain to stay away, the Senate does not need his input. Let’s see, McCain has the potential to the next president of the United States of America and Reid and the Democratic Party do not want to work with him on a plan to address the biggest economic problem in recent time. Not only does Reid want to prevent McCain from doing the duty he was elected to do, he does not want to work with him. Do we see a problem here?
Now let us talk about the fine leadership that Nancy Pelosi demonstrated. She has a House party and does not invite the Republican Party to participate and then calls them unpatriotic for not participating. That makes a lot sense, and is an excellent way to reach across the aisle to build consensus. But wait, it gets better. Just minutes before an important vote on a bill that she needs members from both party to vote on, she claims that the current economic problem is all George Bush’s and the Republican Party’s fault. She can’t even forget partisan politics long enough to do what is right for the country. She can’t even convince 11 of the 95 Democrats that voted against the bill to change their vote. What leadership!
McCain put his campaign on hold to help work for a solution and he gets criticized, while Barack Obama gets praise for campaigning and showing no concern for doing the right thing for our country in a time of crisis.
Is this a crazy time or what?
Now, to both parties: it is time to do the right thing.
Willis W. Hintz, Lolo
Checks and balances in danger
By nominating John McCain, the Republican Party has moved toward the center. By nominating Barack Obama, the national Democratic Party has moved farther to the left.
How else can you explain how, out of a dozen candidates for president, the one that emerges with the nomination at the Democrat’s national convention is the most liberal, with the least experience, and some very questionable relationships?
McCain, by choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate, has demonstrated that he is willing to endorse a true reformer that took on big oil as well as her own party. McCain has split with his party on many occasions, taking political heat for it. Obama and Biden have never bucked their party. Obama came from the most corrupt political machine in this country in Mayor Daley’s Chicago. David Axelrod, who was Daley’s closest political adviser, is now Obama’s adviser.
McCain has received the endorsement of the only Independent in the U.S. Senate, Joe Lieberman. Lieberman split with his party on the war and the Democrats ran a far-left candidate against him in the primary. Lieberman declared himself an Independent and won re-election. Neither Sen. Obama or Biden have ever led men in combat, made a payroll or managed anything. McCain and Palin have.
If the Democrat’s gain control of the executive branch, as well as maintain their majority in Congress, we will be out of balance. There will be no checks on higher taxes, deficit spending or government regulation. That is not change or reform, that is control.
John Vail, Whitefish
Palin deserves our respect
There’s a whole passel of us out here somewhat amused at the liberal and feminine attacks on Sarah Palin. We wonder, is it because they’re jealous that such a strong pioneer woman can still be found these days? Or like they say, “She’s a babe?” Probably all of the above.
I know Palin, although I’ve never met her. You see, she’s cut from the same bolt of cloth my mother was cut from - the real pioneer woman.
One summer long ago, while me and my kid brother stalked snowshoe rabbits and deer with our homemade bows and arrow, Mom cut 40 cord of short logs and piled it to be hauled with the team in winter. Bear in mind, one cord is 4 feet wide, 4 feet high and 8 feet long. She cut 40 of those by herself. And did it with a 42-inch bow saw.
These women are from the same cloth as those who followed their men west 150 years ago. Walking beside the covered wagons, surviving the heat and cold and dangers of the wilderness. Having their babies along the way. Yes, and burying some, too.
The likes of Ellen Goodman and that whole crowd would have to wait until real men finished the railroad before they came west. Had they left with real pioneer women on the Oregon Trail, they’d have never made it out of Missouri.
Barack Obama’s overkill snoop crew is in Alaska running all over looking under every rock and behind every tree for some flaw in Palin’s past to do her in. Is she perfect? Hardly. Is she adequate and up to snuff? No doubt.
It’s been many seasons since I cut timber and hunted out of the logging camps of Alaska. Anyone who could run all that and do it well deserves my respect.
Dale Terrillion, Proctor
Making cancer an issue gutter politics
The picture of John McCain with his picture of surgical repair for the cancer on his cheek is displayed in a Democratic TV ad, and then a doctor indicating he has four or five years to live, is certainly deceiving and inaccurate. Thousands of younger and older Americans with melanoma cancer survive for many, many years.
To degrade cancer of any person is extremely insensitive and certainly terrible gutter politics at its worst. How can we be so insensitive?
Harry Stetler, Missoula
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