No comparison between billionaires, working stiffs Re: “Most Americans don’t buy Obama’s class warfare rhetoric,” Editorial, Dec. 18
I almost choked on my water this morning when I read your editorial. I know your newspaper is totally driven toward the Republican right, but you prove it when you make blatantly crazy comments in your editorial section. For instance, it is absolutely criminal to compare the increase in income since 1979 for the insanely wealthy top one percent to the 40 percent increase for the middle class.
Even you can’t really believe that millionaires and billionaires who increased their wealth by 275 percent can be compared to the $75,000-a-year middle-class worker making $25,000 more a year. This is horrible journalism on your part and basically a misleading lie.
Shame on you for spitting on me … the working poor middle class!
Ronald Lee Jones
Herndon
Examiner’s emphasis on ‘victory’ is misplaced
Re: “Why won’t Obama say ‘victory’ to mark end of Iraq war?” Editorial, Dec. 15
I cannot understand why the word “victory” is so important to you. Is it important in the sense that the word takes into account the 100,000 Iraqis lives that were lost? Or because it implies that as a superpower, the United States has the right to go anywhere in the world it pleases and say: “We are right; you are wrong. We have the answers. You do not.”
Is it important because we cannot even begin to entertain the thought that we just might be in the wrong here? That perhaps war is not the answer? That just maybe, dialogue could have set in motion a scenario in which peace broke out, rather than war?
My guess is that there is not one woman on your staff who would admit to signing onto this editorial, since women are against war. We raise the children you send to kill, maim and torture — and to have these
things done to our own young men and women as well. We teach them to value life — ours and everyone else’s — even if we speak different languages and wear different clothing and worship in different ways.
We know that we are all worshipping the same God — regardless of what God is called. So, so many reasons not to declare “victory.” Please do not insult my intelligence. I know better — I have been
taught differently. Thank God. Thank Allah.
Virginia Fenner
Oklahoma City, Okla.
Pipeline controversy based on politics, not science
“World Without Ice,” a recent article in the Oct. 2011 National Geographic, documented how natural forces have caused rapid global warming as recently as the Paleocene/Eocene Period — before humans were involved.
As a geologist, I am glad to see the evidence mounting in the public sphere that global warming is more complex than politicians would have us believe. While burning fossil fuels may contribute to climate warming, earth processes outside of our control are far more significant than human activity. No change in our energy policy could ever override the powerful natural forces at play.
To suggest that the Keystone Pipeline will have any impact on global climate change is misleading. The current discussion in the legislative chambers about the proposed route is intended to delay it indefinitely, as part of a political agenda aimed at undermining private industry in favor of a government-controlled economy.
Judy West
San Francisco, Calif.
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