Other 50 percent Other 50 percent ADVERTISING As we come to the elections soon, I am discouraged by the lack of understanding among many voters. If you are earning minimum wages and think conservatives have the answer to your prayers,
Other 50 percent
As we come to the elections soon, I am discouraged by the lack of understanding among many voters. If you are earning minimum wages and think conservatives have the answer to your prayers, you haven’t done your homework. If you are struggling to make ends meet and think the Republican Party can help you, you have become, unfortunately, a pawn of the wealthy. (If you have time, watch LINK TV’s program, “The Koch Brothers Exposed.”)
The quotes below have been researched by a friend who is a professor; we agree that he is much more pessimistic than I am, but I fully agree with him on this point (the opening sentence is in his words, not mine):
Before I got started, I wanted to define just one word: Fascism. I spent hours wandering in the vastness of the Google, and by the time I called it quits, I had thousands of words mined from scholars, historians and politicians. I then boiled them all down to these 109 words:
Benito Mussolini said, “Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”
Leon Trotsky: “The historic function of fascism is to smash the working class, destroy its organizations, and stifle political liberties when the capitalists find themselves unable to govern and dominate with the help of democratic machinery.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”
The next step was to ask the question, “Who controls the government of the United States?” My immediate answer was: We (as in “we the people”) don’t.
In closing, I offer this quote from Gore Vidal: “Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for president. One hopes it is the same half.”
J. Stoeckel
Keaau
Bad plan for judges
I applaud the Tribune-Herald, once again, for making its very sensible endorsements for the upcoming elections — especially for the endorsement of moderate Linda Lingle for our crucial Senate seat (Tribune-Herald, Oct. 21).
However, I disagree with you when it comes to “permitting retired judges to serve as temporary judges in courts ‘no higher’ than the court level they reached prior to retirement.” Judges have to retire at a certain age for reasons that are akin to the mandatory retirement of airline pilots at the age of 60. After a certain age, senility and somnolence sets in, however subtle. A small error in judgement (hopefully still impartial) can have serious and far-reaching consequences.
Besides, at that age, many have enlarged prostate glands, which makes sitting still for lengths of time very, very difficult. One hates to hear the phrase “the court is in recess” too often!
Pradeepta Chowdhury
Hilo
