Letters To The Editor
SPOKANE MATTERS
Fire EDC underachievers
Before the City Council on Dec. 4, the Economic Development Council again demonstrated its skill at using statistics and business jargon to lie to the public.
This data, taken at face value, seems to indicate that EDC is solely responsible for improving the job market in the Spokane area. EDC’s claim of helping provide $31 million in salaries to Spokane County pales when compared to the $3 billion in annual salary paid in the county.
The employment trend in Spokane, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, shows that over the previous six years, this area has seen a steady increase in the percentage of our population earning at or below the poverty level. Over half of our workers earn less than $14,000 each year.
Area colleges agree that in order for a graduate to earn the expected national rate for their job class, that student will need to leave the area.
Wages in Spokane are consistently below the national average in nearly all classifications - a condition which continues to worsen.
Businesses moving to Spokane, with few exceptions, actually reduce work hours or wages in this market. This, combined with a cost of living 6 percent or more above the national average, only proves that EDC has failed miserably in making good on its promise to improve the local economy.
The City Council, in voting to increase EDC funding, has forgotten a primary axiom of modern management practice. If a vendor fails to deliver the promised product, you cease business with that vendor. How can our representatives justify giving our money to an obviously failing committee? Eric B. Smith Spokane
THE MEDIA
Reveal all poll questions
Polls taken by the media and political parties always amaze me. Almost all polls are designed to get the answer the group paying for them wants, regardless of what the American people really think.
The latest example is the Bosnia poll. According to a Times Mirror/CNN poll, 56 percent of the American people are against sending troops to Bosnia. All polls in Spokane indicate that 75 percent to 80 percent are against sending troops to Bosnia. How can there be such a huge difference? When congressman or senators are asked, they say the calls are running 8 to 1 against sending troops.
I decided to call CNN and find out why their poll had such a large difference. Guess what I found out! None of the questions asked “Are you for or against sending troops to Bosnia?” It’s little wonder the polls don’t match what the American people think.
No one in the news media or Democratic Party believed that the Republicans could or would take control of both houses of Congress and many legislatures, and that not one Democrat would be elected governor in 1994. Why were they so wrong? Could it be their cleverly designed polls gave them the wrong information? I think so.
If the news media are going to use polls, with or without hidden agendas, they should provide all the questions asked to form the basis of the numbers. Then we would have enough information to make up our own minds. I’ll bet you 10 to 1 that the news media will not print the questions asked. It will be, “Trust us because we know best.” Right. Wayne Lythgoe Colbert
Paper shows its true colors
Re: “the ragged edge” series: With one stroke of the pen, The Spokesman-Review has tried to capture and enclose in one box a broad ideological spectrum.
Undoubtedly, a great many of the people the articles have or are attempting to categorize, label and cast aspersions upon are good, common-sense, down-to-earth people victimized by the political bent of the Spokesman.
They don’t run around in military garb shooting off guns, spouting anti-government rhetoric, etc., nor are they drawn to tabloid sensationalism and hyperbole.
They’re very normal, responsible, taxpaying, law-abiding American citizens who are working diligently, without compensation or reward, to preserve the America that has drawn so many to our shores. They’re American patriots. They believe in the Constitution. They love the form of government that our Constitution established. They love our country and they love our flag. Shouldn’t we all?
The editorial comment of managing editor Peggy Kuhr in the Dec. 3 edition, page A16, best sums up the left-wing bigotry that is underwriting “the ragged edge” articles. Such precludes approaching journalism with an open, objective or even reasoning mind. Such also precludes the possibility of responsible or objective reporting.
The Spokesman has again brought to light its true colors. Lynn M. Stuter Nine Mile Falls
ABORTION
Abortion foes consistently concerned
Joan Harman’s Dec. 6 letter (“Abortion foes selectively concerned”) attempts to legitimize the pro-abortion view with two weak arguments. She loses credibility in her first sentence.
She admits terminating a pregnancy is killing a “preborn child.” A child is a human being, and no human being is more innocent and helpless.
Since she grants that what we’re dealing with is a child, how can anyone argue it’s OK to kill a child because more of them live than die? So what if three times more babies are allowed to live than are killed? So what if abortions represent a small fraction of pregnancies? If abortionists are prepared to grant that it’s a child, we pro-lifers have won the war.
No amount of emotional rhetoric can excuse slaughtering children. Unfortunately, the abortionists, media and liberal courts are riding this stick horse into battle as if it were real.
Her second argument is more dubious. Because infants will die or live in poverty, be abandoned in childhood, be fatally abused, is this reason to kill them? Do we kill human beings because they may face hardships? What kind of society have we become if we kill people before we help them to overcome their hardships?
I’m afraid the old song Joan Harman puts forth about pro-lifers not being ready to recognize that children are abused, neglected, etc., doesn’t hold water.
America’s pro-life groups head the effort to provide alternatives to abortion. We care enough about the “preborn child” to offer our time and resources to allow them to live. Larry Allen Oldtown, Idaho
Veto offends God and mankind
I find President Bill Clinton’s threatened veto (“Bill banning late abortions will be vetoed,” Spokesman-Review, Dec. 9) of Congress’ efforts to deny this abominable infanticide truly horrific.
To think that he and 183 members of Congress believe this is the correct course to take based on “an erosion of a woman’s right to choose” to murder a child in the womb, after carrying it to the third trimester, and not suffer from criminal wrongdoing?
What possible good comes from this brutality?
This one action shows those 184 persons are unfit to lead and invites the wrath of almighty God who alone holds the right to give and to take life. Robert Spaulding Post Falls
PEOPLE IN SOCIETY
Grieving father, don’t blame God
After reading the father’s response when his twin daughters passed away, I thought about his reasoning (“Twin babies die of heat in their crib,” News, Dec. 7).
We always tend to think we’re in control of our life situation. God doesn’t have strings attached to us. People would like to blame something or someone, but this blaming won’t change the circumstances; it can’t bring somebody back.
It’s pointless to make God the fall guy when we control our destiny. If you want to see your children after this tragedy, it’s time to put God to the test, have faith in Him. Your children deserve the perfect place therein. It’s now time to give your life to God, so you can someday see them. Bitterness from this accident can destroy you or it can motivate you.
I hope you decide to walk the path that’s narrow (Luke 18:17) and one day receive the love from your twins that’s waiting for you. Mike Craddak Spokane
In God we had better trust
Some years ago a television network presented a drama about the gripping and courageous story of Raoul Wallenberg and his exploits saving European Jews from their Nazi tormentor, Adolf Eichmann. Wallenberg’s efforts may have made the difference between life and death for nearly 120,000 Hungarian Jews.
I remember being struck by an emotional scene of Jews being loaded into trucks for shipment to a concentration camp. A Jewish teenager turns to a rabbi and confronts him with a seemingly unanswerable question: How can you still believe in God after all of this? The Rabbi responded: How can you still believe in man?
This is our dilemma today. If we do not trust in God for our laws, then man is all that is left. Of course, without God man is irrelevant and evil does not exist. Protest is impossible.
A society that resists the solid foundation of God’s revealed law will build an ethical edifice governed by either anarchy or totalitarianism. An anti-Christ culture will either raise up the god of self (libertarianism) or the gods of statism (totalitarianism).
Joshua’s summary of our choice is clear and always relevant: “And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15). John Beal Spokane
Good that youth said his piece
I was impressed to see Duke Davis Ferris speaking up about his experience on Aug. 19 (“All teenagers aren’t always gang members,” Our Generation, Nov. 22).
I feel the media portray today’s youths unfairly. Ferris’ experience demonstrates the community responding to its fears.
I know that taking the positive point of view towards today’s youths is taking a different perspective than usually taken by our society. However, I believe in today’s youths.
Ferris stated that too often our community fears and distrusts youths because of their age or looks. I could not have said it better myself.
I am not attempting to minimize the problems our community faces with youths today, but rather to say that these “incidents” such as Ferris’ are becoming more common and are unjustified.
We need to recognize that many youths in our community are doing great things and yet are being ignored. These are not just the cream-of-the-crop youths but one who have made mistakes, been in the system and are trying to do right by themselves and society.
If these youths who are attempting to reintegrate into a new lifestyle are being judged for the way they dress and talk, then our society is reinforcing to them that they can’t change, be trusted or respected.
I hope to see more youths speaking out and voicing their opinions in a positive way. To Ferris and all youths, there are adults in our community who believe in you and respect you. Jodi Porter, adolescent health educator Spokane County Health District
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
End welfare of the corporate kind
I think the United States has a disgusting number of welfare programs giving my tax dollars to freeloaders, and I’m sick of it! What do I recommend cutting? School lunches for children? Unwed, pregnant mothers who aren’t working?
Many patriots have suggested cutting such programs. However, I’ve in mind a more despicable group of carpetbagger. Each year they stand in line, whining for more money. Yet these welfare programs are rackets to line already filthy rich pockets.
Who could be this disgraceful? This is un-American? I shudder to even type their names on my keyboard. They are corporate America - Exxon, General Electric, Pacific Lumber Co. and more.
Billions of dollars each year go to corporate welfare programs through tax breaks and subsidies. A few may be legitimate but many more are bailouts because of mismanagement and corruption, such as the savings and loan fiasco, or given as political favors.
I’m on a holy crusade to end this moral vacuum in America politics. Who will join me?
Fortunately, to join, all you need to do is call or write your congressperson expressing your outrage.
The congressional switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. Bryan E. Burke Pullman
‘Pork barrel polka’ drowns out truth
In recent letters, George Hande stated that our national debt was the result of military spending rather than social programs, then Mark Duclos claimed Hande was wrong.
Duclos is wrong.
For years, Congress has masked the true percentage of military spending by including Social Security, a trust fund, in the general budget. In addition, many programs which pretend to be domestic spending, such as those of the Department of Energy and NASA, actually perform mostly military functions.
According to Gore Vidal’s book, “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire,” when these factors - plus military debt interest - are accounted for, nearly 90 percent of income taxes and borrowed money went to the military in the 1980s. The reasons: paranoia, pork barrel politics and corporate welfare.
Republicans are half correct when they say programs are only being slightly reduced. That’s because so-called social programs are basically corporate welfare, too. Food stamps are a subsidy for slum lords.
As long as business gets its money, Congress doesn’t really care if these programs actually work. But, they make great campaign chatter.
The great evil is that the Republican Party has chosen to scapegoat Social Security and Medicare in order to keep dancing the pork barrel polka. Chris Farnam Spokane
Gingrich quit? Not likely
As a former student of House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s videocassette college course, along with only four or five others, I personally found him much more entertaining, if not enlightening, than the two professors who team-taught the course at Eastern Washington University this past summer quarter.
Now that Gingrich is in the firing line, I’d like to extend an invitation to a wager on whether he will “resign under fire” (Sandy Grady, “Policital comets burn out fast,” Dec. 8). I predict not.
Any takers? Judith Maibie Spokane
Republicans shoot down theory
For years, the anti-gun folks have shrilly declared that “there are more people injured by firearms in the U.S. than are killed on our highways.”
The Republican Party’s solution to this problem is to raise the speed limit. Charles M. Morris Spokane