Dear Editor,
While reading Jessica Harbin’s gloomy, but heartfelt “Earth to Explode” article in the ET (Sept. 18 issue), I felt compelled to correct a point she made and offer some advice that will, hopefully, give her some reassurance.
Russia is in no position, economically or militarily, to “cause the second cold war or WW III.” However, Russia’s recent defense of South Ossetia, Abkhazia, the sovereign, pro-Russian breakaway state, was completely justifiable.
Receiving support from America and Israel, Georgia, in a desperate attempt to gain a seat in NATO, invaded South Ossetia. The American press, taking its marching orders from the neo-conservative administration these days, has put the spin into overdrive, trying to convince us that Russia was the aggressor! This is a ridiculous and dangerous notion.
The Georgian president, Saakashvili, as the rest of the world recognizes, is one of America’s puppet politicos around the world. We’ve had numerous others in the Middle East: Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and, the most recently deposed, Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, to name but a few.
More likely than Russia causing the next cold war, it will be America’s own isolationist/interventionist foreign policy of empire and antagonism that brings global relations to a chill. Meanwhile, our own weak domestic policy of “regulate then bailout” is wreaking havoc on the lower and middle classes.
We are a broken nation. We gullibly accept big government solutions to problems begot from big government policies. Why are we approaching $5 gas? It’s because our government won’t subsidize alternative energy solutions, despite the majority of American’s outcry for it.
What about rising food costs? NAFTA and worthless corn ethanol projects must bear some of the blame.
The idea of “stimulus checks” was a sick joke edited out of “Economics for Dummies.” Obama offering them as part of his presidential bid reeks of vote-buying.
The national debt figure is actually about $9.6 trillion, with the real figure being about $59 trillion when you factor in obligations such as Social Security and Medicare. Our illegal and genocidal “police action” in Iraq costs $720 million a day.That’s a lot of schools, bridges, and lives that could’ve been built here.
Jessica, your claim that no politician can or has addressed these issues is regrettable. Congressman Ron Paul has spoken specifically, for over 30 years, about almost every issue you touched upon. He has written numerous books focused on economic and monetary policy, non-interventionist foreign policy, the failures of the federal government, and the triviality of the media and modern politics as a whole.
Jessica, it is a great blessing that you are aware and concerned about the struggles facing America today! I know you see many of these problems in the world and must feel overwhelmed, but don’t. Start fixing problems here locally. There are starving children right here in the Tri-Cities.
Don’t ask the government to send someone else’s tax dollars to feed foreigners. If you really do care about the Sudanese, send a donation or become a missionary, but don’t ask someone else, via the government, to care the same. Get involved and become an activist. Don’t wait for the government to help you. Only “We the People” can manifest the solutions to our problems.
-Matthew Jeffers

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