We should have boycotted games
Your Aug. 6 issue had a featured story in the sports section about the Summer Olympics. It featured a picture of runners passing the Olympic flame and in the background was a picture of the world's greatest mass murderer, Mao Zedong. The Chinese communists either created a public relations blunder by having Mao's picture in the area or perhaps the Chinese communists assume that people in the West don't care. Which one is it?
Under the direction of Mao, an estimated 64 million people were murdered. Today, his heirs sit atop one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Human rights and religious liberties are nonexistent. The communists have been particularly brutal to the peaceful group known as Falon Gong. Not only are the communists murdering and torturing Falon Gong practitioners in China, their goons have committed acts of violence against the Falon Gong on our soil as well.
Forced abortions and harvesting organs from prisoners to sell abroad are the norm. The nation of Tibet is being systematically destroyed by the Olympic hosts. If that isn't bad enough, China supports numerous rogue nations throughout the world, selling nuclear technology to Syria and aiding the former Taliban-led government of Afghanistan. Thanks to our government's policies, China is the manufacturer of the world. Our nation's chief export to China is thousands, if not millions, of jobs. In return, we get tainted products and poisonous food produced by slave labor.
All freedom-loving people should have demanded a boycott of the Olympics. It was bad enough that the Olympics were held in Nazi Germany in 1936 or in the Soviet Union in 1980. Holding the Olympics in China shows the open contempt that Olympic officials have for basic human rights and freedom.
Harold Shurtleff
Hyde Park, Mass.
Shurtleff is regional field director for the John Birch Society.
Why America has gone bust
Back about mid-June, I saw a letter titled "Country needs radical change." As what usually seems common in efforts to explain why America has gone from robust to simply bust, the wrong dynamic and class of people get blamed. Thus I'd like to offer another explanation, though it's likely to sound a bit "conspiratorial."
Just suppose that those who had ruled their nations for centuries as despots, from father to son, felt somewhat resentful that the emergence of a middle class essentially denied them that power. After all, weren't they, by birth and money, not entitled to rule their people as masters? Didn't the masses know just how inferior they were? Small wonder that these elite hated the middle class, challenging them in the name of God-given liberty. And this hatred simply grew deeper as the middle class grew stronger, and made the elite accountable. Clearly this couldn't continue, and the defiant middle class was to be effectively destroyed.
As if made to order, along came Marx to cloak this effort in slogans and cant. With him as their mouthpiece, they set in motion a systematic program of subjugating that class through the surest means, forced tribute. And with Marx breeding hate and envy of "the gross merchants of commerce and exploitation," they easily foisted a "progressive income tax" upon the actual producers.
That America has hit the skids so hard in about every way you could name, over just three generations, is no accident. It's actively being pushed that way. For starters, I recommend reading Taylor Caldwell's "The Middle Class Must Not Fail," and the State Department Memo No. 7, "A world effectively controlled by the United Nations," under President Kennedy, to get a better idea of why certain things are going on.
Robert Olejarz
Sidney
Past time for Thayne to go
First there was the budget fiasco, now Myrna Thayne decided to propel our county government, and its reputation, decades backwards under the guise of "saving taxpayers money." Ms. Thane's unilateral decision to exclude medical benefits for spouses of county employees who are involved in gay marriages or civil unions (The Daily Star, Aug. 13) is simply deplorable and embarrassing. More appalling, however, is that it appears to be an appeal for support from the least enlightened and most bigoted residents of the county, and to claim that this was done in the fiscal interest of taxpayers is just a transparent excuse for discrimination.
I cannot understand how Ms. Thane was allowed to make policy without consent of the board, and I am proud of our representatives for overturning her action. I feel, however, that more needs to be done.
As a registered Democrat, I appeal to our party to find and support a strong candidate for treasurer in the next election, and I urge the Republican committee not to endorse Ms. Thayne for re-election. Surely, this is not the best we can do. I would hope that this is not a question of political allegiance but one of civil rights, common sense and decency.
David Pearlman
Cooperstown
Local gas prices way out of line
Gas prices dropped 4 cents Tuesday, Aug. 19, but hold your cheers. Before you celebrate, you need to know that while a gallon of regular gas cost $3.85 at Hess and Valero, $3.91 at Mirabito and a whopping $3.99 at Taylors in Laurens, the price was $3.67 at Hess in Binghamton. While I know that it is our right as New Yorkers to pay more for practically everything (last week gas was $3.40 in Pennsylvania), if we are going to get ripped off shouldn't we be ripped off equally? Usually gas prices are similar between Oneonta and Binghamton, but now local stations are padding their wallets while we empty ours.
Can someone explain how gas can legitimately cost 18 cents higher or more just 50 miles from Binghamton? I urge all to pick up their phones or open up their e-mail and demand from Taylors, Valero, Mirabito, Hess, etc., that they bring local prices in line!
Oscar Oberkircher
Laurens
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