Letters to the Editor June 25, 2011

Tea Party’s funders want return to 19th Century exploitation

I keep reading and hearing about the Tea Party and its activities in Crescent City. They portray themselves as a grassroots group of everyday Americans. Probably many of the Tea Party members in Crescent City are just that, but I wonder if those who are “average Joes” realize that those who originated and heavily finance the Tea Party are not ordinary, working-class Americans.

When one traces the origin of the Tea Party, one soon comes to the names of some of America’s wealthiest people, namely the Kansas oil billionaires, the brothers Charles and David Koch. Each Koch brother is believed to be worth $21.5 billion according to Forbes magazine.

These people start and provide financial backing for harmless-sounding front groups that promote extremely conservative causes. They are against labor unions, (they have been strong financial backers of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin who this last spring worked so hard to destroy Wisconsin’s public employee unions) environmental regulations, health care legislation, anti-tobacco legislation, etc.

They are against practically anything considered progressive. In short, they are for 19th century exploitative capitalism, ala Charles Dickens. Long term, their goal is to reduce working class people to conditions of serfdom or near slavery. This means starvation wages, no medical care, no retirement benefits, etc. Back to the good old 19th century!

The Koches work through “front groups” with nice-sounding names, such as Americans for Prosperity (the AFP) and even “Tea Party Patriots.” Americans for Prosperity has been a major organizer of the Tea Party movement, providing much funding for it.

I urge you who read this not to just take my work for it. Get online, go to various websites concerning the Tea Party and see what you think after investigating it. Does the Tea Party really sound like a truly spontaneous grassroots movement, or is it really just a front for extremely wealthy Americans who want to be like the “robber barons” of old?

Google topics like Americans for Prosperity, Tea Party financiers, the Koch family, the Koch brothers, Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia (Tea Party organizers). You might find it interesting and quite frightening in some cases.

Allen C. Johnson

Klamath

Writer unaware Sodom story points finger at homophobes

I wonder if Patricia Thorpe (“Homosexuality, perversions common now, but still wrong,” June 22) knows any gay men or lesbians here in Crescent City. There are a few of us, not many.

We don’t go around trying to rape strangers like the men of Sodom. She might want to reread the story, too, or just think about it.

I look at it as a story of homophobia. Two very pretty, somewhat effeminate-looking men show up in Sodom. The townsfolk are outraged by this gay couple and decide to teach them a lesson by raping them. They are thwarted by Lot, the one good guy in town, who takes in the two men and protects them. Of course, the two men are not a gay couple, but angels sent to warn Lot that the town will be destroyed.

Maybe we can learn from this story not to attack a whole group of people based on how they look or a dubious interpretation of a Bible story. Better to see the image of the divine in everyone. You never know who might really be an angel.

Barry Wendell

Crescent City