Letters 08-24-2015

Aug. 21, 2015

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Bush And Blame

Jeb Bush strikes again. Understand that Bush III represents the nearly extinct, compassionate-conservative, moderate wing of the Republican party.

Last month, he said he wanted to "phase out Medicare"; more recently he said "I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues"; now he tells a group of military contractors that our Iraq war "turned out to be a pretty good deal."

Imagine the Bush II team truthfully telling us in 2003, "Here’s the plan: To make Iran more powerful, we’ll take out Iran’s avowed enemy, the secular Saddam. We have no reliable evidence that he was involved in 9/11 or has WMDs. Still, he is a bad man with lots of oil and we only support friendly dictators. Military contractors will make billions. It’ll only cost us 4,000 American lives, thousands more Americans gravely wounded in body and spirit, and around $2 trillion. We will fuel our own fundamentalist religious bigots against the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. Our invasion and occupation will trigger a worldwide surge in anti-Americanism and years of chaos in the Middle East."

The argument that Iraq "turned out to be a pretty good deal" is as absurd as the current spin for scuttling the pending Iran treaty - because it will somehow trigger more negotiations and a better settlement. The same neo-cons who gave us this mess in Mesopotamia now say the mess is really Obama’s fault for withdrawing troops "prematurely." No matter that Bush II signed an agreement on December 14, 2008 promising to remove all U.S. troops by the end of 2011.

Leonard Page, Cheboygan

No More State Theatre

I was quite surprised and disgusted by an article I saw in last week’s edition. On pages 18 and 19 was an article about how the State Theatre downtown let some homosexual couple get married there.

This is a beautiful theater, but now neither I nor my family will ever set foot in it again. I remember how excited we were to first get to go there. We were planning on coming up on the 26th to see a 25 cent movie, but not now.

I know it’s not the employees’ fault, but I’m guessing it’s the management that allowed that to happen. Don’t they have other places in Traverse City to go to for that? Now it is our family that will be hurting, and won’t be able to see movies there any more.

Colleen Smith, Cadillac

GMOs Unsustainable

Steve Tuttle’s column on GMOs was both uninformed and off the mark. Genetic engineering will not feed the world like Tuttle claims. However, GMOs do have the potential to starve us because they are unsustainable. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it seems like the Monsanto fairies have opened up Mr. Tuttle’s skull and are washing away his intelligence. One can learn how wrong he is by checking out the documentary "March On Monsanto" on the web.

Bill Bustance, Williamsburg

A Pin Drop

Senator Debbie Stabenow spoke on August 14 to a group of Democrats in Charlevoix, an all-white, seemingly middle class, well-educated audience, half of whom were female.

When she announced her endorsement of Hillary Clinton, there was an opportunity for enthusiastic cheering from the Clinton supporters. Instead, the audience response was rather muted. I wonder if the Democratic establishment is paying attention to its base.

Winnie Boal, Charlevoix

A Slippery Slope

Most of us would agree that an appropriate suggestion to a physician who refuses to provide a blood transfusion to a dying patient because of the doctor’s religious views would be, "Please doctor, change your profession as a less selfish means of protecting your religious freedom."

The same advice, I would argue, would be perfectly appropriate if offered to the Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis who, because of religious convictions, refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.

When religious convictions trump a perfectly legal practice, an ominous slippery slope steepens, which could very well lead to a facsimile of Sharia Law.

Bob Ross, Pellston

Stabilize Our Climate

Climate scientists have been saying that in order to stabilize the climate, we need to limit global warming to less than two degrees. Renewables other than hydropower provide less than 3 percent of the world energy. In order to achieve the two degree scenario, the world needs to generate 11 times more wind power by 2050, and 36 times more solar power. It will require a big helping of new nuclear power, too.

Economists generally agree the most equitable way to move towards low carbon energy would be a global system of steadily escalating carbon taxes. Citizens Climate Lobby has a proposal that places a fee on carbon progressively at the point of origin and returns the entire dividend to households.

In 20 years, CO2 emissions would be reduced by 50 percent below 1990 levels. Because of the economic stimulus of recycling carbon fees revenue back to households, in 20 years based on projections, 2.8 million jobs would be added to the American economy, and improved air quality would help avoid 230,000 premature deaths.

In order to encourage a global system, the proposal includes a border adjustment tax, which requires countries doing business with the U.S. to either have a similar policy or pay a tariff. Most countries will most likely implement a similar policy so they can keep the fees generated rather than give them to U.S.

Ronald Marshall, Petoskey

Harm From GMOs

I usually agree with the well-reasoned opinions expressed in Stephen Tuttle’s columns but I must challenge his assertions concerning GMO foods. As many proponents of GMOs do, Mr. Tuttle conveniently ignores the basic fact that GMO corn, soybeans and other crops have been engineered to withstand massive quantities of herbicides. This strategy is designed to maximize profits for chemical companies, such as Monsanto. The use of copious quantities of herbicides, including glyphosates, is losing its effectiveness and the producers of these poisons are promoting the use of increasingly dangerous substances to achieve the same results.

The latest concoction contains 2,4-D, a component of Agent Orange, a suspected carcinogen. Though research currently indicates no difference to human health between GMO and non-GMO foods, there may still be harm that will take more time to be revealed. Whether or not GMOs are a direct health hazard, there is no doubt that the massive application of poisons used to produce these crops cause harm to our environment and must end.

Bill Ward Honor