The enemy is us

Editor

It is an inconvenient truth that income inequality is not caused by the 1%, but by the growing segment of society which lacks marketable skills and education. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, 40% of babies are born to single moms and each year half a million teens have children. Are Republicans the only ones who think this is a problem?

A study in Sweden found that single-parent children were twice as likely to have serious health problems, addictions, mental illnesses, and to commit suicide. This was not a right-wing hate study. Of course, other studies have found the same problems here which are contributing to a rapidly growing underclass that requires ever-increasing support services such as day care, Medicaid, housing assistance, and remedial education, to name just a few chronic and increasing problem areas. Will these problems go away if we avoid looking at a primary root cause? That’s what we’ve been doing, and it’s only getting worse.

Unemployment is bad at 8.6% (12% in California), and only looks like it is getting better because of seasonal hiring. However, good jobs go unfilled because Americans don’t have the education, skills, or required willingness to work. Many high-tech, high-paying jobs go begging unless businesses can hire foreign workers. In Wyoming (3.5% unemployment) over 16,000 high-paying energy jobs go unfilled because Americans are unwilling to relocate and work hard. Fifty years ago in Point Arena many of us worked at jobs that only illegal immigrants will take now, which depresses wages for unskilled and undereducated Americans, including college graduates.

The cartoon “Zits” summed it up nicely: Jeremy wants to major in music theory to “totally justify playing in a band while racking up $100,000 in student loans and graduating with minimal marketable skills.” Unfortunately, he’s not alone.

Mike Combs

Gualala

Hateful Lefties

Editor

Criticizing Occupy activists is considered hateful, judging from responses to Jim Littlejohn’s criticisms. Now it looks like the left-leaning Press Democrat should also be tagged “hateful” because of their November 28 editorial, “More muddled messages from Occupy folks”, which noted that the attempt to disrupt “Black Friday” shopping damaged Santa Rosa Occupy’s credibility and focus.

Occupy Wall Street’s national shopping boycott failed spectacularly, as Black Friday sales were up a record 7%, showing OWS has no clout as a national movement.

The ultra-left San Francisco Chronicle was “hateful” two weeks ago when in an editorial “Oakland says ‘enough’”, the Chronicle opined: “Oakland leaders finally acted decisively to remove a sprawling and unruly camp from the city's central downtown plaza. It was the right move, one that San Francisco should consider in responding to a similar tent city that's taken over an Embarcadero park.”

In another “hateful” editorial, the Chronicle concluded: “The Occupy movement is no longer  associated with protests over income inequality or Wall Street misconduct. Now it's about squalor and public safety, thanks largely to its nonexistent leadership and disorganization.”

What does OWS want? Income redistribution no doubt; having government take the rightful property of one group and give it to another, also known as theft. “When you take from Peter and give to Paul, you can count on Paul’s support.”

The rest of the OWS message is the usual Liberal hodgepodge of special interest issues, made particularly incoherent by its lack of leadership and direction. As OWS camps become full-time homeless camps and OWS activists flee their squalor – and Winter rain and freezing – the backlash by the media, municipalities, and weary voters will cause the Left to wish Occupy Wall Street never happened.

And as a coherent movement, it hasn’t.

Mike Combs

Gualala

NOW WE VET (Published in the Independent Coast Observer)

The “mainstream media” is joining in their usual game of magnifying weaknesses and diminishing the strengths of Republican primary candidates. Too bad such due diligence was not carried out in 2008 for then candidate Obama. He may still have won the election given his natural charm, the anti-incumbent mood, and the near collapse of the financial system in Bush’s final months. Nevertheless, voters would have had a lot more information on which to base their judgements and the country might have been spared a great deal of agony.

It’s not a pretty sight to see unfolding what was easily predictable - - a struggling President who was not prepared through either experience or temperament for arguably the most difficult executive position in the world. A local liberal and good friend asked me shortly after the election what I thought of President Obama. I replied that I was delighted we had elected our first black President, but concerned that he’d never really run anything, not even a daycare center.

Most Conservatives are quite dubious of candidates for President on either side of the aisle who lack solid executive credentials, and even more so after the past three years. Conservative regrets about McCain were plentiful but didn’t carry the day, and his inability and/or unwillingness to take the fight to candidate Obama was puzzling. 

We now have a mixed bag of Republican candidates with a range of strengths and weaknesses. I can’t predict the winner, but I think it’s safe to assume that whoever comes out on top will have to prove to Republican voters that he or she has a reservoir of the skills and experience to be an effective leader. And equally important, the tenacity to defeat an incumbent. Make no mistake, President Obama, enveloped in the protective shield of the media, is a formidable campaigner.

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA