LETTERS

The divide has grown

Posted 12/4/14

To the Editor:

In 2004 then senator Barack Obama spoke to the Democrat national convention. He spoke of a divided America. A “tale of two countries” as he put it. A country divided between …

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LETTERS

The divide has grown

Posted

To the Editor:

In 2004 then senator Barack Obama spoke to the Democrat national convention. He spoke of a divided America. A “tale of two countries” as he put it. A country divided between black and white, rich and poor, educated and non-educated. Nowhere else was this better illustrated than in Ferguson, Missouri in the last week.

The rioting: there was more than a riot, it was a low level insurrection of the down-and-out against the powers that be. It was not just about officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown. In many ways things are worse than they were in 2004. The divide has grown even wider since then. The Republicans take care of the rich, and, despite Obama’s misguided help, little has been done to help the poor and the lower middle class.

The best social program of all is a good paying job, and no one in charge since 2004 has done much to provide that most basic need to all of us. As the cliché goes “all of the good jobs have gone to China.” So we are stuck in a rut. No one seems to care either what the future holds for this country. The bills keep mounting, and now a whole city center is burned to the ground. If you want to know where this anger comes from, look at the number of homeless, poor and deeply in debt people out there. 

We need coordinating councils between government, labor, business (large and small) and regular citizens to “tweak” existing laws and regulations to focus one thing: bringing the jobs back home and do whatever it takes to accomplish this goal. 

Kevin Vealey

Warwick

Comments

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  • RoyDempsey

    Right on Kevin. Hopefully, you and others will get involved.

    Thursday, December 4, 2014 Report this

  • JohnStark

    Kevin, Not sure what you mean by "coordinating councils", but the very last thing we need is for the government to be more involved in anything. If you wish to "tweak" regulations and taxes by reducing them, I'm all in since over-regulation and confiscatory taxes is what got us in this bind. Right now in the US, we have many jobs going unfilled due to a lack of highly-skilled, highly-trained workers. In fact, the national unemployment rate for those with college degrees is 3.1% (basically full employment) vs. 7.9% for those with less than a high school diploma. Want a job? Stay in school.

    Monday, December 8, 2014 Report this