Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Letters to the editor:

It’s awful — or maybe it’s not…

Our opinion

We asked for your thoughts on Occupy Wall Street. You can find our editorial here.

We asked, you answered — here is a sampling of the letters to the editor we received about Occupy Wall Street.

Congress, not Wall Street, is the real culprit

The Sun asked for opinions on the Occupy Wall Street movement. Here is mine. It is “misdirected.” Those protesting seem to be most angry about the unemployment, and the bailout of Wall Street and the banks. Other Americans are mad about the debt, and the continued deficit spending. I ask, who made the bailouts necessary? Who enabled the bailouts? Who provided the bailouts without any oversight? Who continues to deficit spend? Who ran up the debt?

The banks and Wall Street lobbied Congress for the legislation and rules that allowed them to run wild ... and Congress provided it. When it all went wrong, the banks and Wall Street lobbied Congress for a bailout ... with very few strings attached ... and Congress provided it. Congress continues to deficit spend and run up the debt.

I understand the anger and frustration and I feel it too, but why aren’t Americans directing their anger at the one branch of government that has the power to “enable” and did “enable” every bad thing that has happened? Why aren’t Americans angry and protesting the one branch of our government that can start to reverse all the bad that has happened but isn’t doing that? If you know anything about our own government, you know the legislative branch (Congress) writes all the laws, and sets all tax policy. Laws and tax policy lobbied for by powerful interests, including Wall Street and banks and “enacted” by Congress, are the reason our economy is so messed up.

If people want to protest, don’t protest against Wall Street and the banks, protest against the people who handed them everything they lobbied for, without a shot being fired. Congress! Better yet, the next time you see your friendly senator or representative’s name on a ballot, cast you vote for someone else ... anyone else.

Michael K. Casler, Las Vegas

There’s something disconcertingly familiar

Thank you protesters of Occupy Wall Street, progressives and liberals, for finally, finally saying what you believe.

It is about time people know that you stand united in the belief that, “to each according to their needs, to each according their ability.”

Karl Marx couldn’t have said it better.

Joe Conover, Las Vegas

Real reform is something that starts from within

No one can clean up Wall Street by defecating on it. Fornicating near the stockbrokers may say, “Screw you,” but it does not quite rise to the level of genuine reform. Zealous columnists who employ hyperbole to exalt OWS merely fan the fires of dizzy discontent and circumvent focus on the underlying causes of our country’s economic failure.

We did not arrive at this dismal state in two or even 10 years. Moreover, the elected are merely the mirror of our worst selves. Over time we have satiated ourselves on cheap products despite the fact that the globally, truly impoverished make them; anxiously intent to live the dream, even beyond our means; too lazy and self-centered to clean up our own neighborhoods or personally assist neighbors in need; and spiritually self adoring, all but annihilating family and community life and commitment.

If we truly seek to resolve our dilemma, we must start by Occupying Our Souls with sizzling candor and spiritual truth and walk in ways that are authentically charitable and compassionate. Furthermore, we should vow never to vote for people who would destroy the home(front) while lining their pockets and preening their own feathers. Better to have an empty Congress that can do us no harm than a bunch of deceiving devils playing us against each other.

Patricia Hershwitzky, Las Vegas

It's a ballot box that can make lasting change

You asked what we think about the Occupy Wall Street movement. I don’t like mob rule, here or anywhere in the world. Take the USA for instance. We have about 300,000,000 people here. Most of them are working every day, whether it’s a mother dressing her children for school in the morning and helping them with their homework at night, or whether it’s an electrical utility worker who climbs up a pole in the middle of an ice storm to restore power to thousands of people.

But if you take one out of every 300,000 people and somebody pays their plane ticket to New York, and they raise hell on the street, you have what the media calls a movement.

This is not how we make political decisions in America. I want a voice, and I want it to be at the ballot box!

Charles Gould, Las Vegas

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