Letters to the editor: Swim center successes ignored

Swim center successes ignored

I am puzzled. Since moving to Columbus in September and joining the Aquatic Center as part of the Hurricane's Masters Swimming Team, I have been impressed by two facts: the excellent quality of the facility (and my coach) and the significant furor surrounding its dire financial plight, to include your editorials lamenting the crisis.

So why is it that when the facility is able to host a national collegiate championship meet last week, there is nary a mention of the daily activities in the sports pages, much less the paper as a whole? And a team from Savannah won the Women's Championship. National exposure, but local oblivion?

Feel safer? Really?

The Georgia Senate is considering something University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckabee has opposed: an increase in the number of concealed weapons at Georgia colleges and universities.

The paper-thin pretext for House Bill 859 is concern that a rash of armed robberies on campuses has imperiled students, who must take up arms.

Reported support for the bill focuses on Second Amendment rights to the exclusion of the rest of the Constitution. A minority of gun owners simply does not care if their legal gun will endanger anyone else as long as it makes them feel safe.

No other country has a level of civilian firepower comparable to America’s arsenal. We have become a nation where toddlers shoot people on a regular basis. Each day more than 80 Americans are killed by a bullet. More than 50 of these Americans kill themselves. The closer people are to a gun, statistically, the more likely it is to kill them.

A state senate committee heard from a significant number of opponents to Campus Carry last week, but ignored them. To blame partisan politics and the gun lobby for this overlooks inaction by a third party: the rest of the state.

Georgians may want to consider something. If your child is going to college in Georgia next fall, are you going to feel better knowing he or she is “protected” by the stranger walking nearby with a hidden gun? Share your answer with your legislator.

Public input?

Last year an attempt was made by the Phenix City Council to amend the charter which provides for governance of the city; that attempt failed. This year, this council is attempting to have this amendment approved with no input from their constituency. These changes would not only alter the form of government but allow for additional hirings a city with absolutely no economic development can ill afford, as per the current fiscal budget.

Since proposed amendments will not be addressed by voter referendum which would allow for citizen input, I recently contacted newly elected Representative Chris Blackshear, who informed me that he was aware of what currently is going on. If a form of government which governs a city is to be amended it should not be done without the constituents being accordingly advised. Sincere appreciation to Rep. Blackshear in his efforts to bring desperately needed transparency to a struggling and uninformed community.

Bipartisan looting

“Establishment” for 99 percent of America means those entrenched in power who have rigged the economic, social and political system. Those who refuse to prosecute rich Wall Street “white” collar criminals, con artists and hedge thugs who stole 17 trillion dollars and years of prosperity and security from the middle class and the poor.

“Establishment” is the owners of media who have fired real journalists for revealing the truth about toxic trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other “Establishment” pet projects (often “fast-tracked” through Congress in the wee hours of the last night of the session in the back committee room with a select handful of lobbyists and quid pro quo congressmen) designed to enrich CEOs and political contributors while devastating the other 99 percent’s future.

“Establishment” is the Democratic National Committee (DNC), whose chairman; Debbie Wasserman Schultz, seeks to dismantle Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (created to protect average Americans from the ravages of institutionalized “white” collar crime) to appease Hillary’s rich Wall Street donors and to punish Senator Warren, Bernie Sanders or anyone who tries to stand up for the American people.

“Establishment” is the 1990 George Bush/Bill Clinton repeal of the Glass-Steagall Bill (that kept the American economy safe, fair and robust for 60 years after the Great Depression) to further empower the powerful and insure their continued political support.

“Establishment” is the 1percent’s systematic theft of democracy, via both the GOP and the Democratic Party, by gerrymandering, voter suppression, deregulation, revolving door legislative rigging and massive corporate welfare that have left the average American with no voice, no power and no guarantee of fairness or prosperity.

Americans are fed up with the “Establishment.” We want a revolution.

This story was originally published March 11, 2016 at 10:55 AM with the headline "Letters to the editor: Swim center successes ignored."