Letters to the Editor

Remembering the Alamo

About to become an octogenarian, I look back at a life well lived but am discouraged about the future. My despair is not for the few years I have left, but for the future of our grandchildren, their entire generation and this nation. All great periods in history eventually come to an end: the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the British, and now it appears to be America’s turn to self-destruct. The lights are going out in the “shining city on the hill” and the natives are too ignorant of the past and too blind to the future to understand that their “social revolution” is a cultural cancer from which there is no recovery.

Without even knowing it, I had won life’s lottery by being born in America. I grew up with schooling that focused on the 3 R’s, guided by basic principles of morality and reason. You were expected to maximize your educational opportunities and then set out to achieve the American Dream. Success would come as a result of hard work and self-reliance. There was space to conquer, new technologies to invent, medical miracles to discover, an industrial revolution to expand, and major construction projects to be built. The nation was hitting on all cylinders. The last place one looked to for help was Washington, D.C.

But, by mid-life, things began to get more complicated. My generation’s version of the decline begins with the growth of the drug scene, the Woodstock culture, MTV, the “me-generation” and ever-expanding governmental regulations. These early beginnings have not morphed into an all-out assault on the founding values of this country, and on those founders whose vision of “a more perfect union” has been the road map for this nation for more than two hundred years. That morality, and the ability to apply meaningful direction to one’s life, has given way to “groupthink,” based upon victimization and a desire to get “free stuff” (paid for by others). 

Media sources and our pathetic educational system have worked hand-in-hand 24/7/365 at twisting minds to mirror biased views of the past, present, and future. No one is naive enough to claim there were not some dark periods and a few bumps in the road in our nation’s history, but this has been and still is the most decent and giving country on Earth.

Period.

So, now I carry a baseball bat in our car in case some chanting out-of-control street rally mob takes offense at our “God Bless America” bumper sticker and attacks my wife and me. The other attack we’re expecting is the one from some “Central Authority” that confiscates all our retirement savings to redistribute to those more needy and therefore by definition, more deserving. We saved all our working lives so that in retirement we would not be a burden on our children or need to rely on government programs for our survival. That makes us a target to be dealt with. The Holy Grail for all those politicians committed to the destruction of the “American Way” and capitalism has become the confiscation of personal wealth.

And so, to all those who say we just need to come together, hold hand and sing “Kumbayah,” get real. America does not need to be remade but the lunatics are at the gate. Remember the Alamo. It didn’t turn out too well for the good guys.

Pat Brooks
Santa Barbara

(Editor’s note: If you are worried about mobs taking offense with your “God Bless America” bumper sticker, just imagine the kind of damage that could occur if you put a “Trump 2020” sticker there too. My advice: put a “Hillary 2024” sticker instead, that way absolutely no one will bother with you or your car. – J.B.)

The New Reality

Forget the Democrat Party. There are enough socialist-communists in the Democrat Party for Crazy Bernie to win the presidential nomination. But, this is the United States of America. Sanders needs to convince more than 65 million voters, at least, to vote for him, and not President Trump. Not only is the USA the most anti-communist, freedom-loving, free-market capitalist, Constitutional Republic in the world, but the economic policies of Sanders’ opponent – Donald Trump – has propelled the U.S. economy into the stratosphere.

Everybody, right now, in May 2019, who wants a job and is willing to work, either has a job or is beginning one shortly. For all intents and purposes, the U.S. unemployment rate is “zero.” In 2016, Barack Obama lectured a group of middle-class skilled and semi-skilled workers at an Indiana factory that the type of jobs they’ve held, and that their fathers and grandfathers had held, are slipping away in this New Global Economy, where manufacturing will be done overseas in Third World countries. And despite what Candidate Donald Trump was saying on the campaign hustings, there’s no way to counter the New Reality. Manufacturing jobs, which would enable one breadwinner to support a family, are history, viewable only through the rearview mirror.

Guess what, everybody? The average U.S. wage is reported at $27.77/hour. And The Wall Street Journal reported (May 2, 2019) that Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Corporation has announced it is investing $1.2 billion in its mills in Braddock and Clairton (PA), near Pittsburgh (PA). Hundreds of thousands of new working-class manufacturing jobs that (for the most part) don’t require a four-year college degree have opened up since Donald Trump took office back in January 2017.

Donald Trump did not create these jobs. Nobody in government can create anything. But what government can do is wipe-away lots of meaningless, stagnating and punishing regulations that puts government in the marketplace. Between all the people who are involved in designing, creating, building, marketing and buying products which consumers need to live more satisfying lives, lower taxes free up stashed-away cash reserves waiting for profitable opportunities to invest in.

Right now, the USA is far-and-away the most prosperous nation in the world. It may be the only truly prosperous country anywhere. Is it any wonder one-third of the dissatisfied people in the world have told pollsters they wish, if they could, to emigrate to Trump’s America? Thirty-one years ago, Bernie Sanders, Mayor of Burlington, VT, comes along, gets married, and takes his honeymoon to a Soviet Union that was already on the skids, but nevertheless very much alive, and a menace to freedom-loving people and nations everywhere. Sanders discarded all the etiquette of traditional diplomacy, which dictates that criticism is welcome at home, but that we should keep our opinions to ourselves while on foreign soil. As a U.S. mayor, he theoretically ripped the political-economic infrastructure of his homeland in favor of the one exhibited and on display in the Soviet Union.

Beginning not a year after Crazy Bernie’s honeymoon, communism in Eastern Europe began to unravel. By Christmas 1991, the greatest experiment in totalitarian government simply collapsed under its own weight, and evaporated into thin air.

Only one fatality was recorded in Moscow on that jubilant, triumphant day in Russia. Yet, Bernie Sanders has no misgivings whatsoever. Socialism and communism in his worldview are superior moral imperatives compared to freedom, liberty, capitalism and prosperity. He can postulate and spout off all he wants about the failures of socialist-communist societies. They were all failures for reasons that come back to capitalist nations’ opposition to their very existence. Had they been allowed to evolve peacefully into classless societies, he says, there would have been no reasons for the mass murdering and scorched-earth destruction.

Translated, we in the West are responsible for the downfalls of every socialist-communist experiment attempted since the ideology of socialism was brewed and hatched in the early 19th century. Had the West just let them alone, most socialist-communist societies would already have reached and achieved Utopia and Eternal Bliss. Bernie Sanders has a lot to answer for. It may be true that communist theory is more popular in the U.S. than Red China, but nobody in 2020 is going to ride a socialist-communist railroad to the White House past President Trump without getting grossly humiliated, and most certainly, derailed.

David S. McCalmont
Santa Barbara

(Editor’s note: We have to take issue with your statement that “Nobody in government can create anything.” Governments create regulations that stymie growth, free enterprise, and small business formation. Most impressively, governments are absolutely brilliant at creating generations-long dependency in otherwise capable adults and their offspring with programs designed to “help” those in need. – J.B.)

Out in Left Field

If this were the 1956 NY Yankees, it would be and Mickey Mantle in Center Field, or Hank Bauer in Right Field. This is from someone with an awesome knowledge of the game.

Don Kruszenski
Santa Barbara

(Editor’s note: Aaargh, you are referring to our cover copy from last issue, in which we (I) wrote: “If this were the 1956 NY Yankees, it would be Whitey Ford pitching, Yogi Berra behind the plate, and Mickey Mantle in right field.” You are of course correct. I resourced the NY Yankees 1956 roster to come up with that copy, in which outfielder Mickey Mantle was listed as “right.” That surprised me when I read it, but honestly, I didn’t remember which outfield position he held. After reading your missive I went back to the roster and realized the “right” reference was to Mantle’s dominant throwing arm and hitting side. In other words, he was a right-handed… centerfielder. Sorry for the error and thank you for pointing it out. – J.B.)

Growing Up American

When was the last time a wealthy citizen arrested, beat, shot or put you in jail? When was the last time wealthy citizens made war on another country, committed genocide or used WMD? Beware power, not wealth. Beware the government, not the wealthy.

I recall as a young boy, growing up in the 1940 and ‘50s, noticing material differences between families in my Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. Some of my friends had luxury homes near the top of Baldwin Hills. Others lived in very nice homes below the hill in Rancho Vista, and others, like my family, lived in more modest apartments in the Village Green and lower lying environs.

At Christmas, kids would show off their gifts and it was clear that some kids fared better than others. Then kids talked about what their dads did to make a living: Klaus’s* dad was a well-paid engineer for Walt Disney. Smith’s was a Frigidaire salesman. Goldstein’s dad owned a paint store. Eric’s family lived at the top of the hill, and their dad, R.J., was a successful contractor. Wilson’s dad was a District Attorney; Kornberg’s dad owned a car lot on La Brea.

My dad was self-employed in the house cleaning business. It seemed near the bottom rung on the career list, which was a little embarrassing, but I didn’t shy away from saying what he did for a living. Dad spent a lot of his time with me: baseball, cards, games, camping, tinker toys, etc. Modest pursuits perhaps, but I wouldn’t have traded our good times together for anything. Mom contributed through extensive part time and volunteer work and a steady supply of love. She was once PTA president at Audubon Jr. High.

Perhaps that’s one reason I don’t measure success or failure in economic terms. For me, economic status is one of the poorest measures of success or happiness. All the sadder, in my opinion, to stoke the flames of material envy for the cynical acquisition of political power.

Yes, we compared our dad’s and their cars and houses and luxury items and sometimes jealousies arose and feelings were hurt. For my own part, though we weren’t all equal materially, I accepted the way things were. I observed that everyone was free to choose their own career and that some were perhaps more ambitious, or clever, or lucky than others, and so differences were inevitable. That’s the way life was, and everyone’s outcome was different. And it was okay, as long as we were free to choose, and no one hurt or stole anything from anyone. Nor was anyone stuck in place. Some went up and some went down according to effort, fecklessness or the winds of fortune.

Likewise, as we became adults, we made choices that mostly determined our destinies and economic outcomes. The same factors were at play: mainly, ambition and sometimes a little luck, good or bad. Rich or poor, many of us worked before we graduated from high school: Klaus at Sav-On, Eric at Thriftimart, Wilson at Safeway, Kornberg at Baldwin Hills Drug, Smith at Hody’s and Goldstein at Wilshire Gas. I worked at Sutton’s Union 76. Instead of borrowing for college, many of us worked our way through. There was an assumption of self-reliance.

I never felt someone should even things out by taking away my friends’ stuff. That seemed akin to stealing, something I learned and innately believed was wrong, if not unlawful.

There was no Medicare, Medicaid, Medi-Cal. I wasn’t aware of a food stamp program. I didn’t know anyone on welfare. Government spending and debt were nominal. Health insurance was affordable and doctors made inexpensive house calls. I never saw anyone starve or die in the street from lack of care. The safety net was your family, your friends, houses of worship, and private charity.

And we kids, though perhaps at times obnoxious about differences in status, chose our friends across all levels of economic strata. And despite economic differences, I felt a sense of community among most of our families. Most of my friend’s parents were stellar in their treatment of me and I was always welcomed into their homes. That love and sense of community meant more to me than anyone’s economic position.

I don’t understand the class warfare mentality. There are more meaningful things in life than economic position or possessions. And, if they choose, people can ascend the economic ladder as far as their ambition propels them.

*Names have been changed for privacy. 

Steve King
Carpinteria

Heading Downhill

As the economic underpinnings of the nation shift more toward technology, which we need for economic survival, that technology will displace an increasing number of its citizens who fail to adapt. In a way, this is Darwinian. Those so displaced, still require sustenance and shelter as well as activity, for the brain is a busy thing wanting stimulation. Absent that stimulation, the brain can get mischievous and the basics of society start to break down. Taken far enough, an us/them situation develops and the threads of society began to fray. 

Because I believe that this is part of a Darwinian shift and a sifting out of the weaker or less well prepared, we will see it accelerate. What’s the half-life of new technology? Something like 2.5 years and accelerating. Thus, there will be an accelerating increase in the numbers of the displaced, hence homeless. 

How far can this go? As a young man, I had time to walk the side streets of Bombay. This was during the 1950s. I saw the sidewalks littered by the sleeping (or dead) homeless. A donkey-drawn cart would occasionally come along and the crew would throw yet another dead body onto the pile. Defecation was done where one could. This seemed to be the norm. This “norm” in lack of sanitation is a fairly big problem also in Los Angeles, which recognizes it as a rapidly growing public health issue. We can say we are better off than India (thus far).

Santa Barbara and the Central Coast has long been a habitat for man, the resources are here to supply a less than harsh life, even for the growing numbers of homeless. But, as within L.A., their growing numbers may soon be more than nuisance issues and may turn out to be a serious public health issue. As L.A. City and County Public Health is finding, the density of homeless is exceeding the carrying capacity needed for disease transmission. In these densities, data are showing that the contributions of drug use are also affecting the stability of these people to maintain needed in-hospital care. Recently, the Santa Barbara Independent noted that, locally, homeless person hospital visits each month (155) are made by a fairly consistent small handful of the same homeless. This might be reduced by a newly proposed program. But, it goes beyond hospital visits. It is also what is on the street.

Needing a fix, the addict will often sign out of the hospital against medical advice (ADA). This sees them in a circuit between street and hospital and in the interim, if they have a communicable disease, acting as potential carriers. The rate of homeless using the ADA exit is not insignificant. Those in hospital and on certain addictive drugs, and in need of a fix, can demonstrate superhuman strength, become erratic and very dangerous toward staff. During training at the big L.A. County hospital, LAC/USC, I experienced this, which is a constant issue for staff safety.

Because we have the chance to gain perspective based on experiences in the Third World as well as in Los Angeles, we should move more aggressively. The answers will not come easily. We spend tens of millions on bilateral assistance programs in helping the downtrodden in foreign lands, but in many instances, their aid is based on highly studied answers and carried out with those who want help and are willing to make it work. But, these are also low-tech nations based mainly on agrarian systems, systems we left long ago.

Dr. Edo McGowan
Montecito