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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (June 20, 2013)
LET TERS UNDERMINING OUR NATION problems cause many to have no home, especially children and women. Failure to stop Republican cuts is a catastrophe now for millions of poor Americans. Cuts are injuring and killing many American children and adults already homeless. Regular grassroots Americans need to restore our democracy that serves everyone. And daily, we need to shelter and provide income and services to America’s most poor. The job is way too big for just the faith community and other well meaning volunteers to reach all in need. Jerry Smith, MSW Eugene Since we are now entering the patriotic season, it would seem reasonable to consider who are the real enemies of our republic and how to defend it. We citizens have been told for years that our prime enemy is al Qaeda, perhaps with some reason. But the time has come to consider the following: If al Qaeda were blowing up mountains in Appalachia and elsewhere, pouring toxics into our groundwater and particulate matter into our air, holding patents on seeds that contained potent insecticides and herbicides, threatening the population of bees on which so much of our food depends, infl uencing legislators and regulators to allow all this and more to continue — then I am sure that American patriots would be convinced that it is indeed our prime enemy. But perhaps it is not. What is a patriotic American to do if the prime enemy of their health and welfare lies somewhere else? Putting a fl ag in every classroom and on every porch may not be enough to make us secure. Patricia Spicer Eugene WAR ON THE POOR America has turned from the compassionate nation of the war on poverty to Paul Ryan’s war against the poor. We have created a large new lower class we call Homeless. Government structures are needed by the poor now being attacked, abandoned and currently have no hope of help. 4 June 20, 2013 • eugeneweekly.com OUR BASIC RIGHTS Present governments must go beyond inadequate food stamps for the abandoned people now unsheltered with no safety. Federal, state and local government must add to their systems shelter and income for all needy Americans. “Welfare” (except for some families with children) has disappeared; no shelter, no income and no services now reach the homeless. America’s unfortunate homeless human beings need safe shelter day by day. What forces people into homelessness? Biggest of the problems is no income or too little income to spend on housing. Homeless people are seldom accepted in “the job market.” Others, also without enough money cannot manage their lives due to lack of education, physical and mental disability, substance abuse or being discarded from institutions. Family The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S.: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affi rmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Tom Giesen Eugene JOIN THE FIGHT State Sen. Floyd Prozanski just voted to give the timber industry more special, unfair rules with which to intimidate protesters in the courtroom. It comes as no surprise, really, that the vast majority
