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.
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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