News & Articles

Thanks for the brilliant Singer cartoon

Thanks to Andy Singer for “A Twelve Step Recovery Program for Militarism” in the April 9 edition of the Reader. It was brilliant! The United States as a country had been making some progress on looking at the ways past and current policies were harmful to many people. That has been largely halted at the federal level, but we the people as individuals, communities, and states can continue to do what we can to make “liberty and justice for all” a reality.
Becky Norlien
Two Harbors, Minsesota

Socialism is only bad for the wealthy

Wealth, whether personal, a country or the world, can generally be measured in dollars. At any point in time, there is only so much wealth in existence. The only way to increase real wealth is through actual work. For example, iron ore itself is worthless. But if we mine it, turn it into steel, and make a toaster or pliers out of it, it has value based on the work people had put into it. When that toaster or pliers is created, overall wealth increases by the value of the items. It’s very simple.  (However, calculating what that value is, can be complicated.)

There’s a fundamental law of physics, of the universe, of any god. It says a dollar can only be in one place at a time. When a wealthy person pulls in one more dollar, somewhere someone else has one dollar less. (A dollar that he/she didn’t create and earn through actual work useful to someone else.) It’s what is called a “zero-sum game.”

There can only be wealthy people if we also make some people poorer. This is pretty important to remember as we make choices when voting. 
Capitalism grades people on a curve.  And people who seek wealth need poor people around. Otherwise, how could they tell they were wealthy? Maybe that’s “redistribution of wealth.” But if each person can only do so much work in a day, either physically or mentally, how can anyone responsibly or fairly accumulate 1,000 times the wealth of another?  The wealth has already been “redistributed”!

If we reduce what wealthy people can accumulate to improve the situations of the poorer, isn’t that “socialism”? Some animal grunts, “Ugh. Socialism — bad.” Who says “socialism — bad”? Why, the wealthy of course, to keep the scam going!
A. Martin
Merrifield, Minnesota

War, what is it good for? Trump’s ego!
Here is more evidence that my fellow humans think “war” (which is the freedom to kill people) exists by itself as its own entity – the fact that they believe a “war of choice” could exist.

A world leader with a superpower military wakes up one morning and says, “I’m in the mood to terrorize and slaughter some people today. Don’t need to or have to terrorize and slaughter people, but I’m in the mood. So I’m going to do a war of choice, since everyone believes (except Frank Erickson) that war alone gives all parties in the war the freedom to kill.”

“War” is the freedom to kill, so you can choose if you want to have the freedom to kill, as a species that claims to be civilized, I’m not sure how this is possible.

A “war of choice” is a war that doesn’t need to be done, a “war” that doesn’t need to be done can carry the same status, power and legal weight as a purely defensive “war” – how is this possible?

That you can choose to kill people and have the freedom to do so even when you don’t need to.
“War” has powers that transcend logic and reason.
Frank Erickson
Minneapolis, Minnesota