Community Voices
Impressed by election workers professionalism
I was a first-time poll watcher in Homer at last week’s general election. It was an eye-opening experience. I was impressed by the consistent professionalism of the election workers at the United Methodist Church precinct where I spent 16 hours watching the voting process. I was watching the workers being sworn in (see photo, above), and when I heard the words “I will honestly and faithfully perform the duties…” I actually choked up a little. I think it was for an appreciation of the love for our country by all of us there: workers, voters, citizens together.
Jim Lavrakas
Thank you for supporting senior center trivia night fundraiser
Homer Senior Center would like to extend a thank you to everyone who joined for Homer Trivia Night and supported the Homer Senior Center!
Special thanks to Josh Tobin and Alice’s Champagne Palace for hosting the event, our volunteers, players and our trivia Quizmaster.
The night was a huge success and fun was the order of the evening while testing the players knowledge of “old Homer to current day Homer.”
Thank you!
Shirlie Gribble
HSC Board Member
U.S. armed forces are necessary to the cause of peace
One can fully support the intent of Michael LeMay in his Nov. 5 letter, and other members of the local chapter of Veterans for Peace, to promote universal peace. But good-will is not a realistic basis for achieving such an esoteric goal. I hope the chapter’s members have given due consideration of the policies stated in their organization’s Declaration of Purpose because unilaterally implementing several of them would be disastrous to the security and well-being of the United States, therefore detrimental to the cause of peace itself.
For instance, item 2: “To restrain our governments from intervening … in the internal affairs of other nations.” Hostile nations exist (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, etc.) who are actively working covertly to neutralize or destroy the economic, cultural and military influence of the United States. Therefore, it’s in the best interests of the United States itself to disrupt the malicious intent of any such hostile adversary through covert intervention in their civil society to weaken their capability and will to engage in active warfare. Example: Assume Israel existed in the early 1930s. It would have been in Israel’s (and the United States) best interest to covertly intervene in German politics to stop Hitler and the Nazis from gaining political control of Germany, thereby probably saving the lives of 50 million people, including six million Jews.
Item 7: “To abolish war as an instrument of national policy.” The unilateral abolition of war as national policy would, by definition, mean the total dismemberment of the nation’s armed forces. The consequences of such an event would be a collapse of world order, currently maintained largely by the United States military. The adversarial nations would simply fill in the void and negate the sacrifices of those “who stood in harm’s way for love of family and country.”
World peace can only manifest through two routes: The first being a world government imposed by force (the Roman Empire); the second is where the majority of the world’s inhabitants have transformed themselves into enlightened humans (the Brother Asaiah method). Neither is likely, unfortunately. Consequently our armed forces must be maintained. The key is to employ them judiciously and with restraint.
Larry Slone
Will the blue wave bring real change?
So the seismic Blue Wave rolled across this country on a Progressive tide, surging and picking up speed, heading for the promised land. It brings to mind the powerful woodblock print, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” by Katsushika Hokusai. But many waves come to shore to crash up against a barrier or levee. And there is a Democratic barrier that has been in operation for decades: the entrenched corporate Democratic establishment.
The Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Schumer, Jeffries, Pelosi, both Clintons, Gore, Kerry, Biden, Harris, and yes, Obama. And those jumping across the aisle to vote with the GOP. Complicity with business as usual and taking big corporation money. Support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and other war crimes and ties to AIPAC and its campaign money, lip service to reform of ICE, avoiding Medicare For All with weak substitutes, aiding big pharma and fossil fuel and tech mega-corporations and weapons manufacturers, little opposition to climate change (global warming), Newsom’s vetoing a one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires, Massachusetts’ Richard Neal, Michigan’s Haley Stevens. And continuous backing of corporate Dems over Progressives and maneuvering against the Blue Wave and its predecessors. It is ubiquitous reckless and dangerous behavior.
There have been lesser waves in the past, the attempts of Progressives and those coming before to regain the moral and political high ground from the subsidence and sink holes riddling this country today. Even back as far as the shutting out of FDR’s Vice President Henry Wallace in favor of Truman. Or even farther. And, of course, Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign and populist ground swell of support (anointed, so to speak, by a sparrow landing on the podium), pushed aside in favor of H. Clinton. Hope was the thing with feathers then, but that bird was plucked.
Is it “Bye, Bye, American Pie” time again (a la the Don McLean song)? Are we driving to the levee and the levee has stopped the wave once again? Every person’s bucket in the bucket brigade adds to the Blue Wave surge. Will the music be reborn, as in the dropped last verse of the song?
Maybe an impossible job, but it’s long overdue time to cleanse the toxic pollution of both political parties from the “swamp!”
George Harbeson Jr.
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