Letters to the Editor

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Tea Panarchy
Far from being a sign of hope and freedom, the tea party movement seems a predictable development in 2010. With America facing deep and cancerous problems on multiple fronts, with a corporatization of American media and a decline in American education standards, we find ourselves with a sizable part of our population frustrated and angry and conflicted.

America has always had a fierce anti-government, anti-community subcurrent, which flourished under the W Bush years as right-wing media like Fox and talk radio grabbed the ears of America's working class, once firmly on the union left. Our largest problems have festered for decades but worsened under the contempt of Bush conservatives. Now with a colossal mess facing policymakers on all levels of government, caused largely by deregulation, the tea bag movement and Republicans hungry for power at all costs rise up with comforting, but childishly simplistic responses to complex and dangerous problems.

In reality, our health insurance system, our health care system, our food system and corporate subsidies related to these are creating a bubble of debt that will destroy our state, federal and private finances in the next decade. But conservatives have no solutions except to coddle corporations and yell "socialist" at those who seek answers. The climate in fact is changing rapidly due to human pollution, something all nations except the US and Saudi Arabia accept. Conservatives fantasize this gravest of problems away because real solutions don't fit with their hatred of government, international cooperation and their desire for the comforts of selfishness. Our financial system demands regulation to protect us from greedy Wall Street thieves, but the GOP blocks reform, offering nothing in response.

Tea baggers and the GOP in the US Senate are not liberators; they are anarchists. These are folks who have no answers other than seeking freedom from taxes (community responsibility) and government. If you want their system, check out Nigeria, Afghanistan or Somalia before you bring it home here. Countries without government are brutal chaos where blood flows in the streets. But the tea baggers are angry about losing their status as the white-male majority in America and, above all, they want emotional satisfaction and power more than they want to deal with reality.
Tom Ribe
Santa Fe

Feel that Wi-Fi?
Now Zane is a brilliant fellow and has a knack for provoking response, so I'll assume that's what he was trying to do in the case of Wi-Fi technology. Either that or, like all brilliant folks, sometimes they're dead wrong. In this case, maybe he didn't see the Full Signal world premier in Santa Fe, exposing the dangers of Wi-Fi, which may be like the lead in the aqueducts and wine flasks of Rome. We won't know what hit us until it's too late. Scientists tracking the effects of a new technology are always way behind the businesses selling it.

We all wish it were benign. It's so cool to have wireless messaging. Maybe they can improve it but, in the meantime, many of us can't figure why others can't feel it. Give it a year of constant use and towers outside your house, and see if that's still the case. The fact that they passed laws last decade prohibiting communities from rejecting it on the basis of health should give us a clue. What kind of a law is that? Palestinians are chopping down towers because kids living near them are getting cancer. Feel that, Zane?

PS: As the director of the All Species Projects in Santa Fe for 30 years, I pay attention to what affects our local ecosystems. Within three to four years of these 500 Wi-Fi transmitters going in Santa Fe, we will be seeing lowered pollination rates, more cancers, more nervous people and for what? Do in your children to "save the economy"? Wake up, Santa Fe. You're supposed to be so intelligent and conservative. Conserve yourselves.
Chris Wells
Santa Fe

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