Muckraking baloney!

As an employee of American Airlines, I must defend my company after the attack article [Editorial, June 9] that you were sleazy enough to call an editorial in which you chose to single out American Airlines with your muckraking piece of baloney!

American Airlines has to be competitive in the industry to stay in business and the things you mentioned in your article are things all the airlines have done to control operating costs.

Southwest Airlines has been that way since it went into business and I don’t see you throwing mud at it!

It is too bad the only bit of research you did was to read part of an article from the Wall Street Journal and then print all that as fact in the rag you pass off for a newspaper!

I thought good reporters did their own research and made sure they got each side to the story before passing judgment.

It is a sad fact that customer service has been cut back in almost every place you go in today’s world.

When I was a teenager, I worked at a full-service gas station. Did anyone offer to pump your gas, clean your windshield and check your oil when you were paying four bucks a gallon not too long ago?

If this newspaper has any class at all it should print an apology to the employees of American!

Oh, and by the way, we don’t really need a cattle prod to herd our passengers on board. We have too much respect for them.

Dusty Connor,

Denton

Give us an option

I just cannot take a back seat to this important issue being tossed around in Washington this week. I cannot be quiet and I cannot be happy if there is no public health care option.

How is losing your home, going into bankruptcy or just dying OK just because you cannot afford health insurance?

When did our great country become so ignorant to the needs of the many, the salt of the earth, those who worked hard most of their lives only to have most or all of their money and benefits yanked out from beneath them because they had the misfortune of losing their jobs?

What about those people who have to pay upwards of hundreds of dollars a month for medication they must have to lead a normal life. There are too many of those to count.

What about the small businesses (and large) whose health care premiums have become their single biggest expense, close to payroll costs?

So if we are lucky enough to have a public health care option, you know what? I will fight to be the first in line to sign up.

I will encourage everyone I know to do the same. Only then will private insurers begin to compete.

Then maybe, just maybe, America will find its voice with our very own hybrid version of health care in this country, one that excludes not one citizen for any reason and one that stops using human beings as commodities.

Kathie Lagerblad,

Corinth

Roosevelt’s legacy

There was a recent letter [Letters, May 26] from one of Denton County’s most socialist liberals, who claimed to be very well versed in American history. He claimed FDR got America out of the 1930s depression.

Wrong again.

FDR took office in 1933 and the unemployment rate was 23.6 percent throughout the ’30s. The 1940 unemployment rate was 14.6 percent.

Those who credit FDR with pulling America from the depths of depression are dead wrong.

World War II was the catalyst and sole reason for the recovery, for in 1943, the unemployment rate was 1.9 percent.

Perhaps some people either forgot or enjoy exaggeration and embellishing the facts. Regardless, the federal programs in the ’30s were mostly for show and political propaganda.

Unfortunately, this current administration has some similar programs in mind and plans to tax everything in sight. Perhaps in the future, those who wish to recall the past can Google the information and get their facts straight.

I doubt this will happen, but we can only hope.

There is no doubt that some of FDR’s New Deal programs were beneficial, i.e. Social Security in 1935, the Banking Act in 1935 and the minimum wage laws.

H. Wayne Lasater,

Denton

Bush’s war

Chuck Roedema [Letters June 4], thanks for your comments. I love trees, I am Christian. Complaining about Loop 288 does no good. Complaining about Bush may bring future good.

Hate to bring this one up again but here’s a prime example:

This should have been said a long time ago. The Iraq War was simply for George Bush’s indiscretion. (I wanted to use a stronger word.)

G Bush said repeatedly that he didn’t want to go to war. Several authors, two from within the administration, wrote that G Bush wanted to go to war from the day he took office. Let that be forefront in your mind.

That lie was followed by more lies: that Iraq was responsible for 9-11, that Iraq had WMD, that this war was to spread democracy around the world.

Even the contention that Iraq hid its WMD in Syria was just a Republican lie.

This nation will never be defenseless, but let this be a reminder to this great nation to never again fall for lies.

Next point: Democrats didn’t hate G Bush until after he committed several betrayals.

The fact that Obama haters came out right away says more about them than it does about Obama.

Next point: 90 percent of Americans want health care reform. The majority of bankruptcies involve health care, and the majority of those people actually had insurance. That’s sick. Yet Republicans have no proposals.

That’s sick.

Jim Stodola,

Denton

A new shade of green

We hear a lot from city officials and developers about progress. In their minds, progress is dollar signs and destroying nature.

Nature is not important to them, and the new meaning of going “green” is the almighty dollar.

Brenda Nixon,

Sanger