Check the dictionary

This is in response to the letter from Linda Schaeffer’s Aug. 11 letter to the editor, “Americans must work together.”

The beginning of your letter gave me hope that here was someone advocating that Americans work together to make a better country.

Then you ran off the rails by condemning socialism.

Democratic socialism is what gives you Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. That is not communism. It is for the people — all people who need it. It does not supersede capitalism.

It goes hand in hand with capitalism with a conscience.

Socialism is not what we have to worry about. What’s bringing our country down is capitalism without a conscience and rampant fascism disguised as patriotism (i.e. white supremacy).

If you don’t know what fascism is, I implore you to look it up in your dictionary, read an accurate account of the rise of the Third Reich in Nazi Germany, and think again about what the cancer is in our beautiful United States of America.

While you are in the dictionary, look up oligarchy. It is very similar to fascism except a select few may rule rather that just one tyrant.

A fellow American, and proud of it.

Patty Lavallee

Ocean Shores

Simple solution to homelessness

While driving through the Harbor it is nearly impossible to not see at least one person experiencing homelessness.

The cost of living in our county and generally in the state is shooting sky high, you cannot find a place to live for under $1,000 a month, while the average income is $43,346 before taxes. Applying a tax rate of 22%, that is $2,817.49 a month.People are spending at least half of their monthly income on rent, let alone any other expenses like food or utilities.

What I am recommending to help our community is simple: increase the number of good jobs, expand economic democracy, rent control, and help with required expenses. These simple ideas are used across the world to create working economies, and lift people out of poverty. These solutions will not only lift people from poverty, but they will allow the state government to expand these and other local and state programs with the extra tax dollars they collect.

These programs are simple initiatives that could simply be done, so why haven’t they been done? It’s quite simple, nobody in government local, state or federal wants to do it because they are scared of angering their donors.

And this isn’t a new issue. When Huey P. Long of Louisiana did this a hundred years ago, he was impeached, then they attempted to remove him from the Senate, and finally he was murdered by a doctor in 1935 after announcing his run for president.

People who try to improve the material conditions of the average citizen have done three things; succeed, been popular, and experienced major pushback from those currently in government.

You may be asking how you can help. It’s simple. When it comes time to vote, do research and ask yourself “will this person support attempts at improving my material conditions?”

If the answer is yes, vote for them, and finally do your best to participate in mutual aid programs while we live in our current situation. The best we can do is have the people who have more than enough help those who do not have enough.

Chelsea Johnson

Hoquiam

While driving through the Harbor it is nearly impossible to not see at least one person experiencing homelessness.

The cost of living in our county and generally in the state is shooting sky high, you cannot find a place to live for under $1,000 a month, while the average income is $43,346 before taxes. Applying a tax rate of 22%, that is $2,817.49 a month.People are spending at least half of their monthly income on rent, let alone any other expenses like food or utilities.

What I am recommending to help our community is simple: increase the number of good jobs, expand economic democracy, rent control, and help with required expenses. These simple ideas are used across the world to create working economies, and lift people out of poverty. These solutions will not only lift people from poverty, but they will allow the state government to expand these and other local and state programs with the extra tax dollars they collect.

These programs are simple initiatives that could simply be done, so why haven’t they been done? It’s quite simple, nobody in government local, state or federal wants to do it because they are scared of angering their donors.

And this isn’t a new issue. When Huey P. Long of Louisiana did this a hundred years ago, he was impeached, then they attempted to remove him from the Senate, and finally he was murdered by a doctor in 1935 after announcing his run for president.

People who try to improve the material conditions of the average citizen have done three things; succeed, been popular, and experienced major pushback from those currently in government.

You may be asking how you can help. It’s simple. When it comes time to vote, do research and ask yourself “will this person support attempts at improving my material conditions?”

If the answer is yes, vote for them, and finally do your best to participate in mutual aid programs while we live in our current situation. The best we can do is have the people who have more than enough help those who do not have enough.

Chelsea Johnson

Hoquiam

Time to fund the museum

Why are we willing to spend so much on the Gateway Center when the Aberdeen Museum of History has not yet been replaced three years after the fire?

It makes sense to use the $22 million armory fire insurance settlement replacing what we lost — our Aberdeen Museum — perhaps building on the location of the former armory, or perhaps building on the location of the former Pourhouse, where the Gateway Center is proposed.

Apparently, the city has already committed $7 million of the insurance funds to build the Gateway Center, even though its purpose is rather fuzzy.

Travelers hurry through Aberdeen on their way to somewhere else, but we could provide reasons for them to stop here by building a new museum/welcome station near the Wishkah Bridge. We already have a parking lot/electric charging station there. We already have a park with picnic benches there. Travelers look for clean bathrooms with running water, which we definitely need to provide if we want tourists!

If tourists stop for those reasons, they might check out the museum and perhaps the Chamber of Commerce for information about our history and our attractions. They might decide to visit businesses we already have downtown, and they might make Aberdeen a regular stop on their way to the beaches or the mountains.

We know we will always have tourists passing though town, but we do not know if corporations will want to rent space here from the city.

Do we choose to spend insurance money attracting unknown corporations (Gateway), or do we choose to spend it enhancing travelers’ experiences here while we preserve our history (Museum)?

Greg and Becky Durr

Aberdeen