A detrimental movement

Tracy Warner’s editorial June 14, written in his usual highly fact-filled and tightly reasoned style, is a complete condemnation of the ruinous results of the environmentalists’ domination of government forestry policy in our state and in Oregon. It is richly deserved and a crowning addition to your steady editorial stance over many years of exposing the mismanagement of our natural resources by the environmentalists’ control of the states’ legislatures and bureaucracies.

Your excellent work deserves wider exposure because it reveals the basic strategy of the entire environmental movement. Its members and piously named groups have sold themselves to an overly eager news media as the protectors of our planet and its natural resources. Their constantly repeated message is catastrophe and their cloak of morality is the evils of profiteering.

It is high time that the real truth be told and retold as you have been doing. This real truth is that the persons and industries who have developed and used these resources to benefit our citizens, our economy, our standards of living and our national defense have done so not only so as to build a basis for their own wealth, but at the same time to renew, expand and protect these resources for the benefit of all.

There can be no doubt that the true purpose and intent of the environmental movement, however well intentioned it may have been at the outset, is now political and that the movement has been captured by opportunists exploiting it as a means of exerting and expanding control of national and world political and economic policy.

The time has come for those who have editorial venues and knowledge to take off the gloves and begin naming names and exposing to public scrutiny the persons and the groups, local, national and international who are funding and providing cover for this detrimental movement.

You could begin here in North Central Washington and in King County and in Olympia.

John A. O’Hara Jr.

Chelan

Time for Hawkins

Brad Hawkins is running for state representative to give voters of the 12th District more than one option of who will represent them in Olympia. Citizens, like consumers, are best served when there is more than one choice of candidates. We all understand the inefficiencies of monopolies in the marketplace — they become complacent and marginal because they are unmotivated to improve or modify their product or service. Instead of innovation and new ideas, monopolies will boast of their size and status. The same is true for those in public office who are unopposed — instead of passion and enthusiasm, established incumbents talk about connections and seniority.

Similar to an entrepreneur starting out in the business world, it takes a lot of courage to run against a 12-year incumbent. There’s a lot of personal startup capital at stake, and the challenger must pour more of his heart and soul into the campaign to communicate his thoughts and ideas. But competition among candidates challenges both of them to promote the merits of their positions, and ultimately the public is better served when voters have an option of who will represent them.

So I commend Brad Hawkins for running for state representative. He’s giving citizens of NCW an opportunity for a new voice in Olympia — a new perspective, new energy and a new passion for the 12th District. Like any new product entering the market, Brad is prepared to work harder and listen better to his “customers” and he is well qualified to serve this area. It’s time for a new generation of leadership. It’s time for a new representative in the 12th District. It’s time for Brad Hawkins.

Pat Haley

East Wenatchee

Get unconfused

People new to Medicare and retired public employees with PEBB plans are swimming in a river of confusion over plans to supplement Medicare and prescription drug plans. Fortunately, there is a group of volunteers who are not selling anything and who have accurate and unbiased information on options that meet their needs. Statewide Health Insurance Benefits Advisers (SHIBA) volunteers, sponsored and trained by the Office of Insurance Commissioner, can answer questions and provide comparisons so people can make their own informed decisions.

Interested persons can contact Community Choice, 782-5030, or Aging and Adult Care, 886-0700, to make an appointment for free counseling and information. SHIBA was the first of its kind of volunteer organization established more than 30 years ago and now emulated by every state in the union.

Dick Anderson

East Wenatchee

Then and now

How times have changed. On March 20, 1942, in accordance with President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, the government sent over 120,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese descent to inhumane “camps” (read prisons) for imagined threats against the United States. These were the elderly and infirm, infants and children, university students and the quiet and unobtrusive hardworking adults. The government then confiscated homes, farms, furniture and personal possessions.

Now our government welcomes non-citizens, documented or not, and stands ready and willing to provide for their every need. It appears that these elected officials are intent upon turning our once-strong republic into a wimpy socialist country. Where are you, America? Certainly not within many of the hallowed walls of our elected leadership. Let your voice be heard, and your vote count in November.

Cynthia Hollingsworth

Wenatchee

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