Reader Responses

Barack Obama now is willing to go with offshore drilling, which he adamantly opposed before. Washington Democrats repeatedly have refused to allow increased oil drilling here at home even though increased supply leads to lower prices.

Obama's constant push for change is rocky and cryptic. Any new change involves "economic justice" he introduced at his NAACP speech last month. "That's what the election is all about," he said. "Economic justice" is a euphemism for socialism and it will require massive government taxing and spending.

He's re-naming wealth transfers as "investments" - "to make America more competitive," or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means. Among his proposed "investments": Universal (guaranteed) health care; "free" college tuition; "universal" national service 9(a la Havana); "universal" 401(k) (in which government would match contributions made by "low to moderate income families." "Free job training" (even for criminals); "wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels); "free" child care and "universal" pre-school. More subsidized public housing, a fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor" and even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.

His book, "Dreams From My Father," reveals his childhood mentor up to age 18 was the late communist Frank Marshall Davis who fled Chicago after FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive, unAmerican activities."

After college, where he took up with Marxist professors and other socialists "for inspiration," Obama became a "community organizer" in Chicago. In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned opposition Luo tribe leader Raila Odinga to voice his support. Odinga is committed to communism.

We need to preserve the free-market individualism that has made this country great. If you care more about this than looking "politically correct", we Americans have to call things by their proper name to avoid long term disaster.

Laurie Dee Jones
Tyler