Saturday, December 30, 2006

Letters to the editor

We're addicted to just about everything possible

EDITOR:

Why is life in the richest country in the world so stressful that addictions are the only answer?

We, in the United States of America, have become addicts in droves to practically everything addictable available in our various environments! We have become a nation of addicts. Since we are wealthy, literally billions of dollars are available in the world's markets to satisfy our cravings! We have created quite a demand! The rest of the world is working tooth and nail to satisfy that huge demand legally or mostly entirely illegally! Who is to bear the blame for the resulting tragedy?

The coca growers in Columbia and the poppy growers in Afghanistan would not be producing the raw material for drugs if there were no profit or market! They blame the U.S. for creating the market and allowing it to exist. The present government blames them for growing the plants and tries futilely to punish and eradicate them! Which do you think is correct? Also, what is the answer to the problem?

Since the beginning of recorded history, smuggling has been a profitable enterprise, whenever the above situation exists. It absolutely cannot and has not been controllable. So why has our government been pursuing a policy, historically impossible? Because our government, like that in Mexico and many others, has been corrupted by the bribery money involved, and I'm talking millions and billions, not chicken feed.

We have a $60 to $80 billion dollar bureaucracy involved in interdiction right now in our country accomplishing nothing. How much bribery of low to high officials exists, God only knows, but more than you suspect! Mexico's government has become too corrupt to function, as such, and our government is not far behind! It scares the daylights out of me, and it should scare you too!

The only answer to smuggling, over the ages, is to reduce the demand or take the profit motive out of it. We have tried, futilely, to stop drug addiction. We have to take the profit motive out of it! The only way to accomplish this is to legalize marijuana and tax it heavily and control it, like alcohol. Decriminalize the hard drugs and make them available to addicts only at vastly increased public health clinics at cost or free!

The benefits of this procedure will be manifold. 1. Empty the jails and turn them into treatment centers for all addictions, smoking and gambling included. Retrain the interdiction bureaucracy to maintain the treatment centers. 2. Reduce the police forces to reflect the reduction in burglary, performed to get money for drugs. 3. Melting away of all local and national gangs dependent on drug profits to operate. 4. Reduction in all mafias. 5. Reduction and elimination of most terrorist organizations which are dependent on drug money to buy weapons. 6. No more pushers in our schools or on our streets to create more addicts of our children. The above are just some of the benefits, not all! We need more public health services to begin with, and they will try to urge, not coerce the addicts to attend the treatment centers, which would be at government expense also. One month's treatment can now cost $40,000 and is available only to the rich or not at all!

Please contact your local and national government representatives to advocate this reform before it is too late if it is not too late already. You know how money and self-interest talks, especially to politicians!

Charles H. Rundles
Belen

People of all sorts should speak out on the issues

EDITOR:

... When Linda Ramsay says, "People of color can speak for themselves," I do that and I also clarify that I speak as a Native American with a few other racial mixes. I am aware that it is extremely rare that an Anglo willingly writes about crimes on people of color by whites. Therefore, I applaud those few that break the well know, unwritten, white man's law of Anglo silence which forbids them from exposing crimes on other races by their own race.

For example, where are the other letters by whites, opposing the enormous numbers of hate crimes committed daily on people of color all across America? The answer to that is nada, because that just is not done.

Mr. Drushella made an excellent, truthful observation in stating the well known fact that it was his own European ancestors ... who originally invaded and stole enormous Indian ancestral lands, a fact that Linda does not deny in her letter. I have good reason to believe that others of the white code of silence are seething venom at the mouth for Mr. Drushella's honest candor.

Alberto Martínez
Los Lunas

Family thanks folks who helped after fire

EDITOR:

The family of Santiago and Joann Sanchez and Grace Gutierrez would like to thank the community of Belen for its generosity during the loss of our home due to fire.

You have demonstrated the gospel message of Matthew 25. Our prayers and best wishes are with you and your families.

The Santiago Sanchez family
Belen

Silva put up great Christmas display

EDITOR:

We would like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Greg Silva for the beautiful yard displays every holiday, especially Christmas. My brothers and I really enjoy the displays as we go to and from school at Gil Sanchez Elementary. It is very nice of them to make sure they are inflated by the time we get out of school.

Marissa, Aaron and Esteban Tucker
Jarales

Social Security isn't given that way

EDITOR:

This letter is in response to Linda Ramsey's letter. I agree with her that we are all "free to voice our opinion."

However, my opinion is a fact and not a fabrication rumor. I am not defending these "border jumpers" as Ms. Ramsey calls them, but we need to know the facts. Without proof of income, it's a myth and in order to show proof of income, people have to have a Social Security card. To get these benefits issued, they are issued only to people that are legal whether they were born here or they have what is commonly known as a Green Card. I believe Ms. Ramsey is like a lot of people who assume everybody that was not born here to be here illegally. I have talked to people that say, "I know they are not legal because they don"t speak English." That's another myth! These people are paying taxes, and much to their own dismay, and to the stereotypic people like Ms. Ramsey, they will never be able to draw Social Security because, when they get ready to retire, they will be discovered, and they will find out that the Social Security money is not theirs.

As for her comments on hospitalization, I am an insurance agent that knows for a fact that as many Americans, whether they be Caucasian, Black or Oriental, have no health insurance also just like the undocumented immigrants. Next door to where I live, there was a girl from Poland that upon her admittance is illegal, but people like Ms. Ramsey do not say anything about that, they just keep on stereotyping our Southern neighbors!

People like Ms. Ramsey need to get their facts straight, that to get a green card speaking English is not a requirement. She needs to stop stereotyping these people because if you are not here legally the only thing you are entitled to is emergency heath care. It would be inhumane because even in Mexico, they would not reject any American emergency health care. Other than that any person being here cannot receive any of these benefits that Ms. Ramsey is ranting and raving about. Now if some of these "border jumpers" as referred to have fake identification and a fake Social Security card, they might be able to receive these benefits. Finally, Ms. Ramsey mentions White, Black and Spanish. White and Black are colors, Spanish is a language, unless Ms. Ramsey is one of those uninformed people that do not know that Spanish, Latin, Mexican, Hispanic are also part of the white race. Apparently, Ms. Ramsey thinks that you have to be Anglo-Saxon to be considered White!

Joe Gonzales
Amarillo, Texas

Synagogue leader clarifies the issue

EDITOR:

Allow me to introduce myself. I, Perry Peña, am the Shamash (servant) of the synagogue Kehlilah ba'Midbar, an official spokesman. Recently, Margaret Ortiz, a congregant of ours, articulated beautifully our Chanukkah traditions. Following such a column, it became obvious to me that the name of the synagogue and what we do and do not officially believe needed clarification. Because many of our members have come to us from churches and "Messianic synagogues," sometimes our official stance and image gets described in the language of those institutions. For the record, our synagogue is not a "Messianic" synagogue as in a synagogue associated in any way, shape or form with the "Messianic movement," nor with any Jews for Jesus form of Christianity.

All Jews are Messianic, but not all Jews believe that the Jesus of Christianity is that Messiah. Kehilah ba'Midbar neither teaches nor believes that the Jesus figure of Christianity is the Messiah. The Messiah we believe is a scriptural prophesy based on a Messiah based in the writings of the Tanakh, which writings Christianity has defamed as an "Old Testament." In our beliefs, the Jesus of Christianity is a figure only loosely based on the true Messiah described in the scriptures, whose image was blurred together with other ancient anti-Semitic historical figures. By extension, the "Yeshua" of Messianic Judaism is seen in the same way, as he is essentially Christianity's Jesus retrofitted with a Hebrew-sounding name. For us, there is a tremendous difference between the Jesus/Yeshua of Christianity and the true Messiah of the Tanakh and Kehilah (congregation) weekly explores this and many other such fascinating scriptural subjects.

As far as the writings which Christianity calls the "New Testament" and which Messianic Judaism calls the "Brit Chadisha," we do not acknowledge those writings to be any such thing. The words "Brit Chadisha" (New Covenant) in Hebrew specifically refer to the Torah, the five books of Moses, when written on people's minds and hearts (reference Jeremiah 31:30-37). With that stated, we further state that we do accept the Apostolic writings as testimony, as these writings were specifically prophesied of in the book of Isaiah as testimony of the Messiah's disciples, reference Isaiah 8:16 and Isaiah 28:11.

Clarification of who and what Kehilah ba'Midbar is is important because we do not wish to impede the people whom we are a synagogue for. Kehilah ba'Midbar was founded to be a home for the descendants of New Mexico's crypto-Jewish (hidden Jew) families. Kehilah was founded to aid the crypto-Jews in returning to a full Jewish faith, walk, identity and worship. Because we have not previously clarified who we are, I fear we have attracted people with Christian expectations only to disappoint them and at the same time put off those sincerely seeking to return to their Spanish Jewish identity. I hope this clarification, at this season of miracles, has indeed shed light on those seeking it.

Perry Peña
Los Lunas

Churches must take a stand against gangs

Editor:

The crime rate in Valencia County is the result of widespread tolerance of the gang ethos. There is not one clergyperson in the county, for example, who has taken a real stand against gang members (beyond verbal 'tsk tsk'-ing). Virtually all the churches here are Bible-based, and the First Commandment states that no one shall have any allegiance higher than the Judeo-Christian God. Allegiance to a gang is in conflict with the First Commandment.

When the pastors & priests of Valencia County enforce a policy that no one holding allegiance to any gang can participate in, say, communion or confession -- then the gang problem will be gone.

Gary E. Nordell
Belen