Governor misinformed or misleading?

I heard and interesting story two weeks ago while engaged in the weekly Saturday Occupy Rapid City protest on a corner along Main Street in Rapid City.  The story was being related in a casual and conversational way, similar to discussing the weather or some other interesting incident of a less than cataclysmic importance.  When hearing this type of recounting of a seemingly innocuous happening some my reply, “That doesn’t surprise me.”

A delegation of visiting members of British Parliament and other British officials were visiting South Dakota in the early part of June.  On June 6 they were in Pierre where the story has it that one of the members of the group asked Governor Daugaard about the Occupy Movement in South Dakota.  In the story, the Governor’s reply was something to the effect that “we don’t have that in South Dakota.”   The Governor must get his news from Rapid City news sources where the activities of the Occupy Movement are not reported on unless it offends an entity like Duhamel Broadcasting.  In addition to the every Saturday protests in Rapid City, members of Occupy Rapid City have given their support to and participated in the protests by several groups in Rapid City since their local beginning in October of 2011.

It is a little hard for outsiders to track the local Occupy Movement since it does not have a hierarchical structure or an official organizational membership list.  However, there are several South Dakota Occupy Movement group websites that list members numbering from seventy or so to nearly on hundred.  There are also quite a number of people that post on these sites that appear to think of themselves as members of the Occupy Movement even if their names don’t appear on a group page membership list. 

It is obvious that participation has waned considerably from what it was during the first exciting days when it was new concept for a lot of people with, perhaps, less than realistic expectations.  Still it is less than accurate for the Governor to tell our British guests that “we don’t have that in South Dakota.”

Note:  Here’s a few other Occupy websites to check out http://occupyrapidcity.org/, http://www.occupybrookings.com/, http://www.facebook.com/OccupyOfRapidCity, and http://www.facebook.com/groups/occupyblackhills

It's a case of "kill the messenger"

Guest editorial

            Few people will deny the U.S. faces a serious economic crisis, an economic

Waterloo if you will. Yet I'm astonished where our letter writers and columnists place the blame.  One thing is certain: if the only advice a noted Ph.D. in economics has to offer Congress, the president, and the public is a silly, asinine fairy tale about 10 beer drinkers, then we as a nation are in serious trouble. No less a personage than Warren Buffet -- the oracle of Omaha and the second wealthiest capitalist in the U.S. -- has bluntly told Congress, "The rich should pay more." He used himself and his own employees as an example, clearly showing how he paid a lower percentage rate on his millions of income than his employees do on their monthly salary. If Congress and Ph.D. economic professors ignore Warren Buffett, don't blame beer drinkers.

            In the November 17 issue of Western Ag Reporter, every other letter writer or columnist gave environmentalists or the Occupy Wall Street movement a whack. Why? Was it tree huggers or was it Paul Volker, chairman of the Federal Reserve, who raised interest rates to 21% in the 1980s, resulting in an economic crisis in rural America?  Who was President of the U.S. when the E.P.A. was created and the clean air and clean water acts passed... socialist Adolph Hitler or Republican Richard Nixon?  Was it the Occupiers or the Banksters that created the housing bubble that ultimately crashed, creating a global crisis?

            After the 1929 crash and depression, numerous restrictions were placed on Wall Street to prevent a re-occurrence. Who removed those public safe guards.. the occupiers or Congress? The power of eminent domain to take private property was granted to corporations. Who changed the rules and constitution? Occupiers or Supreme Court?

Who robbed the Social Security trust fund and left only IOUs and a pending crisis? Occupiers or Congress?  Was it the Occupiers or Congress that negotiated the Free Trade agreements that gutted U.S. manufacturing and exported 10 million jobs to third-world slave labor? Was it a tree hugger or a federal judge who voided a billion-dollar jury verdict in favor of U.S. cattlemen? The ceaseless flow of 35 million illegals have overwhelmed our schools, hospitals, and welfare agencies and spawned unprecedented drug violence. Who condones and even encourages and exploits this illegal flow? Corporate hogs, dairy, poultry, meat packers, and fruit and vegetable growers or the Occupy Wall Street protesters?

            I haven't made a personal inspection of the Occupiers so I can't speak with authority on their lack of cleanliness as some have, but I view them as analogous to canaries in the coalmine. I do know that something is vitally wrong with our nation and that neither Congress nor our President is willing to take other than divisive political actions.

            When 30 major corporations can avoid paying taxes for seven years, when innumerable corporate CEOs like Lowell McAdam of Verizon draw pay of $55,000 per day (yes, per day!), when we have thousands of soldiers stationed in Germany and Japan 65 years after the end of WW II, then something is wrong. Turn off your TV and learn what our real problems are and who's causing them. By the way, what book commanded us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the widows and orphans, and love our neighbor as ourselves? The left wing, socialist Occupiers handbook or the Holy Bible?

                                                                   Stephen Anderson

                                                                   Alma, KS