Black leaders’ focus on Confederate monuments is misplaced
Black leadership seems to be full steam ahead with taking down Confederate monuments. Why are black leaders not more concerned about black teenagers carrying weapons, stealing cars, and breaking into homes, churches and businesses? Why are they not marching for the victims of these crimes? Why do we only see them when someone refuses to comply with orders from a cop and then this person becomes a victim? I suggest to black leaders to stop worrying about inanimate objects, Confederate monuments, and take action against teen gangs in and around the Atlanta area.
DENNIS DUNN, TUCKER
Latest storm shows cost of inadequate regulation
The latest assault on public health and the environment should make it clear U.S. laws are serving corporate profits instead of American citizens. Due to heavy rains by Tropical Storm Florence, corporate-owned coal-ash ponds and open “lagoons” of animal waste have spilled vast amounts of toxins into waterways and landscapes where they impose significant, unjustified risks to the public. These consequences were a direct result of permissive laws and biased legal findings that encourage reckless practices supporting business profits at the public’s expense. Over recent decades, laws and court decisions – primarily federal and in some states – have increasingly favored corporations. These positions have given corporations the advantage of operating as individuals under First Amendment protections by substituting political donations for words, while failing to punish corporate decision-makers whose activities severely harm the public. Unlike citizens, it appears corporations and their extravagantly paid executives enjoy a uniquely protected legal status.
DAVID KYLER, CENTER FOR A SUSTAINABLE COAST
Luckovich is poster child for liberals’ intolerance
I can’t help but wonder how much longer the AJC might tolerate the hate toward conservatives spewed forth by Mike Luckovich. For a long time, I have waited to see if there was any balance to his perspective of those on the other side of the aisle. There is none. He is 100 percent unaccepting of anything conservatives might do, think, say or feel. Does it not occur to his superiors that his crusade against anything conservative might align him (and those on the left) with his criticism that those on the right have no compassion for, or perspective or understanding of, those with whom they disagree? That “progressives” are as regressive as they claim conservatives are when it comes to seeing differing ideas?
MIKE WALTERS, ATLANTA
Public should push back on airlines’ insensitive acts
Less leg room, smaller seats and bathrooms, charges for necessary features that were once included in the fare. When will people say enough is enough? The airlines have shown they are greedy enterprises with no soul as they leverage their virtual monopoly, especially in the fortress hubs. Industry consolidation and informal coordination (that is, collusion) have given the airlines freedom to do what they want to increase profits, regardless of how they discriminate against families with children, tall and large people, leisure travelers, etc. The U.S. Department of Transportation is obviously insensitive to what is happening, as they implement the administration’s agenda of fewer regulations everywhere. Congress will make a lot of noise but do nothing meaningful, as they need the contributions of the airlines for re-election campaigns and the occasional free upgrade. The public should boycott the three legacy airlines – American, Delta and United – on Nov. 22 and Dec. 25, traditionally light traffic days.
RON KURTZ, ALPHARETTA
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