City’s officials focus on the wrong things
Regarding “Costly payouts pile up for Atlanta” (ajc.com, Nov. 21), I find it ironic and disappointing that Atlanta City Council members Michael Julian Bond and Joyce Sheperd are just now pretending to show concern over the costs of poor maintenance of city infrastructure. This is especially disappointing considering the priority placed earlier this year on renaming streets (in the face of public disapproval). At what point will they and Atlanta City Council president Ceasar Mitchell direct their priorities to the things that matter?
Joe Winter, Atlanta
Need more in GOP who don’t demonize Dems
It was refreshing to read Jack Bernard’s “Tone down reform rhetoric” (Opinion, Nov. 18) regarding health care reform. The current mantra of the Republican Party is to never compromise with the Democrats and to do everything in their power to undermine President Obama.
This, as the old saying goes, is not the Republican Party of my father. And, the current extreme views in the Republican Party and the no-compromise promise force Democrats to either negotiate against themselves — or take the same rigid stance.
We need more Republicans willing to stand tall, think for themselves and support Bernard’s statement: “Let’s concentrate on correcting these flaws, not demonizing the other party.”
Max Epling, Canton
Not-super lawmakers should resign
For whatever the varied reasons and excuses, the not-so-super committee failed. In that process, they badly failed the American people.
Every member should immediately resign. I would suggest that the citizens of the country demand they do at least one honorable thing: Leave office and let someone else try to serve this great nation. Their replacements could do no worse.
Arnold Eaves, Woodstock
No comparison to the civil rights movement
An effort is being made to equate Occupy Wall Street with the civil rights movement, but there are significant differences between the two.
Led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., civil right protesters were engaged in an entirely noble cause — not in calling for the destruction of the American economic system.
Violence during the civil rights movement was carried out by governmental authorities against the protesters. The opposite is true of Occupy Wall Street.
The masterminds behind the insurrection known as Occupy Wall Street are the equivalent not of the civil rights leaders of the 1960s, but of the Bolsheviks of 1917.
John Eidson, Sandy Springs
