Your View: Take a vote

I am writing this as a rebuttal to Mr. Mike Grimes editorial "spin" in last weeks edition of the Mississippi County Times Newspaper as well as the front page and the actions of our elected officials.

I don't know if Mr. Grimes is aware of the economic crisis we in Mississippi County are in. But I do know that Mr. Smith has offered this county's unemployed work and at a reasonable wage. I know because I have personally talked to this fellow on the phone and several e-mails.

His intentions are to benefit the unemployed working class of Americans of this county, not a bunch of illegal aliens, which seems to be in abundance here in this county.

What about the people who are unemployed, due to their jobs being "exported" to foreign countries? And what about these same people who pay property taxes (which support our schools) being unable to meet their financial obligations to their mortgage holders and will soon lose there homes they have worked so many years to obtain? What about losing valuable scholastic programs and meeting the needs of our elderly?

Because there is not sufficient tax revenue being generated to the coffers of our municipalities to afford such valuable services! And why is that?

And do the city and county official's have a moral responsibility to the taxpaying community also? (i.e., taxation without due representation.)

Or would they have us all starve to death in a church pew or work at "The Evil Casino" and be able to house and feed our families and be self-sufficient in the pursuit of happiness?

Have Mr. Grimes or any of the county and city officials considered any of these consequences? Or are they not high on their priority list, to be of value to them?

The politicians' sole purpose is "to protect and serve" the common interests of the voters that put their self-righteous souls in office! (i.e., taxation without due representation again.)

By three or four people deciding the fate of the entire community is purely a form of "dictatorship" in the truest sense of the word! Did we all not hear the same negative bombardments concerning the Southeast Correctional Facility, in that we would be overwhelmed by inmates' families moving to this area and "destroying our community values" and "devalue our property?"

Did we not also hear the same "song and dance" when the state lottery was begun, that it would create a "mass of families losing all they had to the "gambling evils" of the state lottery?

So Mr. Grimes, County Board members and city officials of East Prairie, you can preach your doomsday scenario to some of your rich friends or your country club crowd. You can hire people to beg for federal grants to support your pathetic do-nothing-and-get-paid programs and have a feeling of fulfillment that you have done your part. But in all reality, you have done nothing but create a negative shadow on any and all changes that could be beneficial to this community, as you people always do when something is offered, that would create jobs for the unemployed of this community - as you all did when the prison was in the initial stages. You all jumped on the morality clause and were thoughtless as to the positive changes that could be gained from its presence here. And now you want to reap the benefits of the slave labor?" How hypocritical!

But is it morally wrong for a community to want to work at real jobs that pay real bills and feeds our families, generates taxes to fill the coffers of our municipalities?

I don't share your "facts and figures" you presented in the paper in the editorial, nor the front page story! You all put such a spin on this entire "Casino Concept" that you are surely pure politicians at heart and mind, with the concept of being morally upstanding on the face of it all and yet have your own constituents be put out of work and loosing everything they own!

I suppose we could all live in the projects that are supposedly federally funded and that would ease the financial burden of local municipalities. Would that satisfy your insensitivity to the needs of this community?

Did you ever investigate the positive side of your spin, such as new schools and better paid teachers in Metropolis, Ill., or Caruthersville? Or the fact that they can afford to have decent sidewalks and community services, without having to hire people to fill out countless government forms to beg for grant money to operate on?

I believe that local businesses will not suffer the economic impact due to a casino, prison or the lottery nearly as bad as those communities that have been absolutely devastated when local jobs were exported south of the border and left millions of taxpaying Americans without a job and a home.

Just how high do you think the divorce rate will be when Essex-Wire and Bunge close their doors? And how many broken homes to you think these types of problems will create? That's almost 300 people out of work! When you deny a person a job because you can get prisoners for slave wages is unAmerican, to say the least. And who can the people who have lost their jobs turn to?

Mr. Grimes quotes some one-sided statistics about gambling addictions and the many people that it affects. Does bingo have the same affect? Bingo actually gives back to the community, like the government is supposed to do.

Does the lottery have the same affect? And what happened to all that money generated by the lottery that was supposed to go directly to our schools?

As far as people with any addiction, as you proclaim, always have some type of support group or rehabilitation centers to turn to for help.

But who can the common unemployed taxpayer turn to, when their own country has sold them down the river? And people of your moral turpitude can stand on their soapbox and speak out against creating any kind of jobs for us? I have been unemployed for way too long and have expended my unemployment benefits, and never in my 47 years of life, have had these kinds of problems in finding any kind of employment!

And yet, you have the "moral" audacity to speak against anything that might create jobs for the common unemployed taxpayer?

I have held talks with Lonnie Thurmond, Jim Blumenberg, Martin Lucas, Homer Oliver, Thomas O'Quinn, Bill Thompson and others concerning the unemployment crisis we have in this area and the use of prisoners in the city of East Prairie and Mississippi County. I asked them all the same question concerning taxation without due representation. But their hands are tied due to lack of generating enough revenue to properly function. And their responses were almost unanimous in nature.

All of our jobs are being exported to foreign countries and the taxpayer base is being eroded to the point of municipalities not being able to hire full time employees to fill vacancies that are open, and in order to meet the public's demands for such menial services as getting the grass cut at the local cemetery, they are being forced into using prison inmates at a cost of $7.50 a day, which amounts to no more than slave labor and chain-gang tactics.

I voted to have the prison here to create jobs for people in this community. But in fact, less than one-third of the working force at the Southeast Correctional Center live in Mississippi County!

They use this slave labor because the tax revenues are not there, not due to any casino, prison or lottery - due solely to exportation of American jobs!

It must be so easy for those like you to get up on the moral high horse and condemn any change in this community and in the process make yourself appear to be approaching sainthood.

But I am in total agreement with you on one issue Mr. Grimes, and only that one issue.

Call your Congressperson, your local representatives, your county board members, your city council members, your mayor and let it be known that this area has had enough!

And to vote for jobs for Americans who have lost their rights to "be secure in the pursuit of happiness," due to exportation of our valuable jobs and exploitation of the American public by our own elected officials who signed NAFTA into law that began the whole process.

Randy Bramlett, East Prairie