LETTERS: public option, getting to the roots, Labor Day, film showing

Public option

We need the public option now more than ever. What the Tea Party elderly don’t know is that they are bankrupting government Medicare without some other form of health care reform. The public option would allow people to choose a health care program that would fit their wallet. Without the public option, more and more people are relying on the only government health care program that works for everyone. With so many people in need of health care, Medicare will go bankrupt in the near future. Baby boomers were once the major contributors to Medicare but are now aging and using the program more. The generation behind us is incapable of paying into the system where demand will eventually overcome supply. The Tea Party elderly should not fear the government taking their Medicare but rather fear that Medicare will go bankrupt. The Tea Party elderly are only ensuring that Medicare goes bankrupt without some other form of health care to adjust to our current supply and demand.

Alexander Monarrez-Maldonado

Tucson AZ

Getting to the roots

The recent article by Emile Schepers — The Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest: ‘uppity’ in 2009 — hits on the legal reasons why the police were out of order for their actions.

I would like to go a step further.

I’ll say from the outset that this may not apply to all police.

In New York the NYPD has killed 35 people over the past two-three years. The taser death of a mentally ill man (Iman Morales) last year by an officer who received direction from a seasoned officer was a glaring disregard for human life. (The officer who gave the order committed suicide.) There are too many of these tragic deaths.

The protection of private property is the priority of the police department and the mayor’s office. This idea permeates the mentality of all those who come in contact with it. Recruits are indoctrinated with the “us against them” mentality — New Yorkers are too familiar with The Blue Wall — and all the implications connected with it.

The badge and the gun are the symbols and ultimate weapons of this distortion.

We in New York do not have to continue down this polarizing path. We can elect Bill Thompson mayor. The mayor appoints the police commissioner.

Gabe Falsetta

Glendale NY

Labor Day takeover

It seems like Labor Day is becoming less and less related to labor.This year in Iowa City, the Labor Day weekend is being turned into an annual tribute to a former football coach (Hayden Fry) — the new festival is being called “Fry Fest,” with all sorts of amusements and it even has the right-winger Charlie Daniels as the star music performer. It makes me sick to see that Chamber of Commerce-led takeover for Labor Day weekend.

Charlotte Walker

Iowa City IA

Stop union-busting at Neil Med

You might be interested in helping the workers at Neil Med. If you go to the website below, you can check out what is at stake and send your own message directly to the relevant decision makers. Take action on this important campaign at .

Gary De Santis

Via e-mail

E-mail newsletter

I want to compliment you on the PWW e-newsletter. I enjoy your articles and find a refreshing honest approach to the events of the day. I consider myself to be a progressive leftist and I enjoy reading the news with a “leftist viewpoint.”

The older I get, and I’m 56 years old, the more convinced that the future of this country rests in the hands of the leftist movement, be that Communist or simply Socialist. I believe that people in this country are waking up to the fact that the “old” ways of our government need to be changed, altered or reworked. Capitalism does not work for the majority of the working class of this country, if anything it prevents the working class from getting a fair shake from the corporate forces which control Congress.

If ever I see or hear of something here in Denver I would like to write an article for you and show that we in the Western part of the U.S. have concerns just as on the Eastern seaboard. Thanks again for your e-mail newsletter and keep up the good work!

Peace!

Tom Melvin

Denver CO

Editor’s note: We encourage all readers to sign up for our e-headlines at www.pww.org.

Film showing

If you live in the Rochester, N.Y., area or have friends there, tell them about the 20th annual Rochester Labor Film Series. It will be showing our film “Never Turning Back, The World of Peggy Lipschutz” on Sept. 11. The festival continues through October with a great lineup of films, all screened at the Dryden Theater, 900 East Ave., in Rochester.

For a complete schedule, visit: www.rochesterlabor.org. The film series is sponsored by the George Eastman House and the Rochester Labor Council, AFL-CIO.

Jerri Zbiral

Mark Rogovin

Sharon Karp

The writers are producer/director, executive producer and editor, respectively, of “Never Turning Back, The World of Peggy Lipschutz,” .