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Letter writers| Fort Myers News-Press

If The News-Press editorial board and its cadre of ex-Republican letter writers could closet their Trump-DeSantis anxiety for a moment, would someone please cry out against Lee Countys desecration of the Sanibel Causeway islands? Taxpayers are spending I dont know how many millions to basically destroy one of the few remaining Real Florida spots in the county.

Here, where any old Joe could park tailgate-to-shoreline and offload a kayak and cooler or drive out on the beach for a sunset cocktail in the old Firebird T-top for just the cost of the toll will soon become paid parking in restricted numbers. All in the name of erosion control and improvement. Okay, Ill say it. This stinks!

J. Taylor Buckley, Sanibel

How low can we go?

If you think that Bidens choice of VP Kamala Harris, or Secretary of State Blinken, or Secretary of DHS Mayorkas, or Secretary of Defense Austin, or Treasury Secretary Janice Yellen, are way in over their heads and have failed at every assignment thus far in this incompetent administration, wait until you see Bidens choice of Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova. This woman makes Bernie Sanders jump for joy. He only claims to be a Russian-favoring socialist, she is a true Russian-educated radical whose ideas on banking would turn Sanders' face red with embarrassment. She hates banks more thanElizabeth Warren. You can read more about her in the Wall Street Journal.

When Obama was elected he said he would fundamentally change the United States. In his eightyears he did much of what he promised by increasing and extending the socialist ideology. Trump reversed as many of Obamas missteps as was possible in his hectic fouryears. Now bumbling Joe, the puppet too amateurish and incompetent to be on "Sesame Street," having his strings pulled from the likes of Rice and Obama, is becoming even more outrageous. Pelosi recently said it is imperative that they pass the Obama agenda. Do we need any more proof?

Michael Zubrow, Naples

Some politicians are mistakenly defining items in upcoming legislation as socialism. The mistake has been around for a long time. More than 50 years ago, when I was a sophomore in a college economics class, the professor asked the class to write the definition of socialism in our notebook. All of us defined socialism as government control of industry. Wrong, according to the professor and Webster's dictionary. He stated socialism is not control but ownership of industry and means of distribution. Government programs providing benefits do not fit this definition.

Dave Pryal, Estero

This is rich, a letter writeris "offended"by a recent cartoon Get Fuzzy. I appreciate the email response pointing out the obvious that this is satire. Thank you editorfor trying to educate this contributor.

This is a cartoon! The human is silent for not calling out the cat for his "hate speech"?Perhaps this is the first time you've seen this panel. This cat generally always does things that are obviously wrong. Andthe docile dog, Satchel, is often the brunt of the cat's misplaced issues. Rob, the owner of these "pets,"often has to wade through all this crazy rhetoric.

Leave the comics alone. Mallard Fillmore is gone from The News-Press, Doonesbury, a very left-leaning panel, also gone from the editorial page. I understand the reason was to trim space for more letters to the editor.

The comic page is for fun, for jocularity, for a respite from the regular bad, disturbing, and sobering news that is presented daily. Stop looking for "hate speech"that isn't there, for "violence"that also isn't presented.

Michelle Birtley, Cape Coral

Im old enough to have seen almost every imaginable political stunt and hoax. The most recent canard regarding the economic fantasyland and utopian wishes in the $3.5 trillion billclearly takes the cake. Several Democrats have come out publicly to state that the $3.5 trillion will actually not cost anything. It will be free. And I thought Houdini was the the greatest magician of all time.

John McWilliams, Fort Myers

So let me see if I have this correct.The liberals running the country (into the ground, I might add) want changes made so that women have the right to decide what to do with their bodies when it comes to abortion, but at the same time the worthless Biden administration is ordering women to get vaccinated, otherwise they will lose their jobs, thus blackmailing them and taking away their choice as to what to do with their bodies.

This country under this administration is doomed.

Michael Adler, Miromar Lakes

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Letters to the editor for Wednesday, October 6, 2021 - News-Press

In 1920, the Russian architect Vladimir Tatlin proudly unveiled the very first wooden model for the Monument to the Third International. The building, which would function as the new and improved headquarters of the Comintern, was planned to be built in the city of Petrograd, todays Saint Petersburg. Communist Party officials who came to review it offered mixed opinions. Leon Trotsky said Tatlins Tower, which would have dwarfed the Eiffel Tower in size, was impractical and romantic. His accomplices, Vladimir Lenin and Anatoly Lunacharsky, were a bit more enthusiastic; before them stood a visual representation of the communist utopia they were trying to create.

In order to appreciate the boldness of Tatlins design, one must first understand its historical context. Three years earlier, Bolshevik revolutionaries had staged a coup dtat that transformed Russia from a parliamentary democracy into a dictatorship of the proletariat. But while the country had become a one-party state, its people were far from unified. Czarist sympathizers, referred to as Whites, plotted to reinstall what remained of the Romanov dynasty. Other socialist organizations, sidelined by the Bolshevik takeover, resisted as well. A deadly civil war ensued, and while the Bolsheviks emerged victorious, their rule remained shaky. In order to truly win the peoples trust, they needed propaganda capable of instilling a new sense of national pride.

In order to achieve this, the Communist Party set up what historians now refer to as a program of Monumental Propaganda. Based on a series of pamphlets and speeches from Lenin, this program sought to replace memorials erected in honor of the czar with shrines devoted to Marxist-Leninist philosophy and the new form of government that had been built around it. As stated in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, a typical Soviet monument functioned as a propaganda vehicle in the fight for victory of a new system, for enlightenment and education of the popular masses. Tatlin was the person put in charge of this program. He was a good choice.

Tatlin began his career as a painter. He mostly painted icons for churches of the Orthodox Christian faith, but eventually grew disillusioned with religious symbolism. Frustrated by the limitations of visual artforms and eager to make something that would have a direct impact on peoples lives, he developed an interest in architecture. Along with Kazimir Malevich, another painter and the creator of the famous Black Square, Tatlin was a key figure in Russian constructivism a forward-facing cultural movement that informed all aspects of the buildings Tatlin pitched his superiors. Of these, Tatlins Tower was considered the cream of the crop. Unfortunately, it was never built.

Tatlins vision for the Monument was unlike anything the world had ever seen. With a planned height of 400 meters, the building had the shape of two intertwining helixes. These helixes cradled four distinct, suspended structures. The spaces inside had unique purposes and were given different shapes. The first space, a cube located near to the base of the structure, would have been reserved for lectures, conferences, and legislatures. Located above the cube was a pyramid that could be used for executive party meetings. Above the pyramid was a cylinder that would have housed an information center that broadcasted news, declarations, and manifestos.

If completed, Tatlins Tower would have been both a testament to and an expression of early Soviet ideology. The building, constructivist in its design, would have been made entirely from locally sourced, materials. Where government buildings in capitalist countries were typically adorned with marble, ivory and other expensive materials, Tatlin wanted his tower to be made using materials that were staples of Soviet industry and, as such, had special significance to the working class. These included iron, steel, and glass. In an article written for the Slavic Review, Alexei Kurbanovsky noted that the structure, like the October Revolution itself, could be interpreted as a Freudian refutation of father-figures.

Tatlins Tower was designed during a time when Communist rule was still nascent and party leaders sought to establish a new and distinctly socialist identity through art. Until this point, wrote Allison McNearney in an article for The Daily Beast, the Soviets had commemorated their past in the same way as the czars before them: through paintings and sculptures that represented a particular person or a specific event. Tatlins Tower was unique precisely because it was nonrepresentational. Rather than depicting a single individual, the construction addressed an entire socioeconomic class of people.

Despite minor criticisms, Tatlins plans for the Monument were received enthusiastically by party officials. However, as plans for its construction began to take shape, the Bolsheviks quickly realized the project was, as Trotsky had stated from the start, more than a little overambitious. So overambitious, in fact, that it could never be completed. In her book, The Russian Experiment in Art, the art historian Camilla Grey stated that post-revolutionary Russia would go bankrupt if it tried to acquire the insane amounts of steel and iron needed for the towers skeletal framework.

Thats not even talking about the feats of engineering that Tatlin had incorporated in his design. Remember how the tower was actually made up of four separate structures suspended in the double helixes? Well, in Tatlins original design, each of these would have rotated on their axes, completing a full revolution in accordance with the importance of the institutions conducting their business on the inside. The cube that contains the legislature would have completed a full rotation once per year. The pyramid above, housing the offices of party executives, would have needed a month. The information center, located at the very peak, would have rotated once a day, offering a 360-degree view of Petrograd.

Although Tatlins Tower never came to fruition, it still made the strong impression its creator had desired. His design is considered a staple of Russian constructivism inspiring not only Russian designers but a whole host of modern architectural movements as well. The buildings shape has become instantly recognizable, even to people who know next to nothing about Soviet history. This is, perhaps, thanks to contemporary artists who have incorporated its image into their own work. Ai Weiweis statue, The Fountain of Light, on display at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, is essentially a carbon copy of Tatlins Tower, albeit repurposed as a chandelier.

Ironically, one discipline the tower didnt much influence was Soviet art. After plans for its construction got scrapped, party officials decided to go into a new direction with their countrys cultural institutions. Where pioneers of abstract music, painting, literature, and architecture had initially fought alongside the Bolsheviks in their campaign to build a new world, they would soon be persecuted by the secret police of Joseph Stalin. Under Stalins rule, the Soviet Union doubled down on a style called Soviet realism. Tatlins inspiring futurism was exchanged for conventional, representational art work that made the reality of everyday Soviet life seem better than it really was.

See more here:
Tatlin's Tower: the grand monument to socialism that never was - Big Think

Fabian Society, socialist society founded in 1884 in London, having as its goal the establishment of a democratic socialist state in Great Britain. The Fabians put their faith in evolutionary socialism rather than in revolution.

The name of the society is derived from the Roman general Fabius Cunctator, whose patient and elusive tactics in avoiding pitched battles secured his ultimate victory over stronger forces. Its founding is attributed to Thomas Davidson, a Scottish philosopher, and its early members included George Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, Annie Besant, Edward Pease, and Graham Wallas. Shaw and Webb, later joined by Webbs wife, Beatrice, were the outstanding leaders of the society for many years. In 1889 the society published its best-known tract, Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw. It was followed in 1952 by New Fabian Essays, edited by Richard H.S. Crossman.

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socialism: Fabian socialism

As the anarcho-communists argued for a form of socialism so decentralized that it required the abolition of the state, a milder and markedly...

The Fabians at first attempted to permeate the Liberal and Conservative parties with socialist ideas, but later they helped to organize the separate Labour Representation Committee, which became the Labour Party in 1906. The Fabian Society has since been affiliated with the Labour Party.

The national membership of the Fabian Society has never been very great (at its peak in 1946 it had only about 8,400 members), but the importance of the society has always been much greater than its size might suggest. Generally, a large number of Labour members of Parliament in the House of Commons, as well as many of the party leaders, are Fabians, and, in addition to the national society, there are scores of local Fabian societies.

The principal activities of the society consist in the furtherance of its goal of socialism through the education of the public along socialist lines by means of meetings, lectures, discussion groups, conferences, and summer schools; carrying out research into political, economic, and social problems; and publishing books, pamphlets, and periodicals. In 1931 the New Fabian Research Bureau was established as an independent body. The bureau and the society amalgamated in 1938 to form a new and revitalized Fabian Society. In 1940 the Colonial Bureau of the Fabian Society was established, and it produced a continuous stream of discussion and writing on colonial questions. The Fabian International Bureau was started in 1941 to cater to the growing concern of Fabians with foreign policy and the great issues of war and peace.

Continued here:
Fabian Society | socialist society | Britannica

New Testament aphorism

He who does not work, neither shall he eat is a New Testament aphorism traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle, later cited by John Smith in the early 1600s colony of Jamestown, Virginia, and by the Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin during the early 1900s Russian Revolution.

The aphorism is found in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians 3:10, the authorship of which is traditionally assigned to Paul the Apostle (with Silvanus and Timothy), where it reads:

that is,

The Greek phrase (ou thlei ergzesthai) means "is not willing to work". Other English translations render this as "would"[2] or "will not work",[3] using the archaic sense of "want to, desire to" for the verb "will".

In the spring of 1609, John Smith cited the aphorism to the colonists of Jamestown:

Countrymen, the long experience of our late miseries I hope is sufficient to persuade everyone to a present correction of himself, And think not that either my pains nor the adventurers' purses will ever maintain you in idleness and sloth...

...the greater part must be more industrious, or starve...

You must obey this now for a law, that he that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled). For the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain a hundred and fifty idle loiterers.[4]

According to Vladimir Lenin, "He who does not work shall not eat" is a necessary principle under socialism, the preliminary phase of the evolution towards communist society. The phrase appears in his 1917 work, The State and Revolution. Through this slogan Lenin explains that in socialist states only productive individuals could be allowed access to the articles of consumption.

The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.This is a "defect" according to Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. (Chapter 5, Section 3, "The First Phase of Communist Society")

In Lenin's writing, this was directed at the bourgeoisie, as well as "those who shirk their work".[5][6]

The principle was enunciated in the Russian Constitution of 1918,[7] and also article twelve of the 1936 Soviet Constitution:

In the USSR work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat".

Criticizing Stalin, Leon Trotsky wrote that: "The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat."[8]

Read more here:
He who does not work, neither shall he eat - Wikipedia

In the next few weeks, Republicans will have an opportunity to rebrand the Democrats as big-government socialists.

This is the kind of opportunity which may come once in a lifetime.

Every Democratic senator and representative has already voted for the outline of a $3.5 trillion spending bill. No matter what lies they tell back home about being moderates, their names are right there in the Congressional Record. When it mattered, there were no moderate Democrats. The only Democrats serving in Congress were unanimously willing to vote for big-government socialism.

The big-government socialist brand will isolate the Washington Democrats from their own moderates and from the rest of the country. Faced with this clear betrayal of their values, millions of grassroots Democratic voters will find themselves having to organize a moderate wing of their party (something Bill Clinton tried to do as governor of Arkansas in the 1980s).

In a number of upcoming primary elections, there may be moderate Democratic candidates prepared to run against the big-government socialist incumbents, using the $3.5 trillion bill vote as proof the incumbents need to be replaced.

The polling is clear, and devastating, for the Democrats in Washington. Americans in general favor free-market capitalism over big-government socialism by a huge margin (59 percent to 16 percent). Among swing voters, there is an almost five-to-one advantage (82 percent to 18 percent).

Perhaps most ominous of all for the Washington Democrats, swing voters already believe, by a margin of 69 percent to 31 percent, that the $3.5 trillion spending bill proves big-government socialists now define the Democratic Party.

When the detailed version of the $3.5 trillion bill makes clear its wide range of tax increases and enormous expansion of government into our personal lives, Democrats will have two choices. They could vote "no" to soften their images back home and defeat the bill. Or they could double down, vote "yes," and hope the Pelosi-Schumer-Biden wave of money will overcome the immense voter hostility to big-government socialism.

The real test for the next month falls on Republicans and conservatives. Can they have a disciplined focus on defining the $3.5 trillion bill as big-government socialism?

Can they communicate nationallyin every state and congressional districtthat the Democratic incumbents have proven they are big-government socialists by voting for the bill in August?

When facing hostile, distracting questions from left-wing television reporters, can Republicans discipline themselves to constantly point out that the $3.5 trillion bill is championed by an avowed socialist and is big-government socialism?

When face to face with Democratic incumbents, can the Republicans muster the courage and discipline to stick to facts and hammer away at the message, "on this date you voted for a $3.5 trillion big-government socialist bill, and that makes you a big-government socialist?"

Finally, can Republican Party officials, activists and candidates focus on communicating that Democrats have become big-government socialistsand that the old moderate Democratic Party has been replaced by a new radical party?

These votes have given Republicans the opportunity of a lifetime to brand the Democratic Party so it becomes a minority for a generation or more.

The test now is on the Republican sideand in the conservative movementto see if they can rise to the opportunity.

To read, hear, and watch more of Newt's commentary, visit Gingrich360.com.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

See the article here:
Call the Democrats' Budget Bill What It Is: Big-Government Socialism | Opinion - Newsweek