FLEECING THE TAXPAYERS

THANK YOU, THANK you, thank you, Metro Santa Cruz, for your article exposing Senator "Auntie Warbucks" Feinstein's war profiteering ("Iraq and Dianne," Cover Story, Jan. 31). Since Reagan's gross expansion of defense spending, it seems nobody in the press or in politics has dared point out the fleecing of the American taxpayer by our elected officials to the benefit of the military industrial complex. We have somehow accepted that if we only spend trillions--at the expense of health care, education, and infrastructure--on faster, stealthier, more sophisticated weapons, we can ensure our freedom to consume as we see fit. Even after a handful of men armed with box-cutters deliver the most lethal blow on our soil since Pearl Harbor, we are still asked to believe that spending more than the 20 top defense spending countries combined is making the world a safer place.

After so-called Democratic senator from Georgia Zell Miller's screed at the 2004 GOP convention, I waited for the rebuttal. He claimed that Democrats Kerry and Kennedy who voted against some huge Defense weapons systems when we at peace, after the Soviet Union was a chapter in history, were weak on defense. In fact they shared responsibility for encouraging terrorism by making us vulnerable. I waited, and the response was weak or nonexistent. Nobody pointed out how much Mr. Miller's collusion with Georgia defense contractors. No Democrats challenged Mr. Miller's, Dick Cheney's, or Fox pundit's calls for giving Bush a blank check for defense spending, because they too have been lining their pockets.

Ken Yates, Mountain View

DISGUSTED DEMOCRAT

I AM BOTH DISHEARTENED and disgusted as a lifelong Democrat to learn that my own senator has been ripping off the taxpayers just as badly as any GOP member ever has.

I rejoiced at the recent election. As many of my fellow citizens, I'm fed up with the lies and policies of the current administration. I did not, however, vote for the same old crap with a new name. We want reform.We want honesty.

Dianne Feinstein, you should at least be censured by the Senate and at most leave the Senate. This is not the first time your ethics have been brought into question. Many years ago, you voted for students to get tuition and books paid for to those fly-by-night colleges. Your husband owned some of those, did he not?

Enough. No representative nor senator should be allowed to skate by doing this kind of blatant dishonest behavior. It's about time both parties clean house. We need Mr. Smith to go to Washington again!

Kama M. Scott, Reseda

MEDIA MIDGETS

AFTER MANY YEARS of reading the local media and being in the local music industry, it has become apparent there is little or no editorial or journalistic integrity at your paper. No fears, the Good Times and KPIG share your obvious disdain for anybody not PAYING for coverage. None of you can even get the super simple club grids accurate. While you may proffer excuses, the evidence is so clear every time you open the paper. Let's see, all three of you media midgets choose mostly the same pics, leaning towards the heaviest advertiser. Were your editorial staffs independent of the advertising as should be, you would actually go out and look for the good music yourself and not rely on the advertising promoters to give you your words to cut and paste into ads on the editorial page. We present live music 4 to 5 nights a week. All of it is at least good; most is above the cut. I send out calendars and band promos for some of the more exciting music and not even a mention and the names spelled wrong in the grid. How basic can you get?

I am writing this and of course sending it to a lot of people. I am extremely upset at the constant double speak from the local media. It is time the good ol' boys gang is broken up. No one venue or media outlet should feel they are in the position to determine what is the music scene.

Let me be perfectly clear. It is my belief that Henfling's has been blackballed by Tom Miller, KPIG and the rest of the local media and promoters. Despite the best sound system and engineers in the county, despite some of the most current and exemplary music, we receive no coverage or mention. I know what the clubs provide--I designed several of their house systems--like the current Atrium retrofit.

Music should be a universal language, made available to all. Censorship or mandating what that is is wrong.

Kylan Oaks, Santa Cruz

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