Opinion

It’s been very encouraging to read about all the recent arrests of people stealing things from cars in Brattleboro. Our officers seem to be going above and beyond to keep the community safe, and I can’t express my gratitude enough.

A few days ago, I was the victim of yet another theft in town, and the officer who handled my case showed exemplary professionalism and courtesy. Even though it didn’t happen to one of the wealthy elite, and he probably has a ton of things on his plate to deal with, he was very respectful, handled business, and brought resolution to the case within a matter of days. Thanks to his good work, there’s now yet another scumbag with a mile long rapsheet off our streets, and our community is a little safer.

I believe we need not a financial audit (we’ll get those by law), but a periodic audit of the effectiveness of management and the fulfillment by Town government of its objectives.

Therefore, I have recommended to my fellow members of the Finance Committee that we request such audits.

Every ten years or so, we should have an outside or third-party expert review very extensively whether our Town is being run using best practices or not. Particularly at the juncture of the current inter-regnum (between Town Managers), this could end up being a very effective way of reducing Town expenses.

When you walk across the bridge to Hinsdale you feel the bridge vibrating underfoot. It is a sustained motion, that combined with the obviously “insufficient weight limits” might give the pedestrian pause to be concerned in what is an otherwise peaceful, scenic river view.

What the long-term overweight loads and steady shaking does to the bridge structure is another matter.

Let’s skip the medical marijuana dispensary syndrome and simply legalize marijuana for adult use in Vermont. The Vermont legislature, like other states have outdated themselves with the implementation of marijuana dispensaries. They are not sensible solutions to set guidelines to dispense marijuana to people as patients.Moreover, it sets the terrible precedent that marijuana is best prescribed. The guidelines enacted by the legislature border on the ridiculous. Setting limits on the number of “patients” allowed to receive a license, and setting limits on the list of ailments that physicians can prescribe for their patients literally defeats the purpose of using marijuana as a medicine for a broad spectrum of people.

Our inaction, our passivity, our naivety and the ease with which we can be manipulated has fueled the forces of fear, power, greed and suppression. Most U.S. citizens now walk around in self-induced comas, too ignorant to question, too afraid to ask and too numb to feel.

Is our government capable of killing its own people? Look … at what we have done to the environment and the poor for oil. Look … at the brutal dictators we have brought to power and continue to fund. Look … at the wars we have manufactured. The U.S. has become the 21st Century’s “Death Star.” We do not prevent war, we make war. We do not protect humanity and prevent atrocities, we kill people and commit atrocities whenever our multinationals are affected. Let’s-be-clear PROFIT defines our “national interests” and our foreign policy not free thinking and not free speech.

I was just listening to a song that literally brought tears to my eyes. It’s about a different war, and a different country, but the message is the same: War Sucks. And it’s the little guy that pays the biggest price, while the 1% profits enormously and hides those profits in tax shelters.

Nearly 100 years later, the “poverty draft” still takes our youngsters and subjects them to unspeakable horror. Very few of them come back unaffected. For some, they suffer for a very long time. A good friend of mine just succumbed to cancer resulting from Agent Orange in ‘Nam.

I heard .

I can’t help but wonder if this is what we have to look forward to with this new healthcare debacle.

The scary part is I see many similarities here. 

A devious, abhorrent UN film is described to emphasize how the UN hasbeen continually used as the handmaiden of genocidal military interventions arranged when predatory investments of the powerful private usurious amoral speculative investment banking industry politically referred to euphemistically as the ‘international community of nations’ read investors controlling the Neo-colonial Powers are threatened or inhibited.

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Investors in war, dominant on Wall St. almost since the birth of the US, must be calculating that it be convenient to have more, not less, people ready to die fighting  a cruel and genocidal desperate American super empire of amoral senseless greedy speculative investment banking governance.
Likely stratagem of investors interested in big wars, not skirmishes. Their trial must happen before the 3rd world conflagration being invested in

It’s difficult to square the sentiments of the author, tomaidh, in “TPP: What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You/ibrattleboro”, November 4, 2013, with the .  

Those pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agenda aim to enshrine corporate pillaging and weaken legislative safeguards that protect public interests and the environment. 

We see the same modus operandi at work with smart meters; proponents have introduced legislation to “make ‘smart’ meters mandatory for the entire nation”.