Prosperity For RI

To the Editor I have been dealing with the RI chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses for about 25 years, mostly at the Statehouse. During this time I have found them to be among the least truthful organizations in their testimony. On Tuesday August 24 they did it again, complaining in a guest column about our 46 ranking in som... e crackpot business ranking. Rhode Island is right smack in the middle in both unemployment and per capita income, exactly what we would expect of a state centered on a smallish city, while we are among the leaders in recovering jobs lost to the pandemic. Anyone who studies the situation realizes that the future of prosperity requires us to stop the climate catastrophe by eliminating carbon emissions and eliminate inequality. But the NFIB moans about raising the minimum wage and about making the fossil fuel industry cover the cost of undoing the damage they are creating. Years ago the NFIB argued that no one would buy a car if seatbelts were required and they are at it again. The NFIB continues to live in the past and if we follow their advice we shall condemn many Rhode Islanders to substandard wages and everyone to the fires and floods the climate catastrophe is bringing. 20 years after we tried to kick them out of Afghanistan the Taliban are back in charge. They remind me of Republicans, Sexist, anti democracy, violent, and religious fanatics, but in Afghanistan, the Graveyard of Empires, they were the only one resisting imperial occupation and the puppet regime the Americans set up. The Taliban will never rule a modern country, any regime that refuses to educate women and girls will never create a modern economy, but they are not the puppets of foreign masters and right now that is all that counts. The United states has spent 20 years and trillions of dollars trying to create an Afghan army, but like all American attempts to create puppet regimes and an army to support them, it is a failure. Or rather, the only place American puppets have worked out a bit better ...Read More