Long Beach letters

The High Rise Assoc. does have goals

To the Editor:
Unfortunately, the Herald’s article “Civic-minded resolutions” (Jan. 7-13) misrepresented my comments about the Long Beach High Rise Association.
I said we’re an organization of co-op and condo Board members with meetings open to all Long Beach co-op shareholders and condo unit owners. Substituting “townhouse” excludes the significant number of high-rise condos we’re happy to have in our organization.

Of course we have goals for 2010 and every year. We’ll remain a forum for discussion of common building concerns and experiences — only some of which involve money. We’ll continue to help members run their buildings and keep them informed about issues affecting co-ops and condos.
Since these include city and other government matters, we’re grateful that City Manager Charles Theofan attends meetings to tell us about developments and address our concerns.
While our (e-mail) question-and-answer exchange provides helpful references and information about building policies and practices, it’s hardly the “most helpful thing the Association has.” If the Herald has future questions about the High Rise Association, I’ll provide a written response to prevent misunderstanding.
Beverly K. Jones
President Long Beach High
Rise Association


Capitalism built America

To the Editor:
Regarding Scott Brinton's "Is the U.S. becoming a socialist nation?" (Jan. 14-20): Socialism isn't an abstract concept that just happens overnight. It is political philosophy that is learned and taught through society. Pre-communist Russia and pre-Nazi Germany didn't turn into collectivist societies in a decade or two. It was the slippery slope you mentioned over generations.
Just one example of how the government moves from a harmless law to full-blown control is smoking. It started as a small ban in public (government) places and slowly spread to the private sector, and now you can't even have a private business and allow smoking. That is the slippery slope. There are so many examples of this.
Take freedom of speech too. Once you start curtailing certain speech, then it opens the door for more control of all speech.
The U.S. is a mixed economy — not capitalist, not socialist — but we are moving quickly toward full-blown socialism. And, yes, President George W. Bush was bad, but he wasn't as anti-American as President Obama is. We need to move toward freedom, individual rights, property ownership and capitalism. That is what made this country great. The brief period after the Civil War was the most capitalistic in history, and it built America.
Joel Schottenfeld
Long Beach