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Local News & Opinion
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Ref. : Letters to the editor Open Letters:
03.05 Open Letter to Congressman Bart Stupak Health & Environment
Video National Health Care Systems In Other Countries 03.12 Slick Barry and the $100-Billion Medicaid/Medicare Fraud Claim 03.09 Kill Bill: Death to Obamacare! 03.09 Obama’s Rhetoric May Be “Fiery,” But His Health Care Reform Is Still Lukewarm Media Watching
03.17 CNN Scrapes Bottom of Right-Wing Barrel With Erickson Hire 03.16 WPost Blames Obama First, on Israel 03.16 Letter to the New York Times' Editor: Stovepiping To Persia 03.12 Cud and Complicity: Burying the Alternatives to Empire's Dominion 03.11 NYT and the ACORN Hoax 03.05 Sorry, Rove, Bush Did Lie About Iraq 03.03 It's Snow News 03.03 The Woeful Washington Post Ref. : The Daily Howler Legal Matters
02.26 America's Supremes: Court Over Constitution US Politics, Policy & Culture
03.11 Power Rangers: Policing the System With the "Fightin' Progressives" 03.09 Thinking About Countings 03.07 Unnatural Acts: Breaking the Fever of Militarism 02.25 Future Shock: A Better World Beyond the Imperium High Crimes?
03.16 America's Secret Prisons 03.13 Palestinian Dispossession in East Jerusalem 03.12 Israeli Settlement Expansions Continue 03.11 Brutalizing Palestinian Children 03.08 The Russell Tribunal on Palestine: Barcelona Session 03.05 Targeting Israeli Apartheid 03.01 America's Permanent War Agenda 02.25 Global Sweatshop Wage Slavery Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance
03.14 The Crisis in America's Telecommunications Network 03.09 The Business of Water: Privatizing An Essential Resource 03.05 Is the Recovery Real? 03.04 IMF-Style Austerity Measures come to America: What “Fiscal Responsibility” Means To You 03.04 Barry C. Lynn's "Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and Economics of Destruction" 03.01 Thinking About Fees International
03.15 Peace Process Hypocrisy: Stillborn from Inception 03.03 Muslim Disunity 03.02 Funding Israeli Militarism, Belligerence and Occupation 02.26 Iran Captures a 'Good' Terrorist We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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SPEAKING OUT:Vote NO on Maryland Question 2--Unless You Love Being Fooled
Can anybody imagine the danger to our national security IF even one presently loyal employee of the National Security Agency "plays to extinction"?
Maryland voters will decide on November 4 whether to amend our State's Constitution to reward an outrageously pushy lobbying effort on behalf of the cartel-like gambling industry.
The National Security Agency is located 5 miles or so from Laurel Park, where Maryland's politicians have planned to open a casino with computerized slot machines which incorporate lots of Pavlovian conditioning to keep the players on the machines. The gambling industry speaks, among themselves, of getting players "to play to extinction." Can anybody imagine the danger to our national security IF even one presently loyal employee of the National Security Agency "plays to extinction"? Such carefully-psychologist-designed machines should not be lined up in a casino within 100 miles of our National Security Agency—even as we have no doubt that 99.99% of the employees would not be tempted excessively. We do know that most people who will sell out their nation—our country or somebody else's—do it for money, not ideology. Frequently, they have done it for a combination of financial reasons, and gambling is among those recognized over time. Every state which has introduced casinos, slot machines, etc., has been "informed" ahead of time by the highly organized gambling industry how much money the state will "earn". Besides that, we know that every state which has introduced casinos, slot machines, etc., has been "informed" ahead of time by the highly organized gambling industry how much money the state will "earn". We recognize that the figures cited by the tightly-run gambling companies are always much higher than what's earned. Maybe a state will make 40% or 50% or 60% of what the gambling corporation "informs" the state ahead of time. If a state is uncharacteristically lucky, it might, in good financial times and with less "market saturation" of gambling machines, make two-thirds of what the industry tells its polticians ahead of time. Meantime, localities discover traffic jams around new gambling centers, and heavy demands on old sewer systems (predicted in particular for the infastructure serving Laurel Park). There suddenly are discussions of expensive improvements to roads and newer, bigger water mains and other infastructure. The Maryland General Assembly did not write any new funding for education into the proposal last year. The Maryland General Assembly did not write any new funding for education into the proposal last year—since the politicans and gambling industry lobbyists were eager to pressure various groups into supporting the Referendum. "Promising" money to State-funded organizations if they supported the Referendum without any written guarantee was a way to push organizations of teachers and others to support this Amendment to the Maryland Constituton. The money which is supposed to come, in a few years, from slot machines to the State Treasury has been informally, conversationally, "ear-marked" numerous times over. Anybody who has even casually listened to advertisements and politicans knows that the money which is supposed to come, in a few years, from slot machines to the State Treasury has been informally, conversationally, "ear-marked" numerous times over. The gambling establishments could never bring in the exaggerated, many-times-over, claimed, advertised, and rumored benefits for the horse racing industry, for senior citizens, for police and fire protection, for public schools, for the Maryland Teachers Pension Fund, to underwrite health care for needy residents, and everything else. Where's the owner of the big company that Maryland plans to let run gambling establishments here? Canada. This means one-third of the proceeds will go out of the country. Meantime, we know that one-third of the money will go to the owners of the gambling corporations—those people who contend they will be performing such a public service for the State. And, where's the owner of the big company that Maryland plans to let run gambling establishments here? Canada. That's what these proponents of Question 2 call "bringing money into Maryland." That is what these endorsers of the Amendment to our State Constitution call "keeping the money in Maryland." Deborah Cunningham is president of the board of Baltimore News Network, Inc., publisher of the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel.
Copyright © 2008 The Baltimore News Network. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. Baltimore News Network, Inc., sponsor of this web site, is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed in stories posted on this web site are the authors' own. This story was published on November 3, 2008. |
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