Voice of the people
Friday, Aug 4, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
This letter to the editor in the Kankakee Daily Journal should win an award for the most bugaboos in one document. I’ve highlighted them for your ease of use. [ALNAC, by the way is the commission that will run the Peotone area airport]
ALNAC and the foreign company that will finance and operate the airport would destroy Beecher and the surrounding area by their decision that if a passenger airport won’t fly, they are going to make it a cargo airport. This means most flights will be made at night. ALNAC has decided to extend the runway from 10,000 to 12,000 feet to accommodate the new Airbus 380.
This airplane can fly directly from China to Beecher, with more Chinese and other foreign products to undercut U.S. products. It weighs in at 1-1/4 million pounds, takes 82,000 gallons of jet fuel, has 190,000 horsepower and has no pollution devices — like all other aircraft.
The plane will take off and land on an east-west runway — right over the new houses in the Hunters Chase subdivision. I have checked with the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) and found that 80 percent of the major airports have had crashes on approach and departures in the past 40 years. There is only ONE runway planned at Peotone airport.
You need to have some understanding about jet fuel. It is a hydrocarbon like auto gasoline. However, it has an additive package that is so toxic it has to be registered with the EPA. A jet engine is only 37 percent efficient — the rest is toxic waste
The case to build this airport is that it is going to create jobs. If the politicians would send the millions of illegal aliens back to where they came from, we would have plenty of jobs.
It looks to me like Jesse Jackson Jr. is like some of the rest of the politicians. They are selling or leasing our ports, roads, banks, shipyards, and businesses — even our airlines now — to foreigners. If I didn’t know better, I would think our country is bankrupt!
The national debt is accelerating past $9 trillion, our trade deficit is $60 billion and rising, the average credit card debt is $9,000, the state is stealing money from pension funds and companies are dropping pension funds altogether. Our economy is in a very precarious position.
The people who want us to have a global economy don’t tell you about the diseases that humans can get; diseases our crops are getting; other new critters that are killing our native trees, and jobs that are being lost to cheap foreign labor. Isn’t this too high a price for America to pay for globalization?
Dude, you forgot global warming and Islamofascism.
- Anonymous - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 7:11 am:
What about the whales? I tell ya, we have to save the whales!!!
- Six Degrees of Separation - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 7:30 am:
On the contrary, I find this letter to be firing on all cylinders, and even some cylinders which don’t exist. Now, that’s a trick!
- Joe Sixpack - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 7:35 am:
Replace ‘Airbus 380′ with ‘Walmart’ and the letter turns into a perfectly rational argument why a living wage is needed in Chicago.
- Marta Elena - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 8:00 am:
This person sounds like one of the people who subscribe to the underground Beecher paper.
At least, I can shake my head this morning in amusement. Nothing like reading about a little misguided fear with my morning coffee.
- Pat Hickey - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 8:36 am:
This from the Joiet Herald: 7/21/06
Jackson’s group, known as the Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission, or ALNAC, has been attempting to garner support of a public/private airport development plan. Foes of ALNAC have criticized the role of Bensenville and Elk Grove Village, which are outside of Will County, in Jackson’s commission.
Chinese Airbus does not give me the willies - the lads from Bensonville/Elk Grove Village who opposed O’Hare expansion and are oiling Kid Staples gears should make people a tad unsettled.
Some of the best farm land on earth paved over to whet the appetites of Congressman “I am still contemplating a principled effort to rebuild democracy in Chicago…â€
Yep, that’s Progressive.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 8:43 am:
Kid Staples. Hilarious.
- Pat Hickey - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 9:11 am:
. . . And Daddo is Pop Staples.
- VanillaMan - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 9:28 am:
People have the right to be heard. I applaud the Kankakee paper in printing this letter. Every person has something to say and wise people overlook their own judgements and allow them to be heard.
You sound like a bunch of snots laughing a working man with concerns. Shame on you!
- Lived Under Flight Path of 32 Left - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 9:35 am:
As a kid we lived under the flight path for runway 32 left. This is the longest runway at O’Hare airport. Our house was 3 blocks from the outer marker, so when the wind was out of the northwest or weather was horrible, the planes would be going over our house at a rate of about 1 every 2 minutes. As a kid, I thought it was pretty cool to see the planes over head.
I understand the feelings and concerns of the people who live in the area of the Peotone airport. They live in a quiet rural community. Now some city idiots is trying to foist an unwanted airport (not even the airlines want it) on the community.
The letter writer makes a point about the global economy having a devastating impact to our environment. Look at the asian carp in the Missippi & Illinois Rivers, zebra mussels in Lake Michigan and many of the other foriegn organisms that thrive in America without preditors.
For the sake of full disclosure, I have to admit that there is one foriegn organism that I like - my lovely wife is from Brazil.
- Elitist? Of course! Have you SEEN these people? - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 2:27 pm:
- VanillaMan - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 9:28 am:
“People have a right to be heard.” That basic idea has done more to take down the level of journalism and political debate than anything other single philosophy.
The backbone of banal talk TV and all manner of debasing “journalism” is grounded in the idea that all debates are simply a matter of differing opinions and philosophies, where an opinion is neither right nor wrong.
But of course, not all opinions are created equal. They can have varying amounts of logic, empirical evidence and emotional appeal. This particular letter is sorely lacking on all three (despite a desperate attempt at the third), and decisively proves that not everyone is entitled to publicize their opinions.
I can almost guarantee that this letter took space away from another letter that deserved space more, out of some half-assed attempt at inclusion by the paper.