Positive Action, Not Happy Thoughts, Are Needed to Overcome Problems

Amy Stark tells us not to take the problems of 1991 too personally. A positive attitude, she says, is all we need to make our worries disappear. “The recession, layoffs and illness are not punishments for something we have done wrong,” Stark writes. I wish to point out that these problems are, (most often) exactly that--punishments for what we have done wrong, or just as often, punishments for things we should have done but didn’t.

The recession is a direct result of government deficit spending and citizen inaction. I have read that 17% to 25% of the federal budget in 1992 will go directly to bankers and financiers, many of them in other countries, for interest payments on the federal debt. That is such a huge amount of money that none of us can visualize it. I suggest that there would be no recession if that money was being spent on goods and services.

In the United States, these deficits were created in part by absurd spending levels in a huge social program to the wealthy called “defense.” We believed it when they told us that this program was necessary and “prudent.” We believed it when they told us that government must get “off the backs” of business. Now we learn of the looting of the S&Ls;, the banks, the insurance and pension funds--and the taxpayers must pay with even more deficit spending.

At home and in restaurants, we feed ourselves over-preserved, over-processed, salt- and fat-laden foods that cause so many health problems they appear faster than we can study and name them. We use toxic medications served over the counter and through the medical community. We make traditional herbal remedies used safely for millennia illegal. We drink alcohol and smoke tobacco. These are the causes of most diseases today.

What Dr. Stark suggests as treatment for these self-induced problems is denial. Don’t worry, be happy! Have a positive attitude and everything will be all right!

That is the attitude that created the mess we are in. What we need to do is admit our failings and get with the hard work of solving these problems long-term. Quit believing the lies of the big spenders in Washington and develop our physical and mental health. When we live in an environment that is healthy and fiscally sound, a positive attitude comes naturally.

JEFFRY WINTERS, Capistrano Beach