To the Editor:

The answer to the question is Trojan Horse! SEIU's entry into the Vermont health care debate, like every other SEIU plot, will be very, very bad for the good people of Vermont. The other unions in the state are right to be concerned, and the people of Vermont should be very concerned too.

Simply put, SEIU is a social cancer -- the human equivalent to an invasive species. These SEIU gangsters don't give a damn about single payer; they have always opposed single payer and have undermined it at every opportunity. Their one and only agenda is to take the Vermont home care workers hostage in order to extract high dues without significantly improving the home care workers' standard of living.

You don't believe that? Just look at their record in other states. Once these SEIU parasites get entrenched in Vermont, they will cut back room deals to sell out the home care workers, and they will go behind the backs of progressives to cut secret deals with right wing corporations to undermine and destroy single payer.

You don't believe that? Just look at their record in other states (like California, where they cut secret deals with Schwarzenegger in order to undermine single payer there). If the home care workers don't acquiesce to the sell out contracts, SEIU will just lie to them about the agreement, intimidate and threaten them, or stuff the ballot boxes in order to get the deals "ratified."

Don't believe that? Just look at their record in California, or ask the home care workers in Fresno County and Sonoma County. Additionally, SEIU's well deserved reputation for violence, corruption and labor law violations will give opponents of single payer a powerful propaganda tool to hammer Vermonters with in a media blitz where SEIU's sleazy reputation will become the issue.

The corporations won't have to make up any horror stories; they just have to repeat the well documented truth over and over and over, until Vermonters turn against single payer because of revulsion with SEIU. And just wait and see what happens to the Vermont labor movement when SEIU becomes one of the largest unions (I use the term loosely) in Vermont. You heard it here first: Beware, Vermont!

Charlie Ridgell
Takoma Park, MD



To the Editor:

I am alarmed at all the inaccuracies in this article and wonder, of what little is left after I take out the inaccuracies I recognize, what can be believed of the rest? Since I don't know Mr. McDonald, I would have appreciated factual background, but certainly can't trust this source. Why the misleading statements and distortions? What is the motivation? Does Steve Early still live in Vermont? Or has he moved away, so maybe doesn't know as much as one would have hoped, so maybe it wasn't purposeful? This reads as though it could have been written by someone opposing universal health care, trying to foment conflict.

Betty Keller
St. Johnsbury, VT



To the Editor:

Dana Woldow is able to give us a primer on school funding then and now, and the real issues at stake regarding the funding of K-12, with lucid prose. She is able to state the facts in an objective way that sheds light, rather than heat and that seeks to create a way where all the interested parties can come together to find solutions.We need to stop kidding ourselves that we care about the education and well-being of young people. As a society our funding priorities are clear, more for jails and less for classrooms. Too bad that lack of investement in the latter, inevitably leads to the former.

Laura Brainin-Rodriguez
San Francisco



To the Editor:

Thanks for this article. I was in the same situation, on a charter PTA for an elementary school that first raised $1,000 and now has a budget of at least $450K. This is wrong on so many levels. It privatizes public education, creates a culture of "haves" at the school, furthers the divide between the schools that CAN raise that much, and those who can't, and stresses out parents, kids and teachers. There is also no oversight of resources between schools in the district.

Lisa Petrie
San Francisco



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