Waiting and staring

The same people telling us we should wear masks are pretty much the same ones who told us we were attacked by 19 men with box cutters, and thus we should attack and destroy Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries not remotely connected to the event, even if you are a believer in the official story.

The two events are connected because once we accepted the first without question we put down the welcome mat for the coming of all that has followed from that day onward.

We can only wait and stare out the window in anticipation of what will come of the current “crisis.”

Mike Palecek
Saginaw

It is happening here

For some, a mask mandate is seen as tyranny or some weird form of communism, even though we are in the midst of a deadly pandemic. Yet, many of them see unidentified paramilitary being deployed on our streets to teargas, beat, abduct and shoot people exercising their 1st Amendment Rights of free speech and assembly as something to cheer about.

Some Facebook anti-mask people also advocate running protesters over with vehicles.  What has become of this nation?  

The authoritarian bent of the President is on full display with his deployment of camo-wearing unidentified paramilitary troops into cities where the officials don’t want them. Protecting the federal building is fine, but there’s no need to abduct people off the street, no need to shoot people with “less lethal” rounds, no need to deploy teargas on American citizens that are exercising their First Amendment rights. To do so, is to violate their Constitutional rights. Collective punishment is not only immoral and illegal, it incites further protest, it escalates the very issue they are pretending to address. And to label protesters as a whole as “violent” (a technique despots use) to justify their actions and scapegoat people is unacceptable.

The President is performing fascism to orchestrate chaos, something that “can’t happen here.” Well, it’s happening, it’s a sign we’re losing our Republic, that our democracy is dying.  

WE MUST STAND AGAINST THIS. We must not go down that road, we must remember that we fought a World War against fascism. Let us remember the lessons of history.

Sanda Oslin
Grand Marais

Stable geniuses

Science seems to be terrifying to Donald Trump, current Republican occupant of our White House, and his followers. 

It needn’t be. One way to look at science is as a large form to be filled out. There are many questions on the form, and the more that are answered accurately, the better the picture will be that someone is able to get from the form.
Now Mr. Trump is asking everyone to wear masks. The coronavirus has gotten so out of hand, he’s forced to put aside his arrogance, ego and hubris in order to compete against President Obama in seeking a second term.

Trump has obviously hated Obama for years. Trump’s attitudes have caused his many bankruptcies (a bankruptcy is where you force other people to pay your bills.)
Masks should’ve been mandated on Feb.1, when there was two feet of snow on the ground, not July 23rd.  We’d have been on the out-side of this pandemic by now, finding ways to go back to work like other countries.  Instead MAGA had turned us into a third-world country. We’re in last place in terms of coronavirus – “Trump’s virus.”

Trump’s pride had smarted off, so he wouldn’t wear a mask. His followers followed, to the point of belligerence and occasional violence. When they got sick, all those trying to save their lives were wearing masks. They made medical nuisances of themselves, at Trump’s direction. 

Trump is frequently tested, as is everyone around him. How many of his followers can claim the same?

Are masks the end-all? No. Think of a building with several doors. Someone is trying to get in who shouldn’t be. The more doors that you lock, the more likely they’ll give up and leave, before finding that one door you didn’t lock.

A. Martin
Merrifield

How Dare They! (For Greta)

Here is a poem I wrote on Sept. 25, 2019, after seeing Greta Thunberg speak to the UN:

HOW DARE THEY! (FOR GRETA)

I feel her anger,
I hurt for her pain,
I refuse to watch
A young person’s heart
Smothered and silenced again!
 
Maturity neither lives nor survives
In the sinister lies of oil soaked eyes
While they hide their gluttony and their disguise
Their selfish greed keeps telling us lies,
when killing our children should make all of them cry!
 
They’re destroying the world with their own ugly sins,
Selling our children for favors unknow,
Hoping to crush innocent minds,
And mute the voices that dare to disrupt,
In the heads of children who’ll never give up!
 
Their fearful parents try and tie back
their untested wings,
Lest their burning dreams threaten the slumber of Kings
So Greta, you must never back down
From the brutes and bullies who call you a clown!
                            
They won’t hesitate to spit in your eyes
Lest your brave young heart sees through their disguise
And they’ll devour your guts
Just to silence a mind that will never give up,
As you reveal their words as (truly) profane!
                  
People like you are the hope of this world
You  see their deceptions, you hear all their lies,
And your young strong voices will never subside, 
nor will you ever quit taking the chance
To end all the bullshit and teach us to dance.
                            

Peter W. Johnson
Superior

Hat trick of hypocrisy

On Monday, July 27, Duluth experienced a hat trick of hypocrisy when Ivanka Trump. the Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, and Congressman Pete Stauber visited a local business to promote the “Pledge to American Workers.” Never mind that Ivanka Trump’s brand used Chinese labor for years, and that she still owns many Chinese patents. Nev-er mind that she rents her mansion from the billionaire owner of the Chilean mining company which wants to do sulfide mining near the BWCA. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt is a former oil and mining lobbyist, who, like all Trump’s appointed foxes guarding the various hen houses, is out to dismantle the regulatory state. Congressman Stauber promotes this Pledge to American Workers, but he voted against the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, disappointing unions who supported it. So there you have it. A local business supplied the props for this propaganda stunt, which was acted out to re-elect an authoritarian sociopath to be the president of the United States.

Smile shamelessly for the camera, Ivanka, David and Pete, but your reality show-from-hell will be cancelled in November.

David Sorensen
Duluth

Open letter to Rep Stauber

Dear Rep. Stauber,

Our government is behaving monstrously, some of the worst abuses include children in cages at the border, people dying of COVID-19 in detention camps, deporting COVID-positive people to Haiti and giving the majority of economic relief to the wealthy.

Our national park lands are being sold and degraded for corporate profits. The president is using the U.S. military against peaceful citizens. We now have agents of the federal government kidnapping citizens from the streets of Portland and Columbus.

It is well past time for leaders i Congress to put an end to the worst abuses of the president. I realize the party is brutal to those who step out of line, but courage is contagious. Mr. Stauber, I don’t expect you to singlehandedly rein in the Trump administration, but it would sure be great top see you try. Thank you for your time.

Margaret Sternberg
Duluth