Republicans accuse Democrats of doing what they’re doing

According to John Foglesong, “The Republicans love government.  Government is how they redistribute wealth to the upper 2%. What they hate is democracy. They don’t like people voting, and that’s been a struggle in this country since our founding. It’s never been conservative vs. liberal. It’s been aristocracy vs. democracy.” (And Republicans consider themselves to be the “aristocracy.”)

Salon magazine writes: “It’s ultimately about the Republican belief that elections should be democratic in name only, and the only real choice available to voters should be to vote Republican. If the voters are foolish enough choose otherwise, their right to vote should be stripped away.”

106 House Republicans (and who knows how many Senate Republicans) were spending critical time, (when people were starving, and small businesses were decimated,) trying to overturn the results of a fair election.  Now, almost all Republicans are doing their best to manufacture doubt about the 2020 election, because, policy-wise, there’s little to nothing they have to offer the people of the U.S. – other than their “chicken little” fear that the sky is falling.

According to CNN, new analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice finds, that for the 2021 legislative session, there have been more than 100 bills filed in 28 different states, all aimed at making voting more restrictive. This is a substantial increase from the 35 voting law bills in 15 states from the 2020 session. Guess who filed these bills.

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel has already said the party will be playing a “heavy role” in pushing for election changes after the record turnout of the 2020 election. Only a paranoid or fear-based organization like the Grand Ostrich Party can look at an overwhelming number of people exercising their right to vote, and assume it’s a problem.

The mistrust in the electoral process, cited by many GOP legislators, as a reason for dismantling election laws, is a mistrust that stems from a belief in lies told by the former president, his sycophants, and too many paranoid GOP politicians, ALL who were trying to make sure their seats would be safe, and they’d be re-elected.

It’s been written there are two enemies to freedom:  those who want to control everyone and everything around them, and those who don’t believe they need to control themselves at all. It’s no coincidence that both traits are found in the same fear-based groups of people. Currently the two primary U.S. groups exhibiting these behaviors include the (mostly) white, patriarchal male Republicans, and fanatic evangelicals. (Fanatic evangelicals are more Republican than they are “christian.”)

Blogger David Gerrold writes: “The Republicans want a war. They truly need the context of a civil war against the ‘evil lefties’ to maintain the solidity of their cult.” 
Acting in a bipartisan manner won’t keep the base afraid, angry, and wanting the blood I’m sure they assume must be black.

Gary Burt
Marble, Minnesota

The Polish version

An example of a book that champions liberty in the press is Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. That is the temperature that books burn. I would say burning books is worse than banning literature. Yet, both are things that conscious people don’t want to see happen. I was sad to see Dr. Seuss’s books be banned because of racial stereotyping, and that these ideas existed in his books.

Could they rescind their order to print And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street? That would be neat to see! I had the privilege to date a Polish woman and to teach English in her hometown of Augustow. I have a Polish version of The Cat in the Hat called Kot Prot.

Andy Cragun
Duluth, Minnsota

Setting the record straight

In response to some outrageous malinformation and blind belief in “A review of the Biden Presidency,” in your 3/18/21 issue, I need to say a few things.

First, I’d like to ask the writer how long and how willingly did he wear his face mask? I like the idea of breathing, and I trust science rather than some scurrilous conspiracy theory trash. I’m still wearing mine, and I’ve had my shots.

I do feel sorry for union men losing jobs; my dad was a union man. But I have no sympathy for Big Oil, who is more than willing to wreck the environment for low-grade tar oil (which is petering out anyway) just so Mr. Gerdes can drive his car. Trump’s predictions of a gas price rise? No surprise; I could have predicted that. Besides, Trump’s fossil-fuel buddies surely keep him well-informed on his investment portfolio profits.

Depicting Biden as a Trojan Horse is a misfire; that’s just a mirror image of what the less-than-honorable Repubs did when they got Trump into office. Part of the “Big Lie,” I guess, is to continually accuse the opposition of what you yourself are blatantly doing. That was most certainly a Trump tactic.

Biden may not be the strong-man “Il Duce” you want to see in power, but America elected him. I admire his stance and the things he’s trying to do, in the face of partisan Republican non-cooperative opposition. And I’m forever happy that the other gutter denizen was swept out of office.

Ray Allard
Duluth, Minnesota

Avoid all new fossil fuel infrastructure

“Avoid new pipelines. Oppose new or expanding infrastructure whose primary purpose is transporting fossil fuels through Wisconsin” is the kind of bold leadership we need to save our state and our world from the worst ravages of extreme climate chaos.

PLEASE PUT THIS SOLUTION INTO YOUR BUDGET PROPOSAL!

If I could I would end fossil fuels.  Not yet. First we must tighten up our homes, find a way to reuse what we have wasted by throwing away into landfills. Use vehicles that are not so polluting and have better gas mileage.  Support, i.e. fund, industries that cement these values. How to remove the pipelines already in place and insist that the industries that pollute do it themselves before their money runs out. Never allow tar sands into our state because the danger is too great.  Train those who would work in these needed industries so that jobs are not lost.

Stop the money institutions from lending to these polluting industries.  Eliminate the buying of politicians by the fossil fuel industries. Cities, counties are given monies to support their departments, programs by international corporations. Give elect-ed officials and the public straight in-formation about where we are in the cycle that leads to climate catastrophe.  To have 62 degree days in March in NW Wisconsin is indeed a scary indication of what the future shows.  To be 10 inches low in precipitation in the last 14 months gives me pause as I know how difficult it is to raise crops, including gardens.

Healthy land, air and water make healthy ecosystems that make healthy people. Ignoring and throwing away communities to pollution means a collapsing foundation. Fear for the future should give rise to hope that those decisions we all make will be based on fact and science not hype.
Governor Evers and Lieutenant Governor Barnes having majority elected legislature that can’t look forward isn’t an easy task. Give it your best shot. This citizen supports you.

Kathryn McKenzie
Superior, Wisconsin

A shameful use of a word

I really love The Reader. Rarely am I disappointed and I am always enlightened by The Reader, I cannot believe that your Editors left the term “Colored People” to be published in Ed Raymond’s The Gadfly column. Here we are in Northern Minnesota still using the Term “Colored People”! It’s shameful and embarrassing.

Pam Enblom
Duluth, Minnesota

Ed Raymond responds:

I spent three years living under Jim Crow rules in North Carolina during 1954-57, where signs of “white” and “colored” were plentiful, so I became accustomed to using the term. I have always felt that “Black Lives Matter” should have been “Colored Lives Matter” because some blacks think that Asians, Indians and Hispanics have never been discriminated against. What’s the big difference between “colored” and “people of color?” My Black, Indian and Hispanic Marines in my heavy machine gun platoon could not walk on the sidewalks in Jacksonville, NC. These “colored” people had to walk in the streets. We have a human race of many colors! I had two Black and one Hispanic , all Korean War-decorated veterans, as my top enlisted among about 15 other “colored.” What’s shameful and embarrassing for some “people of color” is that for some only Black Lives Matter.

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