Letters to the Editor for Sept. 23: Why no one listens to you

Why no one listens

I have friends and colleagues that voted for Donald Trump. I bear them no ill will. That is our political system to vote your choice.

This letter is not about politics, its about your country, you and your family's security an as important, our very democracy. What is happening now is threatening our democracy and dividing us as a country. Are your temporary, imagined gains worth that to you? Rome was destroyed from within.

Those of you that live in so called fly over country, both rural and urban, you claim no one listens to you, pays you any attention. Maybe here’s why:

You say your culture is being changed and you don’t want that. The world is a constant change and if you don’t adapt or learn to change, the world passes you by. It will not wait for you, you have a responsibility to catch up and when you balk at this, the world continues without you. Even your children have moved on and think you are strange.

Many of you live in isolated areas both rural and in cities and, sadly, in your minds. You live and do the same things as you've always done it and you don't really know or even care about change. This produces privilege, thoughts of supremacy, seclusion, bias and fears of others not like you because of your closed world.

Knowing this, you have the nerve to say you are left out.

What do you expect.

Anthem had soul

In 1968, Aretha Franklin opened the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago by singing “The Star-Spangled Banner”

This is how Republicans reacted:

“She crucified the song and tore my heart to shreds,” wrote the St. Clair Chronicle's H. Denis Moore, one of many to decry her performance with (in their minds) the epithet of “Soul Music.”

Indianola, Miss. Enterprise-Tocsin editor David M. Schuller declared that “the National Anthem was tossed around as so much garbage when ‘soul sister’ Aretha Franklin jazzed it up beyond the realm of the musicians."

The Lexington, Ky. VFW fired off a telegram to the Democratic Party deploring Franklin’s “bop-style singing,” calling it “disgraceful.”

Readers flooded their local newspapers with complaints as well. “Disgraceful and entirely unnecessary,” wrote one; “She jazzed up the singing of it in such a manner that surely made the blood of every true American who heard it boil,” wrote another. “‘Soul’ has its place—where, I’m not sure—but certainly not in the performance of our country’s anthem,” wrote one Edward C. Goldhill Jr. of Pensacola, while a Warrington, Fla., resident declared that the song had been “degraded and subjected to sacrilege” before continuing: “Yes, give Negroes their rights and opportunities, but let us first be certain they have adequate training and instruction, so that their actions will not be a disgrace and humiliation to all Americans."

Pot is no answer

I keep reading these sound offs from the pot crowd, how legalizing pot is the answer to so many of our problems.

Some of the recent ones espousing the theory of this massive revenue that will cure all of our financial problems, is a joke

It would not be a drop in the bucket compared to the casino revenue and the increased daily demand on law enforcement would require more funding than the little bit of revenue coming in.

Pot smokers driving impaired would not only put more danger on our roads, but cause numerous problems for law enforcement. States where pot was legalized didn't cure any budget problems and it is still sold illegally there.

Trump helps Putin

There was an exchange at the Helsinki press conference that did not get much notice. A reporter asked Russian President Vladimir Putin if Putin had directed his people to help President Donald Trump win the election. Putin answered yes. That tacitly admits interference, and not just in the democratic process, as many have claimed. His endorsement means that, at the very least, he believed Trump would be friendlier to Russia than would Clinton. He had reason to believe that. Wealthy Russians are big investors in Trump enterprises.

So far, Putin must be cheering for what much of what Trump has done. He has denigrated the intelligence services in favor or Putin's word. He has attacked NATO and the counties that support it.

He has roiled internal U.S. differences of race and party. He attacks the Robert Mueller investigation as a hoax and a witch hunt. All actions that Putin would have ordered if he could have.

On the flip side, Trump retaliated against the attacks in Syria. He deported Russian diplomats associated with the election interference. But, hey, he can't be too obviously in Putin's camp. He needs some cover.