Important!
This was published in the Sentinel Record today, Monday August 20, 2018, under the title “Random Thoughts” — more or less as submitted (although I specifically requested that “Legion” be capitalized)… They also changed “libtard” to “liberal” but considering how critical it is of the paper’s growing regressive bias, I’m pleased it was published at all!
Dear editor,
Time for another letter of random (or not) non-sequiturs…
Like most Americans, you probably think slavery ended with the Civil War. Fact is, especially here in the South, freed slaves often found themselves subjected to conditions of forced labor little different from slavery. Real emancipation didn’t begin to happen until FDR’s Attorney General announced Circular No. 3591 on December 12, 1941.
Imagine, only five days after Pearl Harbor, an AG was taking care “of the least of these” (Matthew 25:40). Now, in 2018, we have in Jeff Sessions an AG more interested in wrecking families, turning schools into bunkers, and setting up Bruce Westerman as poseur by proximity.
Westerman, flush with reelection cash from who knows where, seems determined to pick a fight with advocates for the disabled. Advocates who rightly think Hayden Shamel will do a better job taking care “of the least of these.” Ergo, they are Westerman’s enemy. The Chamber of Commerce endorses Westerman because he favors business profits over public service. Winning is everything. Protecting the environment, promoting education, exercising justice (tempered with mercy), and taking care “of the least of these” – well, those are just quaint ideas best left for snowflakes and libtards.
Someone recently suggested America is diseased, afflicted with a terrible, terminal cancer only an expert oncologist like Trump can heal, despite his boorish bedside manner. To help heal this America, or at least keep her hanging in there for a few more miserable years, Dr. Trump needs his entourage of merry Evangelicals, holy men and women always willing to overlook truth and morality, always willing to offer their uncritical, blind allegiance. After all, winning is everything.
Unchecked, unregulated capitalism is the better diagnosis for what ails America. Fundamentalist writers – and they are Legion – might want to re-read the story of the Good Samaritan. It’s an early exercise in free health care, and it’s right there in that Bible they so love to quote. No work requirements, and not even background checks to see if the injured party was an immigrant. Aid was rendered. No questions were asked. No payment was required.
Meanwhile, the bars-and-stars battle flag of the Confederacy again flutters over the very spot where men were once lynched. Welcome to Hot Springs!
Finally, an observation that cuts close to the bone. Where have all the progressive editorials gone? The nearest thing we have are Republicans so disgusted with Trump they cannot defend his reckless antics and naked nepotism. Now, these pages are filled by the same fistful of wordy regressives ossified in the paranoia of 1950s McCarthyism: communism and socialism and liberalism are still existential threats to America. Maybe rock-and-roll, too.
Banishing progressive viewpoints makes a mockery of this newspaper’s core values. “Credibility is the greatest asset of any news medium, and impartiality is the greatest source of credibility.” This 24-year subscriber sees impartiality and credibility slipping away. Fair and balanced? No.
Monsieur Jacques d’Nalgar (snowflake and libtard)
Hot Springs, Arkansas
Image by Christian Cable. https://www.flickr.com/photos/nexus_icon/3207808412/
Important!
As if to make my point, this was the top-half of the Chamber’s full-page ad today, on the page following the editorial section…
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