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Decade of dumbing down, dysfunction
The more we continue with the 2020s, the more dysfunction and dumbing down seems prevalent.
All you need to know about our world is by reading these delicately crafted letters. Some examples:
Did you know that in 2024, the same two guys who ran for president in 2020 might be the nominees again? That’s 160 years of combined experience. Mercy! On that subject, did you know that everything that goes wrong is the Democrats’ fault? Or is it the Republicans’?
Did you know that the United States is made up of 330 million people that can be slow cooked into a melting pot? Whatever made you think this island was just yours?
Aren’t you glad that family, friends, neighbors and coworkers all unselfishly pulled together and conquered covid?
The next time I consider asking a stranger for directions, I’m just gonna find a motel and stay overnight.
Honestly, I don’t know why people watch violence on TV when they can just look out the window. What a view.
Has anyone ever calculated how often a hate crime happens after a certain political rally?
Is it true that the word “accountability” is being taken out of the dictionary?
How many people, hell bent on exiting New York state, migrated to a prime global warming event state? Be careful what you wish for.
C’mon, folks! Stay out of the ocean; those sharks are crazy.
Do you know the difference between a cherry pie and an apple pie just by looking at it?
Dave Barnes
Rotterdam
Have old free parking in New Schenectady
In the recent announcement of his $250,000 New Schenectady branding and advertising campaign, Neil Golub had this to say: “New is not a legal change but a descriptive way of letting the world know that something is different.”
Yes, Mr. Golub, something is definitely new and different in Schenectady: the lack of accessible and free parking. And this is not a positive development.
In my Dec. 4, 2022, letter to The Gazette (“Schenectady must fix parking problem,”), I noted that until a few years ago, anyone coming to the city could park for one hour free (reduced from two) at the Metroplex lots, or access simple parking meters on the streets.
During the pandemic, a complicated and oftentimes nonworking app was introduced. Parking is no longer free anywhere. It now requires one to first find a kiosk and second figure out how to use it.
How is this change, which clearly works against the visitors flocking to the city to take advantage of the new and wonderful features Mr. Golub brags about, a good thing?
How does the lack of previously available free parking in the lots benefit the businesses struggling to contribute to the success of Schenectady? One more question. Any chance, Mr. Golub, you can use your considerable power and prestige to put some of Old Schenectady into New Schenectady?
Christine Witkowski
Scotia
Our society has lost its moral compass
I read The Gazette May 13 editorial, (“State must do even more to protect animals,”) about the devocalization of cats and dogs and the need to make this illegal in New York state.
I find it absolutely unbelievable that the devocalization of cats and dogs can be made illegal, yet the killing of unborn babies is legal.
We have absolutely lost our moral compass and now live in an amoral society.
Christine Schiesswohl
Mechanicville
Roxbury Farm CSA serving Malcolm’s
The Gazette May 26 article, (“Out to Eat…at Malcolm’s,”) mentions that Malcolm’s purchases shares from a local CSA.
That CSA is Roxbury Farm CSA in Kinderhook. The farm is adjacent to the National Historic Martin Van Buren site on 9H.
I have been a member for over 25 years and am currently the site coordinator for Glenville.
The first delivery for 2023 in the Capital Region is on June 6.
Anne C. Trow
Glenville
GOP backs vigilantes who protect whites
In 2012, George Zimmerman followed Trayvon Martin in his SUV, presumably because he was a young Black man in a hoodie.
When Trayvon stopped and “stood his ground,” Zimmerman got out and shot Trayvon, claiming he was attacking him with a piece of concrete. Zimmerman was found not guilty.
The jury decided Zimmerman was “standing his ground” against Trayvon Martin, a twisting of the facts.
Republicans are supporting Daniel Penny, who choked Jordan Neely to death on a subway train.
“Bystanders said Neely had been shouting at passengers, begging for money and acting aggressively, but didn’t touch anyone aboard the train.” Nikki Haley called on Gov. Kathy Hochul to pardon Penny. GOP leaders are contributing to a defense fund for Penny.
Gregg Abbott vowed to pardon Daniel Perry, a white army sergeant who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fatally shooting a man, legally armed in Texas, during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest in Austin.
Vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse killed two white men during protests over a Black man’s death in Wisconsin.
He was acquitted.
When white Ashli Babbit was shot by a Black police officer while trying to climb through a broken window in the U.S. Capitol in pursuit of legislators, many Republicans saw her as a martyr trying to keep Trump in office.
“Trump called Babbitt an ‘innocent, wonderful, incredible woman’ and labeled the Black officer who shot her a ‘thug.’”
Republicans support vigilantism protecting white people, but not when Blacks or supporters attempt to “stand their ground.”
Anthony Santo
Schenectady
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That includes all local, state and federal elections.
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Categories: Letters to the Editor, Opinion, Opinion, Rotterdam, Schenectady, Scotia Glenville
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Anthony, so true! And now many gop want pardons for the mostly white incarcerated Insurrectionists. Political prisoners, my arse!
jclark, GOP racism and bigotry are in-your-face; yet, they deny it and call progressives and Democrats racist and divisive. Trump once told a journalist that he was “the least racist person” he had ever interviewed and called Al Sharpton a racist. Just yesterday Trump supporter Mr. Hunter wrote a letter to the editor accusing the left of promoting hatred and division.
Thanks for pointing out further evidence of racism; if Trump supporters don’t get it they should ask themselves if Trump would have offered pardons to BLM insurrectionists if they attacked the Capitol demanding an end to MAGA attempts to make it difficult or impossible for Blacks to register and vote. Not allowing “felons” to vote after serving their time is racist since a far higher percentage of Blacks are convicted of felonies and incarcerated than whites. I would like to see the Constitution amended to prohibit denial of the right to vote to those who have served their time. I believe there should be a discussion considering extending the right to vote to those in prison who meet established standards.
Does anyone honestly believe that if Barack Obama held a rally at the ellipse and told his supporters to “fight like hell” to “take our country back” after Trump won the election and urged them to march on the Capitol, and thousands of mostly black folks beat the hell out of officers, broke into the Capitol, and smeared feces on the walls, while Obama sat back and did nothing to stop the violence, that the J6 apologists would think it was all justified? I have my doubts lol.
Anthony, powerful argument! Vigilantism has no place in American society – period, full stop. The ubiquity of cell phones virtually eliminates the need for any citizen to take the law into his own hands (it was the Reagan Administration, remember, that justified subsidizing the purchase of cell phones for the poor on the grounds that they, too, should be able to summon help in an emergency). But, as you point out, one extreme end of the political spectrum receives more legal and social protection from vigilantism’s heinous effects than the other.
This may be a stretch, but I think Jan. 6 can be characterized as one giant act of vigilantism. Thankfully, the rioters (or insurrections, if you will) did not get away with it, though the brains behind that monstrous deed (e.g., Roger Stone, Rudy Giuiani, John Eastman and Trump himself, of course) have so far managed to escape prosecution.
But to your point: imagine if all those seriously misinformed rioters were black? Those who weren’t shot dead at the scene would have been hanging on meat hooks by nightfall.
Great letter Mr Santo. Listening to the republican candidates on today’s news programs make the relevance of your content all the more important. Really scary delusional people
Climate change, damage to ecosystems, and extinction of species is making our planet “sick.” A frightening diagnosis is provided in the article “Study: Earth ‘really quite sick now,’ in danger zone,” on p. E7. As is the case with global wealth inequality, racism and bigotry the human species is unwilling to work globally, to take the extreme and, to some extent painful, measures necessary to ensure a habitable planet for our grandchildren. Is it short-sightedness, selfishness, stupidity, ignorance or some combination that causes our minds to shut down when we read an article like this?
Maybe it is just a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that overwhelms and paralyzes us in the face of such existential threats. I know some choose to look at these and other threats, such as nuclear war, as presaging the Second Coming. That just makes it more difficult, if not impossible, to seek real solutions.
Anthony, your observation reminds me of the parable of the drowning man. “A devoutly Christian man refuses several rescue attempts in the face of approaching floodwaters, each time telling the would-be rescuers that God will save him. After turning down the last, he drowns in the flood. After his death, the man meets God and asks why he did not intervene. God responds that he sent all the would-be rescuers to the man’s aid on the expectation he would accept the help.”
Ignoring the science that tells us we’re headed for an ecological catastrophe is the moral equivalent of the devout Christian who refused God’s help in the face of certain death. God, we should remind climate skeptics, helps those who help themselves.
When you put climate change, as well as all the destructive behavior man is inflicting on our environment in perspective to the fact that that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and man has only been around for about 200,000 years, all we’re doing is pushing the envelope of our own extinction.
The planet will survive just fine and have plenty of time to to evolve with new environmental changes and species. Dinosaurs were here for 165 million years. At the rate we’re going humans will eliminate themselves in in the relatively near future.
Worrying about the planet should be of no concern. The main concern is man’s ability to survive on Earth after our tiny blip of stupidity.
Thanks for your letter Tony. Preferential treatment to the “special people” as well as bigotry and racism, yes, is alive and well.
Lou, I believe that in geological terms man’s domination over the Earth will be but a flash in the pan. I totally agree; the Earth will recover and very different life forms will evolve in millions of years, perhaps more quickly. We would not have to go far back in geological time to live on an alien Earth and I am certain the future Earth will be as alien.
I guess we gotta keep them no good “aliens” from crossing our borders for our survival.
Salient points, as usual, Mr. Santo.
Sadly a faction of our population have been sold on the idea they can all have whatever guns they want and pretend they’re part of some “well regulated militia”, as if our system of law enforcement (the same one they revere) is on the verge of collapse, with rioting crowds of non-white people in its wake, coming to take all your stuff.
But we should not forget that before Senior airman Ashlii Babbett’s attempt to break into the House chambers threatening the lives of many inside, there was Trump’s pardon of Navy Seal platoon leader and convicted war criminal Eddie Gallagher, a man who fellow Iraq war vets described as “OK with killing anything that moved”, when reporting his conduct to military investigators.
This wasn’t just a simple ‘that’s ok, you’re free to go’. Failed President Trump actually campaigned and needed to be restrained in his attempts to absolve Gallagher and revere him as some kind of “great warrior”.
It’s hard to believe, and not a little sickening that a man like this could have once sat in the White House, and that so many elected politicians are fine with it. Yet there he remains, leading the Republicans around by the nose.
But fortunately Republicans are focused on important things, like sexy stuff that makes them uncomfortable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NBC News
Nov. 27, 2019, 8:08 PM EST
By Alex Johnson
Richard Spencer, who was fired as secretary of the Navy for resisting President Donald Trump’s advocacy of a Navy SEAL who was acquitted of murder, said Wednesday that he had personally asked the president to stay out of the case but was rebuffed because the president doesn’t understand the military.
In an op-ed column in The Washington Post, Spencer wrote that from the start, Trump personally involved himself in the case of Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher, who was convicted in July of posing with the corpse of a young Islamic State fighter but was acquitted of having killed the young man.
Gallagher was demoted from chief petty officer to petty officer first class and fined two months’ wages.
Spencer wrote that as early as four months before the trial, Trump called him twice asking that Gallagher not be confined in a Navy brig; eventually, the president ordered him to have Gallagher transferred.
more…
www nbcnews com/news/military/gallagher-case-reveals-trump-s-ignorance-military-fired-navy-secretary-n1092931
Many of the beliefs and actions of the far right are explained by this one observation, “Conservatives tended on the whole to have a larger right amygdala. Amygdala being a deeper brain structure that processes more emotional information—specifically fear-based information…”
I think the real world is too frightening for them to face. So they create comfortable alternate realities. Climate change is neither a consequence of human activities nor anything to fear; it is a conspiracy theory dreamed up by pointy-headed liberals, to what end, I have never been able to fully understand. It has something to do with globalization and loss of their privileges as the only true Americans. If they and fellow believers can fully arm themselves they will be shielded from those who are attempting to destroy their culture and values and “coming to take them away.” They won’t die but will live forever as long as they have faith. And so on and so forth…
Since we’re bashing modern conservatives – in particular their efforts to undermine the science of climate change – I’ll pass along this experience. Years ago, I was flipping channels to see what might be on the higher channels that I never watch, and up comes Sean Hannity. I decided to watch a few minutes to see if his views had moderated since he was no longer debating the liberal Alan Colmes. Nope. Off he went on a tirade about an unusual snowstorm that struck D. C. that afternoon (about 12 inches or so). “So much for Al Gore’s hysterical theories on global warming,” he opined. That comment was stupid on so many levels, but the most idiotic is that the clown didn’t understand the difference between weather and climate.
Then I had an “aha!” moment. It occurred to me that people who watch this tripe don’t care if it’s true or not. It’s what they want to hear. Watching Fox “News” is like watching pro wrestling. Everyone knows it’s fake but they watch it anyway because it stimulates the amygdala (which is the center of all emotions, including positive feelings, like sex). Apparently, the sensory information that manages to pierce their thick skulls escapes analysis by the pre-frontal cortex, where rational thought originates, and heads straight for their overactive amygdalae. Hence the term “numbskull.”
In a word, Fox is titillating.
Which perfectly explains their fixation on gender fluidity and young boys.
Coincidentally, while reading articles on my computer, I came across this:
“On Thursday, twice-impeached, criminally indicted, and liable-for-sexual-abuse former President Donald Trump told a room of faith leaders in Iowa that we have to bring religion back into our country.’
It’s unclear when or how religion exactly ‘left’ the United States, according to Trump. As far as Christianity goes, it still is deeply baked in an array of American institutions, not least in the pledge of allegiance children are forced to recite every morning in their supposedly politics-free classrooms. Moreover, we have representatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who proudly proclaimed herself to be a Christian nationalist, or Lauren Boebert, who said, ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.’
Bar nothing, Republicans’ most drawn-upon course of action in the face of tragedies is not government action or policy change, but prayer.”
Boebert’s and MTG’s comments are particularly noteworthy. Do we have Representatives in Congress who know absolutely NOTHING about the 1st amendment?
If so, we must ask why these foes of Democracy and American values are not being ejected by sane Representatives. Are there two few?
There is no better word than “flabbergasted.” I just came across this piece:
Sun., June 4, 2023, 11:52 a.m. EDT
Fox News
The quest to make the earth a better and more habitable place isn’t just a political fight. For one Fox News host, it’s also sacrilegious.
The hosts of Fox & Friends Sunday were discussing Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s pledge to be guided by faith if he wins in 2024, noting how religion is often referenced more by Republicans than Democrats. Co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy took that a step further, saying liberals only see Earth as the endgame while conservatives look beyond.
“For them, where we live right now, this place, Earth is it,” she said. “So everything’s on the line here for them. They think, as you said, they can perfect this Earth. Those of us who have faith don’t believe that, and we believe how we act here determines where we go after. And so we got to behave.”
Campos-Duffy also argued that conservatives tried to live “within those moral limits,” a lifestyle she purported liberals don’t abide by. “The ends justify the means is sort of the rules for radicals,” she said. “That’s not how Christians act.”
The virtue-signaling did not end there. The hosts discussed how religious movements were fundamental to the country and that human beings were naturally geared toward religion, offering Campos-Duffy the opportunity to equate Christianity and Islam with… climate, invoking language used by Ramaswamy and ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
“We’re made for religion,” she said. “So if you don’t have a faith, whether it’s Hindu, Islam, Christianity, you’re going to create one. And it could be climate, or it could be yourself.”
Climate change action has been advocated for by hosts of governmental bodies to subdue the effects of rising earth temperatures that are often caused by man-made production. Prayer is not usually invoked in those settings.
Perhaps Vivek Ramaswamy’s strong faith along with the influence of her God will eventually land her in laughing hyena heaven.
Santo, you remarked about three cases where the media has attacked all three of those people. Zimmerman and Rittenhouse were both acquitted by a jury of their peers, even with the main stream or lame stream media calling for their heads. The case of Penny a person who was released by the police after the incident, and then arrested because of pressure by the lefties. everyone on that train said they were in fear of their life, and that Penny was a hero but let’s not let facts get in the way of leftist propaganda.