Tioga Herald

Dear Editors:

While your assessment of a movement by rural folks to the right wing is a good assessment, I have to ask what people are going to do to stop this?Just sit by and let it fly?

People in Tioga County have been controlled by the Republican Party.  They complain and try to put the blame on Democrats.  Why?

One person thought he was being really smooth by calling Democrats “dumocrats.” 

Yet, if one asks people why the blame on Democrats, there is no real reason and one finds out people are finding a strong and pervasive groupthink.  A groupthink which needs to be stopped.

When pessimism strikes about this area being impoverished, I have to ask why? After all, the responsibility lies with the local Republican Party and only fools would reach out to blame others in Albany.  Let me tell you about the complaints many of us had in a Democrat-majority county in Florida about the Republicans in Tallahassee which have controlled that state with one party, like a communist state, for 20 years or more.  Was that all this Republican-turned-Democrat did but to only do the blame game on the Repugnicans in Tallahassee?  No.  We came together at the local level to do what was needed to be done to solve our problems. 

Ask someone why they don’t like Nancy Pelosi and they usually don’t have an answer because they are like a bunch of lemmings being led off a cliff. 

To continue to vote for Republicans and not be able to differentiate right from wrong is horrific.  Slander by Molinaro as he tried to use scare tactics to get people to vote against Josh Riley or else be so scared they don’t go in and vote at all.  I observed that same thing happening in Florida, over and over and over again. 

When people complain and then go and vote Republican, they are mentally ill.  For they don’t get it.  They don’t realize that to do the same thing over and over and over again, expecting different results, is a mental illness. 

For me, I judge the candidates according to telling the truth and not just slandering opponents.  I see this more in the Democratic Party.  In fact, Josh Riley’s commercials merely told of his accomplishments.  Molinaro refused to debate issues with Riley and put commercials forth with slandering of Riley.  But when I see what is being put forth by a lousy leadership in the Republican Party, I cringe and look for something better.  That ain’t the Republican Party with fools who are mentally ill voting for the same thing over and over again.

I was once a Republican.  My family line was Republican, back to the years following the Civil War.  But in Florida, I had the rug pulled out from beneath me, several times, by greedy, snotty, vicious Republicans.  Note I call them Repugnicans.  It was the Democrats who helped give me opportunities to move on.  So when people stupidly put down Pelosi or call Democrats, “dumocrats,” I am insulted.  Why?  Because I have an appreciation for those who helped provide opportunities, not handouts, for me.  In the cases when the rug was pulled out from beneath me, I often thought about how, when times are tough, the tough get going. 

I see too many people in rural America who have no idea as to how to meet the challenges when the rugs get pulled out from beneath them. They don’t know how to be tough  and get going in order to solve our problems by considering the best proven practices. And being tough does not mean a proclamation of being “god” and using a gun or violence.  They just sit with a mindset for “that was how we always have done it.” 

That mindset does not work, so get tough and find something else.  Being reactionaries means just let the chips fall where they may, rather than being proactive for the future. 

Examples of local people who were more proactive are two very fine gentlemen:  George F. Johnson and Thomas J. Watson. These two plus many others, too.

A white racist bigot said to me, in opposition to what I write to light fires to get people moving to move forward, said to me:  “get a grip.”  I have a “grip.” That “grip” is on standing firm in my humanity convictions (i.e., human justice, human equality, human communities, etc.) and finding the best practices, not ideology, to solve our problems.    

My writing is more important than a letter to the editor and restricted to a certain length.  My writing falls in the op-ed or commentary “My Turn” category.  My writings have been curtailed since Trump took over the Republican – no REPUGNICAN – Party.  An example of fascism in America for which voters should be turning away from such turmoil and differentiate right from wrong.