Cook County News Herald

Spiteful diatribe doesn’t change minds




“What a nasty little letter” was my thought on reading Daryl Popkes’ response to Ann Mershon’s letter to the editor. Spiteful diatribe is much like slapping someone across the face in an attempt to get them to see things your way, and about as successful.

Contrary to Daryl’s assertion that George Soros (of whom I had never before heard) is a “greedy egomaniacal villain” what I found (Wikipedia) is that Soros is a businessman and philanthropist focused on supporting liberal ideals and causes—donating $1 million to support legalization of marijuana in California, playing a significant role in the peaceful transition from communism to capitalism in Hungary and providing Europe’s largest-ever higher education endowment to Central European University in Budapest. That’s nefarious? Or is it that Soros is Jewish, liberal and disliked by conservative Glenn Beck that makes him so despicable?

According to the University of Massachusetts website, Koch Industries are indeed among the United States’ top 10 toxic air polluters and according to SourchWatch, “appear to be the most active orchestrators of anti-regulation efforts in the United States.” They’re spewing out a lot more than carbon dioxide.

I do not see how any “alliance,” imagined or otherwise, between unions and the Democratic Party is damaging to our country. Although I frequently feel that unions are as dangerously hegemonistic as many Republicans and that it may be time for unions and both political parties to “go the way of all things,” unions have been incredibly important in the past as a way for women, blacks and underprivileged individuals to band together to obtain basic human rights. Rights such as the right of women and children not to be locked in their place of work and burnt alive in a subsequent fire; the rights of blacks to be paid the same as white co-workers and to work under safe conditions. Why “must” such an alliance, if indeed there is one, end?

That said, all these letters demonstrated to me is that one can pass one’s opinions off as fact, sadly enough, much like so many of our “journalists” today, but that does not make what is said true.

Saraphine Métis
Grand Marais



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.