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OPINION
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gainesvilletimes.com
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com
Submit a letter: letters@gainesvilletimes.com
The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
LETTERS
City should stop
running buses
and fund taxis
I live in a largely Hispanic neighborhood. I see
taxis taking folks to work or wherever it is that they
have to go. We have a bus route that runs past here
up and down Atlanta Highway.
The ridership appears minimal. I doubt if it is a
free service.
My first question is, how much does it cost to
run that bus service and does it make a profit? I
am assuming the bus is public (government) trans
portation, in which case I doubt if it pays for itself.
That is never a consideration with a public service.
On the other hand taxi service is a business. It
makes money for the owner. It makes money for
the driver. It pays for the wear and maintenance
of the vehicle.
Is there not some way our sterling city council
could get their heads together to subsidize the poor
for taxi service?
It would be more convenient for anyone using
it. It would be a more efficient for the taxpayer
than buses.
This is the second or third time I have written to
The Times about this subject.
Dan Purdy
Gainesville
Watch the Democratic rally on
The Times’ website, then go vote
I had the good fortune to be at Brenau’s Pearce
Auditorium last Friday and see Josh McCall,
Charlie Bailey, Sarah Riggs Amico and Stacey
Abrams speaking to an enthusiastic audience at
the Democratic political rally.
I also have been able, later, to see your post
ing of their speeches on your website, and I
encourage any readers that missed the political
rally to pull up the website, grab a cup of coffee
and watch the speeches from beginning to end. I
did. The Democratic Party is fortunate to have
such qualified, dedicated candidates running for
office.
I will be mailing a check to each of these candi
dates today, hoping that my (meager) support will
help them to get elected.
And this week I will be voting early to ensure
that my vote will be counted.
I encourage all who want a good, caring,
responsible government to do the same.
Howard Stacy
Gainesville
Roundup does not belong in food
So now we have to worry about some silly fact
that there is Roundup in foods! Just tell me why?
Is it the government trying to get rid of people?
Probably so.
We are sort of living in a country that is sup
posed to be safe and wonderful and free. Guess
what? It’s not any of those.
There is no reason there should be any of that
in our food.
So we are expected to sit back and trust what’s
being done to us? I don’t have the patience for
being passive like many are. If there is a lawsuit,
what’s taking so long? Must be the judge. They
are very slow.
I’m going to return my poisoned items back to
the store and just drop it on the floor. If citizens
would fight back, then we wouldn’t have stuff like
this to live with.
Roundup in our food — that is a crime and that
company should be closed down or put down.
America seems to accept anything.
Carol Singleton
Gillsville
Latinos see Denis’ true colors
With a little more than a
week left until the midterm
elections, Democrats appear
to be snatching defeat from
the jaws of victory. The match
ups were theirs to lose, and
they seem poised to underper
form in a bunch of them.
A reader recently asked
me: “I don’t understand why
Latinos are not motivated to
vote against a bigoted POTUS
and willing enablers.”
I can help with that. The
answer has to do with how
Latinos feel about Donald Trump, and
how they feel about Democrats as an
alternative.
As for Mr. Trump and the Latinos, that’s
a complicated relationship. Trump began
his campaign for president by kicking
Mexicans in the teeth, calling them rapists
and drug traffickers. He also showed his
ignorance about immigration when he
said that Mexico doesn’t send their best
people to the United States when that is
exactly who they send — dreamers, doers
and risk-takers.
Mexicans — along with Puerto Ricans,
Colombians and Dominicans — turned
Trump into a pinata. Literally. Pick
one up the next time you’re south of the
border.
Then a strange thing happened. Once
Trump emerged as the Republican nomi
nee and squared off against Hillary Clin
ton — who often tries to out-Republican
the Republicans as an immigration hard
liner — polls began to show Trump’s sup
port among Latinos climbing.
As a Never Trumper, I didn’t get it. So,
I interviewed some Latinos for Trump
and I got an earful. Many of them saw
themselves not as Latinos but as Ameri
cans, and so they weren’t hung
up on Trump’s anti-Latino
creeds. They didn’t like or
trust Clinton, appreciated
Trump’s frankness, wanted
a strong leader, and thought
he was right about a lot of
issues, including trade and
immigration.
Yes, immigration. What
most non-Latinos don’t grasp
is that Latinos are ambivalent
about illegal immigration.
They have a front-row seat not
just to the pain of deportations,
but also to how many immigrants commit
crimes or abuse social services.
In 2016, an astounding 29 percent of
Latinos voted for Trump.
And now, two years into his presidency,
polls show that his support among Latinos
is somewhere between 33 and 41 percent.
That’s insanely good for a president who
is so bad on issues that Latinos supposedly
care about.
Then you have the Democrats, who
take Latino voters for granted and whose
entire Latino outreach strategy can be
summed up in six words: “Vote for us.
We’re not Republican.”
That’s it? I don’t know about you, but
I’m still hungry.
Democrats weren’t always impotent
when it came to Latino voters, but it’s
been that way at least since 2000. That’s
when Bill Clinton (who was popular with
Latinos) left the stage, and George W.
Bush (who got 40 percent of the Latino
vote in 2004) took his place.
Democrats were boxed in by three fac
tors: African-Americans, working-class
whites and organized labor. Democrats
were afraid that African-Americans
would bristle at a new group getting atten
tion that should go to them. They were also
afraid of being portrayed as soft on border
security by Republicans in the same way
that — in the days of Sen. George McGov
ern, D-S.D. — they were portrayed as soft
on national security. And they were tied
down by organized labor, whose rank-
and-file members remain vehemently
opposed to any immigration reform that
gives the undocumented legal status.
At best, Democrats didn’t defend Lati
nos from evil, racist and mean-spirited
attacks by the GOP. At worst, they joined
in.
Some Democrats opposed the 1986
amnesty law and a Democratic presi
dent signed into law the draconian 1996
immigration bill. Democratic leaders
helped sideline immigration reform
under Bush in 2006 and 2007, and it was
“no” votes from Democrats that helped
kill the Dream Act in 2010. Democrats
endangered nearly 700,000 Dreamers by
requiring them to turn themselves into
authorities — starting in 2012 — to get
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Donald Trump is merely emulating Presi
dent Obama, who deported record num
bers of people, divided scores of families
and stuck refugee families in detention
camps.
In reality, Democrats have never been
there for Latinos. And now they’re sur
prised that this group may not be there for
them in the midterm elections?
The surprise is that Latinos have been
fooled for so long. Now, it seems, more
of them are waking up — and refusing to
stick up for a party that won’t stick its neck
out for them.
Ruben Navarrette writes for The
Washington Post Writers Group and has a
daily podcast, “Navarrette Nation.”
RUBEN
NAVARRETTE
ruben@
rubennavarrette.com
H6's ATRlMP H&TE£,„,
TW9 VIOLENCE 19
DANA SUMMERS I Tribune News Service
Aid group undoing hate by helping refugees, victims
BY WILL BUNCH
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Beginning in 1880 —
before the words “Give me
your tired, your poor/Your
huddled masses yearn
ing to breathe free” were
stamped on the Statue of
Liberty dedicated 132 years
ago — Jewish refugees
fleeing violent pogroms in
Europe were often met in
New York Harbor by volun
teers from the city’s teem
ing immigrant community.
“Jewish people going
down to the docks, meet
ing the boats coming from
Ellis Island, providing
kosher meals, helping
people reunite with their
family members and get
jobs” is how Melanie Nezer
described the early years of
what started as the Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society and
is today simply known as
HIAS. “That’s what we do
today; the only thing that’s
changed is that the people
that we’re helping aren’t
necessarily Jewish.”
In 2018, the world has
more refugees than any
time in its history, and
wherever people are flee
ing misery and seeking safe
harbor — from war-torn
Syria to America’s south
ern border, where a wave
of migrants are trying to
escape murder and depri
vation — HIAS is probably
there, offering legal aid,
temporary shelter, or advo
cating for the plight of the
displaced. The truth is that
not too many Americans
were paying much attention
to the good work HIAS is
doing.
And one of the few who
did was a 46-year-old loner
in his Pittsburgh apartment
— the kind of man who
said very little to his actual
neighbors but had quite a
lot to say in a cyber world
of rank racial and religious
hatred and white male
supremacy that has been
hiding in plain site.
The man who would
become the alleged per
petrator of the deadliest
attack specifically targeting
Jews in the 242-year history
of the United States had
clearly harbored irrational
anti-Semitic rage for some
time. His hatred seems to
precede the recent despica
ble downturn in America’s
political discourse. The
future gunman — in keep
ing with the long-standing
practice of this column, I
won’t glorify him by using
his name — had a beef with
President Trump, but it was
that Trump was somehow
too moderate, a tool of a
bogus international Jewish
conspiracy that he fanta
sized was everywhere.
Even so, the Pittsbur
gher’s online postings
made it clear his warped
mind was being taken to
new, dangerous places by
the rhetoric coming from
right-wing national media
and the highest levels of the
Republican Party, includ
ing a president who has
called a caravan of Hondu
ran refugees “an assault on
our country” and has taken
to outbursts against “glo
balists,” long a buzzword
of anti-Semitic conspiracy
theorists.
As reports surged —
especially on Fox News
and right-wing outlets —
about the migrant caravan
wending its way across
Guatemala and Mexico,
the alleged gunman’s posts
on a hate-filled site called
Gab grew more frenetic.
He posted a picture of refu
gees entering a truck with a
Star of David emblem right
around the same time that
both Fox and GOP officials
were promoting unfounded
theories that liberal bil
lionaire George Soros, who
is Jewish, was financing the
caravan.
Although HIAS — which
has provided lawyers and
other support for asylum-
seekers on the U.S. south
ern border — has nothing
to do with the caravan, the
angry Pittsburgher blamed
them nonetheless. Earlier
this month, he directed an
angry post toward HIAS
asking, “Do you like to
bring in hostile invaders to
dwell among us?” On Satur
day morning, he wrote this:
“I can’t sit by and watch
my people get slaughtered.
Screw your optics, I’m
going in.”
The synagogue shooting
put an exclamation point
on one of the worst weeks
any of us can remember.
It knocked out of the
headlines several days of
breathless news reports
about the 56-year-old “lost
soul” in South Florida
who found a purpose and
arguably a father figure in
Donald Trump, and then
terrorized Trump’s ene
mies in the media and in
Democratic politics, includ
ing Soros, with (thankfully,
ineffective) pipe bombs.
The last time Americans
felt such despair bordering
on hopelessness came 50
years ago, when 1968 was
shattered by the gunshots
that killed Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. and Robert
F. Kennedy and the riots in
the streets.
This time feels the same
and yet the circumstances
are also very different
— the dead are innocent
everyday Americans who
were merely trying to pray
or buy groceries, the kill
ers are avatars of a lost
generation of middle-aged
white men, and they are
enabled by hateful rhetoric
that comes from the very
top, including a “national
ist” president who thinks
he can win an election by
frightening and dividing
the nation he was elected
to lead.
Where to find hope?
Many were quick to point
out that Saturday’s syna
gogue shooting occurred
just three blocks from
the long-time home of
one of Pittsburgh’s most
famous residents, the late
children’s TV icon Fred
Rogers. “What changes the
world?” Mr. Rogers asked
once. “The only thing that
ever really changes the
world is when somebody
gets the idea that love can
abound and be shared.”
It was also Rogers who
told children that, in times
of trouble, look for the
helpers.
Indeed. The only known
antidote to hate is love. The
only real way to fight back
against Saturday’s insanity
in Mr. Rogers’ neighbor
hood is to look for the help
ers — and give them our
support. One way to make
sure that violence does not
utterly destroy what’s left
of our democracy is to fol
low the words that were
chanted by vigil attendees
on Saturday night: “Vote,
vote, vote!”
But if you have a few
dollars to spare, please
consider making a contri
bution to HIAS in the name
of the Tree of Life victims.
By supporting the work of
HIAS and other groups that
work tirelessly on behalf
of refugees, we’ll be taking
one small step back toward
where America stood on
this date in 1886, when
helping people yearning to
breathe free was still our
basic humanity.
She fumes
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Shannon Casas
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