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A6 January 17, 2019 The Chronicle OPINION THE CHRONICLE James Taylor Jr. Publisher/Managing Editor Bridget Elam Judie Holcomb-Pack Timothy Ramsey Tevin Stinson Shayna Smith Deanna Taylor Paulette L. Moore Associate Editor Associate Editor Sports Editor/Religion Senior Reporter Advertising Manager Office Manager Administrative Assistant Our Mission The Chronicle is dedicated to serving the residents of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County by giving voice to the voiceless, speaking truth to power, standing for integrity and encouraging open communication and lively debate throughout the community. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Can Winston- Salem learn from Charlottesville? On next Monday, January 21, more than a thousand people from all over the city will gather at the Benton Convention Center to celebrate the life and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for our annual prayer break fast. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Prayer Breakfast is an annual partnership between The Chronicle, the local Ministers’ Conference, area businesses, churches and var ious members of our community. Community partners gather to fellowship and to hear a timely message that will inspire and uplift our culture. This year’s message to the Winston-Salem communi ty will be delivered by Councilman Dr. Wes Bellamy of Charlottesville, VA who was in the trenches on the day that white nationalists transformed his Virginia communi ty from a place for lovers, to a microcosm of hate, vio lence and death over the removal of a Confederate monu ment statue. Though President Trump has stated that there were, “some very fine people on both sides” of the white nationalist rally, there are many who feel that sup porters of Confederate symbols have outlived their wel come in America, particularly in the urban core of our cities where populations are more educated and diverse. Now, here in Winston-Salem, the Mayor and the Winston-Salem City Council have called for the removal and relocation of the Confederate statue located at the corner of Fourth and Liberty streets. The statue was also vandalized on Christmas Day with the words “cowards and traitors,” further sparking outrage from white nation alist and Confederate preservationists. Last Sunday, a majority crowd of non-city confederate statue supporters faced off with a majority crowd of Winston-Salem resi dents to express their opinions about the proposed fate of the local Confederate monument. Unlike the protests in Charlottesville, VA the protests here in Winston-Salem ended peacefully with no violent incidents. Regardless of how we feel about the presence of Confederate symbols in our community, we must remem ber the violence and the carnage that can take place when cooler heads refuse to prevail on issues that we care about most. Winston-Salem is the City of Arts and Innovation, which reinforces the notion that we live in a community of creative minds and innovative thinkers that may not always agree. What we can agree on is that every life is precious in this city and that all protests must be peaceful. There is a way to vigilantly fight for justice and to strive to live in peace all at the same time. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us this lesson with his actions of peaceful protest and also with his words of liberation. Dr. King stated, “We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.” We are excited to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King on Monday morning over a community breakfast. We will hear from Dr. Wes Bellamy on his Charlottesville experi ences and how they are relevant to our recent experiences with Confederate symbols here in Winston-Salem. It is no secret that if we don't learn from mistakes of the past, we may be destined to repeat them in the future. We Welcome Your Feedback Submit letters and guest columns to letters@wschron- icle.com before 5 p.m. Friday for the next week’s publica tion date. Letters intended for pub lication should be addressed “Letters to the Editor” and include your name, address, phone number and email address. Please keep letters to 350 words or less. If you are writing a guest column, please include a photo of yourself, your name, address, phone number and email address. Please keep guest columns to 550 words or less. Letters and columns can also be mailed or dropped off at W-S Chronicle, 1300 E. Fifth St., W-S, NC, 27101; or sent via our website: www.wschronicle.com. We reserve the right to edit any item submitted for clarity or brevity and deter mine when and whether material will be used. We welcome your com ments at our website. Also, go to our Facebook page to comment. We are at facebook .comAVSChronicle. Nation held hostage To the Editor President Trump's speech on Jan. 8 sought to further hold our nation hostage over the building of a useless, massively expensive, and politically fabricated border wall - one that few want, security experts agree wastes our time and resources, and further divides our country before construction even begins. The government shut down over this immoral and irrational political stunt has now led to hundreds of thousands of federal employees missing paychecks and halted vital services, affecting families and children across the United States. The only crisis at the border is the one that was caused by the Trump administration's cruel policies towards chil dren and families—policies that actually jeopardize, rather than enhance, our security. Any crisis here was The Moral Decline of America To the Editor Only intervention from God can stop the moral decline of America. The hoopla about the historical sig nificance of the election of Pelosi as Speaker of the House will pass, but there will be consequences, unless there is a change of heart. Nancy Pelosi, “America’s most powerful woman” is accountable to God, like everybody else. She has served in Congress for 32 years. Some have probably been there Crisis Donald Trump is a lousy teleprompter read er. His fake crisis speech from the Oval Office was clearly the product of his handlers telling him in no uncertain terms, "Read it. Do not say anything else. Just read what we've written for you to say. Period. Not. Another. Syllable. Or you die on the vine." Dave Barry used to make fun of Al Gore for being so wooden in his speeches as Clinton's VP. Barry was funny; he referred to beavers chewing on Gore's leg while Clinton apologized to the nation for something - military mishaps in Serbia, sleeping with random women - and Gore would stand there dutifully, imitating an aspen tree, the favorite of beavers everywhere. If Gore was wooden, Trump was petrified and putrefied. He had zero idea what he was saying, mouthing words, faking expressions, emphasizing incorrect syllables, and looking pinched and pained that he was being controlled. I can see him ripping off the leash instantly afterwards. "We control you or you cease to be president." That must have been the message from Stephen Miller, his eloquently lying Officer of Disinformation, a staffer minimally nine times smarter than Trump but equally amoral. Trump told us, astonishingly, that the wall would be paid for three times, never by the American peo ple. Once, as he promised relentlessly and re-re- repeatedly in his campaign promises, by Mexico. Two, incredibly in his speech, by "itself." Um ... ok. politically manufactured by the President. It is further unacceptable to negotiate new immigra tion policies while the government is shut down. Calling for "compromise" creates a false equivalency between thoughtful discourse over reasonable, pragmatic policy options and the demands of a chaotic White House administration using a ransom note to dictate the way for ward. There is no ransom here to be paid, no bargaining to be done. Holding the nation, innocent federal employees, and lawmakers hostage in the name of a divisive, archaic border wall is harmful not only to our democracy, but in concrete ways, to millions of families and local economies across the nation. We are better than that as a people. The vast majority of Americans opposes the wall and want the government reopened immediately. The Justice Center urges our North Carolina lawmakers to support bipartisan government funding bills that will end this reckless shutdown. Raleigh NC Justice Center longer! A new heart from God would make her realize that America murdering over 2,000 unborn babies daily is a horrible thing to be doing! And since she believes “she is a super legislator” she should introduce a law to ban abor tion. After all, obeying God is what we are to be doing. American laws are to be made by the Legislative Branch, not the Supreme Court. Therefore, when the Supreme Court exceeds their authority, it is the Legislative Branch, which should reverse the intrusion. But in several other cases too, the Supreme Court has exceeded a much higher authority, God. In those cases, they need to be reversed too. God would have to change many stony hearts to bring that about. Manuel Ybarra, Jr. I Coalgate,OK Three, what will we do with all this extra money? - "indirectly," by his new NAFTA 2.0 deal. Yeah. That mechanism was explained clearly by No One, Ever. That is classic gaslighting. Fake news. Lying. That. Will. Never. Happen. You will pay for it, assuming you are an American taxpayer. None of his lies were anything but. Not Mexico. Not "itself." Not "indirectly." Bullpucky. Pelosi was OK. She stated truthfully that Congress passed a bipartisan bill to reopen the gov ernment. But Schumer was more succinct: "We don't gov ern by temper tantrum." The new Congress has adaptively and rightly separated the Trump Great Wall debate from the ongoing functioning of the US government. It is up to the Senate to pass it and Trump to sign it. Step up, Republican Senators. Especially Cory Gardner (CO), Susan Collins (ME), Joni Ernst (IA), Shelly Moore Capito (WV), Thom Tillis (NC), and Lindsay Graham (SC). You believe you are safe? You can screw the American people with your busi ness as usual? We shall see. You are all up for office again in 2020 and you have supported the stupidest Trump-for-ignorance, Trump versus the American people, Trump-corrupt measures, legislation, and nominations. You believe we'll forget and vote you back in. I wonder. What are the American people made of? Time will tell. Dr. Tom H. Hastings is PeaceVoice Director and on occasional an expert witness for the defense in court.
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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