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Letter: Enough with the exaggerated labels

Whenever I read a column from Cal Thomas or Butch Mazucca, I have to shake my head. I realize they like to pander to their conservative base. Painting liberals and progressives as socialists and communists is a form of argument that exaggerates reality in order to make their point and is really just another form of name-calling. That Thomas huffs and puffs against the recent Supreme Court ruling extending protection to yet another sexual group because he thinks it legislates the inclusion instead of extending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 belies his religious bias rather than the reasoned thinking of the conservative justices who took their oath of office seriously to apply the law equally and consistently. 

Do you remember the protests during the Vietnam War? Mostly peaceful. Although, the Ohio National Guard got carried away and fired into the protesters at Kent State University killing four students. At Columbia, where the Students for a Democratic Society took over the administration offices, at Berkeley and at NYU there was not the kind of scene we are seeing today. Given the atmosphere of mistrust and foreign interference and a president who has deliberately sown division and discord into the nation’s fabric, not to mention raising the specter of white supremacy, I would urge caution in assuming the protests are purely domestic in origin, fomented exclusively by disgruntled progressives as conservatives and their media would have us believe. 

America is in crisis. The sooner we get back to dialogue and unity, the better. Our current congressional leaders are part of the problem, not the solution. Enough with the nonsense about how liberals are communists and conservatives are fascists. Those labels are not productive. Even I stand guilty of using the latter. What is productive is to elect leaders who are not beholden to hidden corporate interests including foreign powers who seek our downfall, nor to party loyalties that continue to divide and disenfranchise large portions of our population as dogma is engraved onto our laws and drilled into our courts. That means campaign finance reform and term limits for federally elected officials. Campaign finance reform need be no more complicated than providing for only public sources, i.e. -— our taxes, eliminating all lobbying and PAC money from federal campaigns. Corporations that don’t pay taxes don’t get to make the law. The proposed 28th Amendment calling for no special laws or privileges for members of Congress is also a good start. This should be the peoples’ business for the next presidential term. Our government is out of our control. We all feel it. We all know it. This president is not the solution. He has exacerbated the problem with his divisive style. Besides, he’s intellectually incapable of handling the job. These are my opinions. What else would you like to know from me? 



Gus Nicholson

Denver and Wildridge


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