This is in reference to the Jan. 31 article “Group Presses AG Donovan on Lawmaker Harassment.”
First of all, congratulations to Kim Sousa for being recognized as “Vermonter of the Month.” Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan appeared personally in Souza’s White River Junction shop to give her this award.
But after graciously accepting this award, Sousa took the opportunity to confront Donovan about his recent handling of the harassment case concerning former state Rep. Kiah Morris. For more than two years, Morris and her family suffered race and gender-based harassment meant to create fear, carefully reporting everything to the police. In spite of this, Donovan’s office refused to press charges against a self-described white nationalist, Max Misch, who admitted responsibility but claimed he was protected by the First Amendment. The Vermont State Police and the attorney general’s office investigated and determined that Misch had violated no laws.
Morris, the only African-American female in Vermont’s Legislature, unable to get any legal protection, decided to step down as a representative.
What a loss. I believe in the First Amendment, but I agree with John Hall, chairman of the Hartford Committee on Racial Equity and Inclusion, who said, “These aren’t public speeches, these are things like emails and phone calls. That doesn’t fall under the scope of free speech.” And I don’t believe that two years of the kind of threatening comments and actions Misch made should be protected by the First Amendment. I don’t believe that Donavan did his job.
And because of it a very capable woman and her family suffered — and we lost an exceptional state representative.
SUE SCHILLER
Norwich
Your Feb. 2 editorial (“Targeting the extreme concentration of wealth: An inequity at odds with our political system”), was better than excellent. It hit the nail on the head in identifying the leading national roadblock to true democracy with economic and social justice for all. It also presented excellent suggestions by two of our most progressive potential presidential candidates, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. While Sanders emphasizes taxing extreme incomes from varying sources, Warren’s focus is on taxing both extreme income and wealth.
Both forms of taxation are essential if we wish to stop the national drift toward government by a small group of wealthy people. It is also the only way we can fulfill the promise of our Constitution to provide a government of, by and for the people — opening economic and social opportunities to all citizens.
And the genius of both potential presidential candidates is that they are proposing changes that will allow for a smooth and gradual transition away from our current plutocratic and oligarchic society toward a more stable and just system. It is important not only that these changes take place, but that they take place in a way that allows the wealthy to gradually reduce their wealth while avoiding bankruptcy or other forms of financial crisis. This means designing the transition to allow for a respectful treatment of individuals.
The transition away from extreme concentration of wealth must recognize that wealthy individuals did not pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that there are no self-made individuals, and that they were supported in their march toward wealth by a system gradually modified to allow it to happen. They had lots of help.
And taking the help that an economic system provided them does not make them bad people.
But the system, with greater and greater concentration of wealth, will only become more unstable, less democratic, more autocratic and governed by an ever smaller group of people.
Let’s make the 2020 election count and move toward a more democratically just distribution of wealth, education and opportunity.
CHARLES McKENNA
Wilder
Conventional wisdom argues that President Donald Trump’s words and actions are determined solely by whether his base will respond favorably or not. But perhaps this view is worth examining more closely.
Trump is, above all, a media personality. Long before he was a politician, he was the darling of the tabloid press, shock radio, and reality television. The goal has never been doing business, or even making money. The goal has always been attracting attention. Everything — the limousines, buildings, product lines, wives, towers, the outrageous behavior, the lawsuits for defamation — has been in service of that goal. We have entered Media World, where notoriety is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega.
So anything that garners attention is, by definition, good. Negative attention. Positive attention. It’s all the same in Media World. Attacking John McCain for not having been a “war hero” (“I like people that weren’t captured”) is good simply because people talked about it. And we see that interview played again and again. Pulling out of international agreements, a government shutdown, insulting NATO allies, tearing up arms-reduction treaties, making what could be interpreted as racist remarks — all of these are good, not primarily because the base is pleased, not as an element in some grand political strategy or governing philosophy, but rather because a huge number people are outraged. They are watching. Add a 24-hour news cycle and you have a near-perfect delivery system for the drug that is media attention.
It’s tempting to say that the answer is: Just stop watching. But in this case, the attention-seeking behavior has critical public policy consequences that demand our concern. And when dedicated attention seekers sense an audience wandering, they tend to “up the ante” to make certain that all eyes are firmly refocused on themselves.
But there is also a glimmer of hope. Trump is less a president than a brand. And we all remember the fate of other recent brands: Blackberry, AOL, MySpace, Filene’s Basement. All good things can come to an end.
SUSAN J. WHITE
Norwich