Reeder Wrong on Abortion Vote Motivation—A Letter to the Editor

 

I used to write lots of letters to the editor, especially to our local McHenry County, Illinois daily newspaper the Northwest Herald.  Not so much anymore.  The paper kept cutting back on maximum length—it is now posted at just 250 words, although I have seen letters printed that exceeded that limit.  Your long-winded scribe can hardly write a good morning in 250 words.  In addition, the responses posted on-line were often so filled with vitriol and hate—and not uncommonly actual threats of violence—that it was discouraging.  Even the Herald editors recognized that problem and now don’t allow comments.  Anyway, I have this blog platform on which to share my blathering.

Illinois syndicated politics and government columnist Scott Reeder got it wrong.

But once in a great while, something strikes me that cries out for a more direct response.  That was the case this week with a column by Scott Reeder.  His column is syndicated to scores of papers by the Illinois News Network, a project of Illinois Policy.  He is a political maven with old-school moderate Republican leanings.

This is what I wrote to the It’s Your Write column.  It is too long for their published limit and may be deeply cut.  But lucky readers of Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout get to read it here.

To the Editor:

On Monday, August 1 your columnist Scott Reeder dismissed Democrats for relying on the abortion issue to drive voters to the polls this November.  He wrote:

“…How often in a lifetime does the average voter contemplate having an abortion?  How often do they fill their car with gasoline or their shopping carts with Groceries?  In a world of hyper-inflation voters will be voting their pocketbooks.  That does not bode well for the Democrats, the party in power.  It’s worth noting that the party controlling the White House almost always loses seats during midterm elections.”

It is true that since Bill Clinton mainstream Democrats have lived, and often succeeded, following consultant James Carville’s admonition, “It’s the economy, stupid!” But this year much has changed—the revelations of the January 6 capitol siege Congressional Committee and especially recent decisions by a stacked Trump court upending decades of established law and boldly disregarding the documented preferences of the American people.

The day after Reeder’s column voters in Kansas dramatically proved him and conventional wisdom dead wrong. 

Kansans proved saner than Kansas whose state government has long been a bastion of right wing hate, lunacy, and hostility to women and their bodies.  In Tuesday’s primary election voters, including the deepest Red Republicans defied zealots and voted against their Value Them Both amendment, which was created by anti-abortion Christian groups to strip protections for abortion care from the state’s constitution. The vote had a historic turnout―as high as the 2008 presidential election. Voters chose to preserve abortion rights in the state by 51 to 49%.  The visceral threat to women’s health and personhood drove Republicans and independents as well as Democrats to the polls.  It mattered after all.

And reproductive justice is not the only issue to stir such high and widely held passion.  Disgust with GOP intransigence on any kind of reasonable limitations on military style assault weapons in the wake of a string of deadly mass murders including the July 4 Highland Park shooting is just as strong and transcends traditional party loyalties.  So does disgust for Trumpism and its truth averse candidates. 

Whatever people’s previous loyalties, the current Republican Party is on the wrong side of history.  Voters will turn out in support of Governor J.B. Pritzker, Senator Tammy Duckworth, Congresspersons Sean Casten, Bill Foster, Jan Schakowsky, Brad Schneider, and Congressional candidate Lisa Haderlein.  They also have strong allies in local state legislative and McHenry County Board races.

Lesson—values matter.  Votes Matter.  Women, reproductive rights, and progressive values can win when voters will not be bowed.

Patrick Murfin,

Crystal Lake, Illinois

The Northwest Herald—AWOL in the Fight for Freedom of the Press

The Boston Globe led a mass wave of Freedom of the Press editorial around the country and reaped Trump Twitter scorn and bomb threat.

Note—Yesterday showed an unprecedented display of journalistic solidarity when more than 350 American newspapers followed the lead of the Boston Globe in denouncing Donald Trump’s bellicose and dangerous attacks on the press and individual journalists.  It has become alarmingly clear that Trump’s recklessness will sooner or later encourage deadly acts of violence against reporters, editors, and other press personnel.  As naked intimidation, it is an immediate threat to freedom of the press.  Yet McHenry’s County’s daily paper, the Northwest Herald sat out the protest and then did not even report it happened in today’s edition.  Thus, this letter to the editor.  In the past the Herald has printed most letters, but has been allergic to any that point the finger at ownership for over-riding editorial judgement.  So if it doesn’t make newsprint, you can read it here.

Masthead of the local paper notable for its invisibility in the campaign for Freedom of the Press

It’s Your Write

Northwest Herald

To the Editor:

On Thursday, August 16 more than 350 American daily newspapers from Maine to Hawaii published editorial denouncing President Donald Trumps repeated attacks on the press, characterizing responsible journalists as enemies of the people, and defending freedom of the press. It was an extraordinary and unprecedented rebuke from papers with vastly different editorial outlooks and political preferences.

The Northwest Herald was notable for its absence from their ranks.

Not only that but the edition the next day failed to even file a news report despite the fact the lead journal in the campaign, the Boston Globe was immediately singled out for a presidential Twitter assault and received a bomb threat at its offices soon after.  Or the fact that on the same day the Republican controlled United States Senate felt compelled to unanimously pass a resolution stating that journalists were not, in fact, enemies of the people.

The Herald has always loudly proclaimed its dedication to public interest journalism and demanded all rights and privileges to report the news.  I imagine that the professional editorial staff ached to be part of the movement.  Silence could not be explained by the devotion of the owners of Shaw Media to Donald Trump, could it?

Patrick Murfin,

Crystal Lake

For McHenry County Political Junkies Only—Partisan Dickwad to Run for County Clerk

Provanano, left, was proud to promote Neo-con ghoul John Bolton at a Republican event.

The other day an article in our local daily, the Northwest Herald caught my attention.  Republican County Board Member Nick Provanzano announced that he was running for the office of County Clerk which will be vacated next year by the twenty year incumbent.  The Clerk’s office, among many other duties, oversees voter registrations and elections.   You can read the article about his announcement here .

Now I know something about Provanzano.  I once ran against him for local office.  I lost.  But I have lost elections to lots of people, not all of whom get up in the morning and pull on their special asshole panties.  I have watched him operate as a slash and burn politician in his own party and his casting himself firmly the in darker corners of the Republican Party. 

No man has ever been more unsuitable to be a fair arbiter of elections.

So I have dusted of my quill, dipped it in indigo, and dashed off another letter to the editor, which the Herald will get around to publishing sooner or later.

Here it is:

To the Editor:

I see that County Board member Nick Provanzano is the first, and so far only, candidate to succeed Kathy Schultz as McHenry County Clerk.  This should send up red flags to anyone concerned with clean government and honest elections.

Kathy Schultz was always a loyal member of the Republican Party, but she ran her office, which oversees voter registration and elections, with scrupulous honesty and even handed fairness which won plaudits from candidates, voters, and leaders of all political  parties.  It was a job she prepared for by coming up through the ranks and performed with non-partisan professionalism.

Provanzano, on the other hand, is as partisan as they come, and an ambitious politician with dreams of empire building.  Within his own party he is known for his sharp elbows and vindictiveness to perceived enemies.  Democrats he openly loathes.  He is a career politician whose day job is flacking for Republican Congressman Randy Hulgren.  A man that partisan and biased simply cannot be trusted to supervise honest elections.

Here is hoping that more reasonable Republican candidates emerge and that the Democrats field a capable and honest candidate to make sure voters have a choice.

Patrick Murfin,

Crystal Lake

A Letter to the Editor—Debunking a Lincoln Quote

 

The letters column of our local McHenry County, Illinois daily paper is always a wonderland of misinformation, sputtering outrage, and personal axes to grind with occasional sanity thrown in.  To its credit, the paper is committed to publishing all letter submitted that conform to its strict word count limit and are not out-and-out libel, threatening or obscenity laced.  Those they reserve for the comment posted to articles and letters on line.  So that and a large reserve army of suburban Tea Party devotees, racists, and Christians who cannot grasp why the country isn’t governed by the Word of God even when they put those words into God’s mouth, guarantees a memorable letters column almost every day.

I used to respond to various wild claims or slurs about as often as permitted—once every 30 days.  But I’ve slacked off in recent years as I have other outlets for my own bloviations and I came to the conclusion that I was talking to an impervious brick wall.  The letters also often solicited anonymous phone calls, threatening unsigned letters, and at least once a rock thrown at my front window.  Not that I let that dissuade me.

Once in a while the letters offer up such a fat opportunity that I am compelled against my better judgment to respond.  Take this missive from Wednesday’s rag:

To the Editor:

Imagine how much better our country would be if we just truly understood what Abraham Lincoln said in these three short bits of wisdom:

1. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

2. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

3. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer.

Remember, it is not about the 1 percent of Americans. It is not about the 99 percent of Americans.

It is about the 100 percent of Americans.

Frank Musial

McHenry

Some pitches come in belt high over the center of the plate, as big and fat as a grape fruit aching to be sent over a distant outfield wall.  This is how I connected:

To the Editor:

In a recent letter Frank Musial of McHenry served up a quote from Abraham Lincoln, the one that begins “You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.”  It may sound familiar, but it was never uttered or written by the 16th President.  It is a total fraud.

The alleged quote actually came from Lincoln On Limitations a 1942 pamphlet by William J. H. Boetcker, a Presbyterian minister.  Although the publication contained some genuine Lincoln quotes, it also included 10 written by Boetcker himself and passed off as the Great Emancipator’s.  Scholars have scoured the well documented letters, speeches, and documents by old Abe and were unable to find anything remotely like it.  Boetcker was indulging in a late attack on the New Deal and trying to recast the first Republican president as a conservative businessman.

Over the years many folks of all political persuasions, right and left alike, have put words into Lincoln’s mouth in an attempt to shore up their own positions.  And being human, many of us fall hook, line, and sinker for those which confirm our own prejudices.

But Lincoln spoke and wrote quite plainly for himself.  He was the most gifted wordsmith among our national leaders, as well as the most beloved.

Those who try to equate the Civil War leader with the modern, far right Republican Party have to ignore the simple fact for his day and time Lincoln was a liberal,  as was his Party.  They were opposed by the conservatives of his day, both Southern Rebels and northern Democrats—the very people who mirror today’s Tea Party.

Patrick Murfin

Crystal Lake