Winston-Salem Journal LTE TH 11/22/12

A very Happy Thanksgiving to ALL whose virtual and real friendship, shared knowledge and opinions, and thought provoking non-sense, I give thanks for every day.

Thank American Indians

I am a full-blood member of the proud Lumbee Nation of Robeson and surrounding counties. I am 50 winters old. My life has been a life of toil and struggle, discrimination and mistreatment through the vehicles of law enforcement (racial profiling), school systems and the workplace, not to mention the lack of knowledge of the general public to the plight of the true Americans.

I’ve lived through experiences and faced hardships and outright poverty that Euro-centric Americans will never comprehend much less care about. Sometimes I’ve wondered what I’ve done to deserve such treatment.

I thank the Great Spirit that he has taken my beloved mother and proud father home with him so they no longer have to suffer any more of these injustices. Each time that Euro-centric Americans look into the mirror, they should be made to see the reflections of my people, the long-lost forgotten American Indian. Each quiet moment that they spend alone (not enough), they should be haunted by the voices of my ancestors.

I hope that I have enlightened them somewhat, especially a few who honestly need and want to hear the truth. Thus I leave them with these honest words: When you sit down with your family friends for Thanksgiving, it is because of the sacrifices and general generosity of my great people, the American Indian.

May my beloved ancestors rest in peace. I will always carry on as a proud and free American Indian. Happy Thanksgiving.

JOEL MARK ROGERS

Dobson

Presidential election

What a relief to have the presidential election over. I have been around since the 1930s, so I have endured quite a few, but in my mind, this has been the most aggravating. I was tired of the divisiveness presented by both parties. It seems that we, the citizens, were as inept as our Congress, whose members are so divided that they could not work together to solve the many issues facing our country. If we are going to survive as a country, we need to learn how to cooperate with each other.

We should work together to arrive at a better voting process. With all of our improved technology, surely we can do better than what we currently have.

Another aggravating problem is that it appears that we are buying the votes. My computer was loaded with people asking me for more money so that we could stay ahead of the opposition. It would have been nice if we could have used all of that money to help erase the national debt.

We already have too much involvement of corporations giving money to our elected officials to buy their favors. Can we not have a government that presides “for the people” rather than for the corporations or for party control?

Aah! Maybe I’m getting too old for this.

BILL HOTTINGER

Pfafftown

Simple take

There are many way to read the 2012 elections and my take is simple. First, vote power triumphed over the money power — in spite of the concerted effort of the big money of the billionaires, too-big-to-fail banks, other Wall Street fat cats and the GOP congressional leaders to make President Obama a one-term president. They failed miserably. Voters clearly declared that votes were not for sale.

Secondly, the attempt to suppress the votes backfired on the GOP. The attempt made minority voters more motivated to vote, particularly in Ohio and Florida.

Thirdly, the GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, attempted to bluff his way to power, but failed badly. Steve Benen of MaddowBlog kept a record of the lies Romney told since January and by November, he recorded 917 lies. I presume it is a world record.

As the saying goes: honesty is the best policy.

BOON T. LEE

Winston-Salem

Never see it coming

It’s always baffled me that conservatives think liberals are easily misled by so-called “messiahs” who may well be working for the devil — but they never think that it could happen to them. It never occurs to conservatives that the devil would prefer to fool them, and may actually have an easier time of it, since they’re busy pointing at the poor liberals who are being fooled by the devil and never see it coming.

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum, speaking on the Morning Joe TV show on Nov. 9 about how the election results had surprised so many conservatives, said that they have been “fleeced, exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex.” Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, all of those on the far right have created a wonderland of falsehood that appeals to conservatives because it seems so right. But when faced with reality, conservatives are disoriented, to say the least.

They need to break out of their bubbles, stop passing around nutty rumors about the president and face facts. We need them to be sober and sane. Our nation needs them.

WENDY MARSHALL

Winston-Salem