Enough is enough in Bethel

To the editor:

If you think it’s acceptable that two members of the Bethel Democratic Committee, Ted Yeomans and Victoria Simpson, elected to serve the registered Democrats of Bethel, NY, have signed out official petitions (you can check with the Board of Elections) for Ted Yeoman’s Independent candidacy while still remaining on the Democratic Committee, great.

If you think it’s just a coincidence rather than a coordinated effort that the wives of two other committee members, Dina Sturm and Carol Abramson, have also signed out petitions for Ted Yeomans, while their husbands, Dan Sturm and Allan Abramson, remain on the Democratic committee, wonderful.

If you think that Democratic chairperson Colleen Cunningham’s silence and lack of action in this matter does not equal her tacit approval, fantastic.

If you’re comfortable with all this, then we get what we deserve.

However, if you are like Peter Finch in “Network” and are “mad as hell and can’t take it anymore” or simply feel this action in government is unjust, there are some remedies.

According to the by-laws of the Sullivan County Democratic Party, there is a disloyalty clause that allows for the removal of a committee member. If in signing out a petition on a different party line in support of the loser of the Democratic caucus while remaining on the Democratic committee doesn’t constitute disloyalty to the Democratic Party, I don’t know what does.

All the seats (two seats each for the four districts in Bethel) are up for election in June of 2009. Petitions for these seats will be available just before then at the board of elections’ Democratic office at the government center in Monticello. By the way, does anyone ever remember a public vote for a Bethel Democratic Committee person?

This action, I believe, is the best way to express our dissatisfaction and to bring fairness and openness in our government and to the Town of Bethel.

River Jam thanks the community

To the editor:

On behalf of the River Jam Music Fest, Soldiers Angels and the LCpl. Jacob Beisel Scholarship Fund, I want to thank The River Reporter staff for its wonderful article and support. I am happy to report that, in spite of Hurricane Hannah, the festival was a success. We were able to obtain many items for our soldiers and a donation of $500 for the scholarship fund.

As the event organizer, I commend all those concertgoers that weathered the storm and came out to support the festival and its good causes. We’ve already started planning for next year’s River Jam Music Fest.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who volunteered and our sponsors, including Lackawaxen Volunteer Fire Department; M.E. Soden Excavating and Trucking of Honesdale, PA; Nova Maintenance of Hackettstown, NJ; Russ Kline and Remax/Lake Wallenpaupack of Hawley, PA; Ramapo Radialogy of Pomona, NJ; Steuhl Enterprises of Greeley, PA; and Maria and Peter Brown of Lackawaxen, PA.

Saying good-bye to a local gem

To the editor:

A week ago Sunday was the last night of cabaret at the Bradstan Hotel in White Lake, NY. Fittingly, Jeanne McDonald wowed the audience at the last show, just as I imagine she did at the first show 17 years ago. In between, some of the best performers around came to this little nightclub nestled in the mountain greenery: Karen Mason, Liz Callaway, Billy Stritch, Julie Wilson, Susan Werner and Nancy LaMott were among them. After Nancy passed away, the tiny room was named for her.

Thank you, Scott and Eddie, for giving such a wonderful gift to our area. With it, many of us discovered that, at least on Sundays, life is a cabaret.

‘Community organizer’—what’s wrong with that?

To the editor:

“Community organizer” used to mean something good. Remember women who rallied together in their communities to win the right to vote, or men and women who still work to organize into unions for a decent wage and safe working conditions? They are community organizers. And Barack Obama, right out of college, worked as a community organizer with Christian churches helping people who were hit hard after the Chicago steel plants closed. Money wasn’t his motive, but service was.

I don’t understand why the Republican convention repeatedly belittled Obama’s experience as a community organizer. Do they not feel real people can or should work together to make their lives better?

But let’s go further. Obama realized laws are the best way to make lasting change for citizens. After law school, he won a seat in the Illinois state senate, where he worked on many laws including welfare to work, a state earned income tax credit that gave $100 million in tax cuts to families, the expansion of early childhood education and ethics reforms.

In the U.S. Senate, Obama continued as a leader for ethics reform—contrast with McCain, who has seven lobbyists on his election campaign staff. As a member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Obama fought for a bill to provide education benefits and medical and other care for returning veterans. McCain voted against this bill and Bush tried to veto it. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Obama traveled to Russia with Republican Senator Dick Lugar and worked with him to stop nuclear proliferation.

Like Lincoln, Barack Obama served eight years in the Illinois senate and one term in the U.S. Senate, had the good judgment and foresight to vote against a wasteful war that targeted the wrong country when it was popular, and knows how to work with people of other parties to get things done. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the civil rights that Lincoln lost his life for would culminate this year in our country seeing beyond race?

Country first?

To the editor:

I recently read that foreclosure filings in Pennsylvania jumped 60 percent from last August. My heart goes out to those families caught in the Bush mess. Republican policies have showered excessive dollars on oil companies, corporate executives and the super-rich while abusive and predatory lending practices have led America to disaster.

We know that this can happen to any of us. The breadwinner loses a job and can’t find another because the job has been sent overseas. An illness is not covered by health insurance, and all of a sudden it’s a choice between treatment and financial ruin. The American Dream is turning into a Bush-induced nightmare. We need a President who will focus on the middle class, not one who can’t remember how many houses he owns.

“I’m not going to bring back a lot of these jobs. I can’t, because with a global economy they’re headed the other way.” (John McCain, December 2007). McCain would deliver $3.8 billion in tax cuts to oil companies and would make the Bush tax cuts for the rich permanent (MSNBC, January 2008 debate). He voted against raising the minimum wage in January of 2007. His health care plan favors the big insurance companies.

Obama supports incentives for companies that create jobs in the United States, supports tax credits for working families and seniors making less than $50,000 and will roll back the Bush-McCain tax cuts for the wealthy. He voted for increasing the federal minimum wage. He opposes the Central American Free Trade Agreement. He wants to amend the North American Free Trade Agreement and his health plan will cover all Americans.

We are now spending billions on bailouts, after eight years of Bush-McCain policies that have allowed reckless deregulation and huge tax breaks for big corporations and the top 10 percent of our citizens.

Country first? Yes—the 90 percent first. Not the military-industrial complex. Vote for us—vote for Obama.

Don’t be fooled again

To the editor:

In his heated complaint in your September 18 issue, Van Fuller claims that Governor Palin was maligned unfairly by the political left. I can’t think of a single “unwarranted and untrue” attack on the governor.

Mr. Fuller does not list any of the offending attacks. I am left to assume that he gets his news from the right-wing corporate media who were making a big stink over these so-called attacks but not checking their facts. Which attacks does he mean? That Sarah Palin claims to have resisted earmark pork from Washington when she was actually the biggest seeker of that pork? That she promises to help rid politics of lobbyists while in fact she hired a lobbyist to obtain those earmarks? That she claims to have stood up to big oil when in fact she catered to their every whim? That she offers to help reform corrupt Washington politics although she operated in the most corrupt state in the nation?

The only intolerant attacks on her were motivated by intolerance for her hypocrisy, which has no gender. All the rest was invented by her supporters in the usual Rovian mode of attacking your opponents as if they were guilty of what are your own weaknesses. McCain and Palin oppose equal pay for equal work. They would remove women’s freedom to choose whether or not to have children.

Please, please don’t just vote for your team like this is a sports event. Learn about the issues and try, just this once, to vote for the team that really has your small-town interests in mind and at heart. Liberals brought small-town folks Social Security, Medicare, protection for the banking system, civil rights for all, minimum wage, balanced budgets, lower taxes on the middle class paid for with higher taxes on the very wealthy. Obama is no Marxist. Are the Republicans totalitarians? Don’t be fooled again.

Concerned about Belleayre

To the editor:

I am an eighth grade student at Sullivan West Junior High School and I am concerned about the budget cuts that may affect Belleayre Ski Center. Governor David Paterson is proposing cuts to the ski area. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is not saying what the cuts are to be, but they may be anything from closing the ski area to opening just a couple of lifts and a few trails. I am asking that everyone write to Governor David Paterson, State Capitol, Albany, NY 12224 and the NYS DEC, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233 and tell them that you do not want Belleayre Ski Center closed or severely cut, since it is important for families to have a place to ski, and it is important for the economy too.