Letters to the Editor

Readers write: Letters to the editor, December 5, 2016

Lead Trump to blind trust

I have created a new nonprofit site. I am hoping that you will donate to a fund that will provide a guide dog for President-elect Donald Trump. With this asset, he will be able to effectively set up a legal blind trust. Otherwise, he could increase his family's wealth as you pray for the recovery of your lost jobs.
Donate at: haveyoubeenscammed.com?

— Mary Navitsky
Anchorage

Thanksgiving miracle in city

I am new to the Anchorage area. I work for a great organization, the Alaska Mental Health Consumer Web, which is a recovery- based drop-in center. The Web provides peer-driven support in a safe environment guided by unconditional positive regard using a recovery philosophy. We offer hope. No red tape or strings attached. The reason for this letter is on Thanksgiving Day I witnessed what I consider to be a miracle.

I arrived at work a few minutes late with the turkey I volunteered to cook. The Web provides a Thanksgiving dinner for its members and guests every year. My job that day was to man the front desk and sign people in. Shortly after I got settled at the desk a group of four or five people arrived carrying quite a bit of food.

I knew the church was going to provide some food for us, my co-worker Kathy and I gladly let them in and directed them to the kitchen. I continued to sign people in, and a short while later came another group equally burdened with food. I thought that this was cool, I had never before seen this type of generosity and I thought we might get another group or two but that would be it.

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The food continued to come, Kathy said to start keeping track, she said she had seen at least 20 people come so far. The 20 people turned into 30 and then 40 and with each group my jaw dropped further, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. At about 12:15 p.m. when the last group came, we had logged 48 individuals who came to support and feed our members. The kitchen counters were full, the break room was full, and three 6-foot tables were full. There were turkeys, potatoes, stuffing, cookies, pies, sweet potatoes, green beans corn, rolls, all the fixings and then some. We served over 60-plus staff and had plenty for lunch the next two days. Everyone who wanted seconds had them.

We at the Web wish to thank the New Grace Christian Church and all the volunteers who took time from their Thanksgiving, to prepare and deliver all the delicious food for our Thanksgiving celebration. Your efforts have shown me that the Anchorage community has a generous and giving heart. That image will stay with me forever.

— Monika Carhart
peer mentor
Alaska Mental Health Consumer Web
Anchorage

Trump is a viper; it's his nature to betray people's trust

Donald Trump's new status as our president-elect is a puzzlement for many people — particularly those who did not vote for him. He has a lifelong reputation as a conniving charlatan, yet here he is: Our new president-elect. We, the people, traditionally try to support the new president, regardless of how we voted, and hope that he (and yes, thus far, it's always been a "he") will do what's best for our nation.

Perhaps one viable way to consider our new president-elect is to recall a well-known fable about a traveler who is about to cross a stream when a snake, coiled up by the side of the stream, asks to be carried across to the other side. The traveler is reluctant because the snake is poisonous, but the snake insists he will not bite the traveler. So the traveler carries the snake to the other side of the stream, whereupon the snake bites the traveler, injecting venom into the traveler's body. The traveler expresses dismay at such a betrayal, but the snake shrugs off the complaint, saying, "You knew what I was when you picked me up!"
And so it is, that as the result of this latest presidential election, we have as our new U.S. president-elect a person who is known to be a bigoted, racist, egoistic narcissistic cheat, and who is now surrounding himself with like characters; few of whom — including the president-elect — have any experience whatsoever in government.

Ladies and gentlemen, we the people are going to be obliged to carry this swarm of snakes across a span of four years. Some of them — including the president-elect — are likely to be "poisonous." If that is so, then, we the people, will have to be ready for that possibility, and each of us, in his/her own way, must be ready to "take action" and "get involved" in order to limit the damage.

— Stephan Paliwoda
Anchorage

Fidel is demon, not China, which sells prisoners' organs

If one of China's unelected "presidents" (Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao or the current Xi Jinping) had recently died instead of Fidel Castro, I doubt The Donald, or any other American pols, would have castigated him as a "brutal dictator." Poor Fidel always gets demonized. Double standard?

I'm familiar with the human rights situation in China. I've met privately with the dalai lama twice in India. I brought his North American envoy Lobsang Nyanduk to Juneau and introduced him to a joint state Senate-House Committee. I hosted Tiananmen Square student leader Fang Li-Zhi in Anchorage as well as famous Chinese dissident Wei Jing Sheng — who Clinton sprang free in 1997 after 20 years in a Chinese jail. Wei told me, rightly, that China is a dictatorship, but with term limits.

And I hosted Zhang Er-ping, world spokesman for the Falun Gong, in Nome and Anchorage. He gave me a copy of the White Paper — meticulously and independently prepared by respected Canadian researchers — exposing Beijing-sanctioned organ harvesting of Falun Gong prisoners (when you beat inmates, spare the lower back, a kidney goes for $20K). Check it out at: organharvestinvestigation.net/

The human rights situation in China is horrific and abysmal, and they should be called to the carpet.

— William M. Cox, M.D.
Anchorage

Old story, but same lesson

From prehistoric times the majority of mankind has accepted the story told by a small number of people (usually self-described members of royalty or a priesthood) that their rule is necessary, to ensure survival and security for all others.

Through Greco-Roman times and the Dark Ages of European Christianity we the people, have believed, or "fallen for," the narrative that we need elite rulers (the rich) to protect and reign over us. Those in the castle used their "God-given" position to rule and protect peasants from invasion and conquest by enemy kingdoms. They did this by taking the crops and products of the peasantry to feed their armies, who were made up of the peasants' sons.

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All the while the royalty (the rich) married into other royal lines (i.e. opposing realms) thus ensuring the peasants would be distracted by war against the enemy, who may have been related to their own rulers (the rich).

Fast forward to today; we just gave the elite 1/100th of 1 percent permission to keep us busy warring against their relatives in the neighboring castles. When will we learn we don't need to be ruled?

As Diderot said: "Peace will come to man when the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

— William Bartee
Anchorage

The views expressed here are the writers' own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a letter under 200 words for consideration, email letters@alaskadispatch.com, or click here to submit via any web browser. Submitting a letter to the editor constitutes granting permission for it to be edited for clarity, accuracy and brevity. Send longer works of opinion to commentary@alaskadispatch.com.

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