County’s GOP ‘dumpster fi
re’
The column by Dick Wadhams (Monday) regarding the El Paso County GOP is spot-on. Many voters are turned off by the GOP chair’s ridiculous contrived war on fellow Republicans.
Wadhams is also right that the voting public has changed greatly — especially since U.S. Sen. Hank Brown’s campaign of 1990. I know, because I was Hank Brown’s El Paso County chair. Thirty-plus years ago, voters were discerning, curious, attentive, and they cared about the decisions they made. They sought the facts of current events.
Today, many voters don’t want to be educated, or lectured on how government really works, or hard facts, nor do they want to have to figure out what is real and what is not. They want campaign positions that are 140 characters or less. They want trite meaningless platitudes to soothe them.
A quick analysis of communication styles between Wayne Williams and Yemi Mobolade is telling. Williams is clearly very intelligent and can articulate about a wide variety of topics and lays out his positions plainly & logically. He says what he means.
Mobolade articulates his vision of the future with the expedient phrases of the day — never really saying what his positions are, but leaves the voters thinking he has. He speaks with word salad — aka platitudes.
Democrat candidates are masters at soothing voters — queue Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Jared Polis. Republican Ronald Reagan was also a master of ‘soothing’ communications. Many Republicans still hold him in high regard and can quote some of his words. But too few have learned from his communication style.
The El Paso County GOP takes a whole other approach of negative demeaning rants about Republicans they don’t like — a major turnoff to all voters (except the Democrats). The El Paso County GOP ‘dumpster fire’ will become a long cold ‘nuclear winter’ if they continue to berate their own as an esoteric campaign to a shrinking audience.
I hope they soon learn from the spate of Democrat winners.
Suzanne Brannon
Colorado Springs
Trim bushes near turns
The city needs to trim bushes near turns! My mom was crossing the street crosswalk, and a vehicle turned and hit her because they couldn’t see past the overgrown bushes. Before she was hit by the vehicle, my dad and grandparents filed a few requests for the city to trim the bushes.
The city ignored our first request and didn’t reply. The city said no to our second request. After my mom got hit, they said they didn’t know when they could cut the bushes. Since the incident, my mom suffers from anxiety when walking with our family to the park from our house.
I just want to feel safe crossing the street in my neighborhood, and this can be easily fixed if the city would trim the bushes or remove the bushes if the city is not able to maintain them.
Kai Trunkhill
Colorado Springs
Difference between refugees, migrants
Regarding your editorial regarding ‘Refugees’ bused to Denver: These folks are immigrants, not refugees. I’d of thought the Gazette would know the difference.
The main difference is choice. Simply speaking, a migrant is someone who chooses to move, and a refugee is someone who has been forced from their home. Refugees, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, are people who are “fleeing armed conflict or persecution” and “for whom denial of asylum has potentially deadly consequences.” Refugees leave their home countries because it is dangerous for them to stay.
Turning refugees away could mean sentencing them to death. They often arrive without their personal belongings, sometimes without preplanning.
Migrants, on the other hand, might move for any number of reasons. Some of them move to be with family or for economic reasons. Others move for education. Many of them return to their home countries after a few years. They are often able to plan their own travel and bring or sell their belongings.
Does this mean that all migrants are moving from good situations to better ones? Unfortunately, no. Many people migrate because their homes have become dangerous or difficult to live in.
They might be fleeing from unrest, famine, drought, or economic collapse. But unless they are in danger of conflict or persecution, they are not considered refugees.
The distinction is an important one, because an international convention in 1951 outlined certain rights for people deemed refugees, whereas migrants have no such rights. Refugees are protected from being deported or returned to situations that might threaten their lives. They are to be given access to social services and to be integrated into their new country’s society.
Richard Lawson
Colorado Springs
Honoring the fallen
With Memorial Day approaching, a lasting and rewarding way to pay tribute to our war dead would be to volunteer to support the nationwide Stories Behind the Stars project.
Its objective is to write and preserve online a short story honoring each of the 421,000+ American World War II men and women who gave their lives so that we could celebrate this Memorial Day in peace. Smartphone apps will allow the stories of the fallen to be read at any gravesite or any other location.
You can join volunteers from across the country who have written more than 22,000 tribute stories.
A good place to start might be to write about the 4,242 Coloradans who were killed in action in WWII, which include 141 fallen Army and Air Force in El Paso County or the 52 who attended Colorado College.
John E Melde
Colorado Springs