This simply is an excellent letter in today's Johnson City Press.
I’m a former law enforcement officer from North Carolina, so was my late father. Together we have served the community for 52 years.
I hang the American flag on my front porch, attend a Christian church and I’m a member of the PTA.
In short, I’m as American as Old Glory itself.
I’m not a rich man. You can’t get rich working for the government unless you’re a dirty crook. I’ll need Social Security and Medicare in my golden age.
I’m concerned about people because I care about the least of these in my community. I’m concerned for the elderly, because I saw my grandmother struggle to pay her utilities and buy food on her small Social Security check.
I’m concerned for the teacher who spends years in college and then finds their benefits reduced to provide more corporate welfare for Wall Street or to bail out a bank taken down by greed.
Misinformation and propaganda has caused a great deal of Americans to support ideas that were not for their own benefit. One great misinformation is about the occupy movement and Occupy Johnson City. This is not a group of “unemployed hippies” unwilling to work.
As a former police officer, I’m not sure what is defined as a hippie. Could a hippie be the lawyer, doctor or college professor with a ponytail?
If I had to choose an American citizen to defend my rights, protect my family and teach my children, I would want him or her to be someone who believed in our core values enough to speak out in defense of the majority of Americans — the 99 percent.
Some may say they are not in the 99 percent and don’t support this occupy movement. That’s OK, they don’t have to support it.
I do find it wrong, however, to spread hate, lies or misinformation about American citizens who are concerned and exercising their right to free speech.
I support Occupy Johnson City and the occupy movement and I’m very proud of it.
R. REGION ARRINGTON
Jonesborough
Interesting the author mentions his police career rather than his writing career (writing less Prol?).
ReplyDeleteAlso interesting he mentions his Christianity as a qualification for American. (In Catholic Chicago Christians=Protestants e.g. As my wife says: we're not Christians, we're Catholics, even though we go to a UU Church... hard to give up Catholicism).
Frontier Labs did a marketing survey of paticipants at Occupy Chicago and Zuccoti. I'm guessing this writer fall into the Professional.
I assumed he mentioned his police career and Christianity because - well, I, at least, think of those as characteristics of people who OPPOSE OWS. I was really pleasantly surprised at the way the police interacted with OJC protesters at the first protest, but in the rest of the country right now (or the big cities, at least), the police aren't OWS's friends.
ReplyDeletePlus, maybe those qualifications give him more credence with OWS detractors?
Exactly, Che.
ReplyDeleteThe Christian creds don't work with me... he looks like a civil servant on an early retirement...
ReplyDeleteI hear you, Bill, but a UU from Chicago is not his target audience.
ReplyDeleteHe needs to know it's a World Wide Web!
ReplyDeleteregards
Bill
Che - yes, indeed.
ReplyDeleteBill - that marketing survey, which I saw on your blog earlier, is not only one of the more cynical things I've seen lately, it is, uh, bs. That writer falls into the just folks who are fed up category.
There are whole realities out here that don't fit into your stereotyped categories.
As for "He needs to know it's a World Wide Web!" - he wrote it for the local paper.
@ideg
ReplyDelete"Folks who are fed up category"
Yes! It is pretty amazing how much effort is being made to ridicule this movement.