Our current problems in this country are too many to address in one letter, but perhaps a few points may help focus our attention to the future. Our issues are not so much political as they are educational; a good number of people are not seeing the global picture.
Pointe du Hoc, France was where a group of Rangers had to scale a series of cliffs at Normandy on D-Day under vicious enemy fire in broad daylight. These brave, honorable men did so with nothing more than a conviction so strong that they knowingly and willingly risked their lives for a belief that democracy was something sacred. Where is that belief today? Missing among the people who resort to violence to defend the behaviors of a megalomaniac, a person who stole from hundreds of contractors, cheated on his wives, stole money from students and a nonprofit foundation, mistreated women, bribed people into silence and then rallied people to attack the very center of that democracy.
A good number of folks cannot tell you what will happen when a certain glacier in Bolivia recedes to the point where the rivers that it feeds will no longer provide fresh water for irrigation for hundreds of thousand of people.
Does a president who is concerned (like we all should be) about climate change have the support of oil companies? What could they do to ensure that he is a one-term president? Gas costing $5 a gallon ought to do it. Do any of you feel like we should be driving around in giant SUVs? We should do what we can to know we are a part of the world. What is the cost of gas in Canada or England? Learn. Read. See the big picture.
Ed Surprenant
Jaffrey