Recently an article in the local paper had a link to a letter to our federal Congressman in the House of Representatives about the President. I did not vote for Trump or any of the other 3 candidates, I also voted for someone else besides the 2 we had for Congressmen. As an independent, I felt obligated to respond to these people and thus composed a letter I have sent out to the professors of this local college, yeah I went to the Wagner College website and looked up every name and email address of all thirty-three of them. This is the content of my response:
As an educated citizen, I strongly condemn your letter both by this email and on my public blog site for falsehoods presented therein. The content of your letter to Representative Dan Donovan contain outright lies being spread too much through various outlets thus violate the basic principles of American democracy, intellectual and scientific standards and international responsibility.
1 – President Trump’s order for the immigration ban has problems but is not religious discrimination. To be such, it would have to target all Muslim countries that it does not. Just look up the top 10 countries with the highest Muslim populations and you will see only 1 is on the list, Iran. You lied here.
2 – Climate change can be pursued without requiring any government website to support it by having sections on it. There are plenty of other websites out there arguing for and against it, why oversaturate. I and others of various political affiliation have lived through times before the Internet existed and there were plenty of efforts and discussion on this subject without a website. If you think any government website must have a climate change support section, YOU have a problem. The more time and people spent creating websites, the less anything happens.
3 – Any equality arguments are attempts to go backwards to the 1960s, this is 2017 where we need to discuss 2017 issues, not 1960 ones. So much misinformation out there on modern day issues including what are now proven myths on equality plus a failure to make people face truths about those they seek equality with, typically white men. The covering up and ignorance of those truths has lowered the intelligence level of people, discussion and awareness in this country. Stop contributing to it.
4 – The ‘free press’ is not free anymore. We live in an age of biased journalism not only from the right but also the left. One of the sources you list, the New York Times, put forth this piece of drek. According to this ‘journalist’ Ginia Bellafante, everyone in Staten Island is a Trump loving Republican. This is not the first time journalism has failed, another example is the Huffington Post who put forth this piece of garbage. Yet another ‘journalist’ Scott Conroy does the same as Ms. Bellafante. I even proved him wrong myself and have written both phony ‘news sources’ about these articles, have you or do you just not give a darn how many lies are told about where you live?
Both are guilty of not being journalists. They each went to one neighborhood, Ms. Bellafante to Tottenville, Mr. Conroy to New Dorp, talked to handful of people who happen to be Republican and wrote false smearing articles published by these ‘news sources’ as journalism convincing people this whole Island is chock full of Trump loving Republicans.
Anyone here aware of where they live plus information from our own local Staten Island Advance knows these articles to be false. Publicly available information from both the city and state shows this, Democrats make up the largest number of registered voters here and the Independents/Third Party people like myself are not that small of a group.
I also know Tottenville is in an area with one third of the voting population is Democrat and New Dorp has Democrats including one friend of mine who is now an owner of a business there.
Did any of you ‘intellectual’ professors take them and their companies to task for these lies? Probably not so you are all intellectually dishonest and want to spread misinformation and dishonesty to others.
5 – Then call the appropriate people in the Justice branch of our three branches of government. We have seen enough in American history when Congresspeople try to act like the Justice branch it becomes more political theatre than justice, I would think all of you professors would know this. We have three branches for a reason and the Justice branch is the correct one to pursue any action needed here.
I and others believe actions like yours are a threat to our democracy, economy, American values, international alliances and ideals for citizenship, respect for knowledge and diversity that we strive to see in our fellow citizens. Perhaps if you took the time to learn some things yourself including issues not covered here that should be, including issues that should be discussed and taught in places of education like yours that are not taught to people thus contributing to the lowering of education and honest discussion about the country, we would have fewer problems.
In addition, it is odd you teach and live here in Staten Island yet do not care about lies told about it by ‘journalistic sources.’ People would expect you to stand up to these ‘sources’ and promote integrity in them as well.
Education does not end with and is not always given in school.
Sincerely,
Eric Stork
Staten Island resident for about 40 years
US Army veteran
Voted for a different choice for US President because all 4 candidates turned me off
A lot of other things you do not know about but would probably make false assumptions about given the behavior of some people on a lot of sides in politics these days
Proud to NOT be part of the politically biased BS being spread about by idiots including through media and fake ‘news agencies’
PS – You can find a copy of this letter at this link, since your letter went public through the Staten Island Advance, only fair mine does too. Since not everyone gets covered by the news, I used my own writing site.
People really need to get over things like who got elected and actually fact check themselves before pulling stunts like these people did.
Eric's Writing 