The views and opinions expressed in our letters section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Hudson Valley One. You can submit a letter to the editor here.
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Hudson Valley One welcomes letters from its readers. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and submitted by noon on Monday. Our policy is to print as many letters to the editor as possible. As with all print publications, available space is determined by ads sold. If there is insufficient space in a given issue, letters will be approved based on established content standards. Points of View will also run at our discretion.
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“[However, Mr. Butz’s response], I offer no apology to him” — Meyer Rothberg
Meyer, your response to Mistah Butz was spot-on. Yes, Butz represents “THE IGNORATTI.” It is very funny when Butz writes: “And amazingly, Meyer, Neil Jarmel and the like will still actually vote for the Biden/Harris disaster, AGAIN? It doesn’t get any more dysfunctional than that.”
Butz ignores an “anything goes” attitude/moral degeneracy of tfg, as well as the incomparable shitshow that was Donald Trump as president. Butz, what rock do you live under?
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. Seems the Republican Party has a great capacity of electing and nourishing rogue politicians. In my lifetime there has been McCarthy, Nixon and now the most brazen of liars, Trump, and his philosophy of “Alternative Truth!” Never once has letter writer John Butz raised a voice in objection. Instead, he supported every awful policy of Trump and of the Trumpublican party elected. AND our Butz, “he’ll vote for him a third time, if he’s on the ballot.”
Of course, Butz will opine — Trump solved more in four years than Sippy Cup Joe can in his 47 years. Now for reality — Trump solved nothing. He is a failure as a businessman, a failure as a husband, a failure as a father, a failure as a president, a failure as a Christian, a failure as an American and a failure as a human. All this explains the inferiority of DJT.
The previous #45 imPOTUS was impeached twice and has currently been “criminally indicted” many times over. He did nothing but create hatred, violence and criticism for four frightening years. Yeah, let’s talk dysfunctional when they, the Trumpublican voting deplorables, won’t even do a humane thing! And keep “DON the CON” Trump from again getting in the oval office. Period.
As for Biden, he has made amazing progress in such a short time. He has “done quite well,” especially “given the limitations that he has,” a reference to MAGAt obstructionism and our nation’s hyper-polarization. He negotiated a bipartisan budget agreement that protects his historic legislative accomplishments and the economic gains made under his administration.
Alt-right Rep. Empty Greene gave a speech condemning Biden by succinctly and eloquently summarizing his accomplishments. LOL! She compared Biden to FDR and LBJ.
“Now LBJ had the Great Society, but Joe Biden has “Build Back Better” and he still is working on it, the largest public investment in social infrastructure and environmental programs that is finishing what FDR started, that LBJ expanded on — government programs to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and welfare.”
Biden has done more for the average person than Trump ever did for anyone. This should be enough to let MAGAt Trumpsters know that there is a better way to be a president. But some like John Butz are unteachable. Sad.
Neil Jarmel
West Hurley
Transparency, not
Woodstock Supervisor McKenna said, “For as long as I’ve been on the board, the day [after the business meeting] people come in to sign vouchers, nobody has ever requested additional time. So, they [ Ratcliff and Conte] failed to do their job.” Nobody? Guess you forgot about Councilman Jay Wenk, may he rest in peace. No, Bill, Ratcliff and Conte were doing their job, watching taxpayer dollars.
Howard Harris
Woodstock
End mowing mutilation in New Paltz
On July 31, flowers, bushes and a pollinator garden at the edge of my residential street were decimated by the town’s mowing service. They mowed nearly six feet into my property and my neighbors. This aggressive mowing decimated wildflowers and other garden plantings that had existed for years. These gardens are a place where bees, butterflies and other native flora and fauna make their home and functionally support our environment. The loss is devastating on a practical and aesthetic level for residents of New Paltz.
The town’s highway department has a 14-foot “rite-of-way” according to their website. Is 14 feet really considered a shoulder? Maybe on a state highway or landing strip.
A website post for this mowing event was posted the day-of on the town website. Notifications for these aggressive shoulder mowings must be scheduled and communicated to the public in advance so that residents can properly mark their plantings. Homeowners should not have to beg the town for mercy with signs and markers asking that our flowers and gardens are not destroyed.
I am asking the New Paltz highway service to be more mindful of vegetation at the edge of the road and to end gratuitous mowing practices in New Paltz. I hope that others speak up and share their story as well.
L. Gardener
New Paltz
I will be voting for Ben Ratcliff in November
Nine things that are true about Ben Ratcliff:
1. He didn’t help overthrow a country in Central America or anywhere else.
2. No proposal of his limits the number or size of trees which a property owner may take down on their property.
3. He doesn’t own property in Woodstock. And so sees the challenges facing Woodstock from an unbiased point of view.
4 His bankruptcy taught him that economic hardship can happen to any of us.
5. That raspy voice of his is the result of smoking a couple packs of Lucky Strikes for many years. He quit before moving here eight years ago and he realizes his luck in having survived.
6. He wants to make Woodstock more like the town he thought he’d moved to.
7. a) He doesn’t owe anyone any favors and b) will not agree to a plan he won’t work hard to see implemented.
8, If elected, he will remove ALL contaminated materials on Church Road from above the aquifer (without a lawsuit forcing the town to take such action.)
9. Though not interested in making overtly malicious statements concerning any other candidate I will be voting for Ben Ratcliff in November.
Tad Wise
Woodstock
Safety for pedestrians on Henry W. DuBois Drive
When will construction begin on the protected pedestrian/ bicycle lane along Henry W. Dubois (HWD) Drive?
A couple of days ago I saw a young mother pushing a baby stroller on the non-existent shoulder of HWD near Millbrook Road in New Paltz.
It looked like a very vulnerable situation to me. I hoped that she was not intending to go very far along this well-trafficked road.
Thank goodness there are wide shoulders at either end of this road, but in the large middle section starting from Oakwood Boulevard to close to Old Mill Road, there is an extremely narrow shoulder of a few inches — not enough for safe walking or bicycling.
I understand the resistance of some homeowners to having some trees removed to accommodate the proposed pedestrian/bike lane; however I believe the safety of human beings should be our highest priority. Other than Main Street, HWD is the only way to go east/west in the central part of New Paltz. For that reason it carries a lot of traffic.
Recently, I notice that more and more people take their chances walking and biking this route. Pedestrians and cyclists should have a safe way of using this public thoroughfare. There are people who do not drive motor vehicles and need to find a safe and direct route between Route 32 North and the eastern part of New Paltz.
I strongly believe that when the project is finally completed, most of the homeowners will feel good about traffic moving more slowly along this road. The pedestrian bike lane will require that the driving lanes be narrower. Narrower driving lanes result in lower traffic speeds. The project planners promise that the lost trees will be replaced. Alta Planners do high quality work so I believe them.
I hope to see construction of this badly needed infrastructure begin soon. We really need it.
Stephen O’Shea
New Paltz
More detail regarding bird banding research
I’m writing in response to a recent letter asking for more detail regarding bird banding research conducted at Mohonk Preserve. The Preserve’s banding station is run by a SUNY New Paltz Associate Professor of Biology and USGS Master Birder with 25 years of experience in bird banding and ornithological research. Undergraduate students from SUNY New Paltz also gain experience in conservation research by participating in the program.
Bird banding is a valuable, minimally invasive tool used by ornithologists for over 100 years. Bird populations are declining precipitously worldwide, and this research is designed to identify which species are declining due to which factors to slow and reverse these trends. Bird banding allows scientists to accurately track population sizes, especially when combined with watching and counting unbanded birds, and both methods are used at the Preserve’s banding station.
The Preserve’s banding station is a participant in a continent-wide bird banding network, organized by the non-profit Institute for Bird Populations, called MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship). Data collected are shared among many scientists comparing the same kinds of data from over 300 other locations. This data set is hugely valuable in tracking populations of individual species and shaping conservation goals and policies and has been published in many peer-reviewed scientific publications.
Mohonk Preserve’s Conservation Programs research is an important part of our overall conservation mission, making sure that our unique ecosystem maintains its resilience in this ever-changing climate.
Kevin Case
Mohonk Preserve President and CEO
Gardiner
Understanding the state of Israel
Anyone interested in understanding the state of Israel doesn’t have to make much of an effort. Even the New York Times is often blunt about the government-sanctioned racism and ethnic cleansing going on in the West Bank and Gaza. Even the propaganda spinners in the Pentagon can’t use the usual catchword phrases like “protecting freedom” or “restoring democracy” to explain away Israel’s brutal behavior. The Palestinians living under the boot of Israel’s apartheid state have never experienced either of these fine principals.
Rather than promoting freedom or democracy, our country actively supports Israel’s constant military attacks, home demolitions, detentions of minors and destruction of infrastructure. How can a country that celebrates the inalienable rights of its citizens, turn around and pay billions to Israel for denying basic human rights to its non-Jewish population?
The website OpenSecrets.org explains part of it. Most members of Congress are feeding at the trough of the Israel Lobby and are well paid to look the other way. They are scared too. The lobby threatens to defeat any candidate who even mentions Palestinian suffering.
Another supporter of Israel’s apartheid is the right wing Evangelical Church. Christian fundamentalists believe that Jesus will appear when all Jews are returned to the Holy Land. And that fits nicely with their plans to restore the supremacy of conservative, Christian, Republican males in the United States.
A third interest group that favors Israel is made up of Jews who believe that the next Holocaust is bound to happen. In their fear, they assume that an ethnically cleansed Israel is the only safe place for them to ever live. For this sanctuary, they are willing to sacrifice the lives of five million Palestinians who are simply in the way.
To change US policy in Palestine, we have to reform Congress. It should be illegal for the Israel Lobby to spend millions bribing our representatives. At the next town meeting held by your House or Senate member, why don’t you ask them how much the Israel Lobby pays them each year. Let’s put an end to this interference in our elections by a foreign country.
Challenging the Christian right in the US should also be a priority. A theocracy based on Christianity would be as morally reprehensible as one based on Jewish Supremacy. We must protect the rights of all our minorities: immigrants, gays, Jews, blacks and Asians. To end Israeli apartheid, we must win the battle against fascism here at home. We cannot allow our country to become another apartheid Israel.
Fred Nagel
Rhinebeck
Who Has Our Back
“I got your back,” a phrase born in war,
Echoes through time, from the cockpit to the shore.
“I got your six,” the pilots would say;
yet today, I feel we’ve lost our way.
“Big Pharma,” they say, has a deadly reach,
76 billion pills are the lesson they teach.
36 for each of us in this land we call home;
no one at our backs, we are left to face this alone?
“No Marine left behind,” the drill sergeants roar;
yet we’re losing the war.
200,000 fallen in the opioid fight;
who has our back in this endless night?
Politicians send troops to faraway lands,
yet the enemy is in our backyards.
Victims blamed for their own despair;
who has our back?
Does anyone care?
“Big Pharma” profits, handing out strife,
Ripples of pain, cutting like a knife.
Courts are forced to step into the fray;
who has our back as we’re led astray?
Wars are fought for reasons untrue,
Yet the opioid battle continues to brew.
Lives lost, grief in every glance;
who has our back in this deadly dance?
I feel the wall, cold against my spine,
Indifference sold in the government’s line.
Our value of life is increasingly blurred;
who has our back when our pleas are unheard?
In this battle, we must become our own guard,
or the tragedy here will keep striking us hard.
We must protect those beyond our kin,
for if we don’t, how can anyone win?
Larry Winters
New Paltz
Good Republicans?
Sometimes a friend will try to assure me that there are good Republicans. I have great difficulty digesting this suggestion, given the espoused platform of those who lay claim to that political identity. While some, comparatively few in the pack, are “Never-Trumpers,” this disassociation alone does not free them from their moral turpitude.
For example, those who identify as Republicans, based upon their commitment to “fiscal conservatism” as opposed to a fascist mindset, advance an ideology that makes short shrift of those basic moral values that move truly good people to love and care for the other as they love and care for themselves. Oh yes, while some of these Republicans are willing to be charitable, at times, in response to humanitarian causes, or in their contributions to the arts, they exhibit an entrenched resistance to a just socio-economic order.
Justice demands action to dismantle those structures and systems that render a growing number of children hungry, a growing number of families homeless, millions without affordable and accessible health care, doors closed to migrants and the majority being paid a minimum wage that is less than half of what would qualify as a living wage. They espouse a commitment to maintaining a class-based society in which those that have the most do so at the expense of the workers, aka slaves, who make their lives always more than comfortable.
If you identify yourself as a Republican and want to see yourself as good, you are either willfully blind or delusional.
The Rev. Frank J. Alagna
Rhinecliff
Crime matters
The indictment of our 45th president occurred today. The proceedings should be televised before the 2024 election. The trial should result in a conviction. If this does not constitute a crime, what does?
Susan Nickerson
Woodstock
Woodstock’s carbon-neutral initiative
Hudson Valley Climate Solutions Week, an effort to focus attention on the ongoing climate emergency, is scheduled for September 16-24. Woodstock, in conjunction with Climate Solutions Week, will host an event on Wednesday, September 20, to describe how Woodstock achieved carbon neutrality and reduced GHG emissions.
It began with Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth. In March 2007, the Town Board adopted a resolution committing that town governmental operations would be carbon neutral by year-end 2017. The town achieved carbon neutrality in 2015 and was formally recognized for its accomplishment at the 2017 annual meeting of the New York State Association of Conservation Commissions.
New York’s climate plan established a goal to reduce GHG emissions by 40% by 2030, and the Climate Smart Communities program is available to assist communities in achieving the state’s climate objectives. Woodstock has been recognized for reducing GHG emissions by over 40%.
This Climate Solutions Week event will describe how Woodstock achieved carbon neutrality and reduced GHG emissions. The presentation will also address the remaining challenges and some implications of the new Climate Law.
Kenneth S. Panza, Supervisor’s Liaison
Woodstock Climate Smart Committee
Michael Mulvey responds
Ratcliff’s 7/25/23 “point of view” insists he’s never been a lobbyist, that I’ve fabricated these stories. Allowed 500 words, I’ll use those of respected journalists and academics. Let him argue with them.
2009 Honduran Junta:
- “Bennett Ratcliff, another top Democratic campaigner with close ties to the Clintons, also worked for the Honduran coup government as a lobbyist in Washington” (Harvard Political Review, 4/13/15, “Dancing with Monsters,” https://harvardpolitics.com/us-honduran-coup/ ).
- Lanny “Davis is working with Bennett Ratcliff, another lobbyist with a close relationship to Hillary Clinton who is a former senior executive for one of the most influential political and public relations firms in Washington. In the current mediation effort hosted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, the coup-installed government did not make a move without first consulting Ratcliff” (Mark Weisbrot, “A Coup with Connections,” LA Times 7/23/09 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jul-23-oe-weisbrot23-story.html).
- Ratcliff “was a key adviser to the coup leader, Micheletti,” the bio for Ratcliff’s firm “promised ‘access to key decision makers and influencers”’https://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/5/a_coup_for_lobbyists_at_the_white_house?fbclid=IwAR30O4cuLKbqL7EDIJY9hd91ScsxXNXyZPUBBesWILxM6P_PfjDoOam5Eik).
- “Within days, Honduras reverted to its recurrent role as a narco-state due to the coup… Public death lists began to circulate…The son of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, President from 2010 to 2014, was a trafficker trading off his lucrative government ties…The Honduran coup plotters immediately hired Washington lobbyists, specifically selecting Clinton insiders for their ties to the head of U.S. foreign policy. The de facto government did not take one move without consulting Ratcliff: he wrote literally everything that the regime said at the negotiating table in San José…As professional name-droppers these lobbyists were valuable to regimes solely for their personal connections to the Secretary of State…The United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Carter Center, and most Latin American governments unequivocally denounced the November 2009 vote as illegitimate” (Daniel Beckman, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 4/12/17https://coha.org/a-labyrinth-of-deception-secretary-clinton-and-the-honduran-coup/?fbclid=IwAR1emOiaZgIOza2IPLm9XkOtBZS9tWgIWBy03WvN8raaUB-ApkVRoiGVPkg)
These ‘elections’ Ratcliff negotiated/worked-on provided sham legitimization justifying the violent narco-junta’s continuation. Let him direct arguments over that, and the ensuing humanitarian disaster’s correlation with thousands of Hondurans arriving annually at our border these last 14-years, to Noam Chomsky:
- “Honduras became the murder capital of the world. A fraudulent election took place under the military junta — again, harshly condemned all over the hemisphere…Now people are fleeing from the misery and horrors for which we are responsible” (https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/31/noam_chomsky_members_of_migrant_caravan).
Ratcliff’s 886-word diatribe never addressed the point/title of my 7/19 letter: “So much for party loyalty.” Nor did he mention his accrued federal tax liens (2017), totaling $626,148.00 or 2019 bankruptcy (all Ulster County Clerk records). Those should raise serious fiscal integrity concerns over ANY candidate. None of this is fabricated, or ancient history; it all speaks to this candidate’s fitness.
My 500-word limit requires addressing Ratcliff’s later work:
- Jeb Bush (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/jeb-bush-digitial-learning-public-schools/),
- rightwing election ‘reformer,’ John Pudner (https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/27/how-clintonites-are-manufacturing-faux-progressive-congressional-campaigns/),
and the other baseless allegations made against me in follow-up letters to HV1.
Please, read what I’ve cited; decide for yourself. My research includes many reliable documents on this candidate. Email me at mmulvey@ithaca.edu and please vote!
Michael Mulvey
Woodstock
Sleepless in Phoenicia
There should be a Pulitzer Prize for insomnia.
Sparrow
Phoenicia
Voting intelligence is disappearing
I think we can all agree that there is the possibility that Trump could be in trouble. Even though some of the counts in some of the indictments are baseless according to a number of legal experts, Merrick Garland’s self-appointed biased pit bull, “special counsel” Jack Smith, will make sure he does his darndest to crucify Trump, and with our allegedly “objective” Garland’s full blessing, of course. We’ll have to wait to see how this all unfolds over the next year or so.
But, in the meantime, what about the evidence that continues to mount against the Biden crime family? And, as it is being revealed, it shows more and more how Joe Biden has been lying to everyone. As he continues his denials, he acts as if ALL Republicans, Independents and even Democrats are morons and can’t see through his lies, double-talk and spin. Even his patsies at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, Huffpost, etc. can’t hide from this stuff any longer and are being forced to sporadically AND quite weakly acknowledge only ome of Biden’s deceitful shortcomings.
And comically but not surprisingly, Neil Jarmel and his army of TDS soldiers are totally silent on the unraveling of the Biden storyline with the accompanying corruption and coverup by Garland’s DOJ and Christopher Wray’s FBI.
Despite all of the above, coupled with countless calamities inflicted upon ALL of us for 2 1/2 years and counting — i.e. a poor economy, record high gas and food prices, record number of deaths caused by illegal drugs flowing through our uncontrolled border, record high levels of crime, erosion of our national security, a weakened military with unnecessary focus on the usage of proper pronouns instead of on combat readiness, the downgrade of our country’s credit rating for the first time in 12 years, forcing costly “green energy” upon us when it’s nowhere near ready to be introduced on an affordable large scale basis, etc. there will be far too many voters still standing behind and voting for four more years of this dangerous Democratic nonsense! Can anyone explain the intelligence process behind such thoughtless voting?
John N. Butz
Modena
Climate science
Our current mass delusion is climate change. Of course it is changing. When hasn’t it? The delusional part is our willing waste of limited resources trying to stop it.
A smarter planet of dominant creatures would put their resources into adapting. First cancelling what works — fossil fuels — and fearfully blocking the most reliable, cleanest source of electricity, nuclear, is not working, will not work and will leave our grandchildren in misery.
Rising oceans over the next 50 years? Build on slightly higher ground.
Mining is the single worst source of pollution and worker injury and illness, for adults and children, and you need it for your filthy batteries. Stop it (please).
Settled science is not science. Real science is still learning more about everything.
Paul Nathe
New Paltz
Join the family! 
