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Reader responds to published letters

Thank you for publishing your letters to the editor section on April 19. I always appreciate Cindy Stemple’s clear-eyed interpretations. Her use of historical examples and verifiable facts to illustrate her points are helpful in making sense of our current situation. And, full disclosure: I’ve been acquainted with Cindy for a couple of years now, but not with either of your other letter writers in this issue.

Through both my own analyses and that of others, I’ve come to the conclusion that while a few — for example, your Parsons letter writer, who appeared in the same issue — believe the current Administrations in Charleston and Washington are “fix[ing] thing[s],” what’s actually happening at the hands of these so-called “conservatives” is the opposite. True conservatives want to preserve and improve society; the anti-freedom and anti-American agenda the MAGA minority is pursuing is destroying our institutions, not preserving or improving them. And while the MAGA Republicans claim to be patriotic and good fiscal managers, they are defining patriotism, and fiscal prudence, in some very strange ways. For example, they want to keep taxes low for the wealthy, keep a bloated military and Homeland Security budget, add to the deficit, and, while making the rest of us ordinary citizens pay more and more, cut services and programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, all on the excuse that “we can’t afford them.” Poppycock! The billionaires and millionaires in this country need to pay their fair share. But under the mismanagement of Governor Morrissey and his Republican supermajority, and Trump’s MAGA Congress, all we’re going to get is a continuation of tax cuts for the wealthy and more misery for the rest of society.

The Elkins resident who wrote about the proposed data center also provided a valuable service to all readers. I, as a Tucker County farmer, find it disturbing that such secrecy surrounds Virginia-based Fundamental Data’s plan to seek approval for a data processing center in Tucker and/or Grant counties. It’s a proposal not even our County Commissioners, town officials, or other key economic development agencies’ personnel appear to have been aware of at the outset. The first point of contact for any economic development project should be these folks, as well as legislators in Charleston who are shepherding these efforts. When I reached out to Senator Smith’s office about this proposed project, however, and its related legislation, House Bill 2014 (which Randolph County Delegate Coop-Gonzalez in this same issue of your newspaper crowed about as a “win”), I was told by Senator Smith’s staff member that the bill and Fundamental Data’s proposed project weren’t connected, and that the proposed project wasn’t going to Tucker but was “going to Grant County, so they’ll get the money.” It’s hard to fathom this response….seems these elected representatives think they know what’s best for the people without asking the people at all.

To add insult to injury, as reporter/commentator Steven Allen Adams wrote more recently (in the May 2 issue), the “data center/microgrid bill” was ultimately signed into law to much fanfare, explicitly making the link between the data centers and the bill designed to de-regulate to such an extent that it will usher in the next century’s exploitation of West Virginia and West Virginians.

Many of us in Tucker County and across the state opposed this bill, for it facilitates the kinds of 21st century legalized theft that the robber barons of the Gilded Age in the 19th century were famous for. Yep, once it was railroads tycoons and unscrupulous bankers; now it’s secrecy-bound data centers and tech billionaires, who truly do NOT do any real, valuable work in our economy.

Our own MAGA sycophant, Governor Morrissey, has delivered for the out-of-state interests who put him here. And in the meantime? Ordinary people, some of whom unwittingly voted these mean-spirited people into office, will continue to wait, in vain, for prices to go down in the grocery store and for all the lies they’ve believed to come true.

Deborah Stiles

St. George

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