An invitation to listen
As we awaken to the incredibly disparate perspectives and influences on our country today, I hope you will keep in mind a vital community resource for engagement right here in our backyard: KGNU Community Radio.
KGNU provides information, music and public affairs programming over the airwaves, along the Front Range and beyond (streaming online). KGNU’s mission is to stimulate, educate and entertain listeners, and to provide a platform for marginalized and overlooked people, music and news. The station is truly independent in that it is not beholden to large corporate sponsors; this is reflected in KGNU’s diverse and eclectic program schedule.
Every contribution of money, time, and in-kind donations from every community member and business directly advances your nonprofit community radio station’s mission. In return, KGNU offers myriad direct opportunities in its Boulder and Denver studios to learn and engage at many levels: news broadcasting, music DJing, community outreach, committee work and board service. We invite you to listen at 88.5 FM and 1390 AM, visit kgnu.org, or call our Boulder station at 303-449-5629.
Please join us today in these efforts, so crucial now for protecting and advancing freedom and diversity in our media into the future.
Risë Keller,Secretary, Board of Directors, KGNU Community Radio/Boulder
You’re just like me
I’m glad to hear that your response to the election of Trump is grounded in unity. However, I think that you fall short in your analysis of the massive Democratic Party failure this election cycle.
While it is clear that the Democratic party establishment and the Clinton campaign in particular failed to address the grievances of poor whites (costing Dems not only the White House but also both houses of Congress), we as rank-and-file progressives would be kidding ourselves if we pushed the blame entirely onto party elites.
The reality is that the both you and I — and the Left in general — failed to actively engage with the ideas of Trump voters this election cycle.
In the Boulder bubble, where we dared not fathom that Trump supporters were (and are) in our midst, we forgot the need to engage with the ideas of the Right here at home.
Boulder County voted about 70 percent for Clinton and 20 percent for Trump. So where were the Trump supporters during the campaigns?
As a student on CU’s Boulder campus, I saw the Trump hats come out the morning after the election. These were people I know, and that, in my ignorance, I never believed would support a candidate I firmly believed — like you — to be poisoned with racism, misogyny and general right-wing lunacy.
Moreover, because I didn’t know any open Trump supporters (I’m from Portland, Oregon — another liberal bubble) — I had this image of them as extraordinarily evil, or at least incredibly ignorant. But that day, I got to talking with an acquaintance who actually voted for the Orange Guy.
Spoiler: We didn’t agree on anything. But I didn’t call him racist, misogynistic or uninformed. I patiently explained where I came from and he did so as well. There was no yelling, ad hominem slurs or violence. We simply talked. And, in sharpening my own arguments, I learned a valuable lesson about how to deal with the new majority in this country.
The answer is civil discourse. Instead of blaming Democratic elites for this failure, we need to blame ourselves for not seriously engaging with the ideas of Trump supporters — as reprehensible as they may be to us. It is the only way to wage our long battle that is the foundation of progressive politics.
Grant Stringer/Boulder
It’s a conspiracy
Rob Jackson’s fine piece “Skiing with style…not” [Re: Winter Scene 2016] omits any info about the date of the Alley Loop event in Crested Butte.
Appreciated the “Nibbles” piece on where to eat, but it excluded Crested Butte!
Surely this is not some Trumpian scheme to eliminate CB?
Zigy/Boulder
Why skip the turkey?
President Obama is taking a break from the Trump transition to pardon two turkeys. Every one of us can exercise that presidential pardon power on Thanksgiving by giving thanks for health and happiness while skipping gratuitous violence.
The 235 million turkeys killed in the U.S. this year have nothing to be thankful for. They are raised in crowded sheds filled with toxic fumes. At 16 weeks, slaughterhouse workers cut their throats and dump them in boiling water to remove their feathers.
Consumers pay a heavy price too. Turkey flesh is laced with cholesterol and saturated fats that elevate risk of chronic killer diseases. Package labels warn of food poisoning potential.
But, there is good news. Annual per capita consumption of turkeys is down by a whopping 35 percent from a 1996 high. A third of our population is reducing meat consumption. Food manufacturers are developing a great variety of healthful, delicious plant-based meat products.
My Thanksgiving dinner will include a “tofurky” (soy-based roast), mashed potatoes, stuffed squash, chestnut soup, candied yams, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and carrot cake. An internet search on vegan Thanksgiving and a visit to my local grocery store will provide me heaps of recipes and delightful plant-based turkey alternatives.
Stanley Silver/Boulder
President-elect Trump: a criminal?
I just wrote to our Colorado Senators to urge initiation of an immediate investigation into the criminal activities of the president-elect Donald J. Trump and I encourage you to take similar action. If you support Trump, you should be as interested as I am in getting to the bottom of the huge list of criminal allegations that congeal around this reality TV star. We all deserve to know what is true and what is not.
During the campaign, several extremely troubling facts were brought to light and either ignored or dismissed by the accused. Now that he is the President Elect, I demand that there be a full accounting and investigation of the ongoing pattern of criminal and unethical acts.
For example, a very limited list: Our next president is alleged to have broken contracts by refusing to pay for services rendered. That he has bankrupted hard-working business owners through ongoing, baseless litigation. That he has assaulted women.
Since the election, Vladimir Putin has stated that he maintained contact with the Trump campaign throughout the election. During this election, there has been evidence of cyber-hacking that, it could be argued, benefited the president-elect. I demand an investigation into the specifics of Russia’s involvement in the U.S. presidential election.
Let’s all just imagine, for a moment, that the previous list were not tied to Trump, but to Obama.
In that imaginary world, would the weekend media cycle have ignored these various allegations? Why did we allow a great man, President Obama, to be relentlessly hounded by specious accusations? Is it because he’s black? I fear so.
America is in crisis, and our hope lies in the power of our combined and amplified love and rage toward those who undermine the ideals of our great nation. United, we are powerful. Take heart, and with laughter and tears let’s get busy on the fight of our lives.
Christina Book/Lafayette
