Break the Spell
I hope that everyone who read Mr. Claypool’s recent letter to the editor, “Wake Up Geauga County Parents,” will take to heart his advice about avoiding the pitfalls of “intellectual laziness and/or lack of critical thinking.”
If you read his letter, think about the emotions his words raised in you. Did you feel righteous anger, anxiety, fear, suspicion, patriotic defensiveness?
Mr. Claypool uses words that hit all of those buttons — socialism, Marxism, communism, American values, Constitution principles. Is he trying to manipulate the honest feelings of his readers?
Maybe Claypool himself has been manipulated. I attended a Geauga County Tea Party meeting a few months ago and the guest speaker was a member of Ohio’s State Board of Education. Her topic was billed as “Critical Race Theory.” I was interested in learning about this issue, but the speaker did not give a definition of CRT. Whatever she thinks CRT is, she seemed to want listeners to fear CRT and to believe that it is being taught in Ohio schools.
Equating CRT with “anti-white racism,” she presented a long list of dozens of “code words” to be afraid of. I had to wonder if she wanted to provoke a constant state of fear in her listeners. Mr. Claypool was in the audience, and his letter repeats many of those words meant to provoke fear and anger.
I recognized other members of the audience, Geauga residents like me, but I felt like an outsider to this group. Regular meetings must have accustomed these folks to their own insider-coded language. The audience accepted the speaker’s statements without question.
Anti-white racism being taught in our schools? Yes, as an American of German-Irish descent that would scare me . . . if it were true, or if I was intellectually lazy and lacking in critical thinking.
I saw people in the audience who care deeply about their children, and about our country, and I saw those honest feelings being manipulated by the speaker’s language. I wish I knew how to break the spell. Words can be used to manipulate people and that’s not education, it’s indoctrination.
Kathleen Webb
Munson Township
Present Auditor the Best
Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled against our county auditor in his dispute with Judge Grendell about paying for the judge’s extravagant and possibly illegal expenditures.
This action by the court demonstrates the urgent necessity of action by our state legislature to change state law that will give overseeing authority to the auditor on such matters. Am I holding my breath? So, what comes next? Undoubtedly a flood of judicial expenditures with no stopping them that the auditor, and thus us citizens, must pay.
Again, what comes next? It seems the judge’s wife, Mrs. Grendell, has suddenly developed as one of her life goals to be a county auditor. Has she ever expressed this interest before? Has she even ever taken a bookkeeping class? Can she even manage to balance her checkbook? Is this a case of vindictive behavior on the part of the Grendell’s?
Is the Pope Catholic?
As a resident of Geauga County for nearly 45 years, I’ve seen the performance of a number of county auditors, including a couple of fairly recent ones who were real losers in my view. Our present auditor is the absolute best I have witnessed in all those years! He is extremely knowledgeable, interested in the work, very hard working. I could go on, but suffice to say it would be a great loss to have him replaced by a vindictive individual who sits on her butt and collects a paycheck.
But that’s up to you voters. Your choice to make.
John G. Augustine
Parkman Township
Afraid of Being Voted Out
Trump supporters and far-right Republicans across the country continue to promote stronger voting restrictions, saying they only want to prevent “voter fraud.’ We literally cannot take them at their word. Intense nationwide scrutiny of the 2020 elections has proven the claim of widespread “voter fraud” to be false.
The Republican so-called voting reformers are not at all afraid of “voter fraud.” What they really mean is that they are afraid of being voted out of office and are attempting to suppress the votes of those who might vote against them. Period.
Rick Webb
Munson Township
