Letter to the editor from Michael Spilo, D11 RTM Member, D11 RTC Executive Committee
Regarding: “Goldrick: When is An Official “Unfit to Serve”?”, GFP 7/18/2019
The extreme left is pushing the Democratic party towards its Socialist agenda, with AOC paraphrasing Karl Marx, and Mayor De Blasio quoting Che Guevara. Unfortunately, this is now being played out in our town of Greenwich as well.
Former BET Member Sean Goldrick decided it is appropriate to criticize Republican Committee Chair Rich DiPreta using the same insidious, offensive and divisive rhetoric we see coming out of our national politicians; Mr. Goldrick even quotes his own failed South American socialist.
Mr. DiPreta’s “crime” is that he stood up for a former teacher who was berated over e-mail by State Representative Steve Meskers. Among many other things, Mr. Meskers told this teacher that students needed therapy after his lessons. Mr. DiPreta called this “unfit.” While Mr. Meskers eventually said he regretted having responded “tongue-in-cheek,” Mr. Goldrick felt this needs to be taken much further.
Forgetting that accusations are not proof, and that Mr. Trump isn’t the first US President to have faced such allegations, Mr. Goldrick compared the latest unproven allegations against our President to an e-mail Mr. Meskers admits he regrets. Then, using “logic” of the AOC variety, Mr. Goldrick decided this makes Mr. DiPreta insufficiently “pure” to chastise Mr. Meskers.
Using similar “logic” Mr. Goldrick finds First Selectman Peter Tesei at fault for rooting out corruption among town civil servants.
But Mr. Goldrick doesn’t stop there. Climbing on the Marxist/Socialist bandwagon, Mr. Goldrick invokes failed socialist Michelle Bachelet, the daughter of a senior member of Salvador Allende’s Socialist government in Chile.
Like AOC, and De Blasio, Mr. Goldrick is apparently unaware that the Allende government in Chile in the 1970s raised minimum wages 37%, nationalized healthcare and other industries, and confiscated the “estates” of the “rich.” As a result, Chilean take-home pay plummeted, there were food shortages, starvation, runaway inflation and, eventually, riots. It took Chile a generation to recover. These policies are having the same effect in Venezuela today.
Thanks to a strong national economy, we don’t have riots or starvation, but years of similar policies and needless regulations have left Connecticut suffering a mass exodus of businesses and residents. Connecticut labor participation and unemployment lag our neighbors; And Connecticut home prices haven’t recovered from the 2009 recession, while the national average home price gained 30% since 2009 and our neighboring states 20%.
How do Mr. Goldrick and the rest of the extreme Left propose to get back the missing jobs and the 30% of Connecticut home values? A higher minimum wage and more taxes and tolls.
Mr. Goldrick quoted Ms. Bachelet in her latest role as head of the UNHRC, seemingly also unaware that the US has withdrawn from the UNHRC because the UNHRC includes failed states like Somalia, where civilians are attacked by the government and Al-Shabab extremists extort farmers, kidnap aid workers and conscript children, and the Congo, where the army is accused of beheadings and cannibalism.
Like Mr. Goldrick, and AOC, the UNHRC under Ms. Bachelet are trying to distract us with rants about US immigration policy, hoping we won’t notice their own failed policies.
But what I find most egregious is that Mr. Goldrick perpetuates the vile comparison of US detention facilities to Nazi Concentration Camps, a comparison based in ignorance and which is deeply offensive to the millions of us who lost relatives at those camps.
These sorts of extreme hyperbole are appalling, and they’re especially hypocritical given the extreme left’s refusal to fund expansion of our immigration facilities, or to address the laws and policies which are the underlying cause.
But what any of this has to do with Mr. Di Preta, Mr. Meskers, or indeed Greenwich, only Mr. Goldrick can explain. Having been the recent subject of personal attacks on my character and motivation at the RTM from the same extreme group, I can only shake my head in disbelief at all this offensive rhetoric and wonder what will become of our Town and State if our friends in the Democratic party continue to allow their most illiberal and extreme members to drive their agenda.
Michael Spilo
D11 RTM Member
D11 RTC Executive Committee