Voting fraud
Real problem is voter suppression
Regarding “Voter probe ignites debate” (News, Sept. 12) on the controversy about New Georgia Project’s voter registration drive, you quote state officials who “refused to give an exact number (of faulty registration forms submitted) except to say that any case of fraud is one too many.”
A botched registration form is not the same as voter fraud. I challenge the Secretary of State’s office to show one example of actual voter fraud at the polls, as opposed to the 25 flawed registration forms identified out of the 85,000 forms collected.
The real problem is the Republican campaign to suppress voter opportunity. One qualified citizen denied the opportunity to vote is one too many.
RALPH ROUGHTON, ATLANTA
Water audit should shock all
After reading the letter “Let’s Not Downplay Watershed Audit” (Readers Write, Sept.12) and your story about the audit, I, too, am aghast and stunned that this kind of thing is going on in Atlanta! Every employee working at the Watershed department should be interviewed and investigated. It’s time to “clean house”.
There is no way that 10,000 meters and all the other equipment can go missing without some inside knowledge and/or employees looking the other way. If I were living in Atlanta, I would move out.
I hope that Mayor Reed and all the elected officials are taking this seriously. This is something that can really hurt the city, if it hasn’t already.
MARIA ACEVEDO, MARIETTA
Trains will only bring more taxes
Mr. Roughton has laid upon us the good John Donne, which only leads me to more poetic fun.
If my little “clod” has decreased poor Europe, I will send dirt by FedEx to give more hope.
But Mr. R.s hope lies in passenger trains. Atlanta would be the spider in his webby refrain.
Then restore every road and bridge that’s weak. No more school buses falling in the creek.
At the mention of the Southeast on a railroad roll, I no longer wondered “for whom the bell tolls.”
It tolls for your pocketbook that will feel the pain, When taxes upgrade with every mighty train.
Maybe we should ask Shakespeare “to be or not to be”?
Whether we should ride or whether we should eat? We’ll see.
CATHERINE BOONE SHEALY, ATLANTA
Liberals constantly blame whites
Columnist Nicholas Kristof recently criticized “smug white delusion” because most whites expect black Americans to step up and improve themselves. Whites, Kristof wailed, simply did not understand that “slavery and post-slavery oppression left a legacy of broken families, poverty, racism, hopelessness and internalized self-doubt.” To a degree, Kristof is correct, but like most New York liberals, he ignores certain realities.
We have had massive programs of Equal Opportunity (EO), Affirmative Action and LBJ’s Great Society, which effectively destroyed black families by making the presence of black males in a family a financial detriment. Actually, 50 years of misguided liberalism has been more destructive to the black race than has 150 years of racism.
We need to discuss race relations, Kristof declares, but he ignores that black leaders will not let fruitful discussions occur because they demand white supplication instead.
It is noteworthy that Kristof offered criticisms, but not one single suggestion on how to solve the racial problem. Typical liberalism.
ERNEST WADE, LOGANVILLE
