LETTERS
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RECENT RESIGNATIONS I would like to address recent events that concern me and many others with whom I have spoken. These events are the three recent resignations of local elected officials in the middle of their terms of office. They are a state representative (Rich Brauer) and two Sangamon County officials (County Clerk Joe Aiello and Circuit Clerk Tony Libri). We, the voters of Springfield and Sangamon County, now have or will have three individuals in elective offices that we did not democratically elect but who were chosen by partisan party bosses. This is a pattern that has been ongoing for way too many years.
One candidate in the upcoming mayoral contest is a participant in and has directly benefitted from this anti-democratic activity. In 2002, Paul Palazzolo assumed his current office of Sangamon County Auditor through this very backroom appointment process. In 2011, in the middle of his last term, he sought the office of mayor but withdrew and returned to his position of auditor. Now, in 2015, he again is seeking to leave his office in midterm, thus perpetuating this unhealthy cycle of unelected people being appointed to elective office.
I will be voting for Jim Langfelder for many reasons, not the least of which is he will not jump ship in midterm. Andrew Brown Springfield
ALL-OR-NOTHING APPROACH Watching Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, I see a classical projection of one’s shadow onto the “totally demonized other,” Iran, in this case. He creates an apocalyptic tirade that competes with any Armageddon imagery. Obviously, Israel’s collective fears are rational but the prime minister appears to have lost himself to the full flow of unchecked emotional energies.
This kind of outpouring of “all or nothing-isms” by a world leader can be contagious. Heaven knows he was speaking to some in Congress who are very primed to step into his horrific proportions “all or nothing” worldwide “we versus them.” He builds a conspiracy theory which forbids acknowledging any benefit to rational discussion of differences and he wants no kind of agreement with Iran, even one that would limit their capacity to have nuclear weapons. Of course, he would never be interested in reducing his U.S.-sponsored nuclear arsenal.
This is an excellent example of C.G. Jung’s ideas of how the eternal archetypes, emotions creating patterns in our collective unconscious, stimulate the individual and collective psyche initially at an unconscious level. This causes dangerous situations in outer reality when persons do not question but instead give such emotions free course in their attitude and speech. It is disturbing to hear such “all or nothing, good versus evil” doomsday talk coming from Israel’s prime minister. The speech sounds parallel to the Bush-Cheney mindset that led to the rushed bombing of Iraq in the spring of 2003.
We should be quite concerned that Prime Minister Netanyahu would choose to stimulate our American polarized political situation even more by injecting his toxic, one-sided ideas of good versus evil. Jim Hibbett Springfield
FACE THE FACTS Perhaps Gov. Rauner should stop his antiunion rage long enough to check his facts.
His latest rant is a good example, “Thousands of companies won’t locate to a closed-shop state.” Fact: A “closed shop” became illegal in the United States with the passage of the Taft Hartley Act of 1947. Perhaps one of his highprice aides can bring him up to date.
Bill Steenblock Decatur
