Recently I happened to read columnist Mary Schmich’s “Everyday folks learn a lesson about protests” (Metro, Sept. 2) article profiling protesters at the Republican National Convention.
It characterized Gretchen Peterson as a “typical” protester. I along with other co-workers were a little surprised to see that Peterson described her hometown (North Bend, Neb.) as “conservative but poor as well.”
We may be conservative, but we never considered ourselves to be poor. During a little more than 10 years, our small, “poor” community built a senior center, added additions to both our elementary and high schools, built a public 18-hole golf course and a new swimming pool, and renovated baseball and softball fields. The majority of this has been accomplished through lots of hard work and creativity, private donations and local taxes.
We are a rural community, but we are not as dependent upon farm subsidies as Peterson described. (Subsidies do, however, provide a cushion when our political leaders choose to use our commodities as a political football in the game of global economics.) Actually most of the people in our community do not even farm.
We either own or work for small businesses.
We understand that a tax break for a business does not always line the pockets of only a greedy few and may actually help everyone associated with that business.
Mandatory increases in the minimum wage seem to be unnecessary.
If a person in this part of the Midwest is worth a fair wage, they will be paid it or the worker will look elsewhere.
Maybe Peterson considers us to be poor because we choose to send the majority of our graduates to Midwestern universities instead of going to one of the schools on the coast, as she did. Our schools graduate top-notch students.
Maybe Peterson’s way of looking at life is typical of the average protester.
We in “conservative” America prefer to roll up our sleeves and spend our time improving the communities around us.
