|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
To the Editor:
The craziness in Vermont continues. I read the report and saw the image from the “No Kings” rally in St. Johnsbury, where a 7-year-old child was photographed proudly holding a sign saying “F–k Trump,” fully spelled out before the media prudently censored it. Anyone with a shred of decency should be appalled—not just at the vulgarity, but at the deliberate exploitation of a child to push a message of hate.
This wasn’t just a spontaneous act of free speech. This was adult-guided, adult-approved, and adult-encouraged. The mother even admitted it was “Imogene’s own idea,” as though that makes it any more acceptable. Any parent who thinks this kind of political indoctrination and hate-baiting is good parenting needs a moral compass check.
Let’s call this what it is—child abuse. Children don’t come out of the womb filled with partisan rage or marching orders. They’re molded. And when you use them as props to score ideological points, you’re not just failing them as parents—you’re exploiting their innocence for your own political gratification.
I believe the parents involved should be publicly shamed. And yes, I do believe that a child welfare investigation is warranted. In fact, anyone who uses a child in this way should be placed on a publicly accessible registry of individuals barred from organizing or participating in youth-centered events. They should not be allowed on school grounds, at children’s performances, or as volunteers in classrooms. This kind of behavior is toxic and contagious, and it has no place near young minds.
We live in a time when grown adults cheer on their children for hurling obscenities instead of teaching them respect and reason. No matter what your politics are, dragging children into the mud of adult hatred should never be normalized. It’s time for Vermont to take a hard look at what kind of society we’re allowing to grow in our backyards.
–Gaylord Livingston, White River Junction
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Letters to the Editor
Maybe they should have stayed in Maine.
If these people actually believed what they say about how Trump’s “destroying everything”… wouldn’t they have REAL arguments on their signs?
Thank you, Gaylord, for your articulate and well-reasoned response to the grotesque display of ignorance, hatred, and child abuse at the No Kings protest. Exploitation of this sort is shocking and disgusting. This wasn’t political expression. It was partisanship (and bad parenting) at its most unhinged and most shameful.
It leaves one with the question of what’s to be done in the face of such hatred. Trump derangement syndrome is an apt description for a significant portion of out community.
Thank you, Gaylord, for this commentary. I just happened to be in Vergennes during the protesting that occurred about 4 weeks ago and was shocked at how many young children were out protesting with their parents. The parents are not the only ones at fault. The school programs and the state equity director, Davis, have been allowed to discuss and present political propaganda to students. Parents in Essex forced the school to provide a copy of the presentation given to high school students by the state equity director. This presentation condemned George Washington and the president and first lady because of a “mean Tweet.” Parents have objected loudly to this type of political indoctrination and are bullied by school boards and community members for doing so. I saw one school presentation that stated that all Republicans were racist. The schools, Department of Education, NEA and NEAF, and Principals Association with UNESCO are using children and young people as political change activists. This is referred to as Education for the 21st Century.
This is the same spirit under which anti-Jewish, anti-Israel Muslim jihadist parents operate when they indoctrinate and train their children in violent hatred and terrorism. Exploiting and abusing children to vicariously vent their own misguided and demonically inspired bitterness. Same evil, different continent.
It’s no coincidence that the smiling mother was donning a keffiyeh
The mother’s name is Carolyn Hawkes-Riley and she is from East Burke. I live nearby and plan to call her out the next time I see her. She is often at local art exhibits, too. Disgraceful parenting, regardless of whose “idea” it was. These children do NOT come up with such ideas on their own and, even if she did, she should have been told it is disrespectful and vulgar.
Clearly this is the type of “ideas” and “speech” allowed in her home. I’d love to be a fly on the wall the day that little girls says “F*CK YOU, Mom”
Children mimick adults. They follow their parents’ or other adult cues until they may, one day, rebel and rebuke what they once believed or programmed to believe. Good or bad – for some it takes years to decades, while others become hardwired to be haywire.
Children of the last few generations were not allowed to be children – they’ve been programmed to think and act like adults, who by-and-large, are less adult-like than children. Slow poisoning over generations by Big Pharma may hold a clue to the current societal collapse. The mind is a terrible thing to waste, but put to waste it has been in American and Western cultures.
As Terance McKenna aptly stated, “Culture is not your friend. Culture is for other peoples’ convenience and the convenience of various institutions, churches, companies, tax collection schemes, what have you. It is not your friend. It insults you. It disempowers you. It uses and abuses you. None of us are well-treated by culture.” […] But the culture is a perversion. It fetishizes objects. It creates consumer mania. It preaches endless forms of false happiness, endless forms of false understanding in the form of squirrelly religions and silly cults. It invites people to diminish themselves and dehumanize themselves by behaving like machines.”
The kids are not all right these days because the adults are not okay either. The sign held up by the child was “Here’s your sign!” Same as the flags, bumper stickers, t-shirts, hats, and all other garb that people adourn to display what team they are on. Divide and conquer – Agenda 2030 – new world order – technocracy for one and all!
People need to wake up now – stop hitting the snooze button – stop ignoring the obvious – stop pretending it is not happening – stop being complicit – stop capitulating to your overlords – stop feeding the Beast as it is ready to devour and destroy all that is good and all that is right. The millstones are ready nonetheless. Babylon is falling. The whore of Babylon is being exposed: “a corrupt and powerful entity that has prophesied influence over the world, leading people away from God.” Gee, I wonder what entity God was referring to….I have an idea, you? Humanity has the collective, inate, power to stop the Beast. Do we have the collective will and conscienceness to do so is the question.
And this “MOTHER” votes????
Re: I believe the parents involved should be publicly shamed. And yes, I do believe that a child welfare investigation is warranted. In fact, anyone who uses a child in this way should be placed on a publicly accessible registry of individuals barred from organizing or participating in youth-centered events. They should not be allowed on school grounds, at children’s performances, or as volunteers in classrooms. This kind of behavior is toxic and contagious, and it has no place near young minds.
The only problem is this has all come about because the Communists have taken over our schools, universities and colleges and its curriculum. This is what is being taught in our schools for decades. They no longer teach real American history, our Constitution. They have taken prayer and God out of our schools and replaced it with Communist ideology. The mother who allowed this was probably also taught by this warped educational system.
A vote for a Democrat, a Progressive or Democratic Socialist or whatever they want to call themselves now to deceive the populace is a vote for a COMMUNIST and the demise of our culture and our country. This was quoted in 1944 by Norman Matoon Thomas born 20 Nov. 1884 died 19 Dec. 1968. He was a leading American Socialist, pacifist and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. “The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism” they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. I no longer need to run as a presidential candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform”.
“The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their own history”. – George Orwell
This is a great commentary. People on the left have taken their frustration too far. Children should not be used as political mouthpieces. I feel similarly concerned for the Milton high school classmates of Heidi Perez after she was detained by ICE. Imagine growing up with a friend only to have her disappear after graduation. She is a kind person and treated people as such. I wonder what affect that action has on the youth who knew her and were treated kindly by her. I wonder if they cheer on ICE because they are deporting rapists, killers, and gangsters, or if they will experience grief and fear because Heidi was none of those things. In my opinion, because Heidi was educated in Vermont and contributed to our community we should find ways to expedite her citizenship. Her arrest was completely unnecessary. I wonder if others feel similarly. Or should Heidi’s friends consider this a lesson and understand that she is a terrible, terrible person who deserves to be deported?
You missed the entire point of the article which was using young children for political means. This has nothing to do with Heidi, and her specific situation. If you are concerned, I encourage you to write an article and submotbit. Vermont Daily Chronicle is a free speech platform that supports all points of view. One of the few such resources in the state. I am sure they would be happy to post your commentary.
would be glad to read and consider it
Re: “…Heidi was educated in Vermont and contributed to our community…”
Heidi Perez is 18 years old and arrived in the U.S. less than two years ago. That she graduated from Milton High School this year doesn’t mean that she was ‘educated’ in Vermont. But Ms. Perez is one of the lucky in ones, in a sense. She’s not one of the 300,000 or so other illegal migrant children of which the Biden-Harris administration has lost track over the last few years. Breaking immigration law has consequences, not all lawful or manageable. As the saying goes… ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’.
Testament to the indoctrination of our children, her mother is most likely a school teacher, unfortunately further proof that our education system is ruined and the NEA is responsible
These comments are absurd. It’s called freedom of speech people, plain and simple. Socialization doesn’t happen in a vacuum – unless you’re truly abusing your child by keeping them locked up inside with no connection to the outside world. Children pick up on everything going on around them – TV shows, movies, YouTube videos, radio, music, art, news, newspapers, magazines…. Literally every interaction that you have with another human being, or every time that you get a little frustrated and let a curse word slip is being watched and processed by all the children around you. If you are dim-witted enough to think that letting your kid walk around with a sign using foul language constitutes abuse, then clearly we need to ban all art/tv/music/media, put cops on every street corner to prevent any child passing by from being indoctrinated by anyone using curse words, put monitors in schools and playgrounds to listen to every word kids are saying, and start using voice recognition on all our phones and devices to track our behavior. And no, those aren’t intentionally hyperbolic examples, it’s literally the extension of the same logic that you’re using to argue against the sign in the first place.
Newsflash: the word f@&k is used by hundreds of millions of people across innumerable situations, and in almost every perceivable manner of speech. You have every right not to like it, just as they have every right to speak it. If you were at that rally, you would have had every right to go up to that little girl and ask why she had that sign – and maybe you could’ve sparked an interesting or useful conversation. But, guess what – you either weren’t there or didn’t have the courage to step out and have a decent, respectful conversation with someone face to face. So don’t pretend to be a higher moral authority when you sit behind your keyboard and launch attacks at people.
The much bigger concern shouldn’t even be the words that are used, but how you actually treat people because kids pick up on that even more. That girl got to be part of an experience where hundreds of community members came together to peacefully protest and exercise their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, to try to bring about change, and to stand up for injustices being carried out against vulnerable populations. That’s a better lesson than anything you’d get in a classroom.
And you’re freaking out about a sign. Get over yourselves.