Dear Editor,
In a recent opinion piece Windsor County State Senator Alison Clarkson, asks, “What kind of America do we want to be?” It is an important question. The causes that Senator Clarkson supports and how she votes is not the America or Vermont that I envision. It is not an America of compassion, liberty or equality.
Alison Clarkson is a strident advocate of abortion and Planned Parenthood. The abortion rate for black women is five times more than white women. Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision over 19 million defenseless black babies have lost to abortion. This is due to aggressive marketing of abortion in the black community. This is an act of genocide on the black community. Abortion has ripped apart the fabric of these communities. Similarly in Vermont, 1,300 unborn babies are lost to abortion every year at the same time our school population is in rapid decline. The effect of this on our small towns has been devastating.
Clarkson’s voting record in both the Vermont House and Senate is equally revealing. She was instrumental in the creation, passage and enforcement of Act 46 yet she gets the full endorsement of the Vermont NEA teachers union. She is dedicated to the destruction of small rural schools. She is one of the most vocal opponents of school choice in Vermont while she chooses to send her own kids to the elite private Groton prep school in Massachusetts. The tuition at that school is $58,260 dollars per year. Hard for any Vermonter of any color to afford such privilege.
Since 2013 Clarkson has voted to raise fees and taxes on Vermonters by an astronomical amount of $303.5 million dollars. In February 2015, Ms. Clarkson was shameless in calling for a pay increase for herself of $17 dollars per hour for services done for constituents when the Legislature is not in session. Maybe Clarkson can afford these kinds of taxes, but the majority of people in Vermont cannot. I have watched as my friends and neighbors who have lived in Vermont for generations have left the state to escape the heavy burden of her voting record.
In February of 2015 Clarkson also co-sponsored House Bill 57. This bill gives the state the right to harvest your body parts for its use. Although presumed to be altruistic, it is actually “moneytruistic.”
Anyone in Vermont who has a heart is disgusted by what happened to George Floyd. We all got to see the video. The act was one cold blooded murder. Under the law justice must and will be served.
I question the sincerity of Senator Clarkson’s condemnation of George Floyd’s murder and call for racial equity while at the same time her voting record and actions tell such a different story. Senator Clarkson, you live in the upper crust gentrified village of Woodstock, Vermont. You are only a few miles from the mobile homes, shacks and small homes of most of your lower income constituents. It’s nice that you claim to care so much about American citizens in faraway cities from your tidy little crime free neighborhood. It would be nicer if you spent some time understanding the struggles of your own constituents.
Stu Lindberg,
Cavendish
