Poverty vs. prosperity

I have read several letters from someone from the south coast who is anti-donald Trump and am in awe of his remarkable perspective.

I just watched a video on Youtube of the Dubliners singing Rita Mcneil’s haunting “Working Man.” It shows an old newsreel of a mine rescue. Unimaginable working conditions. Breaks my heart to see what conditions our fathers endured, be it from mining, fishing, lumber woods, fish plants.

Not that long ago, and not that far away from Marystown, you could find tombstones erected for many miners who died long before their time from working in conditions that led to their deaths. When there was talk of reopening that mine, men lined up to go back to work there.

Men would rather work in grave danger and have a short life than live a longer life in poverty. That says a lot about the character of those people and says a lot about poverty.

I think poverty is man’s greatest enemy; removes hope, destroys his soul. If you have ever been out of work you are scared of the future. You send resumés and pray that the phone call or email is an answer.

If you get an interview, you prepare for if for days and again live in hope that you will be successful. Most of the time you are disappointed. I lived that life for 10 full years but thanks to a grand Englishman and the Hibernia project, I haven’t lived it that for the last 25.

Right now in the U.S., wages are going up, unemployment is at its lowest in many years, black, Latino and women’s unemployment is at its lowest ever. Food stamp recipients have been reduced by millions. Millions of people are going back to work and a lot of that is due to President Donald Trump’s policy of reduced taxes and removed regulations.

I know to the media, academics and the rest of our local intelligentsia he is a vulgarian of the first order, but to the people rising out of poverty he is more than that. He has given them hope and a chance to improve their lives and the lives of their families.

Poverty increases crime, drug use, traps women to the sex trade and leads to despair. Good-paying jobs help lessen all of that. Much of the credit for this has to be given to President Trump.

If there was ever a province that should understand poverty, it is Newfoundland. And the south coast of Newfoundland even more.

I know the elites dismiss any Trump supporters as racists, bigots, homophobes and as people who possess hearts as cold and evil as Hitler’s. That’s fine with us. Your opinion no longer matters. For some of us, it never did.

Walter Quinlan Kelligrews