Heating up the Aberdeen Internet are varying versions of a tale of some secret refugee/immigration meeting taking place this morning in the Hub City. “SECRET”, Lora Hubbel all-caps shouts:
At 10 am tomorrow (March 24) there will be a meeting with a US Attorney and a “Loretta Lynch appointed” Civil Rights Attorney. Only groups organized by Lutheran Social Services (who stand to benefit) are invited to tell the story of how “well” this grand social experiment of bringing in “refugees” into Aberdeen is going? Yet those who are opposed to the failures and negative incidents that have happened in Aberdeen do NOT get an invitation to be there? [Lora Hubbel, Facebook post, 2017.03.23]
Some people just can’t stop flying the Obama-era bogeymen and bogeywomen, can they?
Good grief. There is no secret meeting. I spoke to Aberdeen’s Lutheran Social Service Development Director Liesl Hovel, and she said LSS has nothing to do with immigration meeting today, secret or otherwise (not that there’s anything wrong with participating in a meeting about immigration). I spoke to Pastor Marcia Sylvester this morning and got the facts:
U.S. Attorney Randy Seiler and his office’s Civil Rights Section head Alison Ramsdell are coming to Aberdeen today for the very public meeting of the Civil Rights Advisory Committee, which runs from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Aberdeen Public Safety Building (the PD). Ramsdell contacted Pastor Sylvester, who leads the Aberdeen Area Diversity Coalition, and asked to meet with the coalition to discuss their grassroots work in helping the community deal with immigration. Pastor Sylvester e-mailed coalition members Tuesday to invite them to a meeting this morning, 10 a.m., at her church, Zion Lutheran. This meeting is not a decision-making or action-taking meeting; it’s just an opportunity for Seiler and Ramsdell to learn about the coalition, get their perspective on immigration issues in Aberdeen, and, says Pastor Sylvester, suggest additional ideas and resources that may help them in their community work.
This e-mail blew up into the wild cries of secrets and schemes via Lora Hubbel and a sampling of Aberdeen Facebook pages. (Interestingly, the “Americans First, Task Force” is too busy monging fear about the London attack to have taken up this local threat to the integrity of our Republic.)
Sigh.
Pastor Sylvester says this information-seeking meeting between the Aberdeen Area Diversity Coalition and U.S. Attorney Seiler and his deputy Ramsdell will take place this morning. The church doors will be open, and if lots of people show up, she’ll move the meeting from a Sunday school classroom to the fellowship hall. But there’s no secret here. It’s just public officials coming to learn what a local group is doing to deal with problems related to immigration.
And if our local yahoos come a-shouting, those public officials may get an even fuller picture of the challenges they face in protecting civil rights in Aberdeen and South Dakota.
…Alison Ramsdell, a 31-year-old Flandreau native… heads up the Civil Rights section of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Sioux Falls, focusing on areas such as housing discrimination, hate crimes, voting rights and enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“In a conservative state like South Dakota, there’s a tendency to conflate civil rights with political correctness or a liberal agenda,” says Ramsdell. “Those assumptions lead to a lot of missed opportunities for meaningful conversation” [Stu Whitney, “17 in ’17: Alison Ramsdell, U.S. Attorney’s Office,” USA Today, 2016.12.30].
My heart aches for those people whose hearts are filled with Hate and spread fear of other people who may slightly look different from them. I hope that some day they will wake up with a positive outlook and treat others the same way as they would treat their own brothers and sisters. Hate is toxic and can eventually become destructive. It is not good for the growth of the community and or one’s health.
Ms Hart- Well, I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun
There were children crying and colors flying
All around the chosen ones
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun
Flyin’ mother nature’s silver seed
To a new home in the sun
Flyin’ mother nature’s silver seed
To a new home in the sun
I hope that some day they will wake up with a positive outlook and treat others the same way as they would treat their own brothers and sisters.
This is when your hope becomes reality.
(thanks to Neil Young After the Gold Rush)
Cool beans there mfi, After The Gold Rush was and still is one of my favorites. The best thing about elections is that a dummy like Lora Hubel just stays in her stink bubble with her cohorts. My what a hateful gal she is.
Mike:
My comments should not be construed as though I am somehow Naive. I am old enough to know that we human beings are capable of change. I have lived and traveled extensively in many countries and have seen so much than some will ever experience in their life time. I am tired of always hearing people who continue to spread divisive messages. We are better than that!
I certainly meant no offense to you, Ms Hart. I offer you my humblest apologies. But, apparently we (speaking for myself) are not all better than that. I choose to reciprocate- my own way.
Oh get real, submission to ideology is everything real liberals hate modern day “liberals” who stole our word are so afraid to say there might be something wrong with someone else’s belief system they would rather get their heads chopped off the easter bunny is coming real soon hope Santa gave you everything you hoped for dumb dumb dumb dumb libbies.
happy, I was hoping for some punctuation in your post. Next Christmas, I’ll ask Santa if he will bring you some. I don’t know if the Easter Bunny can help you out. Thanks for the period at the end of the paragraph, so I could tell you were done, done, done!
Mike:
No hard feelings here. My apologies!
The advent of Trump Twitters seems to give people like Hubel license in their minds to indulge in the scurrilous. They seem not to have the basic mental resources and education to realize that their false statements are defamatory, libelous in that they falsely represent the actions and purposes of organizations, and circulate lies to the detriment of people those organizations serve. Their representations are fabricated purely from malice.
Incidentally, Huber’s facebook page is listed among those that circulated an anti-vaccination falsehood and may become part of a proposed lawsuit on the part of academic organizations. An organization I belong to that concerns itself with the protocols and integrity of academic research has taken up the issue of a study on vaccinations at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania which was misrepresented on an anti-vaccine post. The post claimed that the study found dangers in vaccinations and warned against them, but the conclusion of the study stated: “Given the modest magnitude of these findings in contrast to the clear public health benefits of the timely administration of vaccines in preventing mortality and morbidity in childhood infectious diseases, we encourage families to maintain vaccination schedules according to CDC guidelines.”
The post grossly, whether by design, misunderstanding, or negligence, misrepresents data. That is an academic crime considered worse than plagiarism, and its occurrence by a tenured professor could result in firing. And that is why the post has the attention of academics.
The main restraint to the misuse of free speech has been slander and libel laws, but they are inordinately expensive to pursue, and often when defendants are found guilty, they do not have the money to cover the damages awarded. Fourteen states have criminal libel laws, for which state prosecutors bear the expense and can involve jail time as well as fines, but they get tangled with First Amendment rights. Colorado recently repealed its criminal libel law because of judicial conflicts.
The academic organization I belong to is soliciting funds to finance legal scholars in pursuing options to make use of existing laws. One such scholar points out that we have a battery of l civil and criminal laws protecting property from damage, and he thinks that applying those laws to intellectual property, as in the case of the vaccine study, is an option. Other options being proposed involve laws of fraud, public endangerment, and civil rights. The premise being followed is that people have the right to free speech, but when that speech does actual damage to well-being and freedom itself, the speakers of such must be held to account.
David, do we dare make defamation cases easier or cheaper to prosecute? Do we need to accept a certain amount of unchecked libel and slander as the price of free speech?