Recently, we attended my nephews’ graduation at OCHS and were appalled with what we heard.

Ken Carstens from South Africa gave a commencement address and we could not believe his obvious political tone. He started with how we have failed as a democracy, using Iraq’s WMDs as one example, even though we have started to find some chemicals. Next, he stated corporate greed and giant corporations with their money have taken over our government.

Then he started to really upset us by saying to this class that one or two might be lucky enough to become a CEO, but most of them would only be workers and needed to become union workers to survive, that only unions will give them a sense of community like the teachers and police department in town.

We find it ironic that during the week we buried one of America’s greatest presidents, Ronald Reagan, he would first fail to recognize we are not a democracy, but a republic – the same republic which used that corporate greed he hates to help end apartheid in his country and communism in the Soviet Union and Nicaragua and many other places.

Lastly, unions do not teach community; they teach their members that everyone gets the same pay despite job performance.

What made America great was our forefathers, including President Ronald Reagan. They dared to dream and taught us that anyone – let me repeat this – anyone who can dream, can be anything they want to be in this great country.

Fran and Duane Dumont, Winthrop

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