Do not mess with Pittsburgh
“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” said President Trump in explaining why he decided to back out of the Paris climate accord. The New Yorker followed with a cartoon depicting a caricature of Trump and a woman with the caption, “We’ll always have Pittsburgh,” a throwback to “Casablanca.”
Yes, we will, and we rejoice in that!
To Trump, Pittsburgh represents the “carnage” destroying America. In fact, it has long been a major international city. In 2009, it hosted the G20 summit, which recognized its global significance. It has 400 international companies, ranging from the lesser-known Ardex to the conglomerate Bayer, which employ more than 50,000 people. Does the president want these companies to pick up their marbles – their jobs – and go back to the 37 countries they represent?
Trump has an aversion to facts and distorts the truth. He continues to beat the drum that he will bring back coal mining, which is delusional. His assertion last week that 43,000 “coal jobs” have been created since January is false. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that number includes gas, oil, metal ore, nonmetallic, lime and gypsum jobs. About 21,000 of those jobs were in gas and oil, 1,300 in coal and the remainder in the other areas.
Trump should be implementing programs to help coal miners acquire new skills. They do not deserve false promises from a demagogue who indeed “knoweth what he doeth” – deconstruction and destabilization. When he is finished, we will all have to carry shovels to clean up his mess.
Rose Cycler Hess
Bowling Green, Ohio