- Israeli West Bank Rampage
- Medicare For All
- Revolution’s Full Story
- Don’t Kill Gray Wolves
- Murderers Welcome At The White House
- No Justice For Khashoggi
- Trump's Not Lincoln
- King Pestilence
ISRAELI WEST BANK RAMPAGE
Editor:
It is olive harvest time in the West Bank, but Israeli settlers are thwarting Palestinians harvesting olives on their own land. And the Israeli government does nothing to stop settlers from attacking Palestinians and stealing Palestinian land. There is no justice when a settler kills a Palestinian (this has happened multiple times). This has been going on for years, and the U.S. turns a blind eye to this injustice.
The horror committed by Hamas was terrible when they attacked, killed and kidnapped Israelis and others on Oct. 7, 2023 (1,200 people perished and 251 kidnapped). The genocide committed by Israel is horrific (68,000-plus) as well and falls in the category of war crimes and intentional cruelty through starvation and withholding medicine.
Asking again, does a Palestinian parent cry any less than an Israeli parent at the loss or injury of their child or loved one?
Jacob W. Boudewijn
Santa Rosa
MEDICARE FOR ALL
Editor:
I agree with Sen. Bernie Sanders. It’s time for a single-payer health insurance program, one without expensive premiums or taxes. On April 29, Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Debbie Dingell and Sanders introduced the Medicare for All Act in the House and Senate. These landmark pieces of legislation would establish a single-payer national health program in the United States. Our medical system needs to allow every citizen access to health care without the worry of how to pay for it. Europe and the United Kingdom do.
It’s time to do away with for-profit, publicly traded health insurance companies. The recent inaction of our government regarding extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits highlights the need for a single-payer system that would not have an expiration date.
It is so important that, as citizens, we let our Republican, Democratic and independent representatives know we support a single-payer fair insurance program for all. Please write, email or call your representatives. Attend meetings. As citizens these are the only things we can do to voice our concerns regarding the health premium cost crisis.
Carol Aspinall
Santa Rosa
REVOLUTION’S FULL STORY
Editor:
Regarding Ken Burns’ recent PBS documentary, ‘The American Revolution’…
Ken Burns was drawn to the American Revolution’s military history without sufficient regard for how the Founding Fathers defined the unalienable right of liberty and who would enjoy it. Enslaved people, women and Native Americans, non-landowners, and immigrants were excluded.
To Burns, the revolution was successful because its leaders were willing to compromise. But to what end? The international slave trade continued for 20 years, and slavery remained a state’s right until the Civil War, which cost over 700,000 Americans their lives.
Also needing scrutiny is the often-dysfunctional bicameral Congress, the vast grant of power to the executive branch, which invites abuse, and the creation of a national judiciary that has become a partisan super-legislature.
The Constitution permits amendments, of course, but the founders made them nearly impossible.
The narrative of the American Revolution is a great story, but it must go beyond inspiring patriotism. This is a cautionary tale.
Steven S. Berizzi
Norwalk, Conn
DON’T KILL GRAY WOLVES
Editor:
The killing of gray wolves in the Sierra Valley at the behest of private cattle ranchers troubles me and is typical of how most people approach nature: It must be subdued, even eliminated.
California and federal agencies have spent more than $1.4 million to try and deter the wolf depredations. Perhaps 100 cattle were lost to the wolves. Cattle can sell for up to $5,000 each, that’s $500,000. Paying the ranchers for their financial loss and letting the wolves exist as part of the ecosystem where they belong seems a better strategy to me.
I would prefer my tax dollars to be spent helping wolves remain in the world before facilitating a cheap hamburger.
John Wadsworth
Concord
MURDERERS WELCOME AT THE WHITE HOUSE
To the Editor:
With the warm White House welcome that was afforded Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, the traditional and honorable stance of our country in support of human rights has been further extinguished.
The Saudi regime has been notorious for the denial of rights to women and ruthless crackdowns on dissenters. American intelligence agencies laid blame upon the crown prince for ordering the savage 2018 murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident, but the president has exonerated his friend.
President Trump proclaimed that the prince “knew nothing about it,” and Mr. Trump wrote off the killing by saying “things happen.” He also chastised a reporter who asked about Mr. Khashoggi in the prince’s presence.
The president values his deeply intertwined business relationship with the Saudi kingdom above all, so who cares about the life of Mr. Khashoggi or what the Saudi government inflicts upon its citizens? Certainly not this president.
Oren Spiegler
Peters Township, Pa.
NO JUSTICE FOR KHASHOGGI
To the Editor:
At his meeting with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, President Trump repeated Saudi falsehoods about the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi and berated a reporter who asked about it. “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that,” Mr. Trump said.
But it is the United States that should be embarrassed. Each morning at many schools across the nation, our children repeat the phrase “liberty and justice for all.” Then our president flouts those values, much like the dictator he was hosting.
Mr. Trump and his apologists like to beat their chests and proclaim American greatness. But their actions suggest that we’re no better than any other country. We can lie and cheat with the best of them.
Jonathan Zimmerman
Philadelphia
TRUMP'S NOT LINCOLN
Editor:
November 19 was the 162nd anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” Lincoln’s speech is considered one of the greatest in presidential history. His address paid tribute to the fallen Civil War soldiers and harkened back to the ideals of our founders, calling for a new vision of freedom.
Less than two years later, on March 4, 1865, Lincoln gave his second inaugural address. He ended his address with the following healing words: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
Over the course of the past eight years, our current president, has, on numerous occasions, compared himself to Lincoln. I encourage folks to read and reread Lincoln’s words. Absorb them. Then, read one of Donald Trump’s many malice-laden, unhinged speeches. Any comparisons?
Dan Schmitt
Windsor
KING PESTILENCE
Editor:
Once upon a time there were four very mean children named Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Polio who had been banned from the kingdom by Queen Vaccination. But after being gone for over 25 years, they returned because King Donald and his court said vaccinations were bad and people stopped getting vaccinated. Subsequently, in all parts of the kingdom, King Donald’s subjects became infected, sick, suffered and died, and they never lived happily ever after again. Thank you, King Donald, for nothing!
Dr. Joe Clendenin
Santa Rosa
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