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Homeless need more
than ‘hard choices’
Re: “Homeless response in state is a disgrace” (Page A6, May 8).
I think Bruce Rank should consider the history of the homeless problem in California. In the late 1960s and early 70s, our elected officials decided that the folks with drug and mental health issues should be mainstreamed in an attempt to help these folks. They would be placed in halfway houses within the communities where they lived.
These homes would be privately paid a per-person amount to care for these individuals. I was a student at San Jose State at the time. The care was less than acceptable, to say the least. I watched as one individual would wander out to the curb every morning and stare across the street. The poor soul was collected for each meal and allowed to return to the curb. Eventually, the original institutions were closed. Officials tried a new twist, adding faith-based organizations for compassion. Let’s hope the latest theory of “hard choices” doesn’t catch on.
Tom Clifford
Hayward
College protesters
deserve more credit
Re: “Calls for universities to divest from Israel impeded by state law” (Page A1, April 28).
Katie Lauer’s article on college student divestment demands discredits student leaders by implying that they are not aware of existing California law. On the contrary, we praise the strategy and vision of students in California and across the country. Their sacrifices and risks should be applauded.
AB 2844 has been part of legal warfare waged by Israel and its legislative supporters to ensure that the public does not learn the truth about Israel’s targeted oppression of Palestinians.
Michael Yoshii
Alameda
Divesting from fossil fuel
would hurt transition
Re: “Pension investments in fossil fuels are not only futile, but dangerous” (Page A6, May 2).
Ruth Holton-Hudson mischaracterizes the Exxon lawsuits, cherry-picks the stock data and blames the fossil fuel companies for climate change. But it isn’t the fossil fuel companies who are polluting the planet — it’s Ruth and all of us who use fossil fuels every day to enrich our lives.
Divesting from the fossil fuel companies also means divesting in clean energy research, since the large fossil fuel companies are also big investors in clean energy. Good public policy recognizes that climate change is a decades, if not centuries, long process, and that we will need fossil fuels for many more decades to make the transition.
Dick Patterson
El Cerrito
Politicians, clergy should
not limit abortion access
What gives politicians and clergy, who have absolutely no medical knowledge and are clueless about a woman’s anatomy, the right to get involved with the issues of a woman’s health care? Are they playing God?
The term abortion has a very nasty connotation and now this term is applied to all medically necessary procedures to save a pregnant woman’s life. Now, in certain states, if a woman has a miscarriage or a tubal pregnancy, is raped or is a victim of incest, and needs a pregnancy termination procedure to save her life, she and her doctor can be prosecuted. Has any religious leader or politician been in such a position? This should be a choice among the woman, her doctor, her partner and spiritual adviser if she has one.
The Bible doesn’t say anything about abortion and neither does Jesus. Politicians and clergy, keep your noses out of this.
Ramona Krausnick
Dublin
Letter ignores Israel’s
history of oppression
Re: “Israel is right in seeking total victory” (Page A6, May 7).
I must respond to the absurd allegation of letter-writer Christopher Andrus equating Hamas to Nazi Germany.
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Hamas has no airforce, no army and no navy. It is Israel that has the largest military force in the Middle East. It is Israel that is dropping huge bombs and killing thousands of innocent children and destroying the entire homeland of millions of the ethnic indigenous people of Palestine. Israel is bombing hospitals, infrastructure, homes and the history of an entire people.
They regularly invade and bomb neighboring countries. They have a racist, apartheid system of occupation like South Africa. Their existence depends on the removal or destruction of an entire indigenous population. It is Israel that has become the modern fascists.
Jon Harwayne
Walnut Creek