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Congress must end
fossil fuel subsidies
As we continue to experience catastrophic wildfires, severe droughts, floods and hurricanes, consider this. Our taxes have been subsidizing the fossil fuel industry through direct subsidies and tax breaks for over 100 years. Currently, the subsidy is $20 billion, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute and others.
In addition to these subsidies, the U.S. government has been financing billions for fossil fuel projects overseas to benefit U.S. fossil fuel companies. In recent years, projects in Mongolia, Mozambique, India and Mexico have benefited from U.S. financing.
A recent letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer from more than 500 organizations asked for the elimination, in the coming budget reconciliation process, of all subsidies for fossil fuel development. Such subsidies only serve to encourage increased oil and gas development, in a time of quickly worsening climate change. It’s high time to defund this industry with our taxes. Write your elected representatives.
Ellen Beans
Moraga
Letter displays typical
right-wing fear of CRT
Jay Todesco is, as usual, a real hoot (“Activist parents are today’s true patriots,” Page A6, Oct. 8).
He condemns Louis Freedberg for criticizing people who appear at school board meetings and interrupt, name-call and threaten the lives of the board members. He attacks “Critical Race Theory” in terms that fail totally to describe what it really means, and instead, parrots Fox News.
Anybody with minimum internet or library skills, not totally devoted to Fox News or Donald Trump, can easily learn that Critical Race Theory is a scholarly endeavor that explores the tragic role of race in American history; it has nothing to do with communism.
Thomas Sponsler
Moraga
As pandemic drags on,
vaccine holdouts exasperate
I am aghast at the vaccine holdouts after almost two years of our world being turned upside down by COVID-19.
They claim to have the right not to be vaccinated. They obviously don’t remember their parents strapping them into their $300 car seats in their minivans to go get the MMR, DPT, polio, chickenpox, etc. vaccines.
Maybe someone can strap them into their SUVs to go get their COVID vaccines.
Carol Heath
Pleasant Hill
Afghanistan exit doesn’t
affect national security
Re. Marc Thiessen, “Gen. Mark Milley has some explaining to do,” Sept. 19:
Marc Thiessen calls President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan “the worst U.S. military catastrophe in modern times” and “the worst national security debacle in modern American history.”
Ridiculous. Afghanistan has zero bearing on American national security. Donald Trump recognized this when he negotiated an almost unconditional withdrawal including uncalled-for gifts to the Taliban.
The greatest threat to American national security today is Trump’s refusal to concede that he lost the 2020 election, and consequent actions such as the Jan. 6 insurrection, the farcical election “audits” in Arizona and elsewhere, and the voter suppression legislation in GOP-led states. These threaten the destruction of American democracy and overshadow anything related to Afghanistan.
Merlin Dorfman
Livermore
Scheming Trump must be
kept from return to office
In psychology, the dark triad comprises the personality traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. They are called dark because of their malevolent qualities.
Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy. Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulation and exploitation of others, and an absence of morality, unemotional callousness, and a higher level of self interest. Psychopathy is characterized by continuous antisocial behavior, impulsivity, selfishness, callous and unemotional traits, and remorselessness.
Donald Trump has exhibited most, if not all of the traits within the dark triad. His dangerous rhetoric and activities as president and after have shown him to be an outright evil person who has been able to garner a naive cult of supporters around him. As one Iowa Trump supporter recently stated, “There is going to be a civil war.”
We have already seen Trump’s ultimate goal on Jan. 6. We must stop him now.
Robert Thomas
Castro Valley
Let’s break down walls
created by stereotypes
Re. “Social courage is the key to breaking the mindset tearing Americans apart,” Page A17, Oct. 10:
This opinion piece talks about stereotypes people have and negative assumptions people make. The author, David Brooks, is referring to many people of different minority statuses. However, people with disabilities are not mentioned.
I am blind. Many people think that blind people always have to sit down and have problems walking up and downstairs, which are stereotypes in this society. Also, the terms people use carry negative stereotypes against people with disabilities. “Someone is crippling my effort” is a negative allusion to people with mobility impairments.
Let’s work on breaking down some of the walls stereotypes create.
Marianne Haas
Berkeley
Source: www.mercurynews.com