Sunday’s Letters to the Editor

A fatal misjudgment

EDITOR: On the morning of Feb. 2, in an apartment in Minneapolis, another innocent Black man’s like was taken by police serving a “no knock” warrant. The young man, Amir Locke, a lawful gun owner, was asleep in the apartment. Some of the background facts are still under investigation, but what is known is that Locke wasn’t named in the warrant.

Locke reacted as anyone might have whose sleep was interrupted by having his or her bed kicked in by armed strangers. It is apparent in the police body camera video released the next day that he wasn’t about to shoot an officer.

Three shots killed him. This is another case, like the one in Louisville, Kentucky, of police misjudgment, which has become so tragically common in America.

Locke was well within his rights, and now he is dead. Whatever happens now, justice is not going to be reached for his grieving family or the community.

FRANK H. BAUMGARDNER

Santa Rosa

Legitimate discourse?

EDITOR: George Orwell wrote that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” But the Republican National Committee has outdone itself in ways that might make Orwell blush, or shudder at his own prescience. You see they have called the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection “legitimate political discourse.”

The fact that they comprised about half of the target population of the mob that stormed the Capitol that day is now completely forgotten. Words used not to convey meaning but to undermine it was Orwell’s warning.

I ask the decent Republicans in this country, did you watch the horror of Jan. 6, 2021, and think for one moment that there was any legitimate discourse occurring? My heavens, was the firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay in 1861 “legitimate political discourse?”

ELLIOT LEE DAUM

Santa Rosa

Why skip the discourse?

EDITOR: I have some questions. If the attack on our Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was merely “legitimate political discourse” as the Republicans are now claiming, why did the Republicans run? Why did they hide when the Capitol building was invaded? Why didn’t they stick around and engage in “legitimate political discourse” with their fans, the insurrectionists invading the building? What a bunch of hypocrites. Do they really think we’re that stupid?

ANNETTE FLACHMAN

Windsor

PG&E’s archaic thinking

EDITOR: In a 2015 report to Congress, the U.S. military said climate change was a growing threat to national security. Yet with massive California wildfires on a yearly scale never before seen, PG&E continues without change.

Once again, PG&E needs a quick profit influx to cover attorneys, fines, shareholder dividends, grid maintenance and subsidizing clients. Its lobbyists enlisted the California Public Utilities Commission and Gov. Gavin Newsom to tap solar owners to satisfy PG&E’s greed while crippling solar fabrication, installation and jobs. Done and done.

I’m disgusted at PG&E’s unwillingness to change. PG&E fought hard to kill California counties’ clean power initiatives.

Monopolies are not healthy, and this is not a zero-sum game. We can devise plans to increase solar installation and power walls with incentives available to homeowners, apartment building owners and businesses.

Defeating our increasingly warming climate means encouraging solar reliance and production. PG&E is not participating in good faith. Smaller grids must replace monolithic grids and archaic thinking as we create a healthier climate solution. We all deserve decent energy prices.

Other countries have done this. We can too.

PAMELA HOM

Santa Rosa

Free speech for some

EDITOR: John Brodey opined that he has read enough of “Trump cultists” airing their “fantasies” (“Enough is enough,” Letters, Wednesday). His letter went on to say that he is all for hard news stories concerning the many investigations into Donald Trump’s “seemingly limitless ability to violate the law and betray the country,” while implying that reader opinions with an opposing view should be silenced. While I respect Brodey’s right to express his opinion, he appears to have taken up the posture of progressives and many social media providers, i.e. speech is free as long as they agree with it.

JIM HABERKORN

Santa Rosa

A crumbling foundation

EDITOR: Gov. Gavin Newsom expects to run for the presidency someday. By conducting negotiations with Kaiser Permanente behind closed doors, he just removed another stone from his political foundation (“No bid contract for Kaiser draws fire,” Feb. 6).

Like the French Laundry fiasco, his secret negotiations with Kaiser do serious damage to his credibility. California expects transparency in actions and intent from its leaders. While all politicians rightly receive criticism for their behavior, Newsom is proving to warrant a constant critical focus.

For me, he is moving into the realm of just another pol with a pretty face and nice words, but disappearing substance and believability. I hope he doesn’t sink into the realm of what might be seen as a smart Dan Quayle. With his blunders, he seems to be.

JEFFREY J. OLSON

Santa Rosa

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.