Published: 6/5/2020 10:00:22 PM

Modified: 6/5/2020 10:00:10 PM

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said a riot is the language of the unheard. While not condoning violence, much less encouraging it, I am compelled to observe that the sometimes-violent methods recently adopted by protestors seeking redress of long-festering social issues is, sadly, understandable. When a match is tossed into a pile of dry brush, the result is as predictable as it is tragic.

The unrest seen in many parts of our nation this past week following yet another egregious policing overreach that caused the death of a fellow citizen, a black American, is not, in my view, an overreaction.

This unrest rises from a deep foundation: more than four centuries of exclusion, injustice, emotional abuse, lack of basic human decency, and yes violence systematically perpetrated by our establishment institutions and, via our votes, by ourselves upon our fellow American citizens of differing genetic lineage.

Violence begets violence; mistreatment begets mistrust. Slavery. The lack of any meaningful economic justice post-slavery. Lynching. Jim Crow. The unrealized promise of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Separate but equal. Systemic racism. Mass incarceration. Wage inequality. Opportunity inequity. Rising from all of these, black Americans to this day have a palpable fear of being found suspect based only on the color of their skin, a fear I can never know.

Whatever the recent violence, it falls far short of the cumulative scale of these past sins, sins so long unaddressed as to embed them in the American soul. We reap what we sow, and weve been sowing a crop of racism in this nation for a very long time.

Therefore, the noteworthy news is not the violence but rather, in the face of the past, the praiseworthy restraint exhibited by the vast majority of protestors.

MARK KIRK

Unity

Rising to meat demand (May 24) is another Valley News article fostering animal cruelty. The demand for animal flesh, secretions and dead embryos is a false demand there are no nutritional needs to eat animals and therefore no ethical reasons exist to force-breed and kill animals for consumption. And Vermont Packinghouses claim of humane slaughter is a joke. Unnecessary killing is not humane.

Animal-free diets are not fads; they are the only ones humans can afford if we want a future. Popular Mechanics reported that plant-based diets are healthiest for humans, the planet and animals. The World Health Organization categorizes processed meat as a carcinogen. A number of studies have suggested that dairy products are a risk factor for prostate cancer. These science-based truths are what our family, including the dogs, live by without problems.

Kaiser Permanente, the largest health care management company in the U.S., has a 36-page ebooklet about the advantages of plant diets. Humana, the third-largest insurance company, trains doctors in plant-based health. The U.N. urges everyone to eat plant-based diets as the surest and least destructive way to slow global warming and to end hunger and starvation because 80% of farmland grows monocrops for farmed animals, croplands that in the U.S. alone could feed 800 million people. Worldwide, farmlands could produce ample food to feed all humanity healthful plant-based meals, and reduce the greenhouse gases from the farmed animal industry that drive global warming, and dramatically reduce the poisoning of the land, water and life with runoff from farming animals fed antibiotics and ground up garbage. And it would end the slaughter of 3 trillion animals annually for human food.

Why does the Valley News promote animal-based foods and print articles about slaughterhouses, for example, as if they are necessary? Why take the corporate oppressors side with language like stunning unruly animals instead of writing animals struggling for their lives? To not tell the whole story with compassion is lazy reporting.

MARGARET D. HURLEY

Claremont

My name is Keith Stern and I am announcing my campaign for a Windsor County Senate seat.

Some of you may recognize me as a candidate for governor two years ago. My platform has not changed. I want to see a more responsible budget, end Act 46, and make sure Act 250 goes back to its original goal and not become an excessively restrictive hurdle to responsible development. Above anything, the federal and state constitutions must be followed to avoid an abusive government.

Humorist Dave Barry once said that Democrats are good people with good intentions but are incompetent. They would stop to help someone change a tire and end up setting the car on fire. They have good intentions but they fail to understand how to accomplish their goals, so they end up hurting us with ineffective and restrictive laws. We can see this every day with struggling businesses, low wages and an overall cost of living that exceeds our wages. Affordable housing is a major issue here because of excessive regulations for building, high property taxes, and lack of landlord protection against destructive, disruptive and deadbeat tenants. Ultimately, it isnt the landlords who bear the cost, it is the tenants. I will work to fix these issues to create more affordable housing. At the same time, I will introduce an effective tenant protection bill as well.

The cost of health insurance is very high in comparison to other states, again due to overregulation. I will introduce a bill that will lower health care and health insurance costs.

I hope you visit my Facebook page, Keith Stern for Windsor County, and see how a vote for me will be a vote for lowering taxes, a better, more cost-effective education system, and a stronger economy.

KEITH STERN

North Springfield

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Forum, June 6: America is reaping what it has sown - Valley News