Letters to the editor for Sept. 5
COVID creates a new Civil War
I am a simple man and as such, I see the turmoil that has centered around coronavirus as being reminiscent of Civil War times and involve life or death. People take positions: to vaccinate or not to vaccinate, to mask or not to mask, my personal rights over a duty to others, etc. Conflict ensues.
It’s now become father against son, brother against brother, family against family as each faction takes a side and digs in. And what irony. There’s nothing “civil” about this situation. Yet, “war” wages on. There’s no easy solution.
Fred Yancey, Olympia
COVID suicide bombers
Dear self-obsessed narcissists of the anti vax movement:
Everyone who is unwilling to vaccinate has the potential to be a suicide bomber. Recently, a non-vaccinated teacher of young children in Marin County, California, read a short story to her third graders without wearing a mask. Very soon, 22 of her students were sick with her COVID infection.
How would you anti-vaccine folks feel if your child were one on these innocents who is hospitalized or dies?
When everyone has a vaccination, very few get sick. When a large number of individuals insist that their bodies are sacred, and they will not get the vaccine, the country is in trouble. If you want control of your own body, stay home, don’t share your life with anyone, because your narcissism holds extreme risks for the rest of us.
Our hospitals are full of very sick people who did not take the simple precaution of a vaccine. ... Our hospitals have no room for emergent or elective health care. Car wreck? Heart attack? No room here.
If you love your country as much as your sacred self, be a patriot and take care of both by getting a vaccination so we can have a normal life again.
Judy Rogers, Olympia
We are not helpless in the face of climate change
There is horrifying news about the effects of climate change from around the globe. We aren’t helpless; we have a rare opportunity to make a profound difference right now, by asking our representatives in Washington, D.C., to put a price on carbon in the Budget Reconciliation Bill.
Remember cigarette addiction? So many Americans died horrible, unnecessary deaths. Federal advertising campaigns did little good. Finally they put a tax on cigarettes, and people quit smoking, saving countless lives and funding healthcare for the needy.
Similarly, a carbon price could put a fee on emissions, paid by fossil fuel producers, and send the proceeds to American households to defray rising fuel costs. Requiring the fossil fuel industry to finally pay for its pollution of our atmosphere would level the economic playing field for clean power, stimulating clean energy innovation, job growth, and the economy.
Economists of both political parties agree: This is the best first step to solving climate change. A price on carbon is good for the economy, social equity, our health, the environment, and our childrens’ future. We cannot afford to wait.
Call your congress members and ask for a carbon price in the reconciliation bill. An easy way to do this is to go to https://citizensclimatelobby.org/house/ and follow instructions to write and call your representatives. You can follow a script, or use your own words. Do it for our kids.
Sabra Hull, Olympia