It’s not good to believe in fairy stories, as Forum contributor Stuart Richards seems to, or to champion one failed nation-state while reviling its siblings who share all of its characteristics (“Trump order strengthens effort to protect Jewish students on campus,” Jan. 5).
Most of the nations of the Middle East (and their easterly neighbors) are artificial constructs of Western colonial powers divvying up the spoils after World War I, and the world has paid for their arrogance and venality onward. And if we hadn’t toppled the democratically elected government of Iran back in 1953, an awful lot of blood and treasure would not have been wasted and we wouldn’t be exactly where we find ourselves yet again, staring at the apocalypse, more or less.
In justice, we ought to be boycotting everyone, including ourselves, but hypocrisy is a durable human trait.
Israel is no shining light of democracy; since its founding it’s been a brutally racist society, even against some fellow Jews for whom it was supposedly a refuge and restored homeland, and things have gone downhill from there.
There’s no right and wrong side in the Middle East. Everyone is driven by myth and fantasy, no country there treats minorities fairly, and no one is really our friend, which isn’t surprising because we’re a lousy friend to begin with.
Our college campuses and our neighborhoods and our homes and our persons should be safe everywhere, regardless of who we are, how we dress or what we think and believe. Attacks on Jews — or Muslims or Sikhs or Christians or atheists or socialists or the few elderly Communists who might still be singing slogans together in musty gathering halls that need to have the lightbulbs upgraded — are wrong and criminal.
We hope our young people grow up to become wiser, over time. We need to be an example for them, and not perpetuators of more dangerous nonsense.
SARAH CRYSL AKHTAR
Lebanon
Democrats will lose next November if we don’t have a candidate to be excited about, or a dream to see yourself in. After seeing U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren speak at her town hall in Hanover recently, I’m more sure than ever that she is the best candidate to carry that torch.
We need big, structural change to get this country back to working for everyday Americans, which is why Warren’s plans are all rooted in taking on the corruption in Washington that has prevented anything from getting done in the past.
Issues as broad as climate change, gun violence or pharmaceutical prices have all been blocked by corrupt lobbying and corporate interests that profit off of the lack of change.
Enter Warren.
She not only has the bold ideas of real change, but she has the tactical plans and experience to make sure we get there. Before she was ever elected, she single-handedly conceived of and pushed for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that has returned over $12 billion dollars to consumers since 2011.
Given the tools of the presidency, I have no doubt she will use that same fighting spirit to address the issues (and corruption) that have plagued our democracy for so long.
BRITTNEY JOYCE
Hanover