NH Primary voters can send a message to the country: Letters

Portsmouth Herald
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NH Primary voters can send a message to the country

Dec. 17 − To the Editor:

If Joe Biden wins the New Hampshire Democratic primary on January 23, it will help enable his team’s work of improving the lives of all Americans.  If Biden does not win, it will be a public relations gift to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.  Even though Biden will not be on the ballot, the attack ads would still call it a Biden loss.

This year the Democratic National Committee decided to make South Carolina the first official primary.  Because of a New Hampshire state law requiring that our primary be first in the nation, New Hampshire went against the DNC rules and scheduled the New Hampshire primary ahead of South Carolina. New Hampshire Republican leadership refused any efforts to suspend that rule.

As a result, the New Hampshire Democratic primary is not sanctioned by the DNC.  Any candidate who runs in the New Hampshire primary could face penalties from the DNC, including potentially losing delegates.  So, Joe Biden did not register in the New Hampshire primary.  However, we can vote for him as a write-in candidate.

A write-in win for Joe Biden in New Hampshire sends a clear and immediate message to voters all over the country; the Biden team has done good work for the country, and can continue that progress for four more years.  It also says that New Hampshire does NOT want to go back to the chaos of the Trump years, and eliminates a talking point for the right-wing press.  New Hampshire voters can be the first to send that message, by writing in Joe Biden on January 23.

American voters, and media from around the world, will be paying close attention on January 23. Let’s send that message.

John Carty

Seabrook

New Hampshire voters have been participating in the first-in-the-nation primary for more than a century.
New Hampshire voters have been participating in the first-in-the-nation primary for more than a century.

We need to teach future generations about food production

Dec. 12 -- To the Editor:

One of the potential threats from what we know as "climate change" is a radical world-wide change in food production. As the planet warms, vast areas will become not only uninhabitable, but also no longer viable for growing things. The result will likely be scarcity of essential foodstuffs and a substantial increase in the cost of goods at the retail level. Given that all of this may be a real possibility it is not too early to consider some ways of solving the problem before we get there. Here's one suggestion:

States and local communities world-wide should create programs in schools to teach the whys and the hows of growing food. Starting in Grade 1 with simple vegetables, seeds and seedlings, grow lights, and easy lessons about types of soils, proper nutrients, advancing through the upper grades with more detailed study, working with local farms, university Extension programs, chefs who rely on seasonal products. By the time of Middle School there could be projects with on-site and community gardens, moving on to High Schools where there could be substantial greenhouses with a variety of programs dealing with nutrition and dietary needs in addition to how to conserve and preserve growing things for their own lifetimes and beyond, working in conjunction with existing school culinary programs. At this level much of the produce could be used directly by the school cafeteria and the excess delivered to local food banks.

All of this may call for the cooperation and support of numerous governmental agencies and some added expenditures for proper equipment and instructional materials, but the ultimate benefit, fifteen or twenty years from now − if in fact we start now − could be immeasurable. The know-how would be well in place and the skills and commitment would be second nature.

It's never too soon to start planning ahead. The survival of the coming generations may depend on it.

Anthony McManus

Dover

Letter explaining Israel actions in Gaza lacks logic

Dec. 14 − To the Editor:

Mr. Jeffrey Cooper, your attempt to justify the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza fails mightily. Let’s apply our “reasoning” or “justification” to, say the city of Portsmouth. If the Portsmouth police were trying to arrest some “bad guys”, and thought maybe they were sheltering in Portsmouth Hospital, I guess according to your reasoning it would be okay to bomb the entire hospital with all the patients/medical staff inside. Or maybe police thought a few of the “bad guys “were also at the Dondero school-so just bomb the school (with the children inside too because you never know, they might be bad too). And while they are at it, I guess the police would be justified in destroying all food, water, and energy supplies to the citizens of Portsmouth. To top it all off, might as well bomb homes/apartment buildings in Portsmouth. Then, maybe the police would tell Portsmouth residents to re-locate south to Massachusetts.

Of course those who survived the bombing of their homes would have to walk to Massachusetts ; hungry, thirsty and tired, because of no food, water or gas for vehicles. And once in Massachusetts, bomb Massachusetts too (just as Isarel did when telling Gazans to move from North to South and then bombing the South.)! But of course, the police would not want this to be reported, so I guess they would be justified in killing journalists too (as in the 80 or so journalists who have been massacred in Gaza by Israel during the past 68 days). Because this is essentially your reasoning/justification to continue the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of 20,000 Gazans so far, including 8,000 or more babies/children.

Bonnie Rodriguez

Hampton

Palestinian leaders are the reason there is no Palestinian state

Dec. 10 − To the Editor:

Robert Azzi’s latest column (Dec. 10) has a promising beginning as he cites Nelson Mandela’s support for both Palestinian and Israeli rights to nationhood.  But in his effort to “fully contextualize” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Azzi quickly loses his way.

First, Israel did not seize Gaza, the “West Bank,” and Golan Heights from the Palestinians in 1967.  It won those territories in a war of survival with the armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, not with a Palestinian state.  That Palestinian state could have been created in 1948 when the United Nations proposed a two-state partition of Mandatory Palestine, but the Arab world rejected that plan and tried to destroy the newborn State of Israel. In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the PLO a Palestinian state in most of the West Bank, all of Gaza and parts of Jerusalem – a very generous offer intended to bring peace.  PLO leader Yasser Arafat rejected this offer by launching terrorist bombings in Israeli cities.  The failure of the Palestinians to achieve nationhood, then, is the fault of their own leaders to accept the permanent existence of Israel and to negotiate two indigenous people’s sharing of the land.

Second, although Azzi now admits that Hamas committed barbaric acts on October 7, he tries to blame growing antisemitism in the U.S. on “white nationalist supremacy,” a claim that doesn’t fit the facts.  Recent pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses and in the streets of American cities have not included tiki torches and white supremacist chants.  It is those on the far left who have chanted “gas the Jews” and “from the river to the sea,” a call to eradicate Israel.  Although there are certainly antisemites on the far right, today’s main threat to Jews comes from those on the far left who deny that the Land of Israel is the ancient homeland of the Jewish people and that Israel has a moral and legal right to exist. On many college campuses, Jewish students are now afraid to reveal their identity because pro-Palestinian activists are quick to demonize or harass them even if they have no connection to Israel.

Near the end of his commentary, Azzi tries to argue that there are historic “links binding Black American and Palestinian activists.”  Perhaps he’s right.  But he fails to remember that many of the white supporters of the 1960s civil rights movement were Jewish and that several of those Jews died supporting Black liberation.

Richard England

Durham

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: NH Primary voters can send a message to the country: Letters