Letters to the Editor for April 5, 2018

The politics of divide

Teenagers are being used to advocate for a political issue that ties right in with all the other issues that seek to divide people, get people in a rage, and allow politicians to gauge/control their voting blocks and prep their talking points for the next election cycle. It’s a shameless ploy the American people have been putting up with for far too long. Here’s the short history: Democrats vs. Republicans (amazing how Americans have way more choices of cell phone providers than the candidates served up by the two party monopoly on elections), men vs. women, gays vs. straight, rich vs. poor (I guess Occupy Wall Street didn’t work too well), black vs. white, transgenders vs. everyone who think men and women should have their own restroom, illegal immigrants vs. everyone else, and now gun owners vs. non-gun owners — the list goes on.

Politicians now want to use and manipulate your kids, not unlike the adults they control now. Why? My take:

1) They don’t care about you or your kids. I’m sure I heard David Hogg saying the exact same thing. We have long lost real representation in this country. Almost all politicians care only about their donors, the votes they can get (and they don’t care how they get them), and most of all — their power. Power to keep their special interests happy and their government rackets which control your wallet, property, jobs, family, health, security, education, and freedom, well oiled and running correctly.

2) Politicians have no real ideas to promote that (which) will make our lives and our children’s future, happy, free and more prosperous. The opposite has been happening. Politicians are guardians of their special rackets. Why else do we have a government run by politicians that today willfully spy on us, tax us into oblivion, devalue our money by printing it like drunken Mafioso, run up debt that will no doubt jeopardize and/or destroy the futures of all of our children and our children’s children, hinders our rights of due process, shuts down political dissent and free speech, educates our children on what to think instead of how to think, wages wars that most of us do not even know about creating enemies around the world at a rapid clip ending or ruining the lives of more of our young without fanfare, all while they gleefully divide (and distract!) us like grandma’s Thanksgiving pie. It takes tons of resources (our tax dollars at work) to make this all happen and a very compliant media (manipulating) apparatus to boot.

I have hope when I hear Washougal student Olivia Kelly say on the day of the national student walk out (Walking Out, Speaking Up, March 18).” We want to clarify that this is not a political statement or an issue of division among us.” I hope I’m hearing a very young woman aware, yet weary and disheartened by what I call the “politics of divide” in this country, and I hope all her age figure this out fast, and make the choice: Are you going to be used by politicians for their unworthy agendas and be a pawn in their deplorable game to divide people and keep control of their monopolies on your future, or are you going to choose to use your unique gift of human consciousness, reason, creativity, and your capacity to love, to bypass what has not worked and seek a much better way to solve the problems we humans face?

Frank Alonzo, Camas

‘Weapons Free Zones’ at Washougal schools

Out of curiosity, I drove past the entrance of several Washougal schools, and noticed that each has a “Weapons Free Zone” sign prominently displayed. There have not been any massacres at these schools, so it is obvious that the signs have kept the children safe. And because there have not been any previous incidents in Washougal schools, mathematical probability estimates and community experience would indicate there won’t be any massacres in the future. A comforting thought indeed.

Unfortunately, if the probability sample space and the community experience is widened beyond Washougal, say to the rest of America, the estimated likelihood of an incident moves to some nonzero point. In other words, looking beyond just Washougal, we can see that it really is possible for Washougal to have a school tragedy as has happened elsewhere. In spite of any number of announcements that the school ground has been declared a “Weapons Free Zone.”

There are ways to reduce the probability of school tragedies, and thus perhaps keep the Washougal community experience of them at zero. It is quite likely that Washougal school officials and others are actively discussing what can be done. Here and now. Immediately.

Lee Howard, Washougal