San Francisco Chronicle — LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Impeachment is on the minds of the people
Editor - Impeachment must be considered to gain back the rule of law and receive respect as a nation that we once had. The only way we can be a leader in the world about anything is to show that we do not agree with the policies that have taken us so far back in time. We have to show that we are not the corrupt incompetent country that we appear to be now.
To win any war we must have respect and take the high road. Impeachment is the only way to stop this group. America is mad as hell.
JOEANN EDMONDS
Mill Valley
Editor - From torture, to wiretapping, to selectively firing federal prosecutors for partisan reasons, and repeatedly lying to Congress throughout about said issues, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales repeatedly shows that he takes the interests of the executive branch of government more seriously than that of we, the people, and the rule of law.
The only feasible measure left to us to right this ship of state is his impeachment; and Congress should act immediately on its implementation.
WILL TAYLOR
Mill Valley
Editor - There is no better time than now to say no to the outright lies that have been being juggled around for way too long. Action speaks louder than words.
The people need to see some action or you are no better than the GOP words that we hear and see no action. Please make a difference and impeach Alberto Gonzales. Even if you fire or remove him, just do something!
TERRI STILWELL
San Francisco
Editor - Creating more legislation that the administration only selectively enforces is like spitting into the wind!
There are only three things I want Congress to do:
1. Impeach!
2. Impeach!
3. And impeach!
Impeach all these scurvy knaves and traitors of our sacred Constitution.
FRED H. NESBITT Jr.
San Bruno
Infrastructure first
Editor - Because of a failure to maintain levees, Hurricane Katrina all but destroyed New Orleans; because of a failure to maintain a freeway bridge, untold numbers plunged to their deaths in Minneapolis.
By acceding in this manner to Third World levels of infrastructural neglect, this richest of nations places all its residents at risk; yet, we persist in spending billions of dollars to maintain a war in Iraq on the discredited premise that it is making us safer. Isn't it time we get our priorities in order?
RICHARD BOYCE
San Francisco
City Attorney responds
Editor - Given that Public Defender Jeff Adachi's Open Forum article ("Guilt by association, Aug. 2) criticized the gang injunctions I am seeking in the Mission and Western Addition, it may come as a surprise that I write to agree with many of his points.
I, too, recognize that a successful strategy to address gangs must include programs to expand employment and recreational opportunities. In fact, my litigation against one of the nation's largest low-income housing operators secured a $1 million settlement as seed money for the Willie Mays Boys' and Girls' Club recently opened at Hunters Point. Where we differ is about whether affirmative intervention strategies are mutually exclusive from injunctions against gang-related nuisance and criminal conduct. I don't believe they are.
My office has employed civil injunctions for years as a tool to effectively police wrongdoing by polluters, vandals and slumlords. Initial indications from the Oakdale Mob injunction, in place since last fall, echo independent research findings that gang injunctions can be similarly effective. Civil gang injunctions are no panacea for gang violence: so stipulated. But the debate about how to address gang crime ought not turn on whether we encourage lawful behavior or discourage unlawful behavior. Rather, it should center on how we most effectively do both.
DENNIS HERRERA
City Attorney
San Francisco
Hiroshima karma
Editor - The biblical karmic warning, "As you sow so shall you reap," or the modern street version "What goes around comes around," both explain a deep rooted fear in the American psyche. Sixty-two years ago, in August 1945, America sowed the karmic seeds of this fear, by dropping, without warning, atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 115,000 civilians, mostly innocent women, children and elderly.
In October 2002, President Bush exploited this fear by invoking the image of a nuclear "mushroom cloud" to dramatize Iraq's threat to us, and scare Congress and the American people into war against Iraq. If a karmic debt must eventually be paid for causing the great suffering of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seems unwise for America and its leaders to nurture conditions, such as creating more suffering, hatred and conflicts, which would hasten this karmic ripening.
LI CHAN
Buddhist chaplain
Juvenile Hall
San Francisco
This article appeared on page D - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Link:
http://impeachforpeace.org/impeach_bush_blog/?p=3886