Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow recently issued a statement expressing his concern for the country in the wake of the pandemic, job losses, business closings and racial tensions. His statement, “This I Believe,” expressed many of the values to which we, as a country and community, have always aspired: hopes for a better life for our children, free speech, equal protection, the rule of law, the power of education and opportunity, and the need to act on our beliefs. They are important values, important to state and important to support.
But while there is much talk of unifying around what we support, let’s also be clear about what we oppose. Our country was forged first in opposition to principles and conditions that we could not tolerate and only later on principles that we claim to hold dear. In this time of national strife, it is as important to state clearly what we reject as what we believe.
■ I don’t believe that some of our citizens, only because of the color of their skin, should have cause to fear our police while others do not.
■ I don’t believe that some of our children, born by chance into poverty, should have less opportunity to be educated than those who are born into privilege.
■ I don’t believe that ungoverned capitalism is a sustainable economic system.
■ I don’t believe that economic growth should be the sole guiding value of our political system.
■ I don’t believe that we can ignore the failures of our government and expect our government to improve.
Act up.
SCOTT BROWN
Hanover
I was disappointed to see the paltry coverage of Saturday’s Black Lives Matter protest on the Hanover Green (“We are not OK,” June 1). By my estimation, 300 people came to the green to protest the unjust killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and the hundreds of other black people who have been killed by police in our country.
This was one of the biggest, most well-attended events in our community that I have ever seen. I was disappointed that the Valley News did so little to report on what happened, and that the captions on the photos did little to communicate what the organizers and speakers at the event were saying. You also had the gall to post a photo to your Instagram account, pretending as if you took the time to adequately cover this protest instead of phoning it in. Anti-black racism is a problem in our extremely white community. Not reporting on events like this one contributes to the elision and erasure of black people in the Upper Valley.
As people across our country protest police brutality and point to the systemic failures of the state, police departments, prisons, courts and almost every institution to address racism, I wonder what the Valley News is doing to make sure Black Lives Matter. Because I sure didn’t see it in your coverage of local news last weekend.
KATHERINE GIBBEL
Windsor
The recession that began in March as a result of the closings of businesses, nonprofits and government offices has an uncertain duration. The closings result from general compliance with guidelines recommended by the federal government’s COVID-19 task force. In an analysis of the data on recessions that followed the Great Depression, as shown in the Wikipedia article “List of Recessions in the United States,” I determined that the 13 most recent recessions lasted 11 months, on average, and were often shorter.
Our national economy is highly dependent on consumer spending, so phased reopenings can slow the pace of economic recovery. A continuation of efforts to decrease the number of infected people, combined with accelerating the pace of discovery of successful treatments to limit the numbers and lengths of hospitalizations, enable a faster pace of phased reopenings, thus, more people employed sooner with more incomes to spend. We must hope and pray that the work on potential vaccines will soon lead to one or more that are suitable for worldwide use.
We must be grateful for the work of all who protect people and save lives in the face of the pandemic, now made worse by mass gatherings of people — most protesting peacefully and, unfortunately, too many performing violent acts toward police and businesses.
In my opinion, a reasonable estimate of the duration of the present recession is not more than 18 months, which happens to be the same as that of the most recent financial crisis, the Great Recession, from December 2007 to June 2009.
GERALD P. MADDEN
Hanover
We need to redefine the role of police in the United States. Police should not carry guns, along the lines of the British bobbies. Our police perpetuate and set the standard for violence in this country. It is time to leave the Wild West behind. Lead the charge, Vermont. No one else is.
MICHAEL WARD
Barnard
Too many in my Claremont community are making $40,000 a year or less and seeing their property tax bills go up every year just to keep schools afloat. Especially in this pandemic, this is too much for many of my neighbors. As a special education paraeducator in the Claremont School District, I attend School Board meetings to advocate for my students and ensure that services are not cut as a result of the (understandable) desire to lower property taxes.
Fortunately, there’s a candidate for governor who’s fighting to ensure relief for struggling New Hampshire families while fully funding public schools. I strongly support Andru Volinsky in the Sept. 8 Democratic primary for governor. He’s courageously fought for students since he was the lead lawyer in the 1997 Claremont school funding case. Unlike Gov. Chris Sununu, who boasts about the “New Hampshire advantage” while cutting business taxes for major corporations in a time of crisis, Volinsky tells it like it is. Like Sen. Bernie Sanders, who endorsed him earlier this year, Volinsky knows that we need a real New Hampshire advantage that works for every ZIP code.
If you’re a Sanders fan like me, you know that, in the U.S., the top 1% have more wealth than the bottom 90%. Similarly, 77% of New Hampshire public school students go to school in communities with a below-average tax base.
This is a broken revenue system. Andru Volinsky is the only candidate with the political courage to change it.
MATT BEAN
Claremont