One-State Reality
Meron Rapoport’s article on the erasure of the Green Line separating Israel and the occupied territories [“Pushing the Bounds,” August 22/29] is on the right track. The Green Line is based upon nationalist aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians that are no longer valid. Rather than pitting one nationality against the other in a destructive conflict that might never end, there needs to be a convening of those from both sides who are willing to set aside old grievances and the old politics.
Documenting January 6
It’s difficult to accept Daniel Bessner and Ben Burgis’s criticism of the January 6 Committee hearings in their article “Hearing Loss” [August 22/29]. If our political system is in a state of decay, that is no reason to dismiss the efforts of the committee to document the unprecedented and egregious actions of Donald Trump in demanding the casting of nonexistent votes and sending an armed mob in order to retain power. Protofascism is alive and well among Trump and his allies in the Republican Party. To believe that “it can’t happen here” is more than just naive. Anything can happen here, if we let it.
palmyra, va.
As a working-class voter, I take issue with the inferences made by the authors as to what drives the Trump base. Not just me but all of my working-class friends are following the January 6 hearings very closely, hoping that Trump is somehow held to account. I also find that most of the Trump flags still flying around here are in upper-middle-class neighborhoods, where most of the residents are presumably college-educated. Which is not to say that there aren’t any working-class Trump supporters, as I work alongside some. However, what drives their anger is not Democratic policies but social issues, which they hear about from right-wing talk radio, The Epoch Times, and Fox News. To give a recent example, when our plant was visited by Congresswoman Haley Stevens, a coworker who listens to right-wing radio told me afterward that he had but one question for her: “What is a woman?” I was confused until he explained that he felt that people changing their sex just so they could excel in sports was unfair, even though he couldn’t provide a single example when pressed. What we are dealing with is a vast right-wing misinformation campaign.
mount clemens, mich.
Leaving Water for Migrants
Re “A Dead Sea,” Kyle Paoletta’s review of The Settler Sea: California’s Salton Sea and the Consequences of Colonialism, by Traci Brynne Voyles [August 22/29]: A great deal of the interest in keeping water in the Salton Sea, and at a level that is not completely toxic, owes to its use by birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway. With the decimation of much of the state’s inland bodies of water, the ones still standing, including the Salton Sea, are more critical than ever for avian migration and survival.
santa barbara, calif.
