Letters: Trump's deployment of National Guard to L.A. protests shouldn't be a surprise
Donald Trump's playbook seems entirely predictable. If you want to turn a democracy into a military dictatorship, you only need two steps.
First, you take actions that will guarantee a large public outcry and protests, and then bring in the military to restore order. Just like Trump did this weekend in deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles after the protests in response to immigration raids. Conversion completed.
And if these protests aren't sufficient to declare martial law, no doubt future actions against immigrants will generate the necessary strife.
President Trump will not stop until he has destroyed American democracy, and the world can only watch.
Steen Petersen, Nanaimo, British Columbia
Alarming arrest threat
So, President Donald Trump thinks Gov. Gavin Newsom should be arrested. Exactly what laws did the governor break?
I'm old enough to remember Alabama Gov. George Wallace standing in the doorway trying to prevent two Black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama in 1963. As much as President John F. Kennedy probably wanted to have Wallace handcuffed and jailed, he didn't.
Trump's comments now suggest he is both judge and jury. This is a slap in the face of the greatest of all democratic principles: The rule of law.
Denny Freidenrich, Laguna Beach, Orange County
Insufficient CCSF response
Regarding ''I do not feel safe': City College of S.F. instructor shaken by union leader's verbal attack' (San Francisco, SFChronicle.com, June 5):
I'm shocked about what I believe is an antisemitic attack by union leader Maria Salazar-Colon at a public meeting and upset after reading the City College Board of Trustees' statement in response.
The statement shows that the board and the college administration don't take antisemitism as seriously as other forms of hate speech.
I would ask readers to consider whether they feel that this response would be acceptable if the speaker had used such hateful language toward other racial or ethnic groups.
The board's statement is insultingly vague and short on specific condemnation of antisemitism. This is an 'all lives matter' response to a specific attack on Jewish Americans.
I would like the board to issue a new statement that specifically references that a speaker made antisemitic comments, and that it condemns them. When there was anti-Asian hate, we condemned it as anti-Asian, not generalized disrespect or lack of decorum.
The board should also commit the institution to include addressing antisemitism as part of any training around equity and diversity.
Doug Shoemaker, San Francisco
Not Lowell caliber
Regarding 'These graduating Lowell students were called 'lottery kids.' The stigma never went away' (San Francisco, SFChronicle.com, June 6): The story says that data shows relatively small academic disparities between students enrolled at Lowell High School by lottery and merit-based admittees.
However, every piece of data in the story says the lottery students did worse on average than those who attended based on merit — hardly proof that the lottery kids belonged.
Michael Singer, Santa Rosa
Stop S.F. warehouse project
Regarding 'S.F.'s largest industrial project could get a green light after years of delay' (Real Estate, SFChronicle.com, June 3): The article does not tell the whole story about this planned 2-million-square-foot warehouse and distribution center in the Bayview, a neighborhood that is highly impacted by poor air quality and high levels of cancer, asthma and other lung diseases.
Residents are concerned about what will likely be a huge Amazon warehouse (nonunion) and the increase in diesel trucks that worsen the levels of particulate matter, ozone and nitrous oxide, which are already high in the area, increasing the risk for asthma, bronchitis, lung irritations and cancers. The effects are cumulative.
The pollution from this project will impact the air quality in nearby neighborhoods and beyond.
This is a San Francisco issue, not just a Bayview issue, and it is an environmental justice issue.
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