Don’t destroy the murals

Regarding “Historic UCSF murals threatened” (Page 1, June 13): I was outraged to learn that UCSF will destroy the historic Bernard Zakheim murals unless the family can raise $8 million to save them.

These murals are an important part of the city’s art heritage. They belong to all of us and their destruction would be tragic. Surely, UCSF could and should find money within the multimillion dollar budget for the new building to preserve and house them.

Debby Nosowsky, San Francisco

Wishful thinking

Regarding “Swalwell removes curtain on Trump impeachment” (John Diaz, Insight, June 14): I’m not in agreement with Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s call for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to form a team of rivals by including prominent Republicans in his Cabinet.

The notion that such a group would lessen the bitter political divisiveness that has gripped Washington, D.C., for the past three decades is simply wishful thinking.

The election of Donald Trump as president in 2016 was a symptom of a Republican Party that has long championed trickledown economics, antiscience environmental deregulations, and using small government to prevent basic social services from reaching the neediest among us as their approach to national governance.

Frankly, I’m hoping for a blue wave in November that restores the White House (and its Cabinet), as well as both chambers of Congress, to Democratic control.

Only a voterdriven exodus of the GOP from the halls of power will force it to do muchneeded soul searching and hopefully reexamine why it used to be known as the Party of Lincoln.

Richard Fairchild, Walnut Creek

Remove false information

Concerning “Accounts removed” (News of the Day, June 13): If Twitter has removed a vast network of accounts that it says is linked to the Chinese government and was pushing false information favorable to the country’s communist rulers, then here’s a question for this social media giant: Why can’t Twitter remove the account of someone linked to the U.S. government who is pushing false information favorable to his own authoritarianminded administration?

Apparently, the blue Twitter bird sings different songs in different languages.

Jennifer EricksonJames, San Francisco

The hurdles of voting

Regarding “Don’t let democracy go south” (Editorial, June 14): As someone looking forward to casting her first ballot in a presidential election this November, I’m dismayed by this editorial on voting.

Republicans like Donald Trump are openly admitting that allowing voting by mail will cause a larger turnout that will likely result in their defeats.

And while I’m certainly willing to stand in a long line at a polling place if that’s what I need to do to vote (wearing a face mask and maintaining social distance if the COVID19 pandemic continues), that’s certainly not an option for those who are infirm, elderly, caring for young children, or unable to take time off from their jobs on Election Day.

It’s ironic that in a year in which the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were postponed, American voters might have to become champion hurdlers just to scale all of the obstacles (such as imposing strict voter ID laws, cutting voting times, restricting registration, purging voter rolls, and limiting voting by mail) that the Republican Party has put in front of us.

Our democracy isn’t just going south, it’s heading off a cliff.

Elizabeth Samuelson, San Francisco

Beware of voter fraud

It has become obvious that much of today’s Republican Party does not believe in universal suffrage, which is tantamount to rejecting democracy.

It used to be that Republicans would disguise this by claiming that their numerous efforts to make voting difficult, especially for minorities and students, were intended to prevent fraud. But after that was shown to be ridiculous inasmuch as voting fraud is practically nonexistent, they ceased pretending and now openly say, as President Trump did recently, that they can’t win elections if too many people are allowed to vote.

So now, among other things, in the midst of a pandemic, we see an effort to prevent voting by mail, even though the president himself votes that way and it has been shown to be almost totally free of fraud.

For better or worse, we are fundamentally a twoparty country and we cannot survive as a democracy if one of those parties doesn’t believe in democracy’s bedrock principles.

We must have a wave election in November in which enough Republican leaders are defeated so that a new generation will be forced to reimagine how the party thinks and operates.

Peter Hanauer, Berkeley

Degrees don’t stop racism

Regarding “Education for police” (Letters, June 15): While I agree with the author’s suggestion for having police officers complete an undergraduate degree before assuming a role in the department, I would just like to point out that that the degree is not an inoculation against racist tendencies or violent behavior.

Many degree holders of various levels are some of the worst offenders I have seen. A look at some of our country’s socalled leaders unveils their nefarious goals and intents, causing pain, suffering and death to millions. Just because you feed them logic doesn’t guarantee they will digest it and internalize it.

I think it’s worthwhile to investigate how other countries select their police force members.

We could learn from them. I, too, would like to see future cadets experience ambiguity, mix with diverse students, and come out with more compassion and empathy, but it shouldn’t be the only basic requirement we charge them with.

The learning needs to be ongoing once they’re chosen to serve.