LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

If Pete Seeger could respond, Mr. Bean would get an earful

I can’t help but answer Mr. Bean’s letter to the editor of Aug. 19 about the big cities dying because of protests and his using Pete Seeger’s lyrics of “When will they ever learn?” to make his point.

Does Mr. Bean know nothing about Pete Seeger?

Doesn’t he realize that Pete would have been the first person out front marching in those BLM protests?

Furthermore, the cities aren’t dying from the protests. They’re dying from the COVID-19. People who had offices in the cities are now working at home in the suburbs. Even worse, so many of the downtown businesses are being shuttered and may never open again.

Mr. Bean, I think you need to take a clearer look at what’s happening in this country. And don’t depend on lyrics from someone’s works to illustrate your opinions, especially someone whose ideals you’re denigrating.

I expect the post master general will have no credible responses

Friday began Louis DeJoy's attempt to convince Congress that his recent efforts to streamline the postal service aren’t a devious attack to suppress the vote.

Unfortunately, none of his inquisitors has yet to ask the most basic questions:

What is the plan?"

“Where is the strategy that your actions will increase the productivity and efficiency and not negatively impact the accuracy and reliability?"

"Why introduce these changes now and risk compromising the outcome of the November election?”

I don't believe that DeJoy will has credible responses to these questions, and indeed will vehemently proclaim that there will be no impact to the election process.

Even now, however, we are hearing of major delays in folks getting checks, prescriptions and needed supplies due to the impact of his actions.

When his predictions are proved false and the election is a fiasco; he will simply issue an apology and say he did his best and made a mistake. But it will not be a mistake — it will have been intentional. Unless we undo the damage done before the election; we run the risk of jeopardizing our democracy and all the principles we cherish.

Finally, DeJoy must be held accountable for his actions.

Rick Temple, Mesa

Our lives and democracy depend on leaders upholding Constitution

As our country faces historic challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent economic meltdown, and now a threat to the November elections due to the Trump administration’s attack on the U.S. Postal Service, we desperately need our elected officials to step up and exercise their mandated responsibility to promote

as stated in the Preamble to our Constitution.

It is unconscionable that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allowed the Senate to adjourn without enacting a COVID-19 relief package.

At the end of July, relief measures included in earlier COVID relief bills expired, leaving millions of families with minimal or no income and many facing eviction.

This lack of action also means that state and local governments will experience budget shortfalls and may have to cut essential services.

The proposals the president offered fall far short of what is needed. Only strong, decisive congressional action can provide what is needed at this time.

We claim to be a government of, by and for the people. The dismal response to the pandemic and economic fallout and now the attack on the Postal Service, an institution upon which millions depend and whose collapse threatens U.S. democracy itself, is a clarion call for bold government action. Our U.S. Senators Martha McSalley and Kirsten Sinema must return to Washington and do the job for which they were elected. People’s lives and the life of our democracy depend on it.