Letters: Oakland mayor | Before vaccines | Cruelty over compassion

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Lee not the answer
for Oakland mayor

Re: “Leaders courting Bay Area progressive for mayor” (Page A1, Nov. 16).

Barbara Lee has served us well as a representative.

So did Ron Dellums. He was not an effective mayor, and I don’t think Lee would be either. It is time to find a strong new leader focused on Oakland’s many issues, one who has the energy to lead Oakland.

There are other candidates besides Lee who have the integrity to do this. Let’s support one of them.

Judith Ubsdell
Oakland

RFK Jr. could turn back
clock to before vaccines

Re: “Trump picks RFK Jr. to lead Dept. of Health and Human Services” (Page A1, Nov. 15).

Do we want vaccine-denier Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head HHS? I don’t think so.

Most people in the country now have no memory of living with childhood communicable diseases, but not me. I suffered through measles, chicken pox, mumps and rubella because there were no vaccines for these during my childhood.

However, I did miss the worst scourge of all — polio. Every winter during the early 1950s my mother lived in fear that I would contract polio and end up paralyzed or in an iron lung. She went door to door every year collecting for the March of Dimes supporting research for a vaccine. When the Salk vaccine came out when I was 6 years old, she had me at the health department ASAP for the shot.

So, do we really want to go back to pre-vaccine days? If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.

Peggy Moyers
Oakland

Cruelty toward migrants
replaces compassion

Re: “We must learn from our history, reject Trump ‘mass deportation’” (Page A6, Nov. 7).

California state Sen. Josh Becker warns President-elect Donald Trump’s planned mass deportation “ is a dangerous idea with potential to tear apart families, disrupt communities and inflict lasting trauma.”

In 1954, during Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency, “Operation Wetback” was conducted. Over 1 million Mexicans were deported back to Mexico after having come to our border seeking work. Military-style tactics were inflicted on these immigrants by Border Control, and the trauma this population experienced still reverberates to this day.

Most Americans are descendants of immigrants. Think about what a round-up and separation of your own family would look and feel like. Moreover, no one leaves home unless their very survival is at stake. Think about why your forebears left their country of origin.

Sadly, compassion has gone out the window and cruelty has replaced it.

Sharon Brown
Walnut Creek