Turkey and genocide: Letters to the editor, Nov. 20, 2019

Turkey has new genocide target

Let’s be clear: Kurds are no strangers to genocide with blood on their hands as Turkish henchmen during the Armenian Genocide.

Do I care about what happens to the Kurds? Absolutely!

When Turkey isolates its Kurds (pop. 10 million to 15 million) from their eastern lifeline, the real slaughter will begin. A Turkey for Turks does not include indigenous Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Jews, Cypriots.

It does not matter whether “Ottoman Turkey, the secular “Republic of Turkey” or its protégé, Azerbaijan. “Where you see destruction, death, robbery and violence, you know, the Turks passed there.” Victor Hugo

Photos are eerily similar. Civilian centers destroyed, family scenes of children and elderly, herded like cattle into the desert, roadside executions.

The United States helped my people in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide. Since then, we have denounced every new instance of “ethnic cleansing.” It is not an American value or in our country’s character. Unfortunately, we have yet to stand up to our principles and our word is suspect at best.

Our enormous resources give us the ability to influence what happens before we have blood on our hand. Nationalism can be used for so many positive outcomes, too bad.

Proposition 13 must be protected

Little tables with people urging you to sign their petitions are at a grocery store or hardware store near you. Do not sign the petition to put an initiative on the ballot to charge big business more property taxes. It does not matter what this measure is supposed to do, or if it will work exactly like you understand it to do, which these initiatives often don't. The only absolute here is that any property tax change will open the floodgates to overturn Prop. 13 and raise your property taxes.

Politicians would love for this to pass and give them the tools to do away with Prop. 13, which is what they have been trying to do for years.

Fresno PD a broken department

Unbelievable. The only words that come to mind.

As co-chair of Central California Criminal Justice Committee, 18 years, on police chiefs advisory board for 16 years, meeting with and involved in the recommendations the independent police auditor made to the city, I can say I love our city, truly care about our police and want them to be able to do their best for our community.

But our police department’s leadership has been broken, deficient, for many years now. From an excessive number of officer-involved shootings, to the city paying out over $20 million in lawsuits against police abuses over the last less than 10 years. That’s not including attorney fees and several other administrative costs.

Warsawski’s recent column in The Bee was spot on. Period. FPOA is nothing more than a rubber stamp for a past broken police dept.’s leadership, and most of Fresno knows this.

Hopes for more vegan options

I am writing to express my concern over the lack of vegan options in Fresno. There is a large movement to stop animal cruelty, environmental issues, and health issues that meat and dairy cause that is being discovered worldwide, and Fresno is slowly getting in on this issue. However, there could be much more progress made if restaurants wanted to put in the effort, and I highly encourage them to do so.

There are already delicious vegan options in Fresno, such as RawFresno and The Loving Hut, and I have also seen a vast menu expansion at Yardhouse with the addition of a vegan option with garden meat. While this is amazing to see, I still feel that the somewhat blank canvas of Fresno could be filled with many vegan delights, and open people up to this idea.

Documentaries such as “What The Health” and “The Gamechangers” have really opened my eyes to this idea, and I am excited to see if restaurant owners will begin to open their eyes to this concept as well, and have menus that are more inclusive. I am very excited to be discussing this topic, and hopefully something comes from this!

This story was originally published November 20, 2019 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Turkey and genocide: Letters to the editor, Nov. 20, 2019."