Avoiding the issues

I was one of the protesters who was arrested on last Friday at the Auraria Campus. I thought I would share my thoughts on the current situation.

The decision to needlessly assault and arrest dozens of protesters who were engaged in a peaceful, non-disruptive demonstration was shameful. The Mayor, the Auraria Campus leaders, and all others involved in this decision should seriously rethink their actions and apologize.

The protest had been completely peaceful, nothing was being disrupted, no one was being disturbed and there were no safety issues. It is a very serious thing to infringe on people’s right to assemble and should not be done lightly or over minor considerations. A campus policy against camping is no justification for such an aggressive response for anyone who actually values democracy and people’s right to express their political beliefs.

In making this decision city leaders showed that they do not understand the importance of this right. The truth is, these protests make them uncomfortable. The Israel-Palestine issue is very contentious. They know that the protests will lead to people on both sides of the issue speaking up and making noise and they would rather not have to deal with that. They would prefer to avoid the tension, and avoid the arguments, debates, and discussions that will ensue. But that is exactly how democracy is supposed to work. People are supposed to engage with each other and with their communities, especially on difficult subjects. The mayor and other city leaders would prefer to side-step the issue, while disregarding the values of our democracy and restricting people’s rights, and this is shameful.

Jonathan Kuhne

Denver

Connections between cultures

“Pro-Palestinian protesters occupy Auraria”, by Nico Brambila (April 26) states that in the chant ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ “Jews hear a clear demand for Israel’s annihilation.” This irresponsible and un-attributed conclusion recklessly perpetuates the dangerous conflation of pro-Palestinian protests with antisemitism.

Antisemitism is real and scary. A proud American Jew, I’ve experienced it personally. Brambila cited no specific examples, yet implied the entire protest was antisemitic. I see the student protestors at Auraria not as antisemitic, but courageously standing on the right side of history — despite attempts to silence them. My Jewish values and Jewish family’s experiences of ethnic cleansing and genocide call me to stand with them.

Meanwhile, what has the Gazette excluded? On April 21, Jewish Voice for Peace Denver/Boulder held a Liberation Seder at City Park. A reporter from the Gazette interviewed organizers beforehand, but didn’t attend and the event wasn’t covered.

At the Seder, more than 250 people gathered to observe Passover. We were mostly Jews, joined by allies and accomplices from diverse religious communities. We were families with babies and elders. Together we listened to harrowing stories of oppression and genocide shared by our Palestinian and Indigenous partners. We drew connections among the histories of Jews, Palestinians, and Indigenous Americans. And to close the Seder, we chanted together in Arabic, English, and Hebrew: “Min al-nahr ila al-bahr / Filastin satatharrar: From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” AND “l’shana ha-ba b’heroot: next year in freedom!”

Leah Bry

Denver

Benef

its of a stadium

We love sports, sitting down on the couch on a Sunday night to cheer on the Cowboys or the Bills or even watch our team march all the way to the NBA finals or World series. We love it when our teams win, and in turn so do the cities.

Games will bring in fans from across the country, encouraging spending and increasing business within the city, so to ensure teams stay, cities will stretch their budget to provide new stadiums, practice facilities and gyms for their home teams.

Thus, investing in the infrastructure that supports our teams becomes not merely an expense but an investment in the heart and soul of our communities, ensuring that the bond between city and team remains strong for generations.

Gavin Andra

Boulder

Colorado elections

Two recent things have shown that it’s time for Colorado to create a State Board of Elections to manage its elections, and transfer the resources from the Secretary of State to it.

The first is the partisan effort of the current Colorado Secretary of State to get Donald Trump taken off the Colorado ballot shows why it’s time for Colorado to abandon it’s bad public policy model of how its elections are run.

The second is a court ruling in favor of the organization Judicial Watch obtaining a judgment against the Colorado Secretary of State requiring that Colorado’s voting rolls should be regularly cleaned.

In general, a State Board of Elections managing a state’s elections is better than a a partisan elected Secretary of State.

If we as a country are not going to have our elections managed on a national basis, and are going to have our elections managed on a more local state basis, then each of those state basis should be as good as possible.

The entity at the top of Elections Management should not be one person, such as the Secretary of State, but should be a group of persons, as in a State Board of Elections, preferably consisting of three who are Republicans, three who are Independents or Unaffiliated, and three who are Democrats.

I’m calling for both a Colorado State Representative and a Colorado State Senator, or either party, to introduce bills in their chambers for a Colorado State Board of Elections, so hearings can be held, it can be passed, and the Governor can sign it into law.

Steven Schaefer

Boulder