Letters: 4/14/16

Please sign this petition
Operators of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge want the Rocky Mountain Greenway — a trail for hiking, biking and horseback riding — to pass through the Refuge on land that is contaminated with plutonium. Please sign this petition calling for the Greenway to go around Rocky Flats, not through it. To sign, please go here.
Please circulate to others.
LeRoy Moore/Boulder

Anderson & Clinton
Dave Anderson’s recent column about Hillary Clinton’s bellicose foreign policy career [Re: “Good judgment or Clinton,” April 7] should be taken seriously.

Personally, I think 17 words will eventually sink the Clinton candidacy: Honduras; Libya; Egypt; Syria; Ukraine; Afghanistan; Iraq; Palestine; Responsibility to Protect (R2P); “We came, we saw, he died”.

In the cases of Honduras and Ukraine, Clinton’s functionaries in the State Department developed and implemented putsches that overthrew two democratically elected governments, which were replaced by far-right neoliberal regimes with close ties to military extremists. The security situation for the common people living in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan deteriorated dramatically during Hillary’s tour at State.

On a per capita basis, Libya — pre-Clinton — was the wealthiest state in Africa. Qaddafi made the unpardonable mistakes of promoting an African Union that challenged Western vulture capitalism, and of advocating a pan-African currency that would challenge the viability of the dollar and European currencies such as the franc.

R2P is Washington Establishment/NATO code for militaristic Western imperialism in the guise of neoliberal economics, strategic control of petroleum and natural gas resources and other extractive minerals, and the pipelines and networks to bring them to market.

Her quotation cited above was gleefully uttered after she was informed about the vicious extrajudicial murder of Qaddafi, a foreign head of state. Those six words were publicly uttered by a serving U.S. secretary of state. Think about that when Clinton’s qualifications for president are discussed.

For those not familiar with Ms. Ghastly’s abysmal public service record, I suggest reading Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton, by Paris-based American journalist Diana Johnstone. It’s a real eye-opener.
Dave Morton/Longmont

Buy local food
Recently, the 2016 Boulder and Longmont Farmers Markets opened up for the first time this year. This annual farmers market is supplied by local Colorado farmers. Buying from a farmers market instead of a big grocery chain not only helps local business and regular hard working people, but it also can help the environment greatly.

Growing locally and then transporting that produce directly to the customer skips many, carbon releasing steps that a big industrial farm takes to get food to your plate. According to a study done by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture on 16 common fruits and vegetables, on average the food travelled 1500 miles before being sold. Knowing that the average 18 wheeler get around 5 miles per gallon of fuel this is adds up to about 300 gallons of fossil fuels burnt to get a single truck of produce to a store.

Along with the environmental impact buying from farmers markets can help the local economy and leads to a much healthier, more natural diet. I encourage anyone living nearby to skip the big chain grocery store and shop at their local farmers market whenever possible. The Boulder market will run from 8 a.m to 2 p.m every Saturday through November 5th and Wednesdays starting May 4th and the Longmont market will run form 8 a.m to 1 p.m on Saturdays. Start supporting the Farm to Table movement!
Kyle Manley/Boulder

The axe
Let’s see. The effects of climate change include such things as severe drought, sea level rise and mass extinctions of species, but we are supposed to be concerned because its going to mess up ice climbing in Colorado? Wow! I’m not sure I live on the same planet as you.

Also, while Yvon Chouinard was instrumental in the advancement of climbing equipment, he would laugh at the notion that he invented the ice axe. People had been climbing with ice axes long before Yvon was even born.
Harv Mastalir/Black Hawk, CO