Marin IJ Readers’ Forum for March 5, 2023

All should support services for longer, healthier lives

At a time when we bemoan the degradation of our natural resources, it is incumbent on Marin County leadership to look for opportunities to renew and strengthen those resources. Our aging adults are one of them. For the foreseeable future, they may be our only naturally growing resource.

A recently published editorial (“Marin faces growing challenge of ‘silver tsunami’,” Feb. 26), pointed out the importance of learning how to support people in this life stage so Marin will continue to thrive. As a longtime Marin resident and gerontologist, I am heartened to see our county appears ready to grapple with this issue.

I strongly endorse giving the Division of Aging Services a seat at the decision-making table. Close to one in three residents are 60 or older, creating the need for an “aging lens” on a significant number of issues.

Focusing on closing the gaps is essential and will be successfully addressed by recognizing and investing in the potential of the multitudes of healthy, resourceful aging adults who are looking for ways to have a positive impact. The COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered the harmful effects of loneliness and social isolation. Recognizing and respecting individuals of every age and creating multi-generational solutions to current problems needs to be included in the ideation stage of planning for a healthy, vibrant county for all ages.

County supervisors proclaimed 2018 as the “year of the older adult.” I, for one, did not see much impact on the scale of what we can achieve. Although I consider myself to be age-agnostic, I don’t limit myself or others based on a chronological number, I’m committed to help make 2023 the year Marin becomes ready for our residents to experience longer, healthier lives. Please join me.

— Barbara Waxman, Kentfield

More White Americans need to confront racism

Racism is a symptom of psychological disorder. It indicates a lack of self-esteem and insecurity.

Those who are psychologically healthy have a stable sense of self and have no need to bolster their sense of self through group identity. They have no need to define themselves in contrast to and in conflict with others. America’s racist structure is not coincidental. It was purposely created to gain power and maintain power.

Racial inequality is the refusal among many White people to commit to an equitable distribution of resources. Those people may live their entire lives without even considering how non-White people live theirs. Before we can merge people of color and White people with truth and respect, and before we can change our Constitution to reflect “a more perfect union,” we must first challenge, change and quit deceiving ourselves.

In the end, racism is pure ignorance. It is an ignorance that morphs into fear, and that fear embellishes hatred. It becomes evil. Many White Americans are not only ignorant of racism, but are also ignorant of their own ignorance. They don’t know that they don’t know. They are ignorant of the persistence of racism because this ignorance serves their psychological and material interests.

— Dennis Kostecki, Sausalito

Biden’s words, actions should quiet his doubters

An unfortunate circumstance that comes with the privilege of the presidency is that one immediately inherits and takes blame for the errors, misjudgments and miscalculations of the previous administration. One must work to rectify them while putting in place one’s own agenda. In the end, it is history that renders the judgment as to success or failure.

President Joe Biden was criticized ruthlessly by former President Donald Trump for how he spoke. Listening to Trump, one might have believed the Democrats were about to nominate a man that could barely express a cogent idea. Biden put that ridicule to rest very quickly at the party’s convention in 2020, expressing in historically eloquent terms that “history had delivered America to one of the most difficult moments it had ever faced.”

Let us not forget that he took office amid a devastating pandemic and an economy reeling as badly as the Great Recession. More than 9 million jobs were lost due to the pandemic.

During President Biden’s tenure, the economy has erased that job loss with 12 million new jobs, over 700,000 of them in manufacturing. His social programs may eventually be compared to former President Lyndon Johnson’s “great society,” the infrastructure bill to rebuild this country. The inflation reduction act that targets climate change and allows medicare to negotiate drug prices is chief among them.

The lasting image for me is the recent one of the president, 80 years old, after a 10-hour train ride into Kyiv, air raid sirens in the background, standing up for Democracy and containment of Russian aggression. This will, indeed, be a presidential term to remember.

— Bruce Farrell Rosen, San Francisco