Readers Write: Political disagreement, rail lines, Pangea World Theater, courage

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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At a time when Americans are increasingly told that political disagreement requires social exile, Aaron Brown’s column about Karl Oberstar Jr. and Matt Matasich is not just moving — it is instructive (“Despite arguments and heartbreak, bipartisan friendship shows the way,” Strib Voices, Dec. 24).

These were two men who argued fiercely about politics, history and power. Their disagreements were not academic; they were shaped by family trauma, lived experience and deeply held beliefs. And yet those differences did not prevent them from building a 40-year friendship grounded in community, faith, shared culture — and the simple discipline of staying at the table after conflict.

They argued loudly. Then one of them made popcorn.

That detail should stop us cold. Today’s political culture rewards outrage, purity tests and cutting people off. We are encouraged to believe that eliminating those who disagree with us is the same as standing for our values. It is not. Democracy does not survive on unanimity; it survives on relationships strong enough to endure disagreement.

Oberstar and Matasich did not compromise their convictions. They practiced something far rarer: respect without surrender and loyalty without ideological conformity.

We should take this lesson seriously — before more is lost than friendships.

Jane Schneeweis, Mahtomedi

The Metropolitan Council has achieved what once seemed impossible: making our region’s transit planning appear both timid and reckless at the same time.

We are shutting down the Northstar commuter rail — a $317 million investment that delivered just 16 years of service before being declared too expensive and underused. At the same time, the Southwest Light Rail Transit project limps toward completion, having ballooned from a $1.25 billion estimate to more than $2.7 billion in actual costs, years behind schedule and still counting.

The irony is hard to miss. On one line, trains are being replaced with buses. On another, we’re told that buses simply won’t suffice — no matter the price. The logic, such as it is, goes unexplained.

And then there’s the tunnel: a many-million-dollar monument to former Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, who championed this project for decades. It has a certain Soviet flair — celebrating ambition rather than achievement, and immortalizing the planner while the public continues to question the plan itself.

At least when Moscow named infrastructure after failed leaders, they could blame totalitarianism. What’s our excuse?

Mitchell Johnson, Minneapolis

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Imagine what the $9 billion potentially lost through the Minnesota fraud scandal could have done. With all the construction overruns we could have built three more Green Line light-rail extensions that will probably lose even more money if they ever open.

I am writing to honor, give thanks and pay respect to the team of Pangea World Theater. I recently attended an evening of new works as part of its Milkweed productions and was deeply moved by what this theater offers our communities. It is one of many times that I have attended its events and left wondering why more community members of all ages are not at each of its productions. Its work is profoundly relevant to these times and without question give us pathways to heal, navigate and create a world where all beings can thrive.

Pangea World Theater’s commitment to justice, cultural truth and community-rooted storytelling models what it looks like to resist destruction in our world without replicating it — to respond to violence, erasure and despair with presence, beauty and courage. Its work nourishes a sense of shared responsibility and possibility at a time when many feel disconnected and dehumanized.

At this moment when dignity and liberty are under increasing attack — when the language of exclusion and fear is becoming increasingly normalized — Pangea’s work insists on something quietly radical: the full humanity of people, cultures and stories that are too often erased or dismissed as well as reverence and care for the sacred earth. Through Milkweed, Pangea created spaces where grief and resilience coexist, and where audiences are invited into deeper listening and remembering together.

Here in our city, as many communities work to resist the terrorizing presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other forces that threaten safety and freedom, this kind of cultural work matters deeply. In an era of heightened threats to fundamental freedoms, this work is not ornamental — it is essential.

I am profoundly grateful that such work exists in our region, and I hope it continues to be supported, witnessed and celebrated. We need spaces and creative communities like this — where complexity is honored, memory is held with care and the future is imagined through meaningful relationships rather than fear.

While we are some days past Dec. 25, this is a time when we usually still have residual goodwill. The full impact of the coming year has not yet hit us. Whatever the faith, it is supposed to be a time of peace and reflection.

Instead, this year, we have chaos and recrimination. Wars and rumors of wars. Pledges broken, citizens terrorized, truth forgotten. This is not who we are. If we are concerned with illegal immigration, why not spend some of the billions allocated for immigration control on immigration courts, immigration judges and humane treatment? Why simply send out an ill-trained, all-powerful government militia to round up anyone who looks different? Where are the dangerous “aliens”? The children, the mothers, the grandmothers, the folks who are trying to follow the guidelines for legal immigration? Are they the enemy? Or are we?

People are trying to stand up, to protest what is happening. In the past, it was the people who finally brought change in the face of injustice, prejudice and cruelty. Everyday people — people who saw the need for change and demanded it. In the streets, in the courts, at the ballot box.

At this point, I ask those in power, have you no decency left? The answer is clearly no. But the people who are standing up, who are protecting those who cannot protect themselves, who are showing up to be a witness, they have a wealth of decency, of courage, of kindness, of mercy. And in the final analysis, that is where victory lies.