Letter to the editor?

[grandpa]

Hello. Should I dare send this letter to the local newspaper? It tackles a wide variety of topics. I wonder if sending sucha thing could jeopardize my social standing, especially in a small town. I would like your thoughts on it first before I send it, however:

"We are expected to believe 9-11 somehow granted our expansionist government legitimacy. But it's not a perfect legitimacy, by any means. Like Al-Qaeda or any other forceful entity that violates freedom and decency, the main thing granting it legitimacy is force and a fear to ask questions. Here's a sample question: How legitimate is a war against someone like Saddam, who we supported during his vicious Anfal campaign against Kurds, whose population we crippled with UN sanctions and punished yet again by extensive bombing campaigns? But surely all those civilian deaths were accidents. We kill people by accident when bombing major cities such as Baghdad. Though we did a great deal of damage to Iraq, we can still take credit if things get repaired later on.

Nowadays, I'm told our job is to observe the President and carefully follow the instructions.Bush will be fully insulated from his own follies so long as the general public behaves like obedient children, marveling at the flags, parades and fireworks. A flag is merely a fabric with a design on it. It can wave in the wind and look cute, but that's expected of fabric. But like Bush himself, flags, parades and marches are a distraction. To honor tyranny, we must actively participate in it, which most of us do. The war movement happens because people choose to pay for it, choose to enlist in its cause and are willing to honor the artifice involved generally.

We humiliate ourselves by submitting to the status quo. We'd be smarter to reject all rival forces threatening to tear us to shreds. Let’s unmask the liars. We should challenge all abstract entities, including our own government and all the serious threats they dangle in front of our interactions (including the force behind debt creation, credit histories, property taxes, rent and evictions). We must challenge convenient myths. For example, the government does not secure freedom of speech, people do. In fact, they do it generally against the censors of the time (including the FCC). Another myth: Poor Mexicans pose a threat to America. What we should be challenging is any absract entity that calls people "illegal,” especially when we are flying around the world in blatant hypocrisy, dropping bombs. Americans are more certain to face crises when they unquestionably submit to institutions that exist to create conflict in our lives."

Wade Wainio

[Scribbler1]

It's a good letter, but you need to decide on your own whether to send it in or not. If you feel it will cost you more than it's worth in your small town, do not think it is cowardly on your part to not send it.
I applaud you for the guts to lay it on the line if you DO send it, and if you don't you can just work on people on a one-to-one basis instead.
Actually, the second option is a more productive outlet for your concern anyway. As someone who has had dozens of such letters printed in my local paper I can tell you with a small amount of authority that a letter to the editor does nothing more than make YOU feel good.

It accomplishes nothing.


Besides, there is no guarantee they will print it anyway.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Scribbler1 It's a good letter, but you need to decide on your own whether to send it in or not. If you feel it will cost you more than it's worth in your small town, do not think it is cowardly on your part to not send it. I applaud you for the guts to lay it on the line if you DO send it, and if you don't you can just work on people on a one-to-one basis instead. Actually, the second option is a more productive outlet for your concern anyway. As someone who has had dozens of such letters printed in my local paper I can tell you with a small amount of authority that a letter to the editor does nothing more than make YOU feel good. It accomplishes nothing. Besides, there is no guarantee they will print it anyway.

It's good people understand my scenario. But here's the thing: If I were still a teenager I'd send it without any fear. I think as I'm getting older I'm getting more cowardly. Anyway, I did send a letter before that was somewhat similar and it did get printed. Other than that, I've debated creationists quite successfully in the paper.

Grandpa h.

[Nono]

Bit of advice from an inveterate writer of letters to the editor:

Not everyone is on your wavelenghth, so develop your argument. Don't wade right in with "our expansionist government" in the very first sentence. Lotsa people will read no further, trust me.

Second, keep it simple. Don't try to tackle too many subjects in one go. Your point is to grab people's attention and hold it (isn't it?).

Third, avoid abstract words like "abstract".

Lastly, give the editor something to take out, the removal of which won't fatally weaken your letter. This is an art. It has to be planted just so. But they WILL want to cut something.

And be prepared for them to make you look like a fool by misspelling something you spelled right.

[Scribbler1]

I disagree, and I don't care if you ARE an invertebrate. I used to think some letter writers were morons until I saw a few of my own, bruised and bleeding on the op-ed page. It doesn't matter what you write as they have the final say, ESPECIALLY when they say things like "letters may be edited for space or clarity".
I say, keep it short and keep it TIGHT. This way they can't tinker with it without changing it entirely. But sometimes they do, which brings me to rule #2. Don't use your full name. Something like J. R. Letterwriter allows you to weasel out of taking responsibility is the letter looks like crap. "What do you mean that's me just because my name is John Letterwriter. It could just as easily be JAMES Letterwriter." Even better, use a fake nickname, like J."Bud" Letterwriter.

Or just forget about the whole thing and start a blog.

[grandpa]

They actually printed my letter!

Grandpa h.

[Milton Bradley]

That letter will probably win you some new enemies, but then again, they were probably already your enemies unbeknownst to you anyway. However, now you have effectively blown your cover, so I'd look for some bad hair cuts, or other forms of retribution from the closet fascists in the future. ( Fascists can be rather petty, childish, and vindictive. )

[Scribbler1]

Are they ALL barbers though?

"Well Andy, it looks like we got ourselves a radical here in Mayberry, oh yeeeess."

[grandpa]

Quote by: Milton Bradley That letter will probably win you some new enemies, but then again, they were probably already your enemies unbeknownst to you anyway. However, now you have effectively blown your cover, so I'd look for some bad hair cuts, or other forms of retribution from the closet fascists in the future. ( Fascists can be rather petty, childish, and vindictive. )

Well, I was debating a Republican in a gas station this morning and he was actually understanding of my views. I think more peopel understand them than I'm given credit for by certain people. But I am just tired of rightwing and religious people dominating the
op-eds. I thought it was time for a more moderate radical to take a turn.

Grandpa h.

[grandpa]

Not long ago I wrote another letter to the editor where I said the flag means no more to me than a good roll of Charmin. That got a lot of replies, so here is my latest reply to them:
Flag tales


Flag tales
To the editor:

Again, I call the flag fabric because it is fabric. Apparently, it is controversial to point out such pesky elementary truths.

I don’t worship or respect any flag because to do so is inherently irrational. I am not superstitious enough to grant flags magical properties, such as believing they somehow symbolize freedom, justice or whatever.

They don’t. If people tell me differently they are simply out of touch with reality. The nature of patriotism is to create an obedient population. Children pledge allegiance because the adult world stupidly puts children in that position. People may stand to the flag with their hands over the hearts, but that means they are, above all else, obedient. As a symbol of national unity, the anthem is played at the beginning of all sporting events. But if you care to look, every country has attempted to brainwash its population into patriotism. Just like every sports team is supposed to be number one, every country also will proclaim itself as the best — or at least as constantly on the march to freedom.

This is, of course, a feel-good, macho lie. But let’s keep in mind the flag statement was merely a side comment, yet the Gazette editors — who apparently aren’t interested in the greater points of an article —based the title on it.

The main point of my other letters was: There has been a blatant effort to march away from human liberties and into war on a global scale and into blind submission to whatever agenda the State capitalists (or state communists, whichever term you prefer) have for the rest of the population. For those who rent government power, we are certainly going to see more flag-draped coffins.

People are expendable to the system, if not totally subhuman. A human being becomes a statistic, a credit rating or a means for some abstract goal to be reached. Any capacity to think or act independently is coincidental and generally frowned upon.

Still, an existence where practically everyone is made dependent on state and corporate power is not even vaguely controversial, but heaven forbid I criticize abstract symbolism. Liberty will only endure so long as patriotism and other tools for brainwashing don’t crush it.

If anyone can actually prove these points wrong, then do so.

WADE WAINIO
Hancock, MI

[Compugasm]

Quote by: grandpa Hello. Should I dare send this letter to the local newspaper?

Use a fake name, reverse the first letters in your first and last name.

[Milton Bradley]

Thats a nice letter Gramps, lets hope it makes somebody think outside the box.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Milton Bradley Thats a nice letter Gramps, lets hope it makes somebody think outside the box.

It would be nice. I live in an area where peopel are so isolated from radical ideas (especially when rational matters come into play) they certainly need the exposure.

Grandpa h.

[grandpa]

Hey, I figured I'd share this one. I DIDN'T write it but it's in the local newspaper. It shows how great writers can be found even in isolated pockets of the world just by leafing through newspapers.
This one has an almost transcendant quality to it--a great style.

Omitted To the editor: The United States Postal Service has issued a number of souvenir sheets in its Nature of America series showing diverse ecosystems and their denizens, including pine forests and Arctic Tundra, but has left uncommemorated the wide variety of plants and animals dwelling in the “asphalt jungle” that would make a fine (vista) for one of these. For, as “Show dog still on the man in N.Y.” (Nov. 24) hints, tropical New-York in particular boasts not just the usual stockbrokers and rats, pigeons and pink-sweatered Park-Avenue Pomeranians, and Brooklyn’s lonely tree, but a virtual Noah’s-Ark of exotic fugitives. While still wishing for Vivi’s safety, one can marvel at the hawks and howls that rouse one out of a sound sleep at the “vending hotel,” the alligators flushed as infants only to grow to preternatural dimension in that lost city below Fifth Avenue familiar to us only from Futurama. Searching for her among the record stores of Queens, questioning Alphabet-City prostitutes and the Chelsea butchers from whom she may have nipped sausages, scouring Fresh Kill’s forlorn reeds for her cold trace, we hear at a great distance the coyote’s saddest song. CHEVALIER DANIEL C. BOYER Houghton

[grandpa]

Following is a letter that irked me and my response, which I will likely submit to the same paper:

Comments wrong To the editor: “Lucky Lindy” Lindberg went from being an American hero for flying alone across the Atlantic to persona non grata when, after visiting Adolf Hitler, he praised der fuehrer in an speech to the German-American Bund. From then on, Lindberg hid from the public eye. Now, it’s Jimmy Carter, respected for his work for Habitat for Humanity and acting as a referee/observer at foreign elections, who has discredited himself with his book condemning Israel. He blames Israel for all the problems with the Palestinians and improperly calls Israel’s defense of its right to exist a parallel to South Africa’s racist apartheid. Carter forgets that about a million Arabs live peacefully in Israel while no Jew may live in Jordan, the state carved out of the original Palestinian British mandate. Just as Lindberg retreated to the relative anonymity of life in the territory of Hawaii, Carter should go back to the peanut farm and stay out of public life. Like Lindberg and his admiration of Hitler, Carter’s apologetics for terrorists are not welcome here. HARLEY SACHS Portland, Ore

Response to HARLEY SACHS.

If we want, we can compare anyone opposed to Israel's action to Charles Lindbergh, label them anti-Semites or "un-American." Apparently, it's proper to ignore that some citizens in Israel also oppose Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
Could all such spokespeople and leaders be compared with the German-American Bund? Only dishonestly.
As for whether or not Israel's actions are akin to apartheid, we should consider that Israel and the United States supported South African apartheid itself.

If anyone’s interested in examining the kind of hatred that fuels the Israel-Palestinian conflict, we need not focus solely on the hate and violence from the Palestinians (which no doubt exists). An interesting exercise is to do a Google search for "Palesimians." If you do the unfiltered search with all results included, 39 pages of web links appear, and obviously not coming from only one source and undoubtedly not all occurrences are intended jokingly. This no doubt means something, but we're supposed to ignore it, of course.

Other terms used: Camel jockey, dune coon, raghead and the “sand n-word.”

Instead of looking at the facts, which rarely condemn only one side in conflict (if ever), we're supposed to focus on the Palestinian Arabs who cannot "find leadership that is committed to peace with Israel," a state that we’re supposed to unquestionably believe is committed to peace (all state spokespeople claim to support peace, of course).

However, instead of waging and supporting state terrorism overseas, Americans could be more concerned about the ongoing erosion of our own society due to the growth of our state power, which has essentially made Iraq into a terrorist haven (for example, suicide bombing was not common there until we invaded) and correspondingly places us in jeopardy. Our support for Israel is no doubt contributing to conflicts in the world, just as surely as this alliance had supported South African Apartheid. Israel has employed group punishment of Palestinians, economic strangulation and recently effectively bombed Lebanon to bits.
Bad consequences can be predicted from such fatal policies.

One final note: The Carter Administration’s arms support for Indonesia’s slaughter of the East Timorese was far worse than his calling into question’s Israel’s actions.

Sources:
Drew Middleton. "SOUTH AFRICA NEEDS MORE ARMS, ISRAELI SAYS", New York Times, December 14, 1981.

Tutu, D., and Urbina, I.. "Against Israeli apartheid.", The Nation, 2002.

Carter’s support of Indonesian slaughter:
200,000 Skeletons in Richard Holbrooke’s Closet