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What They've Thought
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What They Thought September 5, 2004... R.A.
Hawkins Click here for columnist bios |
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Dear John (An Open letter to one of the Johns) Dear John, I was quite amused at your comments regarding Dick Cheney’s military record versus yours. You seem to be upset that people keep pointing out that you’re unfit for command. I believe you said that your two tours of duty would speak for your record. If four and a half months makes up two tours of duty my oldest son has already had two tours of duty in Iraq. Unlike you he is volunteering to go back. Using your math (which explains a lot about you by the way), my youngest son has now had seven tours of duty in Iraq. You have been most vociferous about the swiftboat ads and very silent about your friend George Soros. I know you also love Michael Moore’s dishonest work and are quite pleased with the things he so often makes up. You are unfit for command. I heard that you think we needed to open a dialogue with the terrorists instead of shooting back. I would like to point out that they opened a dialogue with us when they hit the World Trade center the first time. What exactly is it that you want to say to them in this dialogue? They’ve been talking to us for quite a while now. I was mildly amused when you stated that the European Union wants to cut a deal with Iran to thwart their nuclear dreams. In case you haven’t noticed that didn’t work very well with North Korea. They have announced their intentions to even supply the terrorists with nuclear weapons. They got a bit quieter after Iraq. You often say that the country is ready to change course. If that’s the case, why do you keep bringing up all of those idiotic failed policies? Most of you on the left were very upset when Bush announced he was stepping back from the ABM treaty. You want to talk about failed policies? That’s a doozey. We in the west followed it and you left-wingers thought Russia did, too. They ignored it. You passed laws that made it illegal to keep track of groups which are hostile to the United States, and virtually all security investigations were shut down. Look at us now. I’m more than a little disinterested when I hear you question the abilities of the FBI. You and yours were the ones that screwed it up in the first place. I know you’re very concerned about the possible disenfranchising of voters in Florida. The ones you’re probably most concerned about are the some sixty thousand voters who vote in both New York and Florida. As you’re probably aware because you read such things in New York papers with a sense of delight, sixty-eight percent of those people are Democrats, sixteen percent Republicans and sixteen percent the standard independent who is a rudderless citizen and votes based on last minute emotions. Just a suggestion here between you and me: Maybe you could get a bunch of votes in Florida by passing a law that will make it illegal for hurricanes to go there. Those that can’t follow simple instructions like removing chads from their ballots could easily be swayed by passage of such foolishness. I’m certain that you’re starting to detect a pattern here. Yes, I think you are an idiot. You are most definitely unfit for command no matter what anyone says. I’m just curious. Have you ever held a real job? I mean other than finding a richer woman to run off with? Most of us have to work so we aren’t too pleased to see you talking about undoing Bush’s tax relief. This is the dialogue you opened with us. I really have to wonder what stupidity would be in any dialogue you decide to open with the terrorists. What a brilliant tactician. I just thought I’d drop you a line to tell you that your dialogue isn’t with me. I have values and they are solid. You and the other John are really no more than a couple of Johns out for the night. Your dialogue is more with the rudderless members of our society. Those are the people to whom you speak. You appeal to those who are tantalized by the thoughts of OPM (pronounced like opium) or Other Peoples Money. You have shown yourself to be a Socialist and as such are unfit for command. Sincerely, R. A. Hawkins PS. Looks like that disarm America law is about to go away doesn’t it. R.A. Hawkins Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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Kerry and his Democrat wailers are nothing but a bunch of crybabies. Kerry has been quoted as saying more than once, "Bring it on!" So when it gets brought on, what does Kerry and his attack dogs do? They start whining instead of pushing back with facts to refute "The Swiftboat Veterans." Kerry cries to a firefighters' union conference in Boston: "The president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that!" Waaaaaaaaaaaa! On August 19, Kerry wailed while throwing ashes and rending his clothes, that the president has his front groups "do his dirty work" in questioning his military service during the Vietnam War. It would seem to Kerry and the wailers that the Swiftboat guys and their book, "Unfit for Command," has been too much of a touch of truth. Better still, Kerry has former President Bill Clinton (who perjured himself and was disbarred while in office) piously preaching to a congregation in Riverside, "Sometimes I think our friends on the other side have become the people of the Nine Commandments. It is wrong to bear false witness." (NY Times 8/30/04). Yes, Bill and John, it is. So the ads are funded heavily by Republican supporters, the ads are still independent from the Bush campaign. Big deal! The gentleman who wrote the book had it released around the time of John Kerry's rah, rah convention—big deal! Hasn't Kerry wrapped himself up in a war that took place some thirty years ago anyway? "My name is John Kerry, and I served in Vietnam," has been his mantra, so why shouldn't John O' Neill and other Veterans be pissed off that Kerry came back after his four-month stint and three purple hearts to begin lambasting his fellow patriots with Fonda-istic bra-burning diatribe? O' Neill has had a bone of contention (a Houston Chronicle article reported that, in 1971, Richard Nixon and top aide Charles W. Colson turned to O'Neill to discredit Kerry, the veteran turned leader of the leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War) running since Kerry came back and unloaded his own guilty conscience on the American public for war atrocities he was part of. O' Neill hasn't a thing to do with President Bush. O' Neill's previous votes were for Perot and Gore. If the only connection the Kerry wailers can make is that Republicans contributed monies to the ad campaign of the Swiftboat Veterans, so what? If the one big 527 ad campaign running against Kerry and his claim to "why you should vote for me" (Vietnam, purple hearts, bronze star, peace lover) is what causes liberals to cry, "Not fair!" then y'all need to wipe your snotty noses and use Visine to get the red out of your tearful eyeballs. Tantrum time is over, you big babies. If O'Neill and the other Vets who served within the same group of swiftboats aren't telling the truth, crybaby Johnny, then disprove them and stop whining about President Bush needing to denounce the ads. Bush has never questioned your service of four months and your three purple hearts. Your compadres— who you stabbed in the back and caused much undo grief when they returned home over thirty years ago—did, and still do! Answer them instead of finger pointing. Not once have we heard President Bush or his administration whine over the MoveOn.org ads (all sponsored with monies from the Democrats' George Soros). Yes, the conservatives stated they didn't like Bush being compared to Hitler, but whine about it? They did not; they stood their ground and said, "Prove it." When has the conservative party cried about all the nasty things said by the far-left from Hollywood? Whoopi, Moore, Franken, and other rich socialists can refer to Bush as a part of the female anatomy, or call him a liar, or support those who continually lambaste and rant over our President's intentions. It's okay for the liberals to spend their monies on 527 ads, to attack as sharks in a feeding frenzy, to participate in the bloodletting and witch hunt of those who believe in our President and his direction. But don't you dare step outside what a liberal believes! the liberals will shout, "Off with their heads! Cut out their tongues!" and then strangle our rights to believe in and espouse conservative ideals. Does the freedom of speech only apply to liberal lips? The majority of liberals are nothing but whining hypocrites. If you can't take the heat and answer without crying, then get out of the kitchen. The American people have had enough of your double-tongued, two-faced radical tantrums. It's time to either prove what really occurred during those four short months of service to our country thirty years ago, or just shut up. We don't want to listen to your sniveling anymore. This election isn't about what happened during 'Nam, three purple hearts, or John Kerry's bashing of our service men and women. It's about America now, terrorism now, and our economy now, stupid. Get it? Got it? Good! Now move on. Kerry L. Marsala Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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It
feels so good to be out of touch.
Last Thursday I went to Best Buy and brought home a brand new TV. Flat screen. Twenty-seven inches. I would love to say I rushed home and watched it, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. It weighed down my car (with a little help from the new kitchen table in my trunk). But suffice it to say, I drove home as quickly as the laws of physics would allow. And it wasn’t more than a minute after plugging in my new Toshiba that I realized, gosh darn it, nothing was on. Not that this stopped me from watching. Hell, no. Heaven forbid. In college I learned there are two types of television viewing: one’s called “instrumental” (where you turn on the TV for something specific), and the other’s called “ritual” (where you turn on the TV for the sake of turning on the TV). And last Thursday? I was a ritual viewer. I was going to watch TV whether I liked it or not—having plunked down a couple of hundred bucks for the privilege of doing so. So first I tried watching some preseason football. The Eagles were playing the Steelers on ABC. This lasted about ten minutes. Maybe less. I find it incredibly hard to watch a whole preseason football game. In fact, I find it incredibly hard to watch any whole football game—before, during, or after the regular season. And don’t get me started on the arena league. These games are so damn long. They go to commercial after every other down. I think I saw a single play during the entire ten minutes I tried to watch. I can’t stand that. They might as well start a Commercial Channel and take breaks every now and then for 60 seconds of football. At least then there’d be honesty in advertising. Anyway, I’m told the Steelers won. Next, I tried watching “The Simple Life,” on Fox. God bless this network for continually pumping out the nation’s most thought-provoking programs. First “Temptation Island;” now this. I guess what I was watching was “The Simple Life 2,” if you want to get technical. But either way, it’s a coming-of-age reality-TV show about two young women, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, who travel the country in the spirit of Kerouac, looking for adventure, narrowly avoiding the perils of maturity. I kept waiting for them to join hands and drive straight off a cliff in an effort to strengthen their friendship, but, sadly, they never did. I then realized ESPN was broadcasting the same Steelers-Eagles game as ABC. So I tried watching it again. It didn’t last. Then I stumbled upon a handful of news channels—FNC, CNBC, CNN, etc. All of them were talking about the exact same thing, which made me wonder why I needed more than one news channel to begin with. But anyway, the topic was John Kerry. Apparently there’s some controversy nowadays about his military record. And apparently I missed the boat on this story because I’ve been too busy getting married, moving, and vacationing outside the country—selfish acts in an election year. So I went ahead and watched for about five minutes as Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes presented both sides of the issue at very high decibels on Fox News. I then flipped to one of the peacock networks and watched some lady named Deborah Norville talk from both sides of her mouth. Finally, I switched to Dennis Miller, who was having the most meaningful conversation of all. He was wearing a chef’s hat. That’s when I gave up. And that’s when I realized I have no idea what’s going on in the world of politics right now. I don’t know who said what, or who pissed off whom. I don’t know who’s leading in the polls. And I have no idea what this John Kerry/Swift Boat story is all about. And you know what? I don’t care. I’m out of touch and loving every minute of it. I used to figure the type of people who watched “The Simple Life” were the type of people who tuned out of politics, who were therefore “ruining the country” with their “ignorance,” “apathy,” and “incessant use of quote marks.” But looking back, I think I was wrong. It’s the people who think they’re “making a difference” by supporting politicians who will give your money away. It’s the gung-ho political junkies who will send your kids to war. These are the people we need to look out for. Apathetic couch potatoes? Well, they’re more like the Monkees. They’re too busy singing—dancing, channel surfing, or whatever—to put anybody down. This isn’t a rant against politics, though. It’s a rant against the news networks themselves. Life seems generally better without them. The world no longer seems like it’s coming to an end every hour on the hour. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think we should ignore world events altogether. But the 24-hour news channels don’t exactly represent what’s going on in the world. They represent made-for-TV controversies—like the Swift Boat scandal, or the one about George Bush and the National Guard. They represent random human interest stories, blown up and looked at, and looked at again, as if it makes a difference to anyone, anywhere, outside the households of those involved. Take Scott Peterson, for instance. Does anyone other than Dan Abrams actually care about this trial? Does anyone other than Greta Van Susteren think it matters in the grand scheme of things? If so, why? It’s nobody’s business how this trial goes. Look, I like television. I’m not one of these two-bit, anti-idiot-box social commentators who will tell you how good it is to turn off the tube and read. I like reading; I’m a writer, after all. But I also like TV. And I really don’t care if watching too much of it rots my brain. Let it rot. I wasn’t going to use it anyway. But that said, digital cable and satellite have really expanded our options. You don’t need me to tell you that this is why news channels have adopted a “news entertainment” model, focusing on ratings instead of reporting. But it’s also why networks of all kinds try so hard to carve out a social niche. Take ESPN, for example. They’re celebrating their 25th Anniversary this year. The bulk of their programming is now based on the premise that sports history conveniently dates back 25 years. Then there’s MTV, which routinely cheers its own social impact with shows about the importance of its shows. Talk about mastering the art of propaganda; Goebbels would be a very jealous man. A decade ago, MTV invented a genre with the debut of “The Real World.” A few years later, a cast member passed away from AIDS, and MTV News was there to tell us how much this meant to the MTV Generation. They haven’t stopped mentioning it since. What an ingenious marketing gimmick. Ever notice there’s no such thing as the “Food Network Generation?” And yet food is much more vital to human existence than music (to the extent that MTV still plays music). So you tell me whose marketing team has done the better job. The point is, to some degree, CNN and Fox News do the same thing. Are they in the reality TV business? No. But they act like they’re windows into what moves the American people. That’s their niche. That’s the vital service they claim to provide. And therein lies the problem with presenting an election like a locker-room spat between two teenage drama queens. Fox News is so wrapped up in its “You Decide 2004” shtick that it fails to note how the choice between Bush and Kerry isn’t really a choice at all. Republicans and Democrats get on the air and accuse the other party’s guy of being a war criminal, and meanwhile no one comes on and says, “Hey, they’re both war criminals, and we’d be better off without them.” Instead we get Sean Hannity with his arrogant eyebrows and liberal use of the phrase “all you liberals.” And we get Alan Colmes with his look-at-me-I’m-fair-because-I’m-balanced-and-make-concessions-whenever-my-partner-talks-louder-than-me attitude. Who the hell are these people? Why the hell should we care about them? The skies seem brighter whenever they’re not on. Jonathan David Morris Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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So says the latest reinvented panderer, a nefarious siren, from the clan of America's most disgraced political family. What a legacy from the extended progeny of the dysfunctional. But she is not speaking about mere policy direction. No; she is consumed with offending the common sense of the residents in "The Old Line State". Their motto is "Fatti maschii, parole femine" which can be interpreted as "strong deeds, gentle words" - it used to be interpreted as "manly deeds, womanly words" but it was officially reinterpreted in January, 2001. This Black-Eyed Susan practiced the same carpet bag strategy that dear old dad used when RFK ran in New York State. No doubt she learned her form of bleeding heart mania on papa's knee. But her propensity to insult and offend may well have been perfected under the tutelage of Teddy the Lifeguard, the uncle that only drink can rescue. Consider the contention from Alan Gottlieb of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
This argument seems even mild. The fitting conclusion sound minded citizens should adopt is that the entire gun issue has nothing whatsoever to do, with public safety. Doesn’t the entire thesis of gun control advocates rest upon the claim that government has a duty to protect the citizen and society in general? Well John Lott, Jr. is the source for factual data that must be ignored to keep the blinders on a public duped by fear and paranoia. In When It's Guns, Media Miss Big Part Of Picture, Lott puts forth the substance of real life examples where being armed deters crime. We all know that the media has a bias against fair and objective reporting about the statistics, so why would anyone give credence to the impulsive frenzy that drives the issue? With a non stop sniper hysteria being the latest ratings substitute for the OJ craze, the public allows themselves to be manipulated by sensation, rather than stable, rational and prudent measures. How is the track record of the biggest manhunt in memory doing? Is this the protection that the politicians have promised, when they scam you into supporting schemes like the Brady Bill? Politicians, especially from dynasty families, that adore the omniscience of government solutions, need to be rejected. When they attribute omnipresent compliance for guaranteed security, the results becomes omnipotent State control. But are people really anymore safe? Whoever the deranged shooter is or what lies as the motivation for such crimes, society has never achieved, nor will it - immunity from crackpots. If the crimes are part of an organized effort, isn't the failure of the government that much more severe? The gun grabbers have told the public for decades that they are personally safer because an effective means for self protection has been denied, by these same politicians. A sick and determined person will always find a way to circumvent laws. The duty of government is to defend the right of individuals to protect themselves, and that means that private gun ownership with proficient training in their use, should be the national policy. Advice on how to head-bob or zig zag is comical, if it was not so moronic and insulting. But that is the style of many public servants. The Keystone Cops have more competency. We'll leave the possibility that the self appointed mad SWAT impostor, is following a script that was written at central casting. But what is certain is that the mistaken policies of the Townsend's, benefits from the death of each victim, as they introduce and push added unconstitutional legislation. Her partisan opportunism is disgusting - not at all in the tradition of being either brave in deeds or gentile in assertion. The John Lotts of the world need to be heard. The Jezebels who betray the "The Old Line State" and the rest of us need to be scorned. No doubt that decent residents in Maryland know all too well the attitudes of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and her gun grabber clones like Senator Barbara Mikulski. They are the defeatists that ensure your emasculation and impair your individual safety. Personal protection cannot be legally denuded by government decree and substituted by State "ballistic fingerprinting" salvation, and still insure genuine public security. Accepting the Kennedy Townsend polemic is like feeling solace that Teddy's picture is on a driver's license - it still won't prevent manslaughter from behind the wheel . . . Or is this just a gender boner? Could it be that the female fascists are the actual chauvinists when it comes to protecting ourselves? They seem to want the State to do what they are incapable of doing, namely, solve the problem. How you answer the KKT question may well determined if Maryland can free herself from rule by a commissar who thinks she should be royalty. SARTRE Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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©2004 by their respective authors. Reprinted by permission. |
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