Tuesday, September 06, 2005

 

Mail Day

We had two different responses to my posting on Hurricane Katrina with widely divergent opinions.

An anonymous writer said this:

What an incredibly mean spirited petty lump of hogwash, South Mouth. You really need to search your soul, this is beneath you. Its obvious that you ARE politicizing this. Saying that you aren't, doesn't make it so. You hate Bush, and its crystal clear from all of your post that you will find some angle to demonize him in everything he does.

And I guess that's what it all comes down to - your hatrid of Bush. Your mad because you hate Bush, and because you hate him, you don't trust him, and because you don't trust him, you assume he does every evil thing possible. In this case you assume he's sitting around twiddling his thumbs, laughing at the little people. In other cases, you assume he had knowledge of the lack of WMD that nobody else in the world has, and lied.

OK, Anonymous, at your request, I've searched my soul. I must say I feel pretty good about everything I said. Yes, Anonymous, I hate President Bush because of his agenda to exclusively serve large corporations, the wealthy and the religious right to the exclusion and opposition of everyone else. You and your right-wing friends spewed malevolence and black-hearted meanness for eight years during the Clinton administration, and now you're outraged that someone would say anything negative about the president you now worship?At least my dislike for Bush stems from actual policy and matters of substance. The right's hatred of Clinton was personal and vindictive, based on nothing of substance (Just look at the lies and fake scandals that were invented to fuel this hatred. Anyone remember "troopergate" or Jerry Falwell's Clinton Chronicles?). Frankly, I think Bush's personal character is every bit as weak and loathesome as Clinton's, but I choose to focus on his actions as president.

As for Bush's response to Katrina, thousands of people are needlessly dead because hardly anyone came to help, at least not for four days. We should have had tens of thousands of troops on the way within 24 hours. Apparently, we can invade and occupy a foreign country, but we can't respond in a timely manner to a hurricane on our own soil. Bush is commander in chief, and if this isn't a national security issue, I don't know what is.


Another writer had this to say:

Although I don't want to politicize a serious situation in New Orleans, I don't want to hear it from my conservative friends criticizing the politicizing this catastrophe also. Remember, there were some conservative voices who blamed 9-11 on the Liberal state of our country. If I hear one of God's so-called pundits blame this as God's revenge on a licentious, morally corrupt society, I will personally hunt them down and shoot them myself.

Fortunately, I've not heard the God's revenge explanation so far. However, a friend pretty quickly forwarded a release from the ultra-right Newsmax, charging that hardly any other nation stepped forward to help us. As it turns out, plenty of countries have indeed offered help, but the Bush administration has turned much of it down. Apparently, I'm not allowed to criticize Bush's four-day delay in sending troops to help, but some folks on the radical right get to use this hurricane as a forum to advance what seems to be their growing hatred of every other nation on the planet.

Equal time for James Dobson

A few weeks back, I wrote a posting to criticize the two Justice Weekend events sponsored by some folks on the religious right, including James Dobson, calling for a Supreme Court that better serves their interests. I wrote Focus on the Family after reading a press release praising Tom Delay as a friend to their cause. I asked them whether it really served their cause to cozy up to a man who has been linked to several ethics scandals. Dobson's folks had this to say:

It was good of you to share your reaction to CitizenLink’s article titled “DeLay to Attend Justice Sunday II.” In response, we must point out that there is nothing untrue about Bruce Hausknecht’s characterization of Representative Tom DeLay. Indeed, the House Majority Leader has “consistently and courageously carried the banner for the American people in the fight to rein in our out-of-control judiciary.” It should be obvious that positive remarks of this nature shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement of any *alleged* ethics violations on the part of Representative DeLay.

Thanks again for writing. Grace and peace to you!

Alexander Mackenzie
Focus on the Family Action

Let me say, I thought this was a very gracious reply to what may not have been the most gracious e-mail from The Mouth. Mackenzie, however, chose not to directly answer why Focus on the Family chose to entangle itself with a scumbag like Delay. Let me quote what I once heard from a fellow teacher: "What we don't condemn, we condone."

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