ABQjournal Opinion: Letters to the Editor
Liberals Playing Politics With American Soldiers

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS and their liberal main stream media outlets— NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and MSNBC— love the Iraq body count of our good, brave and courageous men and women in uniform, who have freed 50 million people from the clutches of evil.
They pretend to be aghast at the death and dying of our soldiers, over 3,600 since the beginning of hostilities. The soldiers are personalized, individualized and minutely scrutinized and then splashed across the printed and electronic media as political points to gain votes by the insensitive liberals.
This is a macabre endeavor. Let’s put this into perspective. If the liberal Democrats and liberal main stream media are really concerned about death and dying of Americans, why don’t they give the same treatment to drunken-driving deaths (over 17,000 per year), murder victims (over 18,000 per year) or abortion of embryonic children (over 260,000 per year by Planned Parenthood alone)?
Why, because it does not fit their gruesome agenda. Wake up America. Don’t let the psycho-constipated ideas of the liberal Democrats and the liberal media suck you in. Think!
In the words of Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Our good soldiers are maintaining our freedom and securing Iraq’s freedom.
The liberal Democrats and liberal media want to stand by and do nothing!
JOHN MOSMAN
Albuquerque
http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/letters/584248opinion08-07-07.htm

Sarcasm doesn’t carry well in print. (It is also wise to remember sarcasm is always lost on some people, and it angers others, of course.) I’m hoping John Mosman is being sarcastic in his statements that “liberal Democrats” and our minions in the press (what we call “the corporate media” and hardly view as friends) are somehow happy over the worst foreign policy debacle of the last 50 years. This is the most nauseating of the conservative bile: “liberals” (sneer it) want failure and suffering in Iraq because — somehow — we see it benefiting our cause. This LIE must be countered every time it is uttered. Nothing in and about Iraq is benefiting anyone but arms dealers and undertakers.

As for the strawman of all those other “worse” causes of death: many people are as torn up about those as Iraq. However, none of those deaths can be laid at the feet of one man. None of those deaths can be blamed on the actions of a handful of horribly-misguided neoconmen. That’s what earns extraordinary outrage: We NEVER should have entered Iraq in the first place and every single death has been unnecessary. mjh

Today is the 62nd anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Remember it well and say, “never again.” Say there is a limit, there is a proper place to draw the line. Say that justifications cannot excuse the inexcusable. It would be evil madness to ever, ever, ever use that power again to fry the living.

And yet, Democrats and Republicans alike attacked Barack Obama for expressing a much more dilute sentiment. The insane scream that all cards are on the table, no options are inconceivable. I hope that somewhere in the chain of command there is someone with enough humanity to say, “NEVER AGAIN.”

Oh, well, look around. We’re vile. We’re going to destroy ourselves and the world one way or another. Might as well get it over with in a flash. mjh

PS: I hope you saw Masters of Science Fiction on Saturday. I assume the conservative bloggers are howling for blood.

Twisted, sightless wrecks of men
go groping on their knees
and cry in pain
now the sun has come to earth
— Paul Simon

This morning, Robert J. Samuelson starts his political column with this:

My younger son calls the Toyota Prius a “hippie car.” Not that Prius drivers are “hippies.” Toyota says that typical buyers are 54 and have incomes of $99,800; 81 percent are college graduates. But like hippies, they’re making a loud lifestyle statement: We’re saving the planet; what are you doing?

Isn’t it amazing that nearly 40 years later, people still use hippy as a slur? It says volumes about Samuelson’s character that his younger son uses it that way. Bigotry is hereditary. Worse, it is deliberately passed on to the young, so, it may be more like child abuse. Samuelson and son are bigots.

Moreover, what does Samuelson think became of hippies? Surely some of them finished college and got good jobs. Those that lived would be in their 50’s and older. Does that escape Samuelson?

Say what you will about hippies — though if you’ve never met one, you don’t know what you’re talking about, like a bigot — their core beliefs were that the people can change the nation and that peace and love are more important than war. No wonder conservatives still hate them. mjh

PS: I wonder what Samuelson & Son think about Humvies and the loud lifestyle statement their drivers make. “Good conservative values,” no doubt.