How To Write A Letter To The Editor, part 5

Request: This coming weekend I'll be moderating a panel on the Knights Templar in Fact and Fiction at Convergence, a science fiction convention here in Mpls with Guest of Honor Kathrine Kurtz. I know a fair amount about the Knights Templar, but haven't read a great deal of the fiction (assuming that what's been printed about them isn't fiction...). If any Bartcop Reader has read or can make recommendations about a book or story with the Knights Templar, please e-mail me with the name, author and short synopsis (since I won't be able to read it by then). Indeed, if you know any odd factoid about them, also let me know. Thanks.

Continuing with a selection of my letters... I've written a fair amount of political letters over the years, and I archive all the important e-mail I send (following my own advice; point 14). Hope you don't mind my taking some Bartcop-E space so these see the light of day and/or you can see how I construct a written argument (as opposed to a chatroom or even blog, which is more like a spoken argument). I'll probably use them on my web site archive of this series.

Again, what follows are some of my letters as I wrote them, not necessarily as they were published.

[Sent 2/9/03, with the subject line "Hitler vs. Noriega"]

Rush, Bush and various right wingers keep making the comparison between Saddam Hussein and Adolph Hitler, which is a dangerous rewriting of history. Hitler was a religious fanatic who rose to power in a large nation on a wave of hate after WWI. A closer parallel to Saddam would be Manuel Noriega, a madman who rose to power in a third world country by political intrigue and kept it by ruthless supression of his own people and with the active support of the Reagan/Bush administration. Eventually, Hitler was mad enough to declare war on the US, and the allies defeated the Nazis and installed a democratic government. Eventually, Noriega annoyed the Bush administration who went to Panama to take out their former employee and installed another ruthless dictator who was friendlier to the US but was much worse for the Panamanians.

 

George W and his oily administration want to take out the guy they supported in the 80s and who Dick Cheney and Haliburton supplied in the 90s. Bush always sounds a little like OJ Simpson going after "the real killers". Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden and the real killers of 9/11 remain unpunished.

This didn't get published, but astute Bartcop-E readers will recall that I expanded this into a Bartcop-E column so the Strib's loss was your gain.

 

[This was not a letter to the editor, but a submission for an announced retrospective on the 70s. Sent 4/17/03]

One of my fondest memories is from the evening of August 8, 1974, when Richard M. Nixon became our only ex-president. His resignation spurred jubilation like we've seen more recently on the streets of Baghdad. There was dancing and music. Even the most die hard Republicans were happy to see him go, though they didn't celebrate as wildly.

 

Perhaps this is why Brad and Janet are listening to Nixon's resignation "that late November evening" in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was a great day for democracy, a great day for America.

I don't know whether the project was abandoned or it was just off in a corner and I missed it, but I don't think they printed this one either.

 

[Sent 4/8/03 with the subject line "Cult Warning Signs".]

The sidebar (not on the web) to "The Story of O.: Life in and out of a political cult" pE6 of your Sunday April 6, 2003 edition, http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/3796442.html says:

 

Cult Warning Signs

 

-- The group or its leader posesses the total and only truth.

 

-- Pressure to cut ties with family members, friends and other attachments.

 

-- Extreme, immediate and/or inappropriate attention or friendliness.

 

-- Not answering questions or turning them back on the questioner.

 

-- Jargon or language that makes no sense outside the group.

 

-- A hard sell for commitment.

 

-- Secrecy or inappropriate "confidentiality".

 

-- Ends justify the means. It is OK to lie for the cause.

 

-- Those who leave are shunned.

 

-- No criticism is allowed of the group or its leader.

 

Now, be honest: Isn't this a near perfect description of the George W. Bush administration?

Interestingly, the Strib didn't print this, but Bartcop did, one of the reasons I often Copy him and/or Media Whores Online. (And searching for the url, I see it got reprinted in the local weekly paper's City Pages Babelogue as the Quote of the Day.)

 

[Speaking of Media Whores Online, I sent them this on 4/6/03 after one of their vacations.]

Hi. Glad you're back. A few quick points:

 

You keep mentioning THE stolen election. One of the underreported stories of 2002 was the demise of the Voter News Service. The VNS correctly predicted that Gore won Florida in the 2000 elections. They spent two years fine tuning and trying to get more and more accurate... and when they predicted that Democrats were winning in 2002 yet the results from the machines (not the ballots) were different, they disbanded. Maybe they were wrong, I don't know... but it sure sounds suspicious, and I want to see the ballots counted by hand.

 

Meanwhile, let us not forget that the reason we have to contend with Saddam Hussein today is that Poppy Bush let him get away in 1991. Back then, we had a real coalition and UN support (even if Bush claimed that he didn't have UN support to take out Saddam). All the deaths since, and the current carnage, can be laid at the feet of Bush and then-Sec. of Defense Cheney.

 

Also underreported: On the same day that we invaded Iraq for the second time in 12 years, we invaded Afghanistan for the second time in a year and a half. We have officially lost the Afghanistan War.

 

Also on the same day that we invaded Iraq for the second time in 12 years and invaded Afghanistan for the second time in a year and a half, it takes the BBC to report "anti-abortion doctor guilty of murder", action called "religious terrorism" by prosecution. Doctor-killer's conviction doesn't make US news that I saw. BBC report here.

 

Aside: Some of the Republicans I've talked to think that the "liberal media" invented the nickname "Poppy" Bush for GHWB. Not so: His grandfather, George Herbert Walker, was known as "Pop" and little George was called "Poppy" as a kid. (I don't have the cite for that on hand.)

 

More on George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush on my site as a tried to fix a Straight Dope mistake.

 

Support our troops! Impeach the Deserter-In-Chief!

MWO didn't print the letter, but that's okay.

 

[This was sent to Sen. Joe Lieberman 3/18/03.]

Sen. Leiberman:

 

Perhaps you don't remember, but we met, briefly, the morning of the last day of the 2000 campaign, as you came to Minneapolis to speak at Dayton headquarters in St. Paul with Paul Wellstone. I was the guy with the hat sporting a "Gore/Leiberman" sticker. You complimented me on the hat.

 

I still have my blue" Gore/Lieberman 2000" poster up.

 

I support our troops, but I in no way support the actions of George W., who's a religious fanatic with no moral compass. One of the things that makes our military so strong is that they know what they are fighting for. They are part of society, not shielded from reality. The way we can best support our troops is to tell them the truth. And the truth is that Bush is just using them to cover up his misearble failure over the economy, the failed War on Terror and his own criminal negligence before 9/11.

 

Please do not encourage Bush to lie to our troops. He used fake documents to detail a non-existent nuclear threat. He lied about Saddam Hussein's ties to al Queda. He betrayed our allies by violating UN Resolution 1441 which calls for another resolution before an armed conflict. Bush is lying, and not very well. We must support our troops by refusing to support Bush's Cover Up War.

 

Remember Grenada? We still haven't even tried to find the people behind the attack in Beruit that killed 141 American soldiers. We cannot let that happen again.

Never heard from him, and iirc he voted for the resolution to attack Iraq, and the name The Cover Up War didn't catch on. On the other hand, all my statements about Bush's lies are slowly being proven even to the most knee-jerk dittohead (not that dittoheads care about the truth).

 

[Last one for this go 'round. I think I picked up the story (about a country station deciding to play the Dixie Chicks after all) on MWO and as a fellow radio producer felt I had a better in with the station manager Dale C of station KFKF (I don't recall his full name, but his e-mail address was published). This is an example of point 5 in my original article: State your qualifications if useful to the letter. Mailed 3/16/03.]

Hi.

 

I produce Shockwave, a science fiction radio program now in its 24th year. I agree that you have to pay attention to what your listeners want, but it's been my experience that people who reflexively knee-jerk the conservative position are more likely to call/write than the Silent Majority (tm Richard Nixon) who don't really care about the political position of singers as much as they do their music.

 

Even though my show is science fiction, I played a Dixie Chicks cut in solidarity.

 

Further, I agree with her statement. One of the great strenghts of the American military is that they know what they're fighting for. To lie to our troops as to why they might die in battle only helps the enemy. We support our troops by telling them the truth, and that includes the truth about Bush.

 

On the air I admonished George W: going after Saddam Hussein is all well and good, but when you go after the Dixie Chicks you've gone too far. I say to the Connecticut-born Bush: Don't mess with Texas.

 

PS: If you know of any good country songs that are also science fiction, let me know. I have some but am always looking for other fun stuff.

Never heard from him, though the Dixie Chicks album sales and concert attendance were not hurt (and may have been helped) by Big Brother trying to make enemies out of a group of good singers.

The Worried Shrimp

An Open Letter to Gene Simmons

from that Mad Cat, JD

'When I Was A Grad'

Last Night

Moose & Squirrel

Snoop Dogg

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy

Satellite TV

Bruce Springsteen

Carson Daly

PBS

Vladimir Putin

Hector Berlioz

DMX

Katharine Hepburn