The Road of Bones

I love getting hate mail. Here are two select pieces from this past week.

This one, sent in response to my coverage of a local anti-war protest, is pretty venomous. But, like most hate mail, the writer fails to use his own God-given sense of logic. Note the nuiance of our Intelligent Designer ...

After reading Stephen Webster's homage to the Democrat party (Anti-war rally held in Denton, 3/24) I sincerely hope that there will be equal time given to the other side. One can hardly think that "nearly 100 protestors" constitutes a mandate for pullout, chicken out, censure or 
impeachment. The first paragraph of your "investigative reporter's" article was a dead giveaway a to the direction it was going to take. Perhaps if Mr. Webster had done even a marginal amount of "investigating", he would have found that a war is made up of many battles, and a battle is made up of many missions. Declaring a mission to be complete does not sign off on the entire war, and when President 
Bush declared, "mission accomplished" he was referring to the mission of the men and women on the USS Abrahm Lincoln, not to the entire war in Iraq. Now, elementary journalism can teach you these things, so there has to be another course that Mr. Webster is pursuing in his writing. And with a large percentage of the article being a direct transcription of a man who would be Justice Of The Peace (and others) rattling off a diatribe consisting of an obvious political hatred for anything conservative and a payload of non-constructive tripe that would make Howard Dean begin adoption proceedings , I wonder what that course could be.If Stephen Webster wants to espouse his extreme left political views andcall it investigative reporting, then I can just as easily choose to notkill someone and then call myself a lifesaver.Thank you for your time.

Stubie Doak
Double Oak, TX

A quote from the above letter - "I sincerely hope that there will be equal time given to the other side."

Stubie, let me update your world view: every single day in North Texas is "given to the other side." If you remember, Denton County recently held party primary elections. Every single one of the county's important offices were decided by Republican voters. Just five percent of the county's voters decided to cast a ballot. TNC devoted a wealth of front-page space to covering Republican candidates. I went months writing about rich, white people who love their abstinence-based sex education programs. Oh, and I'm not a Democrat. I's an indie. I just like common sense better than party loyalty.

So, equal time. Indeed.

You're doing a heck of a job, Stubie.

Here is another one from a frequent detractor of mine. This person is at least intelligent enough to organize his thoughts on the topic of his ire. However, after a series of emails back and forth, he failed to express his thoughts about the fact that Halliburton is building "Immigrant Detainment Facilities" in America. This hater swaps reason and truth (the camps exist - to disagree is to lie to yourself) for a smokescreen of political distortion. This is good example of a garden variety NeoCon trying to turn a serious issue into a partisan shouting match ...

In Stephen Webster’s retort regarding “Oliver North and the rebirth of the American Gulag” he has presented a view so compromised by his political bent that his arguments lose almost all credibility. I realize that it is an opinion piece, but such an opinion deserves a response. At the risk of simply being a foil for further liberal name-calling (e.g. Oliver North: traitorous scum) and mangled facts, I offer an opposing view. Mr. Webster implies that the objective of 1988 Executive Order 12656 was to suspend the Constitution and to provide for FEMA to set up a government under martial law. In fact, the order was issued to replace orders from 1952 and 1969, which were in need of revision. It was not specifically written to give FEMA outrageous powers, but to include FEMA and other agencies and branches in crisis planning. The order specifically states that the Constitution should be followed and the constitutional government of the country should be preserved. Mr. Webster also states that the U.S. Northern Command’s establishment expressly readied our country for a military government. The U.S. Northern Command was established in 2002 as an umbrella to encompass agencies and roles such as NORAD, defense planning and security cooperation. There are other command structures set up across the world, including the U.S. Southern Command, which is tasked with contingency planning and operations. The intention is to be ready for action should the North American theater host a war or suffer grave losses from other disasters. The governmental policies cited by Mr. Webster should be seen not as backdoor politics but as proper and crucial planning. I would categorize his interpretation as something quite different than his self-branded patriotism, and that is, of course, my opinion.

Mark Everett
Flower Mound

Clearly, my "self-branded patriotism" is not a good enough reason for me to express distrust of our fearless leaders. I must be a traitor. Hang me, please. Or better still, be like that last jackass who slashed my tires. I'm sure it would make you feel better. Mr. Everett (who reads my blog), should organize a campaign to remove me from my job. I hope he whips up a frenzy in our little Pleasentville over this writer. I'd be honored. Maybe he could get a resolution through one of the local towns that declares me a threat to public safety. Or National Security. Ah, that's it. Give them your best fabrication as to why I should be the first to get thrown into your newly endorsed gullags, you Verbündete Schweine! Der Reich reitet wieder!

Everett, and all the other shills in the "shout-them-down" ranks, are getting pretty desperate lately. To attack my sources (Everett accused me of plagarism in a previous email), my politics and my patriotism is par for course among this brand of politi-thugs. But to completely neglect a rebuttal to the very point of my column is just sloppy. Like Hannity talking about Charlie Sheen's statements questioning the government's version of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. Screw the facts - attack the individual. Make enough noise and the problem just goes away. Right?

WRONG.

Try again Everett, and bring some friends next time. Hell, it could be a community event. You could make it a yearly festival of intollerance. Kind of like Maifest. Or Loyalty Day. Wir marschieren auf eine Straße der Knochen! Heil Hitler!

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."

- Henry Louis Mencken, Journalist
1880-1956

I wonder who Mr. Everett admires most. Five dollars says he emails me about it by the end of tomorrow. The clock is ticking.

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker on Monday, March 27, 2006 at Monday, March 27, 2006 | Permalink