Red State Mailbag

Ric Hawthorne writes the following:

There is an old saying or two that you might want to take to heart. The first is that when you point a finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you. The second was imparted to me by a man far wiser than I will ever be… My Grandfather. He always said “Remember Ric, if you meet more than two a*%!$#es in one day… You may be one of them. My Cousin is Daryl Cagle, and he and his wife Peg and I have dinner occasionally when they are in wonderful Woodland Hills California. At a dinner we had a year or so ago, we were talking about political cartoonists

that I admire, and since I spilt my time between California and New Mexico, I expressed my admiration of John Trever’s work and I singled you out as someone who’s work I also admired. I take it back Mr. Rall. The past few months have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are not worthy of my admiration, and much less so of my

respect. I am neither a republican, nor a democrat. I am an American. The so called “Left Elite” continually

espouse the view that those on the right think they are better than anyone else, yet what do individuals

like yourself do, but hold yourselves above the values of everyone that disagrees with you by calling them

criminals and buffoons. Ahh… The old “Pot Calling The Kettle…” trick.

Interesting. I especially like the odd personal angle, evidently designed to hurt more. The trouble is, you can’t be both a Republican AND an American. Not any more. The Republican Party of 2004 is not the Republican Party of 1999. It has been hijacked by psycopathic warmongers and profiteers who relied on electoral fraud not once, but twice, to seize power. To follow such a party is patently contrary to the principles laid out by the Founders in our Constitution. Moreover: What pot? What kettle? In what respect am I a criminal? A buffoon? Maybe. That’s a matter of opinion–a commodity that is becoming increasingly scarce.

You claim in your columns that the republicans do not reach across party lines… Yet you are unwilling to

practice what you preach. You accuse the Bush administration of war crimes and attempted genocide, yet you ignore the real acts of genocide Hussein practiced against his own people, the Kurds.

I reach out to Republicans in my writings all the time. I respect the proud tradition of true conservative values–those of putting America first, keeping the government out of our lives, balancing the government’s budget. But the onus of reaching across party lines isn’t the left’s. Those in power must reach out to those who are not. That is a fundamental fact of nature. It’s fascinating that Republicants have been reduced to comparing Bush’s acts in Iraq to Saddam’s. Pretty low bar, eh? Bush didn’t kill as many as Saddam? Of course, as I’ve blogged below, if present rates continue, Bush’s genocide against the Iraqi people will surpass Saddam’s by late 2007.

I would suggest that you drop your rancor, look up terms like “Genocide” “Crime” and “Lies” to see what

those words really mean, and then begin defending the integrity of your own glass house so that your views and opinions have a bit of merit before you simply continue casting stones and dropping bombs of your own.

Done. Genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.” Bush bombs Muslims and Arabs in particular. And he does it in vast numbers. A crime is “an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law.” Bush has violated international law by going to war against Iraq. The Secretary General of the United Nations has already declared the war in Iraq illegal. And he has held people, including US nationals, behind bars indeterminantly without filing charges against them. To lie is “to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive.” Weapons of mass destruction, anyone? How about the link between Saddam and 9/11?

What are you trying to accomplish by engaging in the activities that you criticize others of? Are you so

much better than them?

Fuck YES. But then, almost everybody is. This Administration is full of personalities whose acts define them as some of the most reprehensible human beings who have ever lived. What am I trying to accomplish? To get good people to notice.

Gandhi succeeded where others failed because he did not give in and adopt the tactics of his opponents. He took the high road and made it his own. You, on the other hand, have simply allowed yourself to become another voice of extremism\ and rancor, in a sea that is already full of people shouting the exact same thing.

To twist Barry Goldwater: Attacking extremism in the name of liberty is no vice. And it is not extremism itself. And yeah, I’m not Ghandi. On the other hand, it’s not like I murdered 100,000 people with my cartoons, books or columns.

Try taking the high road and working for change in a positive manner, as you used to, rather than simply

jabbering about the faults of others, while you do exactly the same things you accuse others of. As it is now, you simply sound like a spoiled child, busily kicking your heels as you complain and whine about how unfair everything is because you simply did not get your way.

I haven’t changed, dude. My job is to go after hypocrities and liars. Maybe you, on the other hand, have changed.

Poor you, Mr. Rall.

Poor, poor you.

Poor America.

This comes in from Paul W.:

The biggest prejudice in America today is not of any one race vs. another or even of one religion vs. another. It’s the prejudice of the East Coast and West Coast populists towards the Midwest and South. Ted Rall, you are the most prejudiced writer I’ve ever read. Ever.

I grew up in the Midwest. As my pals can attest, in the run-up to the 2004 debacle I kept saying that we could count on Midwestern common sense to prevail in the face of Bush’s obvious stupidity, warmongering and freestyle spending of the federal treasury. And generally, I was right. Pennsylvania–half in the Midwest–and Michigan and Illinois all did the right thing.

Unfortunately, a majority of the voters in the South deserve the contempt they’re receiving from the coasts. (Pity the suffering minority of intelligent southerners who voted for Kerry and have to live alongside morons.)

Prejudiced? No. Judgemental? Yes. If you voted for Bush, God damn you. You have condemned countless thousands of innocent people to death with the punch of a chad or the touch of a screen. If you voted for Bush, you endorsed the torturers in Bush’s gulags at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. You deserve to feel every volt of electronic current, hear every scream, sink into the despair that comes with knowing that you have done nothing yet you will die in an anonymous prison. If you voted for Bush, you are to blame for the coming fiscal crisis, when there will be even less money for schools and roads and, yes, armies. If you voted for Bush, you will never be forgiven. You will never deserve respect, for the decision was a simple yet you deliberately chose not to do what was right.