The Blue State Mailbag

I’ve received some remarkably interesing correspondence since a slim majority of American voters endorsed Bush’s Fascism Lite on Tuesday.

From Ted W.:

As a New Yorker I feel compelled to thank you for your recent piece “Guilty, Disgusted, American.” It captures the strong emotional and indignant response of so many of us. On the ferry, subway, busses — much commiserating is going on — with strangers mutually expressing disappointment, rolling their eyes at newspaper headlines, shaking their heads in disgust. I just read last night that “gay marriage” passed in Saskatchewan. An issue that made masses of Americans cuckoo gets passed without much ado — in Saskatchewan! I guess Saskatchewan — and much of Canada for that matter — is the Devil’s Land. Anyway, thanks. When I read your piece I felt I was reading my own thoughts. This administration can rant and rhapsodize about mandates all it wants: they’re going to have an increasingly angry and confrontational number of Americans to contend with.

I suspect that the Bushies don’t much care about the vast majority of Americans who oppose their policies. (Even many Republicans say this marginal election victory doesn’t constitute a mandate.) All we do, after all, is march around in the streets, waving signs and chanting slogans. That stopped scaring presidents around 1974.

From Colleen:

I read your column today and all I have to say is that I feel your pain and disgust. I live in Indiana so I’m smack in the middle of Fundagelical Stupidity. I’ve rarely left the house in the past couple of days. I have a 9 yr. old son and I’m more afraid of 4 more years of the Bushiban than I am of “Islamic Terrorists”. What’s the matter with these people. If we didn’t have such a suck-ass foreign policy, we wouldn’t need to worry about terrorists in the first place. I’m more angry at the majority of the public than I am at Dubya being in the WH. And “moral values”? What the hell is that about. They line up blindly and stupidly behind a man that shares their hatred of gays as well as his obsession with a fetus. Do they realize that all the bodies that have piled up in a war they pop popcorn to watch with their feet propped up and big smiles on their faces were once a fetus? Guess that doesn’t matter to them since the majority of the bodies are Arab or Muslim. I think they’re all brain damaged. Take care Ted. And thank you so much for your writing. I love your columns and books. It’s writers such as yourself that keep me hanging on because at least I know there are sane people still out there.

I do find the “moral” issue fascinating. People who voted for Bush endorsed the torture of thousands of innocent people at Abu Ghraib. Was that moral? Bush and his cronies gave the orders for that torture to occur. It came from the top. People who voted for Bush endorsed the deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians. And for what? Not liberation. To line Dick Cheney’s pockets with $1 million a year he would never have received had Iraq not been invaded and Halliburton–on the verge of bankruptcy in 2001–not received no-bid contracts. Was the murder of 100,000 people moral?

Good people can disagree about abortion. I consider it murder of an unborn fetus, yet I believe women must possess the right to carry out such murders. But only three kinds of people can endorse the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq: the ignorant, the stupid and the evil.

From Jeff:

Ted, I wanted to say thanks for you latest column. Being a Canadian these days is a lot like living next door to a well-armed religious maniac given to fits of unprovoked violence, who thinks what I have is his. It’s work such as yours which keeps me from lapsing into an intellectually lazy, though perhaps emotionally satisfying, anti-Americanism.

And they say I hate my county! I’m a pro-US propagandist!

From Keith:

Having been a devoted fan of your work for some time, I felt that this week above all was the right time to send this note of profound thanks. Your work has been a source of amusement, information and inspiration to me, and I consider you a hero. This statement has been far too long in coming, but especially now that our worst fears seem to have been confirmed, I felt you might welcome this. Your commitment is so clear that some might assume you do not require positive feedback, but nevertheless I felt you might like to hear that you are certainly not laboring in futility. I appreciate your efforts and your passion, more than I can communicate in just a short note of gratitude, but this will have to suffice. I can always count on you to articulate what I sometimes cannot quite express, and though I read and rely on a great many sources, I always return to your column and cartoons for the most lucid and passionate views online. I can’t count the times I’ve thrown up my hands when trying to make some point to like-minded (or not-so-like-minded) friends, and simply sent them the link to your latest column. I wish I had your skill and I greatly admire your courage in spreading it. As you’re probably bombarded with email (both supportive and critical), I expect no reply. Your efforts are more than enough thanks.

I’m blushing.