Postmarks
Our readers talk back.
Fri., Jan. 3, 2003
Ventura Has Chutzpah
Editors,
Michael Ventura ["Letters at 3AM"] really, really annoys me. Same old guy who used to hang out around town is now issuing edicts from on high. No contact e-mail, no respond-to address. He certainly has chutzpah. For those of you who are not from New York, "chutzpah": "Self-righteousness, arrogance, and a sense of superiority so great that gross double standards seem entirely reasonable and no self-interested action is beyond rationalization. This factor is positively correlated with size, power, and per capita income." -- Herman
He has an answer and a guilt for everything which magically cleanses away his enrollment with the rest of us humans. I wonder how much money he earns from "evil corporate sponsors" himself. Got any stocks? Get a syndication paycheck from the Chronicle? Perhaps he should go to Iraq and North Korea and straighten this WMD thing out for us. I'm sure reasonable discussion would save the day, having never been tried before. It would save billions in dollars and many lives. Oh, I forgot: No matter what happens, there are secret people somewhere that want nothing but radioactive destruction for the entire planet, and he is one of only a few that are here to save us with sophomoric insight. Everyone else is living in a bloodthirsty fantasy. Get some therapy, Ventura. Come up with just one realistic plan to make this world a better place and I'll start reading your column again. I mean it.
Stuart Hillyer
Bastrop
Those in Glass Houses
Editor:
Carl Swanson ["Postmarks," Dec. 27] seems to find anyone who uses any corporate goods or services incapable of honestly criticizing said corporations. The supposedly debate-ending charge of hypocrisy is unfurled, and the smug pro-corporate feels vindicated.
I say, if anyone uses any government service like police and courts and roads and trash pickup, one is a hypocrite to criticize any aspect of our government. That would shut up the anti-government ideologues and be equally asinine.
Just a thought. Anyone who doesn't see how corporations are killing us is stupid, to use Mr. Swanson's favorite epithet.
Tom Cuddy
Your Guess Is as Good as Mine
Humiliation ...
It's the trump card. In the real game, the one that the big boys play, it's not enough to just win baby, no, you have to humiliate your enemy for there to be a true and manly victory. It's the same philosophy, human behavior that is, that big game hunters employ to scare their opponents so as to give themselves a decisive edge, you see or rather no longer see your relatives anymore. It's called extinction. It's very hard to keep your game face on when you look around you and there is nothing but death, destruction, and mayhem. The justification? Really, now, did you expect to find that from a mere mortal? We are not capable.
I wonder if there are some that make it through? What do you think the chances are that they pray every day and then try to make our case that we are worthy of another day? God please don't give up on them, they are really good humans on the inside. Couldn't you just give them a ... 1.987654321.123456789.6785490321% chance? But Paul that's a snowball's chance in hell. I'll grant you a request, but let's keep it clean, you know, lighthearted. Maybe they'll get the point.
Let Trent Lott let his hair down, you know, muss it up a little, he's going to this birthday party and it would be nice if he could just be ... well, Trent. Let him feel the spirit of ... well, you know, the opposite of the way Bill Moyer felt for having a little wine at a celebration. "Paul that wasn't me," there were a lott of people who knew about that party, and you know about liberals and the way they behave in a party. They always seem to save the best for last.
Susannah Alabama Ohltorf
Eroding Liberties
Editors, Citizens:
Please wake up, pay attention, and scream! Both political parties are playing us for fools (or sheep). They perform the "good cop-bad cop" routine better than any sitcom on TV. Back and forth, and nothing really changes except the income gap widens as the middle class shrinks; the environment continues to worsen at all our expense as corporate billionaires refuse to comply with effective regulations; third world populations are murdered for their countries' natural resources; health care reform is nowhere in sight. "Peace on Earth" is a cynical greeting card!
The recent legislation touted as reform for corporate accounting procedures, and campaign finance has been picked apart and rearranged so as to be virtually irrelevant to the very real scandals. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are disappearing before our very eyes. Big Brother now has the power to keep a complete dossier on each of us -- that really has little to do with the "terrorist threat." This is tyranny. This is classic fascism, and it's becoming an everyday reality that should not be acceptable to any American.
Keesa Donald
Happy Holidays, Flag Thieves
Mr. Editor,
Guess what -- on Dec. 23, some vandals/stealers sneaked up in the am, cut the lanyard on my 16-foot flagpole, and helped themselves to my three valuable flags: U.S., Texas, and USMC. I am sure glad that I didn't have the MIA/POW one up. Happy holidays!
Semper Fidelis
Moses P. Saldana Sr.
P.S. Yeah, I did file a report with APD, and that's about it!
Garage Rock Gaffes
Dear Austin Chronicle,
Thank god you guys ran that massive disclaimer in front of your recent cover story on Texas Garage Rock ["One Two Three Faw!" Dec. 27] -- otherwise, I might have gone in with the mistaken impression that Christopher Gray knew what he was talking about. Fortunately, he had Bates Motel/Beerland proprietor Randall Stockton there to help educate him (and the rest of us, for that matter): I never realized that "garage rock barely existed" in the Nineties, or that Jesus Christ Superfly was "rockabilly," or that the Sons of Hercules and the Dropouts were mere footnotes in the Texas Garage Rock scene while the Bulemics and Empire of Shit (???) were the true standard-bearers. Thanks for straightening that out for us.
One minor omission, however -- you forgot to mention the greatest Texas Garage Band of all-time, the Yuppie Pricks. What qualifies them as the greatest? Well, besides being vastly superior in terms of looks, talent, and intellect, the answer is quite simple -- they're the only garage band with an Olympic-size swimming pool in their garage. You now stand corrected.
Sincerely,
Preston Hetherington
Yuppie Prick
Antiwar, Not Anti-America
Editor:
Recently, the actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins appeared on the Donahue show and defended the patriotism of the current antiwar movement. Defense of the patriotism of dissenters is a ritual debate, always required because the pro-war leaders invariably call it into question. The unquestioned assumption shared by all parties in this debate was that being unpatriotic is a most odious characteristic.
Patriotism is synonymous with nationalism. It is typically unqualified. Whereas nationalism was progressive in relation to colonialism, the era in which it is otherwise a force for good has ended. Support of one's country irrespective of the possible ethical consequences for the lives of others is immoral. Ask the Germans. Hitler was obsessively patriotic, and, in obvious reaction, they are now the world's most internationalist people.
Nationalism might justifiably be seen as the root cause for the loss of 100 million lives in wars of the 20th century, conspicuously in World Wars I and II. Although it would be praiseworthy to fight in support of values such as freedom, justice, and democracy, in war these are more commonly propaganda themes brandished by warmongers as rationalizations for aggression. Patriotism is very often no more philosophical than the unity among Jets or Sharks, Longhorns or Aggies, etc. Such tribal allegiance is based more on male competitive instinct, testosterone run amok, than principle.
Hopefully, 21st-century human society will evolve to the point where allegiance to universal human rights transcends allegiance to country and where international institutions would be the sole legitimate agencies to enforce international law. Such laws would doubtless include prohibitions against military aggression by one country against another. Use of military force could only be legitimate if authorized and controlled by a United Nations reformed to remove the victors of WWII from their undemocratic dominance within it.
Sarandon and Robbins had to confront a right-wing attack "journalist" who declared that antiwar activists "hate America." He could not imagine the possibility of being inspired by a higher calling than loving it.
David Hamilton
Outspoken But Saying Nothing
Editor:
On "Page Two" (Dec. 27) Louis Black proclaims, "The more diverse a college community the richer the college experience for everyone." Some of the all-black colleges and all-women's colleges must not agree with editor Black. In response to Black's claim that Republicans are not outspoken on race: Liberals of the far-left are insidious, manipulative hypocrites who would do and say anything to further their despicable agenda of sex and race-baiting. How's that for outspoken, Mr. Black? You all just can't see or hear for all the weeping and gnashing.
Kurt Standiford
P.S. Dare I ask, but what's up the ass of S.M. Moser? First he hates rich, beautiful, talented, heterosexual women, now it's slam the UT football team and its uniforms. (You'd think Moser would like men in tight pants.) Yeah, Moser is just what the Chronicle needs to raise circulation in UT, Texas, huh? Slam the Longhorns, right Moser? Why not just go piss on the LBJ Library? I'll bet a pill-popping sot-queen is just the life of the party ...
PETA Patter
Dear Editor:
With the onset of 2003, millions of Americans will be making the traditional health-centered New Year's resolutions: to exercise more, to lose weight, to quit smoking ...
This year, let's expand our sights and our hopes beyond our own health to the health of our family, our natural environment, including the animals and our planet Earth. In short, let us think globally as we act locally.
Amazingly, each of us can accomplish all that three times a day, by switching from meat and dairy products to convenient, wholesome, delicious, plant-based foods. In addition to the highly recommended five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables, every supermarket now carries soy-based deli slices, veggie burgers and dogs, heat-and-eat dinners, as well as soy milk and ice cream.
On the first day of the New Year let us turn over a new leaf, kick the meat habit, and get a new lease on our own life as well as the life of our planet.
Sincerely,
Kim Lewis
Schertz
