Letters to the Editor
soisam
Published Letters: 22
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Obama's minister
[Read the article: Rev. Jeremiah Wright isn't the problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We should not confuse patriotism with jingoism. Many, perhaps the majority of Americans even, are deeply patriotic; not necessarily "my country right or wrong", but more "I love my country even when she is wrong." They would no more ask God to damn America than they would ask God to Damn their child. They are proud to put their hand over their hearts and wear flag lapel pins and hate it when people disrespect their flag or their country. These are the folks whose sons and daughters join the military and four thousand of them now have come home in coffins from Afghanistan and Iraq.
The challenge to liberals and progressives is to convince these voters we actually care about America as much as they do. When we are angry we need to communicate that our anger is born of caring not contempt for this country. That is Obama's challenge in this campaign.
Jason Whitlock wrote "A Letter to Obama" published in the Sports section of the Kansas City Star on Sunday, March 24, in which he writes the speech he thinks Obama should have given in response to Rev. Wright: "It is impossible for me to despise, dislike and wish for God to damn America, Whitlock writes. "I am America. I am a product of America’s melting pot, proof of America’s willingness to acknowledge its mistakes and do better, an example of the kind of tolerance and opportunity you will find nowhere else in the world." This article is still available online at www.kansascity.com. I recommend it.
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Re: Thank you, Rush Limbaugh!
[Read the article: Thank you, Rush Limbaugh!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you, Joan Walsh!
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Sexism
[Read the article: My last word (for now) on sexism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The first part of this video reminds me of all of those years of "No Comment" pages in Ms Magazine. I tore those pages out month by month and put them in a notebook and I used to show the collection to my friends and to my daughters- as representative of the world I grew up in and the world they were inheriting. Taken all together those No Comment pages were (and still are) devastating in impact, but I really did think things were getting better. Silly me!
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Our Destructive Primary Campaign
[Read the article: The haunting of the Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is another component to this battle and one that I think is the responsibility of the DNC. The primary state votes have been awarded proportionally and democratically but nothing was done to correct the essentially anti-democratic caucus state votes. Consequently no matter what happens one side is going to feel cheated.
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Obama and the Democratic base
[Read the article: Looking past Pennsylvania]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What stikes me about so many Obama supporters who are nasty to Clinton is that they are self-proclaimed independents--which means that they probably voted for Bush in 2000 because they hated Clinton, and here they go again. This letting independents vote in our primary is nuts. Either Obama represents the Democratic Party or he doesn't--in which case why should I vote for him? He's trying to play it both ways. I am really sick and tired of Independents lecturing me about Democratic Party politics.
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keith olbermann
[Read the article: Looking past Pennsylvania]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I lost respect for Olbermann when he attacked Clinton with the same outrage and hyperbole that he had used when he attacked Bush and his administration for the Imperial Presidency and their very real crimes against our Constitution and the rule of law. I now view Olbermann as a poseur primarily interested in advancing the career of Keith Olbermann. Well, to be more precise, I no longer view him at all.
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Keith Olbermann
[Read the article: Keith Olbermann apologizes for his Clinton remark]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I lost respect for Olbermann not because he became an Obama supporter but because he turned on Clinton with exactly the same intensity and hyperbole and scorn that he had directed against the real and serious crimes of George W. Bush and his administration. Suddenly he seemed like a poseur and not really interested in anything except promoting Keith Olbermann and his ratings. I'll never watch him again.
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A vote of no confidence
[Read the article: A new low in Clinton bashing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This for me was the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm not voting for Obama in November. Previous to this last insult I had cut myself off from Olbermann, Air America and almost all of my former Internet sites, and I was determined to do the right thing and vote for Obama despite it all. But not now. Obama's followers have always been a bit creepy in their over-the-top adulation of their candidate and I have done my best to excuse their insults, because they were young and so on and so on. But not anymore. I am furious. Let's just hope Obama fans that in your rush to turn the Democratic party into more of "Republican Light" with your emphasis on Republican cross-overs and the independent voters that you are right in your belief that you don't need the traditional Democratic base because you are out of your mind if you think we are all going to come together as one big, happy family at the convention. I am not even going to watch the convention, and I am not alone. So this atheist from Kansas who integrated lunch counters and swimming pools in the late 1950's and marched for civil rights and dated across racial lines in college in the early 1960's is not voting for Barack Obama. How ironic is that? All of my energy is now going to trying to help elect real Democrats--not more Republican Lights--to the House and Senate.