Letters to the Editor
kenkapkk
Published Letters: 112 Editor's Choice: 13
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Dear Joan,
[Read the article: What should Hillary Clinton do now?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Joan Walsh wrote on page seven of these letters,
"...There is some reconciliation in these threads, I think, if you read the smart letters and ignore the agitators.
So anyway, haiku or not, I think manos99 and Carol Richards, with their humor, make the bitterness on all sides that we find here a little more bittersweet, and I thank you."
So Joan. Admittedly the internet is a place where dialogue naturally gets inflamed. If I were speaking to you face to face, I'm sure my tone would be somewhat more muted, a little more contained. But my content of disappointement and anger would not be any less.
I don't think my posts in particular have been inappropriate, no cursing, etc. But they have been hard.
I think your sentiments about "bitterness on all sides" misses a couple of really salient points. First, in many of your "essays", nearly 80-90% of the letters have been directed not at each other but at YOU. Why would this be? Which leads to number two. What seems to have distressed many of us here is an obvious, unabashed bias toward Hillary Clinton. There has been an enormous backlash toward turning what had been one of the most progressive, cutting edge places for political dialogue and opinion on the web into a place for hack essays persistently aimed in favor of one candidate to the extent its almost a Fox news redeux for the Clinton campaign?
Barack Obama is all wrong on the gas tax, when the author can't even get his facts straight? Are you kidding me?
If you and others had published incisive, truly penetrating articles, perhaps the sense of balance and insight would have mitigated much of the "bitterness" you perceived.
You seem to be in a great deal of denial over your role here in fomenting this sense of betrayal on the part of much of your readership, both as personal commentator and editor in chief.
If Salon had approached this late primary season with anything like the truly fine article by Betsy Reed comparing the issues of gender and race ("Race to the Bottom") available online in the current issue of The Nation(www.thenation.com), I'm sure the level of discourse would have been far different.
In a heated campaign, there is irrationality and over the top emotion to be expected. If there is an increased level of "bitterness" here after your persistently mediocre and slanted essays, then you need to take a long look in the mirror.
It is sad for me, because its an ending of a relationship unexpectedly and startlingly, where the other changes profoundly in ways neither expected, welcome, or savory.
Its you dear Joan, not me.
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Xanthro-bet
[Read the article: Poetry vs. fear]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Xanthro,
Obama and Dems sweep. The conservative tide of 40 years is receeding-fast. Bush killed it. 30-50 house seats, (look at the recent special elections dog), 6-8 in the Senate, and the Presidency. 350 EV minimum. Bet you a pizza your take is the wrong side. Its a lock.
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Interesting
[Read the article: Can Barack Obama win West Virginia?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find it sad and illuminating the people excoriate Obama for his "bitter" remarks, but a prominent Republican laughingly says "Gays, Guns and Abortion" drove West Virginia into the Republican camp (putting a much vulgar spin on what Obama spoke about, and is universally acknowledged) yet it is laughed off. Ha, ha.
Where is Hillary's outrage, or the populace's for that matter now? Hmmm?
What crap of an issue. Clinton could have helped diffuse it. Instead she fans this fire, with its racist heat. Conason was right. She's channeling George Wallace.