Letters to the Editor

• This is Not My War (Why Ray Walker Pisses Me Off)

  [Read the article: The right-wing Politico cesspool]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Begin rant.

  Ray Walker, I'm sure you're a nice guy and all, but your post epitomizes what infuriates me most about Americans and politics these days.

  "The media and the electorate were cheerleaders for Bush going to Iraq, and ALL the liberals in Congress voted for the war, except Obama. So this is America's war. Once it became obvious we screwed up everyone wants to blame everyone else."

  This is not MY war.

  I felt from the moment those planes hit the towers that I did NOT want revenge, that I did NOT want a war in my name. I did NOT want innocent Iraqis or innocent Afghanis to die, just to make me feel better about the fact that some innocent Americans died. I knew from the get-go that this was a colossal mistake. And so did millions of other Americans. So: "all the electorate" was a cheerleader for this war? Hell no, buddy!

  I'm just an ordinary person. I was living in Philadelphia at the time, accessing the internet via occasional visits to the public library, and even I, little old me, was able to figure out that Bush/Cheney and their lackeys were LYING and MANIPULATING this country into a war. Yellowcake uranium, Scott Ritter, I can go on.

  So what's your excuse, huh? Watching the TV news, the same news sources that told you to vote for GW Bush because he's a great guy to have a beer with? Have you stopped watching TV news yet? Hell, my grandfather, who voted Republican his entire life, refused to vote for Bush the first time: he said, "The man's a loose cannon!" And yet you're still reluctant to admit you might have been wrong.

  Talking about wanting to blame everybody else. That exactly what it looks to me like you're doing: looking for some way to foist responsibility for having voted for a man who has damaged our country in so many ways off onto someone else: the media, the liberals in Congress (why not the conservatives, pray tell?), "all of the electorate"!

  I didn't want this war, and now I'm stuck with it. Thanks to you and others like you. Yeah, this war belongs to America now, and I accept responsibility for doing everything I can to end it as soon as possible--but I do NOT accept responsibility for getting us into this war in the first place.

  That responsibility lies with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Podhoretz, and others whose names I'm sure you've never heard of because you just aren't paying that much attention, as well as the sycophantic corporate media. That responsibility also lies with YOU, Ray Walker, who couldn't be bothered to turn off the TV and think about how you should decide how to vote, who couldn't be bothered to do a little reading, a little research, or to question the toxic miasma of hysterical patriotism that continues to smother this country.

  Like I said, I'm sure you're a nice guy. But your words really triggered this anger I have when I hear people whining, "Gosh, how could we have known?" I knew, and so did millions of others. NO EXCUSES!

  Argh.

  End rant.

  Permalink Saturday, May 31, 2008 12:23 PM