Letters to the Editor
Ballsee
Published Letters: 232 Editor's Choice: 19
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All I Vant Is To Be Left A Lawn.....
[Read the article: Gay, godly and guilty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've been in and around what used to be called the Gay Liberation Movement for 30 years and I've never thought of what I was doing as fighting for unqualified acceptance. I've always thought of it as fighting for the right to be let alone. I've always wanted what James Baldwin wanted from white people, the right to be left alone. That’s the most important human freedom there is. I want closeted homosexuals and the fear and hate mongering straight crowd to stop trying to interfere with my life. I want them to take their homophobic laws and their politicians and their police and their preachers and get them the hell away from me. I've only wanted a position that allows me to earn a living, a place to live in peace, the freedom to come and go, the right to partner with whatever adult will have me, the right to obtain the same level of legal and economic blessings as any other citizen, the right to speak and say what is on my mind without being stopped or silenced by people who have personal problems with who they are or who I am. Equality is what I’ve been fighting for, not acceptance. The right to be an American and a human citizen of the world. I don’t care if you love me or not, what I want you to do is to respect my fundamental human right not to be interfered with. I want what everyone else expects. I’m a moral person. All my gay friends are law-abiding, tax paying, moral people. We’re not out to stop other people from living whatever kind of life they choose to live, even if that means you tie yourself up in knots over homosexuals and homosexuality. That’s the hate mongering crowd’s problem. My only hope is that someday before I die, they stop making it mine.
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The Coarsening of Debate
[Read the article: Electrocute Bill Keller! No, hang him!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Imagine the neo-con frothing if Al Franken were to call for the scalp of Rupert Murdoch. The Republicans are who have made uglier and nastier the public discourse in this country. The tactics of these people are obscene.
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What you'll need to make an FCC complaint
[Read the article: Electrocute Bill Keller! No, hang him!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It would be more helpful if those of you who had filed an FCC complaint had given the following information about the KSFO program in question. I suspect a lot of people may have gone to the FCC site, discovered they didn't have all the required data and just left the site without filing a complaint. If you've already been through the process, share what you know about how to do it so that those you are encouraging to do the same thing, will actually follow through on it.
Here's the data you'll need:
Date of Program: June 27, 29 and 30th, 2006
Time: 5:00AM - 9:00AM
Network: ABC/Disney
Station: KFSO AM
City: Whatever city you're in. They have webcast.
Name of Program: The Lee Rodgers and Melanie Morgan Program
Complaint: (This is what I wrote. I edited and paraphrased what Joe said in his column about the broadcast and added some of my own commentary.)
COMPLAINT:
On June 27, following a news item about Bush's denunciation of the NYTimes story on the SWIFT bank consortium's tracking of terrorist funds, Morgan said, "Get 'em! Yes, hang 'em! Yeah!"
Two days later on June 29, Rodgers, upset with the Associated Press for reporting that antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and others had begun a hunger strike, said "Why don't you dopes at the Associated Press do the world a favor? Commit mass suicide!"
"Oh, Lee!" tittered Morgan.
On June 30th, Rodgers utters these words, "God Almighty. The day will come ... The day will come when unpleasant things are going to happen to a bunch of stupid liberals. It's going to be amusing to watch, it's going to be very amusing to watch."
Calling for the death of publishers with whom one disagrees with over the public airwaves is hate speech. It adds nothing of value to the political discourse and serves only to inflame and corrupt rational public debate. This is simply hatemongering speech and is no more protected under the 1st Amendment than is yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre that is not on fire.
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Here's the FCC link again:
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475BConf.cfm
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The Good Guys
[Read the article: Killing a nation, one airstrike at a time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]HW - We Americans are better than that - we don't do collective punishment to civilian population like blowing
up power stations, etc..
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Really? the U.S. bombed, invaded and are now occupying an entire country that didn't do anything to us. Apparently, just because our leadership didn't like their leadership.
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Huh?
[Read the article: I'm a teacher who went too far with a former student]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The LW did not say that he/she was a female. Am I missing something?
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They've emerged, again
[Read the article: Abortion under siege in Mississippi]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is what happened to the KKK and their supporters. They became fundamentalist Christians.
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Ohh, the poor South
[Read the article: Abortion under siege in Mississippi]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]tonia: I have one thing to say fuckthesouth.com
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Ouch! Nice rant, some good points, marred I'm afraid by all the unnecessary profanity. Too many insults to penises too. The writer is also mistaken in proclaiming that ALL the American revolutionaries and the brain trust of the American Republic ALL started in the northeast. Last time I looked Virginia was still in the South. Jefferson, Washington, Madison were Southerners.
I'm a Southerner too and I live in the South, and I agree with some of what the website argues. (e.g. I don't think the South is any more authentically American than any other part of the country.) I just wish it had been a bit more accurate and fair, minus all the vulgarity.