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• Wednesday, May 2, 2007 01:44 PM

  Hi grubert,

  What I don't get is WHY no one called Mikes Pace on one particular statement.

  At the beginning or the mud wrestling he said this:

  "If you are a white America reading this, KNOW that Islamists would LOVE to cut your head off. But you still defend them and shame Bush?? Look, I don't like him either, I'm just asking you to consider our 'opponents,' and their actions."

  Let us subtitute the word terrorist for the word Islamist.

  (Knowing of course that not all or even most Islamists are terrorists. Apparently Mikes has bought the Bush propaganda that hopes to make us see a valid religion in such terms. So let's give him the benefit of a doubt. Let's assume he meant terrorists.)

  If terrorists are a threat to white people, then where does that leave the rest of us who might be black Baptists, Asian Buddhists, Hispanic Catholics, mixed race Unitarian-Universalists, Native Americans who practice their own spiritual traditions?

  I am so confused. Did the 9-11 terrorists unload everyone that wasn't white before they crashed those planes into the Twin Towers.

  I admit that like most Americans I was quite shocked at the time. In fact, I was so upset that I simply turned off the news and just didn't follow it for awhile, so it is possible that the terrorists actually did this and I missed it.

  I really tried not to think about the horror much until suddenly I found the Bush administration was planning to invade Iraq. "What?" I thought. "Why are they invading Iraq and trying to equate the invasion with 9-11?" I am politically naive so, unlike most Americans (maybe I am not mainstream enough), I opposed invading Iraq without clear evidence of WMDs. I did not think we had that evidence when they went in.

  Appallingly, I began to feel rather unAmerican. I have always loved my country. I loved it through Vietnam, strange assasinations, Watergate, Iran-contra, the uninspiring presidencies of Gerald Ford and Bush I, Clinton's blow job, and the 9-11 attack. Geez, what can I say? I used to be a Patriot.

  Sadly I clung to my illusions and was doing pretty well until I got the internet. A whole world opened up to me. The much maligned mainstream media had failed me. Suddenly there were other sources of information. Weeping and wailing, I asked the god(s)/goddess(es) I sometimes don't believe in to send me a sign. I got it! It was called the Patriot Act.

  I guess you know my sad story. It is all too common. I began to fear for my Constitutional Rights, then I began to fear for the rights of Iraqis (who, after all, we were trying to "save"), then I began to fear for the rights of all Americans. Next thing you know, paranoically, I began to obsess about that fragile document called The Consitution of the United States of America. After all, it only consists of paper and vision.

  I wish someone would help me, because I think I am only a couple of steps away from becoming a deranged conspiracy theorist.

  Perhaps my problem is that I am always looking at nuances while people like Mikes Pace only think in black and white. Oops! I think I even got that wrong! I should say he thinks in white and black. No. That is not nuanced enough . . . He thinks in white and OTHER.

  I would surely appreciated any non-racist advise anyone has to offer. How do I begin to trust our elected officials again? How do I retain my love for my country? How do I stop my worst nightmare from reocurring, the nightmare that we aren't the good guys anymore?

  —AKA Smith Read AKA Smith's other letters
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