February 11, 2002
This is an-email exchange between Michael Anderson, a resident of Nevada City, Northern California, and Debra Saunders, a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Anderson was commenting on Saunders' column, "Other People's Children," published in the SF Chronicle on January 8, 2002. The column can be read on-line at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/01/08/ED134342.DTL "How wonderful it must be to know you can spout such idiocy and remain free because other people's children will fight to protect you and yours." --Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle Dear Ms. Saunders, Oh, it's wonderful all right. Yeah, let's talk about that "protecting you and yours" phrase you bandy about. Since September 11, 2001, I have been thinking really hard about the people I love in cities of America who are now in harms way because of policies and procedures created by Democrats and Republicans alike who have given up on the U.S. Constitution. I think about where I grew up -- the San Francisco Bay Area -- being decimated by a nuclear weapon or weapons being detonated in key locations that severely impacts the lives of the people who are living there, and everywhere for that matter. My dad. My brother. Many in-laws. Many, many friends. Many memories. You know the first nuke since Hiroshima, no matter where, is going to be awful. In my message to you, included below, I called into question your job performance both before and after the terrorist attacks, claiming that as a journalist you (and many other journalists) have failed to tell pertinent stories about the corruption of our democracy, that your columns are apologist claptrap for a two-party system that is turning the USA into a benign dictatorship, or at the very least a republican oligarchy where the intelligentsia has to stand outside the tent with cow-eyes and a begging cup. Your response was to call me an idiot. I am sure the Bush Crime Family thing set you off, but hey, that kinda stuff is all over the internet so as a big-time journalist you should try to be a little less sensitive. The least you could do is say, "hey, no, the Bush Crime Family is not really a crime family...they are kind of like a crime family who went legit." Well, guess what. I *am* an idiot. I am a fool. I am a crazy guy, sitting here in the forests of Northern California, wondering if I will ever get to see my kids living in a country where the gov't deserves its citizens. Oh, and here's a bulletin for you. I have three sons. One is 15 years old. One is 13 years old. One is 3 1/2 months old. Your claim is that I am blindly asking other people's children to protect my own, without any reciprocation. My response is that I never signed the work order for "you and yours" to protect me and mine. Not only that, you went ahead and decided to "protect" me and mine anyway, with B-52s. In my mind, you are putting me and mine in harms way with this action. Isn't this still a republic (couched as a democracy)? Do you get to simply send my sons off to war to protect you, a 47-year-old hypocrite with no military aspirations? Not bloody likely. The reciprocation will be when significant political blocks of me and mine -- like the Pacific Northwest, the South, the Northeast -- achieve a level of political autonomy that prevents the present Wash. D.C. American gov't from both pretending to ignore the costs associated with the heavy lifting of being a superpower (in order to guarantee continued delivery of profitable resources), and making believe the rest of the planetary culture -- that which is not Nike-swoosh compliant -- doesn't exist. In the meantime, "me and mine" will be keeping a close eye on "you and yours." Count on it. Michael P. Anderson Nevada City, California -----Original Message----- From: Debra Saunders San Francisco Chronicle Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 3:13 PM To: Michael P. Anderson Subject: RE: Email for Debra Saunders Dear Mr. Anderson, How wonderful it must be to know you can spout such idiocy and remain free because other people's children will fight to protect you and yours. DJS -----Original Message----- From: Michael P. Anderson Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 10:29 PM To: Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle Subject: Email for Debra Saunders Dear Ms. Saunders, You wrote: "Their children might join the Taliban, but not the U. S. Army." The reason they [the children of the privileged liberal elite] will not join the U.S. Army is because there is the distinct possibility that they will get killed acting as an enforcer for the Bush Crime Family. The reason these children might join the Taliban is because of the confusion caused by most journalists -- yourself being a prime example -- who refuse their Fourth Estate responsibility to expose high crimes and misdemeanors (not fornication) of thugocracies like we presently have in Washington D.C. Michael P. Anderson Michael P. Anderson owns and operates Clientworks, a computer networking business in Nevada City, California, where he lives with his wife Lori and three sons. Anderson was a computer systems administrator for the Tektronix corporation for ten years and has worked in technical theatre working for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. He is co-editor/publisher of a local e-zine, The Nevada City Free Press. This is his first appearance on Swans. Please, DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work on the Web without the expressed written authorization of Swans, which will seek permission from the author. This material is copyrighted, © Michael P. Anderson 2002. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. |
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