Healthy attitude
I want to thank Khary Kimani Turner for listening to the MichUHCAN position at the Detroit City Council where unanimous approval for a resolution on universal health care was passed (News Hits, Metro Times, Nov. 5-11). We need all the media support we can get. Thanks to the Metro Times staff for being consistently on our side, all of our sides. —Pat Cason-Merenda, DMC staff nurse, MichUHCAN member, Detroit
Unhealthy attitude
I just wanted to send you, Jack Lessenberry, a quick response to let you know how much your article sickens me (“Impeach the president?” Metro Times, Oct. 22-28). This is a perfect example of how the media is so biased and caters to you liberal freaks. I will have to do some investigating as to whether there was an article praising Bush for his tremendous job as president next to yours.
Do you not think, in that pea-brain mind of yours, that Saddam Hussein is/was not a threat to this entire world? His daily schedule would consist of murder, rape, lying, cheating, etc. Do you not think that this man, ruling a country, has turned it into his own personal Sodom and Gomorrah against the people’s will, deserves to be brought down from his power? Did you not see the looks on the faces of those innocent when Saddam was brought down? They were finally free! Come on, Mr. Lessenberry, are you that sick?!?
To see an article like yours is disgusting. Hope your liberal freak views don’t kill you! —Stephanie Zanher, [email protected], Drexel Hill, Pa.
Dixiecrat history
Jack Lessenberry, in reference to your column (“Hail to the chief,” Metro Times, Nov. 5-11) in which you wrote: “Okay, now. Here’s what really happened. Democrats lost the pickup trucks-with-decals voters during the civil rights wars of the ’60s ...,” I feel that it is worthy to note that a likely reason those folks were “lost” by the Democrats is that JFK and his brother probably alienated them by pushing integration as passionately as they did — that’s merely my speculation. But, this movement was pushed in Congress by the Republicans and not most Democrats (especially not Southern Democrats), interestingly, and as a result, Strom Thurmond and others formed the Dixiecrats in an anti-integration stance.
While Democrats take a lot of credit for being a friend to minorities, I think people forget that the move toward integration was pushed by Republicans in the legislative branch, and rejected by many Democrats. It is ironic and fortunate for Democrats that they maintain the support of a great majority of minorities today given their segregationist behavior in Congress in the 1960s. —Andrew Churchman, Huntington Woods
Lessons learned
Thank you, Jack Lessenberry, for annihilating any doubts in my mind that the revered — and sometimes controversial — American Civil Liberties Union, with National Executive Director Anthony Romero at the helm, is no longer relevant (“No safety without freedom,” Metro Times, Nov. 12-18).
Now more than ever, the precious immeasurability of our vaulted civil liberties, that we (as the Sleeping Giant Superpower) supposedly hold so constitutionally sacrosanct, continues to come under fire by the likes of Attorney General John Ashcroft and President George W. Bush. And no one seems to give a good goddamn.
While traditional mainstream media, may it be CNN, The New York Times or the Fox News Channel’s allegedly “fair and balanced” “O’Reilly Factor,” continues to engender electronically disseminated paranoia throughout our flag-waving populace with its post-War on Terrorism/9-11 coverage, no one seems to discern that the newly proposed USA Patriot Act II is treading dangerously close to that Big Brother-induced Orwellian vista that I was warned about.
Not surprisingly, you predicted something like this might happen years ago, when I was but a milquetoast apprentice in your tough-as-nails journalism courses at Wayne State University.—Ronald Clark, [email protected], Detroit
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