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Interesting Bill,
The Republicans always complain about the liberal
bias on public broadcasting. Here is a letter that I wrote today
after happening upon Joe Scarborough's disgusting biased diatribes on
MSNBC. Matthews is sometimes entertaining but he is a male chavinist
pig whose married to someone who should know better. She's in the
business too. I can't imagine him being such at home or what his
children will do to him when they rebel.
REH
To MSNBC,
We do eat and we do buy things. I hope
that you understand that we cannot avoid buying the things that we
need. But we can avoid buying things that are advertised on
MSNBC and Fox simply because we don't know because it is an accident when we
watch. The majority that voted for Al Gore and the Democrats
are massive while the majorities that vote Republican, when they win, are
disciplined at getting out their limits of their votes.
That has nothing to do with who eats or washes
their clothes. In Florida all of those dis-enfranchised voters would
have swept the state. They couldn't vote but they do eat and are
consumers. You have irritated the hell out of us with your biased
anti-Democrat and elitist/hokey hogwash.
If the 1/2% really do have your vulgar
taste it is proof that money can't buy taste. You blame it on
Hollywood but you then offer nothing but oppressive morality and puritanical
ethics. Your artistic taste is hokum and yet you don't understand
that aesthetics are the root of all morality and ethics. We
don't make a show of our religion and we don't sell Jesus like a used
car. We support Israel but we are not against human rights for
all. We are not the unwashed but we are the masses
and we purchase the products that TV advertises. That is the only
place where every American alive VOTES. And that vote supports your
sponsors or doesn't.
We all know what effect the Republicans have on
business and who they help. We understand Milton Friedman and his
mono-financial view that sacrifices our lives and loves on the altar of monetary
efficiency and we don't like it. Unlike the rubes, we don't live to
work but work to live. We also don't frequent junk food or junk news
either. Hiring Republican operatives as journalists may be good for
that constituency but not ours and so we don't support or vote with our dollars
or attention to you or yours.
I'm sure your constituency is very loyal and
faithful. But I can tell you that they are not the majority and so
the majority is not buying your products. In fact the majority is
avoiding your programming and recommendations all together. I was shocked
when I heard figures the low figures about cable listeners.
Then it made sense. Everyone else is listening as little as I
am. All that blue land out there may "get out the vote" but it
doesn't eat nearly as much as the rest of us who voted for Al Gore and represent
that vast untouched group of sophisticated Americans who can avoid MSNBC but
cannot avoid buying things. You are lousy at
business. We don't listen to talk radio either unless we are
captive in cabs. The subway is not only faster but we aren't
listening to bigots preaching their particular version of the Bible on the radio
either.
The upper 1/2% doesn't buy any more soap or
automobiles than anyone else. We are not prejudiced against
fundamentalism but we are discriminate when it comes to
bigotry. Bigots may count in buying elections but not in
consumer goods. They don't run economies, we do with our
purchases. We also don't care much about
guns. Your constituency on that is the voters again and not the
buyers. Obviously you live and die by elections and not by selling
products.
We also are paying attention to what Paul Wolfowitz
has really said about the war and its intent. And we do still read the
NYTimes because unfortunately it is still the only news organization on the
block. It let us down but it does represent our view of life and
good taste far more than does yours. You are so disgusting you
have even polluted Keith Obermann.
goodbye,
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2003 1:16
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Cloistered or
not?
No. There are a lot of people who agree. I don't know if you ever watch
Democracy Now on public access TV but a lot of thinking there is
similar.
What Bush has done is select his target based on where his arrow hits.
The irony of the super corporation is that it has become so successful
that it can produce more than society demands and by cutting back on jobs, it
is cannibalizing its consumer base. It is building up the cities [to become
city states again?] while the nation state and its subdivisions [we call them
states here] are decaying. A lot of folks will get hurt in the process, but
like the dinosaur, its total dominance will lead to its downfall.
Bill
Gee, is it because we are both from the
cloisters and not out in the real world that I agree with this lady?
REH
Published on Thursday, May 29,
2003 by the National Catholic Reporter
<http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/>
Is there
anything left that matters?
by Joan Chittister, OSB
This is what
I don't understand: All of a sudden nothing seems to matter.
First,
they said they wanted Bin Laden "dead or alive." But they didn't get him. So
now they tell us that it doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one
man.
Then they said they wanted Saddam Hussein, "dead or alive."
He's apparently alive but we haven't got him yet, either. However, President
Bush told reporters recently, "It doesn't matter. Our mission is greater
than one man."
Finally, they told us that we were invading Iraq to
destroy their weapons of mass destruction. Now they say those weapons
probably don't exist. Maybe never existed. Apparently that doesn't matter
either.
Except that it does matter.
I know we're not
supposed to say that. I know it's called "unpatriotic."
But it's
also called honesty. And dishonesty matters.
It matters that the
infrastructure of a foreign nation that couldn't defend itself against us
has been destroyed on the grounds that it was a military threat to the
world.
It matters that it was destroyed by us under a new doctrine
of "pre-emptive war" when there was apparently nothing worth pre-empting.
It surely matters to the families here whose sons went to war to
make the world safe from weapons of mass destruction and will never come
home.
It matters to families in the United States whose life support
programs were ended, whose medical insurance ran out, whose food stamps were
cut off, whose day care programs were eliminated so we could spend the money
on sending an army to do what did not need to be done.
It matters to
the Iraqi girl whose face was burned by a lamp that toppled over as a result
of a U.S. bombing run.
It matters to Ali, the Iraqi boy who lost his
family - and both his arms - in a U.S. air attack.
It matters to the
people in Baghdad whose water supply is now fetid, whose electricity is
gone, whose streets are unsafe, whose 158 government ministries' buildings
and all their records have been destroyed, whose cultural heritage and
social system has been looted and whose cities teem with anti-American
protests.
It matters that the people we say we "liberated" do not
feel liberated in the midst of the lawlessness, destruction and wholesale
social suffering that so-called liberation created.
It matters to
the United Nations whose integrity was impugned, whose authority was denied,
whose inspection teams are even now still being overlooked in the process of
technical evaluation and disarmament.
It matters to the reputation
of the United States in the eyes of the world, both now and for decades to
come, perhaps.
And surely it matters to the integrity of this nation
whether or not its intelligence gathering agencies have any real
intelligence or not before we launch a military armada on its say-so.
And it should matter whether or not our government is either
incompetent and didn't know what they were doing or were dishonest and
refused to say. The unspoken truth is that either as a people we were
misled, or we were lied to, about the real reason for this war. Either we
made a huge - and unforgivable - mistake, an arrogant or ignorant mistake,
or we are swaggering around the world like a blind giant, flailing in all
directions while the rest of the world watches in horror or in ridicule.
If Bill Clinton's definition of "is" matters, surely this matters.
If a president's sex life matters, surely a president's use of global force
against some of the weakest people in the world matters. If a president's
word in a court of law about a private indiscretion matters, surely a
president's word to the community of nations and the security of millions of
people matters.
And if not, why not? If not, surely there is
something as wrong with us as citizens, as thinkers, as Christians as there
must be with some facet of the government. If wars that the public says are
wrong yesterday - as over 70% of U.S. citizens did before the attack on Iraq
- suddenly become "right" the minute the first bombs drop, what kind of
national morality is that?
Of what are we really capable as a nation
if the considered judgment of politicians and people around the world means
nothing to us as a people?
What is the depth of the American soul if
we can allow destruction to be done in our name and the name of "liberation"
and never even demand an accounting of its costs, both personal and public,
when it is over?
We like to take comfort in the notion that people
make a distinction between our government and ourselves. We like to say that
the people of the world love Americans, they simply mistrust our government.
But excoriating a distant and anonymous "government" for wreaking rubble on
a nation in pretense of good requires very little of either character or
intelligence.
What may count most, however, is that we may well be
the ones Proverbs warns when it reminds us: "Kings take pleasure in honest
lips; they value the one who speaks the truth." The point is clear: If the
people speak and the king doesn't listen, there is something wrong with the
king. If the king acts precipitously and the people say nothing, something
is wrong with the people.
It may be time for us to realize that in a
country that prides itself on being democratic, we are our government. And
the rest of the world is figuring that out very quickly.
>From
where I stand, that matters.
A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Sister
Joan is a best-selling author and well- known international lecturer. She is
founder and executive director of Benetvision: A Resource and Research
Center for Contemporary Spirituality <http://www.benetvision.org/> ,
and past president of the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses and
the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Sister Joan has been
recognized by universities and national organizations for her work for
justice, peace and equality for women in the Church and society. She is an
active member of the International Peace Council.
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