Letters to the Editor - Into irrelevancy July 01 2004

It still amazes me the amount of hatred that liberals like yourselves have for anyone with different viewpoints than your own.

In “Shaking the M-word” (News & Views, June 24), the statement is made that “Georgians have been treated to the sorry spectacle of Isakson trying to paint himself as every bit the right-wing meathead as Collins and Cain.”

Imagine if a conservative columnist or commentator on Fox News had referred to Maxine Waters or Sheila Jackson Lee or Ted Kennedy or John Kerry as “left-wing meatheads.” How many apologies and resignations would be demanded by the sensitive, caring left wing?

The double standards that liberals try and maintain, while cramming their own ideologies down everyone’s throats, has worn thin on the American public, especially here in Georgia and equally so in Florida.

Please keep it up. It’s “men” like you leading the charge, to borrow a term used by Mr. Henry, like a horde of lemmings, into irrelevancy.

-- Mark Pomerantz, Roswell

br>?Who’s a meathead?
Thanks for labeling what will be nearly 50 percent of the Republican voters in the Georgia primaries this summer as “right-wing meatheads” (News & Views, “Shaking the M-word,” June 24). Because I support a policy that in about a year-and-a-half has saved hundreds of thousands of innocent lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, a policy of a responsible safety net for the poor in our country, and a fairer tax situation that has in the past year provided over a million new jobs and an economy obviously on the rebound from 9/11 — that makes me and anyone who agrees with Cain or Collins — meatheads?

Whatever happened to the call on the left for less name-calling — or is that just for the likes of Michael Moore, Bill Press and Al Franken?

Please — give us a column on Cynthia McKinney’s return. I gotta see that.

-- Bob Sabin, Marietta

br>?Endangered species
Referring to Scott Henry’s story about Johnny Isakson’s shift to the religious right, I must say kudos (News & Views, “Shaking the M-word,” June 24). As an old-line conservative, the truly smaller government sort, I find Isakson a decent man trying too hard to pigeonhole himself as a neo-con and not trying hard enough to distinguish himself as a good conservative.

In all of this, I am reminded of George Wallace’s first campaign to win the Alabama governorship. His first campaign was one of racial moderation. Wallace ran against a strong segregationist. Wallace was the racial moderate. Wallace lost that campaign.

Isakson is facing a similar challenge. I’m afraid in our current climate that the reasonable Republican, an old-line small government conservative, is an endangered species in Georgia. The voters are too obsessed with irrelevant social issues such as abortion and gay marriage and have turned their backs on the bread-and-butter issues of the GOP such as tax-and-spend issues, law and order, and small government.

It is a sad day for this small government conservative to be accused of liberalism when I support equal protection under the law and can’t vote on purely conservative grounds because of the psychosocial issues of the current Georgia GOP. Hell, I might even have to start voting Libertarian. Yuck!

-- Jon Avery, Atlanta

br>?You so funny
Andisheh Nouraee: Just a quick note of appreciation for your columns. Your style strikes just the right balance between insight and humor and I look forward to reading your content weekly.

-- Dave Azad, Atlanta

br>?Here, here!
I just finished reading Cliff Bostock’s article, “Ronald Reagan: History Remade” (Headcase, June 17), and I agreed with every single thing he wrote. I only wish more journalists and other members of the media had the guts to write the truth, be it good or bad.

-- Africa Green, Rex

br>?He was unremarkable
I want to thank Jimmy Breslin for his honest take on Ronald Reagan and the foolishness that became a week’s worth of the media’s phony ass-kissing eulogizing (News & Views, “Reagan should be on a $3 bill,” June 17). Reagan was indeed a callous, disaffected politician who led the resurrection of the most mean-spirited and bigoted qualities of the American character. He did abandon the working class in general, and people of color in particular, and made knee-jerk reaction fashionable once again. Sadly, that legacy persists to this day. Reagan, to this African-American, is the father of the philosophy of “whitey backlash” and right-wing, Christian crusaderism that has seen today’s America engage itself in international policies that dismiss diplomatic cooperation and that jettison any humane discourse vis-a-vis domestic issues.

I believe history will be a much harsher judge of Reagan’s tenure than that of the right-wing corporate media and its shills who, in their desperation to find and make heroes of any asshole who wraps himself up in an American flag and calls himself a patriot, have merely resorted to propagandizing the myth of a dead, and largely unremarkable, president.

-- Wendell P. Simpson, Atlanta

br>?Here’s the truth
Bob Barr: Only fools such as yourself can actually believe that Ronald Reagan was a good president (Flanking Action, “The ‘American sound,’” June 10). He was about a good president as you were a U.S. attorney and we both know you were not. Why Creative Loafing allows such rejects as you to have space in the paper is shocking.

You need to write in a conservative paper where your opinion is valued. Reagan, along with Bush, used money as if it were his own personal bank, and he left the White House with the largest deficit in history, which is what he is remembered for, not being a good president. You would not know a good president if he was directly in your face. Not to speak ill of the dead, but the truth should be told: Reagan was a horrible president.

-- Connie B. Jones, Atlanta

br>?Natural order
I wanted to let you know how deeply moved I was by your editorial titled “The poor are always with us” (Fishwrapper, May 20). It’s gratifying to hear someone speak out in a prophetic voice against the political and social corruptions that doom so many poor in this rich nation to lives of squalor.

I also agree wholeheartedly with the quote from one of your previous editorials, to the effect that four more years of George Bush, and the poor may become a voting majority. Bravo!

-- Bob Rivenbark, Lawrenceville