Letters to the Editor (2) - October 25 2006

Guilty by association?

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So, John Sugg condones/approves of female genital mutilation and the murder of young-girl rape and incest victims to preserve the family honor. I just thought that since Mr. Sugg tacitly links Republican conservatives with the Aryans (Metropolis, “Hating the haters,” Oct. 19) that I could do the same to him. We on the right unanimously marginalize and disavow these Aryans as not part of us. So let’s talk of another heinous activity. We of a more conservative bend frequently denounce the heinous “cultural” norms extended to a society’s most innocent members, but I never have read such from Mr. Sugg or his friends. Mr. Sugg writes an article describing 200-300 people, but I’ll give Mr. Sugg three to five times that number and round up to 1,000 the number of people with an ignorant/hateful mind-set. Based on the recent birth/arrival of the 300 millionth person in the United States, that’s about 0.00003 percent of the current population. In Mr. Sugg’s view, that percentage is a controlling proportion of the population of this country.

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So, let’s talk about a true cultural norm that is practiced by a smidgen more than 0.00003 percent of a population. While female genital mutilation is not necessarily practiced only by the “Religion of Peace,” the ROP does not go out of its way to punish these heinous practices perpetrated on young women and girls. Also another practice of the ROP (among other cultures) is that of punishment for daring to be raped. In order to preserve the family honor, young women and girls are routinely murdered by their brothers, mothers and fathers. In fact, these girls can be murdered even on the suspicion of being raped. In some instances it was found that 70 percent to 80 percent of those virgins accused of being raped were in fact still virgins. Notice Mr. Sugg, that I have talked about heinous activities of the ROP and said nothing about actions resulting from the foreign policies of the United States. However, methinks this last sentence might be the one referred to in any response from Mr. Sugg.

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I await breathlessly your obviously forthcoming in-depth and lengthy article about some of the culturally acceptable practices of the ROP. For some reason, I think I might as well take a breath since I think an article like that will be long in coming.

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-- Brant McCanless, Atlanta

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The hypocrisy

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I’m no Republican — actually, I’m a Libertarian who finds plenty to criticize in the Republican Party — but John Sugg’s article (Metropolis, “Hating the haters,” Oct. 19) equating Republicans and the Republican Party with violent, racist, socialist fringe groups is ridiculous and disgusting. Sugg offers scant evidence and ignores vast numbers of statements to the contrary by Republican politicians and in the party platform about freedom, equality and civil rights. Because he has little or no real evidence for his claims from Republican politicians, he has to make points about Pat Robertson and Ann Coulter, who are not Republican Party leaders or elected officials. (He has to read racism into Coulter’s quote; I challenge him to find one quote from her in which she actually claims voting should be for white people only.) If the Republican Party were full of racists, as Sugg claims, he would have found a lot more evidence of it. A serious charge of racism against a group to which millions of Americans belong requires lots of credible evidence. Given that, Sugg’s charges cannot be taken seriously.

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It’s ironic that Sugg, who writes against racism, spews hatred against Republicans and uses stereotypes to paint millions of Republicans with a broad brush. Hate and stereotypes — he has them in common with racists.

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-- Charles Dean, Duluth

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Enlightened

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This is an important story (Cover, “Inside the secret world of white supremacy,” Oct. 19). I’m struck by the calls to violent action that are combined with tortured versions of Bible interpretation; sounds like the mullahs and the Quran. I appreciated the depth of your sensory depiction of the temporary world created by these determinedly sub-human characters. Hearing them reach hard to match their disparate dogma, one gets an even deeper understanding of the willful delusion that gets them through the night. But we have only to look at unbridled sectarianism elsewhere to be reminded that a bad plan, based on ethnic superiority and promoted by a few charismatic individuals, can consume even the memory of humane co-existence. We can hope that these folks are too egotistical to die for their cause. But, should the true believers begin to blow themselves up on the infield of a NASCAR event, on a MARTA bus or at the Dairy Queen, we would discover even more about our animal tendency to run in packs; we would band together with our own kind and learn to kill the others. Keep shining the light on this pit of vipers. That’s our best defense.

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-- Wade Benson, Atlanta

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The real terrorists

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(In response to cover story, “Inside the secret world of white supremacy,” Oct. 19.) So, racists look like terrorists, act like terrorists, support terrorism and a bunch of criminal activities, but the FBI focuses on eco-terror gangs?

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Best guesses — racists have killed at least 100,000 Americans, but some will say in excess of 1 million. In a well-known instance in Mississippi, the police went looking for the body of one boy and found 12 other bodies — all black men and boys that no one had reported as missing.

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There was the Southern criminal system that still may place blacks in jail for minor crimes that end up as life sentences. Cool Hand Luke was the story of tens of thousands of black men, many jailed on false evidence. Often the charges were KKK-member accusations to cover their own crimes.

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So the question stands: Why aren’t these people’s conversations tapped, movements monitored, bank accounts and assets confiscated, specially rendered to Gitmo and water-boarded?

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The great European statement is blind in the right eye, an affliction seemingly common with all right-wingers. Or maybe it is that Bush, Rove and their agents are simply more interested in being in power than supporting the Constitution or seeking justice for all.

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-- Steve Moyer, San Ramon, Calif.