Friday, September 05, 2003
Dear EMAIL ETIQUETTE Abby,
I have a friend who regularly sends fantabulous hyper-links -- one's that transport me to the far reaches of the political spectrum, to the morbid extremes, to the funny, and to the just plain dumb. I am gratefully part of his email distribution list but do not know anybody else on it (save for occassionaly one person).
The other day my friend sent me an email regarding Johnny Depp's recent comments about the U.S. One of the people on my friend's distribution list responded by hitting Reply All. I won't bore you with the details but I found myself caught up in an EXCHANGE with this complete stranger. I don't know him from a hole in the wall and yet ended up calling him a brain-washed white ass. I was just overcome with Reply-Rage and now my friend is regretting that he ever put us on the same distribution list. Please help. Should I apologize? Is it wrong to hit Reply to All? Are there any drugs that you know of out on the market to medicate my Reply-Rage bouts? What should I do? Below is his correspondence and my reply. Do you think I was being mean?
His 2-Cents: The French supported Saddam Hussein because they had cozy oil deals and had created this fraudulent UN program called the oil for food program. France made 10's of billions per year on these deals. I can't think of anything more corrupt than turning a blind eye to that sadistic mass murderer for monetary reasons. Also, how can they call themselves an ally when they supported a brutal dictatorship that funds terrorism and murder throughout the world and against the US with French investment. France claims to have disagreed with the war on grounds of principle, but that is blatantly false -- they opposed the war because of $$$. In my mind, their behavior is the most disgusting since the days of Vichy France. Its just shameful behavior and Johnny Depp says nothing about it. I'm sure Depp is well meaning, just very biased.
My view regarding the war is that we had to take the Saddam Regime out because they were assisting or would assist terrorists in getting nuclear or chemical weapons. We just can't take the chance. I don't think it can be contested that the world is a better and safer place without Saddam in power, and that the war benefits the Iraqi people in the long term. Its just demeaning to call our efforts to take the war to the terrorists a "puppy with teeth." Don't we have a right to defend ourselves?
I read the NY Times (especially Tom Friedman), the Toronto Star, the International Herald-Tribune, the Chicago Tribune and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. All are liberal leaning. The only news I get from the conservative side is Fox News, but I balance that against PBS and NPR. So I am getting pretty balanced view and try to make up my mind only on the facts, not on the rhetoric.
I hope you don't really think I am brain-washed. I think of myself of more of social moderate and foreign policy conservative, and I like to keep an open mind. America is the best in my view because we have brought more peace, security and freedom to the world than any other nation in the history of our planet. In my view the two most positive transforming events in the history of mankind were the advent of Christianity (the most important) and the founding of the United States. So the US is not anywhere near perfect and has to stay true to itself, but to this point it has been a very positive influence on the world. England at least brought the world the Magna Carta, but what influences did France or Germany ever bring the world but colonialism (France was the last country to give up colonialism in the late 1950's) and Nazism (still seething beneath surface in Germany)? I would be interested in learning if you can name a single positive influence France or Germany has had in terms of world security, freedom and democracy.
MY RAGE RESPONSE REPLY: First of all, and in spite of the many millions of dollar's worth of precision bombs that have been dropped everywhere but on top of Saddam Hussein's head, we haven't 'taken Hussein out.' He is alive and hiding someplace along with all of those weapons of mass destruction nobody has been able to find. Yes those weapons of mass destruction, remember? The United States of America launched a preemptive war, a PREEMPTIVE war, against a country on the grounds that it was purportedly a powder keg of chemical and biological weapons ready to blow up in the faces of the western infidels. Now your argument (along with the PR machine that planted it into your head) is that no, no, no, it wasn't about weapons of mass destruction. Forget Powell holding that vile of talcum powder. The justification of war was that 'the Saddam Regime were assisting or would assist terrorists in getting nuclear or chemical weapons.' Interesting. If that's the case we should also be taking out our 'ally' Saudi Arabia. And BTW, no, I do not think the world is safer without Hussein. I think America's tactics have only spawned a couple of thousand more wavering fanatics to die a martyr's death.
The Germans and French morally bankrupt? Please. I'll let my resident researcher [I'm referring to my friend here] provide you a list about a mile long of all the brute dictators and whacko regimes the American government have propped up in the name of "democracy" whilst furthering their economic interests in said area over the last couple of decades. Until things went awry for Bush Sr., WE were the one's courting dictator Hussein and negotiating all kinds of oil deals. So what are you talking about?
And so what if France was the last country to relinquish colonialism in the 1950's. Turns out that at just about the same time the wondrously democratic United States via the same Supreme Court was desegregating buses for crying out loud. I could be wrong but I'm guessing you're white. Do you know how morally reprehensible it is to tell a person where they can sit on a bus based on their skin color? Can your white male ass even imagine being told to sit at the back of the bus? This in a country whose democratic foundation is liberty and justice for all... So what's your point about moral bankruptcy and who has been guilty of it when?
And you think Christianity is the best thing since sliced bread? Well I'm thinkin' I could find a few Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, agnostics, and atheists, etc. who would heartily disagree. Hence the reason we have been bashing each other's heads in over the last few millennium (and Christians are most definitely not excluded from the violence). So I disagree with you there as well. In fact I think organized religion has been one of the greatest harbingers for carnage than almost anything ever invented by mankind. So let's just agree to disagree on that one.
I notice that all of your news sources are confined to the US and the UK. And yet you still believe you are not brainwashed. You might think that NPR is rounding out your world-view education with its liberal bias but don't delude yourself into thinking that this is enough to give you the big picture. One size just may not fit all i.e. sit down [mister]: democracy may not be for everybody; freedom can be hazardous to your health e.g. soaring anti-depression prescriptions for all those people with a lot of freedom on their hands, global warming thanks to all those drivers with the 'freedom' to drive their gas guzzlers around, etc. And 'world security' is in the eye of the guy pointing the gun at your head. Imagine if you will a military force coming to the U.S. to 'liberate' us from whatever they felt we needed liberating from (materialism, obesity, complacency, corporate greed, [wanton energy consumption] you pick). Would you not be incensed by nineteen year-olds brandishing guns, wearing wrap-around sunglasses, and parading down YOUR street -- NO MATTER WHAT 'IMPROVEMENTS' AND 'FREEDOMS' THEY WERE PROMISING TO BRING YOU? It would be particularly annoying if you realized that other than a lot of flashy "Plan A" fireworks, the occupying force didn't have much of a "Plan B" in terms of getting the country up and running ("Excuse us while we get the American public to buy into a $60 BILLION DOLLAR restructuring plan for you guys") -- so sure were they that the indigenous oppressed would be falling to their knees and weeping with gratitude that they had been 'saved.' As for for the educated elite of the occupied country, they might note with some cynicism the entourage of Bechtel/Halliburton-corporate-types driving through the countryside in their roll-over prone Hummers scoping the terrain...
Sorry but I really DO think you are brainwashed.
DEAR ANNA BLOVIATIONS,
It is absolutely fair to hit Reply to All so long as the initiator of the email has not specified otherwise. Never hold back on your opinions. It is good practice for learning to say from the heart the things you want to to the people you actually know but are afraid to because you're worried about hurting their feelings or losing them. However once you have voiced your opinions, no matter how vociferously, it is important to retract your claws, lay low for a while, and most importantly crack a joke. Otherwise you risk gaining a reputation for being a hysterical-raging-whacko-liberal. It would behoove the Democratic presidential contenders to follow this advice.
Regards,
Abby
I have a friend who regularly sends fantabulous hyper-links -- one's that transport me to the far reaches of the political spectrum, to the morbid extremes, to the funny, and to the just plain dumb. I am gratefully part of his email distribution list but do not know anybody else on it (save for occassionaly one person).
The other day my friend sent me an email regarding Johnny Depp's recent comments about the U.S. One of the people on my friend's distribution list responded by hitting Reply All. I won't bore you with the details but I found myself caught up in an EXCHANGE with this complete stranger. I don't know him from a hole in the wall and yet ended up calling him a brain-washed white ass. I was just overcome with Reply-Rage and now my friend is regretting that he ever put us on the same distribution list. Please help. Should I apologize? Is it wrong to hit Reply to All? Are there any drugs that you know of out on the market to medicate my Reply-Rage bouts? What should I do? Below is his correspondence and my reply. Do you think I was being mean?
His 2-Cents: The French supported Saddam Hussein because they had cozy oil deals and had created this fraudulent UN program called the oil for food program. France made 10's of billions per year on these deals. I can't think of anything more corrupt than turning a blind eye to that sadistic mass murderer for monetary reasons. Also, how can they call themselves an ally when they supported a brutal dictatorship that funds terrorism and murder throughout the world and against the US with French investment. France claims to have disagreed with the war on grounds of principle, but that is blatantly false -- they opposed the war because of $$$. In my mind, their behavior is the most disgusting since the days of Vichy France. Its just shameful behavior and Johnny Depp says nothing about it. I'm sure Depp is well meaning, just very biased.
My view regarding the war is that we had to take the Saddam Regime out because they were assisting or would assist terrorists in getting nuclear or chemical weapons. We just can't take the chance. I don't think it can be contested that the world is a better and safer place without Saddam in power, and that the war benefits the Iraqi people in the long term. Its just demeaning to call our efforts to take the war to the terrorists a "puppy with teeth." Don't we have a right to defend ourselves?
I read the NY Times (especially Tom Friedman), the Toronto Star, the International Herald-Tribune, the Chicago Tribune and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. All are liberal leaning. The only news I get from the conservative side is Fox News, but I balance that against PBS and NPR. So I am getting pretty balanced view and try to make up my mind only on the facts, not on the rhetoric.
I hope you don't really think I am brain-washed. I think of myself of more of social moderate and foreign policy conservative, and I like to keep an open mind. America is the best in my view because we have brought more peace, security and freedom to the world than any other nation in the history of our planet. In my view the two most positive transforming events in the history of mankind were the advent of Christianity (the most important) and the founding of the United States. So the US is not anywhere near perfect and has to stay true to itself, but to this point it has been a very positive influence on the world. England at least brought the world the Magna Carta, but what influences did France or Germany ever bring the world but colonialism (France was the last country to give up colonialism in the late 1950's) and Nazism (still seething beneath surface in Germany)? I would be interested in learning if you can name a single positive influence France or Germany has had in terms of world security, freedom and democracy.
MY RAGE RESPONSE REPLY: First of all, and in spite of the many millions of dollar's worth of precision bombs that have been dropped everywhere but on top of Saddam Hussein's head, we haven't 'taken Hussein out.' He is alive and hiding someplace along with all of those weapons of mass destruction nobody has been able to find. Yes those weapons of mass destruction, remember? The United States of America launched a preemptive war, a PREEMPTIVE war, against a country on the grounds that it was purportedly a powder keg of chemical and biological weapons ready to blow up in the faces of the western infidels. Now your argument (along with the PR machine that planted it into your head) is that no, no, no, it wasn't about weapons of mass destruction. Forget Powell holding that vile of talcum powder. The justification of war was that 'the Saddam Regime were assisting or would assist terrorists in getting nuclear or chemical weapons.' Interesting. If that's the case we should also be taking out our 'ally' Saudi Arabia. And BTW, no, I do not think the world is safer without Hussein. I think America's tactics have only spawned a couple of thousand more wavering fanatics to die a martyr's death.
The Germans and French morally bankrupt? Please. I'll let my resident researcher [I'm referring to my friend here] provide you a list about a mile long of all the brute dictators and whacko regimes the American government have propped up in the name of "democracy" whilst furthering their economic interests in said area over the last couple of decades. Until things went awry for Bush Sr., WE were the one's courting dictator Hussein and negotiating all kinds of oil deals. So what are you talking about?
And so what if France was the last country to relinquish colonialism in the 1950's. Turns out that at just about the same time the wondrously democratic United States via the same Supreme Court was desegregating buses for crying out loud. I could be wrong but I'm guessing you're white. Do you know how morally reprehensible it is to tell a person where they can sit on a bus based on their skin color? Can your white male ass even imagine being told to sit at the back of the bus? This in a country whose democratic foundation is liberty and justice for all... So what's your point about moral bankruptcy and who has been guilty of it when?
And you think Christianity is the best thing since sliced bread? Well I'm thinkin' I could find a few Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, agnostics, and atheists, etc. who would heartily disagree. Hence the reason we have been bashing each other's heads in over the last few millennium (and Christians are most definitely not excluded from the violence). So I disagree with you there as well. In fact I think organized religion has been one of the greatest harbingers for carnage than almost anything ever invented by mankind. So let's just agree to disagree on that one.
I notice that all of your news sources are confined to the US and the UK. And yet you still believe you are not brainwashed. You might think that NPR is rounding out your world-view education with its liberal bias but don't delude yourself into thinking that this is enough to give you the big picture. One size just may not fit all i.e. sit down [mister]: democracy may not be for everybody; freedom can be hazardous to your health e.g. soaring anti-depression prescriptions for all those people with a lot of freedom on their hands, global warming thanks to all those drivers with the 'freedom' to drive their gas guzzlers around, etc. And 'world security' is in the eye of the guy pointing the gun at your head. Imagine if you will a military force coming to the U.S. to 'liberate' us from whatever they felt we needed liberating from (materialism, obesity, complacency, corporate greed, [wanton energy consumption] you pick). Would you not be incensed by nineteen year-olds brandishing guns, wearing wrap-around sunglasses, and parading down YOUR street -- NO MATTER WHAT 'IMPROVEMENTS' AND 'FREEDOMS' THEY WERE PROMISING TO BRING YOU? It would be particularly annoying if you realized that other than a lot of flashy "Plan A" fireworks, the occupying force didn't have much of a "Plan B" in terms of getting the country up and running ("Excuse us while we get the American public to buy into a $60 BILLION DOLLAR restructuring plan for you guys") -- so sure were they that the indigenous oppressed would be falling to their knees and weeping with gratitude that they had been 'saved.' As for for the educated elite of the occupied country, they might note with some cynicism the entourage of Bechtel/Halliburton-corporate-types driving through the countryside in their roll-over prone Hummers scoping the terrain...
Sorry but I really DO think you are brainwashed.
DEAR ANNA BLOVIATIONS,
It is absolutely fair to hit Reply to All so long as the initiator of the email has not specified otherwise. Never hold back on your opinions. It is good practice for learning to say from the heart the things you want to to the people you actually know but are afraid to because you're worried about hurting their feelings or losing them. However once you have voiced your opinions, no matter how vociferously, it is important to retract your claws, lay low for a while, and most importantly crack a joke. Otherwise you risk gaining a reputation for being a hysterical-raging-whacko-liberal. It would behoove the Democratic presidential contenders to follow this advice.
Regards,
Abby
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