Uncle Bob's Letter to the Editor

August 20, 2007

To the Editor:
Former Marine Jerry Copeland (ltrs Aug 18) claims that in August 1945, the Japanese had “totally evacuated their large cities, gathered in their mountainous caves and redoubts and were willing and able to begin a bloodbath of historic proportions.”

Immediately thereafter, he remarks: “Please, please, please. Whoever you are, wherever you are, don’t continue spreading such foolish nonsense!”

I’m not sure what is going on here, but let’s blame it on cognitive dissonance..

I too am a former Marine with a slightly different perspective than Mr. Copeland’s. I was a prisoner of war on the island of Honshu at the time of the Japanese surrender.

Until the day the atom bombs were dropped, all of us POWs who were able to do so were marched out of camp on daily working parties just as we had been for the past three and one half years.

For months we had seen signs in the countryside that the Japanese were reaching the end of their rope and that the war would soon be over. We saw ordinary Japanese citizens suffering from the same dietary deficiency diseases, such as beri-beri, that plagued us. Before moving to our present location, we had seen shipbuilding supplies dwindle to zero on the docks of Osaka and the city itself become a smoking wasteland from American firebombing.

On the day of the Emperor’s surrender speech all work ceased and we were herded into our barracks while our Japanese guards stood at attention in the courtyard and bowed many times to the voice emanating from the loudspeakers. We assumed from the demeanor of the guards (some of them wept) that the Emperor was telling the citizens of Japan that the war was over and knew that our assumption was correct when our sadistic guards disappeared that very day and our nice new “guards” bowed to us and gave us their rifles.

Mr. Copeland’s letter is symptomatic of the myth that has been constructed to justify the atomic bombing of Japan. According to that myth, most Japanese men were fanatic Samurai warriors who would charge American invaders on the invasion beaches to the last man, accompanied by pitchfork-wielding peasants and their wives, all committing glorious national suicide for the Emperor. Accordingly, so goes the myth, it was necessary to unleash the most terrible weapon in the history of mankind, the nuclear bomb.

The 1945 reality, which Mr. Copeland disregards, was that the Japanese government was desperately seeking an end to the war. Even before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, all major cities were in smoking ruins from incendiary bombing with the toll of civilian casualties therefrom at least twice that of the atomic bombs. Because of the naval blockade, not only war supplies but crucial food imports had dwindled to zero.

The evidence is overwhelming that the atomic bombs were not dropped to end the war, but just to prove that they could do what they were designed to do.

Zipeedoodah from 1945 to 2007 and we read in the papers that the threatened “first use” of nuclear weapons remains the cornerstone of U. S. national security policy.

I feel much safer now.

ROBERT E. WINSLOW
Eugene, OR

Weekend Update - August 25th

• Greg Palast writes "How the White House Drowned New Orleans."
• Mark Morford reports on "America, the Sexy Fascist State."
• 600 stark naked people standing on a glacier. Now that's something you don't see every day. And all for a good cause, thank goodness.
• Ted Nugent threatens Obama and Clinton. Is he off his meds?
• The Current Occupant compares Iraq and Vietnam. Big mistake.
• High crimes and misdemeanors on the Republican campaign trail.
• "The War As We Saw It."
• All students of history, whether professional or amateur, should love this one. Juan Cole finds amazing similitaries in the words and deeds of two of modern history's greatest losers. - Uncle Bob

"Turn Around, Don't Drown"

(Bad Hat sent our Chief Correspondant to Texas, to report on "what's good about Texas." Here's his report from Austin.)

On assignment, my ass. I can report the road is still long, mostly straight, the Southwest is beautiful and hot, road signs in Austin, Texas read "high water on road possible this week; turn around, don't drown".

Oddly, most everyone in Texas seems quite nice. Why they vote for dickheads is beyond me, but Texans seem intensely patriotic. I have NEVER seen so many "historical markers" in my life, all of them chipped in stone like chunky tombstones, celebrating something or other from Texas history, or the expurgated version of it. Lots of Texas, to my surprise, is thickly wooded with stands of live oak. Like California. Like Oregon used to be. Back when the Indians "farmed" enormous tracts of land by burning off everything except the oaks, so they could harvest the acorns and make some kind of foodstuff from it, after a lot of work. It was an economy that apparently lasted for six thousand years or so and then just collapsed in a few decades when Europeans arrived and changed everything. All that is left are enormous tracts of oak, many of them spaced in a way that suggests they were planted. I'm not sure anyone wants or cares about the acorns any more. Wild boar, introduced from Europe by wealthy sportsmen, seem to like them, and it gives their meat a wonderful flavor, but somehow it isn't the same as the thriving and complex Indian cultures. Which their descendants, adaptable sorts, celebrate by running extremely successful casinos, which if you think about it is roughly equivalent to slash and burn agriculture.

Arthur

Weekend Update - August 18th

• Another reason to watch what kind of toys you buy your kids.
• Atheists, and "talking green testicles." Makes you proud to be an American.
• Mark Morford: "Thank God You're Not Karl Rove."
• In Case You Missed It Department: "Can you hook me up with a 30, man?"
• The War On Iraq, by the numbers.
• Jose Padilla guilty? Holy crap. We may all be in trouble here.
• Erin Burnett: China's toxic toys are keeping America's economy strong. What?
• Is Karl Rove trying to help get Hillary Clinton elected? A new one from P.M. Carpenter.
• More on Jose Padilla from Amy Goodman.
• This little song and video by Rodney Carrington may just be the best thing you've ever seen or heard. At least on Bad Hat. "Show Them To Me."

Rove Resigns

While most of here at Bad Hat are jumping around ordering balloons and drinking cheap wine from the back portion of a secretary's shoe, one or two of us have a very uneasy feeling that something more sinister is afoot here. We shall see. At least John Edwards took a deep breath and put this all into perspective.

More on this later, I assure you.

Healthcare and Bankruptcy

Medical expense leads to insolvency

When Congress passed so-called bankruptcy reform legislation in 2005, its supporters cited the need to combat bankruptcy fraud. But many experts felt that the majority of bankruptcies were filed legitimately, did not involve fraud, and resulted from job loss or catastrophic illness. Now, a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee is investigating the role that medical debts play in forcing consumers to file for bankruptcy.

The subcommittee held a hearing last week at which a panel of scholars and experts testified concerning the role of medical debts in bankruptcy cases. Professor Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School and Dr. David Himmelstein of Harvard Medical School reported on the results of their joint research, which shows that medical debts appear to be the cause of one-half of all consumer bankruptcy filings. Professor Warren and Dr. Himmelstein also told the subcommittee that bankruptcy filings due to medical debts are a troubling trend among middle class Americans, not just lower-income families.

Elizabeth Warren a professor of Law at Harvard Law School, recently testifed before the House Judiciary Committee about bankruptcy among the middle class. You might be interested to know that Professor Warren is also an advisor to John Edwards.

I think this is the sort of thing that matters in regard to the Edwards campaign. The article mentions that roughly five million families have been forced into bankruptcy by medical expenses. Five million families. Who is to blame for allowing that to happen? Who is working to call attention to that problem, while others are mouthing bland platitudes?

Meanwhile a writer for a paper in South Carolina wrote a piece on Edwards saying he is a poo-poo head. He is inauthentic and not nice to office staff, as contrasted with Howard Dean who is nice to everyone, every day, all the time. Now that he is no longer running for elective office and has stopped screaming. Okaaay, but who exactly is this writer? Does he tend to lean Democratic or is he generally pro-GOP? or sort of something that cannot be so easily quantified?

He commented on his own story as follows. Note that he cites someone he knows who has been working with Edwards as saying "that's simply not so", which presumably comes from someone who has had a good deal more time than Warthen to be around Edwards, both on and off stage.

And interestingly, in this earlier editorial Warthen recounts an Editorial Board meeting at his paper, where they met to decide who to endorse in the 2004 election. The choices included Edwards, but although Warthen references annecdotes from that campaign to explain why Edwards is a complete douche, in that earlier article he does not mention that as influencing his thinking. What happened since 2004 to turn Warthen so strongly against Edwards, in a way that he does not share with his readers in his earlier column, which was written closer to the events that he writes about in his recent column.

So what can one make of that? I can understand someone just deciding that they don't like someone, for whatever reason, and stringing together a snippet here a snippet there until it forms a picture that appears to buttress their gut reaction. I could do the same thing to Warthen, without breaking a sweat, and paint a picture of him as a nutbag. I think he is not that, but I suspect he is backing another candidate and that something about that smartaleckey John Edwards just sticks in his craw. For someone who likes Joe Lieberman and thinks the bad Democrats (myself included) who beat his sorry ass in the Connecticut primary are bad bad ideologues, and in another column speaks of how much he likes Obama... well, it is hard to figure out what Warthen is up to. It may be that he likes Obama. It may be that he likes the Democrats nominating Obama because he thinks he will never win. It may be that he fears Edwards and wants to make sure people don't vote for him in the early South Carolina primary. It could be one of a gazillion things.

It is no fun for the Edwards campaign to have this happen, but it comes with the territory. If one is a viable candidate, even lagging far behind the two front-runners, things like this, and worse, are going to be written over and over again before the campaign is over. In regard to personal reactions to politicians I have a lot of my own reactions, but I don't have a column to put them into. And I think in the end it is not going to come down to what one individual thinks, it is going to come down to the public's reactions to a narrowed group of candidates, as the deadwood gets winnowed out along the campaign trail. When there are three or four GOP candidates and three or four Democratic candidates, then I think we'll really start to see what we are dealing with. I don't have any clear sense about Obama yet. Will I like him better when I hear more from him? Maybe. Will Hillary grow on me? Whew, hard to imagine, but anything is possible.

Arthur

Helen Thomas

Yet again, the Democrats roll over

By HELEN THOMAS HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has the Democrats' number on Capitol Hill. All he has to do is play the fear card and invoke the war on terror and they will cave.

What's more, the president has found out that he can break the law and the rubber stamp
Democratic Congress will give him a pass every time.

The fear of being branded "soft on terrorism" was enough to make the Democrats capitulate once again to the Bush administration's demands. Or was it simply a looming vacation and beckoning campaign travel that led them to desert the nation's capital after giving the National Security Agency the power to expand its eavesdropping program without a warrant.

The Orwellian measure allows the federal government -- without a court order or oversight -- to intercept electronic communications between people in the U.S. and people outside the U.S.
The old rule required that a special court give its approval for that kind of surveillance. The new law bypasses the court and empowers the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to authorize the surveillance.

Oversight by the special foreign intelligence surveillance court is now severely limited to examining whether the government's guidelines for targeting overseas suspects are appropriate.
The administration said the new law is designed to bring the Foreign Surveillance Act of 1978 "in step with advances in technology by restoring the government's power to gather information without a warrant on foreign intelligence on targets located overseas."

Mike McConnell, the director of National Intelligence, asserted that he needed the expanded spying authority because "the government is significantly burdened in capturing overseas communications of foreign terrorists planning to conduct attacks inside the United States."
McConnell -- who is pushing for more spy power -- and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- who has huge credibility problems -- will decide on the targets. Both will also have charge of oversight of the program. Figure that!

In recent weeks, administration officials have warned that the United States is under a heightened terrorist threat.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid denounced the new legislation, saying it authorizes warrantless searches and surveillance of American phone calls, e-mails, homes, offices and personal records.

Civil liberties advocates and most Democrats warned the law will allow the government to monitor communications between U.S. residents and people living outside the country -- without first getting approval from the secret foreign intelligence court.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the lawmakers were "stampeded by fear-mongering and deception."

The White House stampeded members of Congress and they wilted. The question is who is going to protect the privacy rights of the U.S. citizen? Certainly not Bush and not Congress.
The legislation has a six-month expiration date, but critics are concerned that it may become permanent.

Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., a member of the House Intelligence Committee said: "I'm not comfortable suspending the Constitution even temporarily."

Holt added: "The countries we detest around the world are the ones that spy on their own people. Usually they say they do it for public safety and security."
When Bush took the oath of office he swore to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

But after the 9/11 terrorist attack, he authorized a secret warrantless wiretapping program that allowed the NSA to intercept communications between individuals in the United States and others overseas when there is suspicion of a link to terrorism.

Full details of the program have never been revealed.

In ordering wiretapping without a warrant, Bush seemed to think that the laws did not apply to him. The compliant FISA court has turned down only one request for a warrant in the past two years. So what's his problem with obeying the law?

He seems to be giving credence to President Nixon's famous quote: "If a president does it, it's not illegal."

It boggles the mind to imagine what secret executive orders the next president will uncover after Bush leaves office and what the American people will eventually learn about the secret infringement of their rights.

Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: helent@hearstdc.com. Copyright 2007 Hearst Newspapers.

Spinning Into The Darkness

The academic Juan Cole appears to function as something of a one man truth squad in regard to Iraq. It probably helps that he is fluent in Arabic and can monitor media that our public is by and large not being exposed to. All accounts coming out of Iraq via non-US media have reflected an unhappy situation, steadily trending toward being darker and unhappier. The government in Baghdad has put a ban on photos of bombings and has stopped releasing figures for the number of corpses delivered to the morgue in Baghdad, apparently on the theory "out of sight, out of mind".

This is a sobering reminder that even if we can't see it happening, it hasn't stopped happening. Nor does it appear to be heading toward a "soft landing", which I predict will become the motto of the last months of the Bush administration. The President himself made that clear when he noted that the stock market almost certainly would stabilize and have a "soft landing". I leave it to others to sort out the significance of that becoming viewed as a positive outcome. If one were to be snide, one might liken it to the term "easy death", as something to give thanks for. Yes, it certainly is, but only in contrast to a "difficult death", if those are the only two choices. If "happy life" is a third option I suspect most of us would opt for that alternative.

Juan Cole performs a valuable service by reminding us what the deaths in Iraq would be equivalent to in the United States. Here is a further comparison he did not make. With two million refugees having left Iraq, and 50,000 more leaving each month, that is a diaspora of Biblical proportions. The current population of Iraq is 27.5 million. The population of the US is 301 million. To make the math easier one could just say the US has roughly ten times as many people. If we accept that conservative figure, the flight from Iraq of over two million of its citizens to Jordan and Syria would be equivalent to over twenty million Americans, many of them professionals, fleeing to Canada and Mexico. With another 500,000 leaving every month. According to other estimates, an equivalent number of Iraqis are "internally displaced", in most cases by sectarian strife. The equivalent would be twenty million Americans moving from their homes to another area of the country to avoid violence.

Add in half of the population being unemployed and a 43% rate of those living below the poverty line and you have a recipe for a truly horrific civil war and sectarian genocide. Does that seem unlikely? When India was partitioned at the end of its colonial era, into Pakistan and India, the movement of groups of different religions and ethnicity sparked riots and massacres that are said to have cost a million lives. Something similar could happen in Iraq, and if something like that does happen, the United States will bear the responsibility for having set in motion the events that lead to that outcome.

Arthur

Weekend Update - August 11th

• I did not think that our fearless leaders could do anything more stupid than invade Iraq, but I was wrong. "Operation Straight Up." -Uncle Bob
• The conservative movement that for a generation has been the source of the Republican Party's strength is in the dumps. Gee, really?
• Here's a fun "ooops" moment with America's Mayor. And this guy is ahead in most of the polls to win the republican nomination. Go figure.
• The Architect's House Crumbles Down - Karl Rove's negative campaign tactics have ruined Bush's presidency, amongst other things.
• Cindy Sheehan is going to run against Nancy Pelosi. And in her own words. It gets weirder every minute.
• Happy Birthday to Vern Wells.
• You're a 15 year old girl in a Christian bootcamp. You don't run very fast. They drag you behind a van. Praise the Lord!
• They've got us by the balls. George Carlin speaks the truth on education and the owners of America. Language warning.

In Search of a "Real Man"

When I was young, I had the great fortune on many occasions to watch my Grandfather chop wood. My grandparents lived in a huge old house in the Whittaker area of Eugene before the whole neighborhood went in the shitter, and in my opinion my Grandfather was about as close to the caricature of Abraham Lincoln as one could get. He was tall and lanky and had the same chiseled features of the man himself. Watching Grandpa deftly handle each precious piece of fir with one hand while reducing it to perfect sticks of kindling was watching an artist at work. This, I opined, was the ultimate Man. And Grandpa was a Republican.

Working closely with the media, Republicans have fine tuned their image in America of being the Party of Real Men. Real Men hunt, kill, and eat wild animals. Real Men own huge vehicles with big tires and don't really care about the cost of gasoline. Real Men don't worship God as much as they collaborate with God, because God is on their side. Real Men value sports; real sports like football, baseball and boxing. Real Men love guns and own many of them, and love wars and talking about their exploits in them. Real men abhor tolerance, science, and higher education. Real Men are in awe of nature only because they have not yet to find a way to control it. Real Men value money over all other things. Real Men are Republicans.

Republican women know their place. A Republican woman wears a dress, takes care of the house and children, and keeps her mouth shut. The first lady of a Republican president learns the gestures, the sideways glances of adoration, the approving vacant smile. Republican women rarely, if ever, run for public office. When was the last time a Republican woman ran, or even considered running, for President? They know they're not smart enough, and besides, they just don't have the time. Republican women make great pies. They are the wives of Real Men.

While the media in this country has, for the past 30 years, contributed to the strengthening of this image in the public eye, they have also presented us with the image of the Democratic Party. A Democrat is, among other things, a wimpy limp-wristed former hippy Vegan who flip flops on the issues. Even war heroes belonging to the Democratic side of life, are debased and ridiculed for being too soft, too smart, and too "French-looking." Democrats don't really love guns, don't really hunt, don't really drive huge vehicles, don't really love sports, and don't really believe in God. They want to raise your taxes, give welfare to worthless, lazy bums, and think everyone is entitled to health care in this country.

Democratic women are Lesbians. They wear pants, and some don't even shave their legs, and most of them are highly educated, and have, of all things, opinions of their own. They're activists, tree-huggers, do-gooders, uppity. At least as far as the media is concerned. They run for public office, and even run for President of the United States. When they appear to have personal integrity and intelligence, they are referred to as "having balls," as though that was a compliment. They are generally more frightening to Republican Real Men than black people.

Republican Real Men in this country are not like my Grandfather. They lack honesty, integrity, and compassion. They lie, cheat, and heap scorn, and show their true emotions only when caught and prosecuted. But why is it so hard to defeat them at the polls? It's the Real Man thing. Americans love a Real Man. The Democratic candidates are all trying desperately to show how manly they are in regard to homeland security, and bombing other countries. Trying to show how hard and tough and unyielding they can be. Trying to be Real Men. But I've noticed they're not really that good at it. Except for one candidate.

And she's a woman.

The Supreme Soviet Republic of America

Welcome to the Supreme Soviet Republic of America, where CIA interrogators break down mentally because of the treatment they are inflicting on their victims.

As for the victims? Who knows? We will never see them again.

After reading this remarkable document, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that under Gerge Bush the Constitution of the United States is in shreds and our nation has been transformed into a criminal enterprise.

Uncle Bob

Impressions of an Edwards Campaign Stop

The first political event I saw was Adlai Stevenson at the Lane County Fairground during the Lane County Fair. I was six, shook his hand, was impressed by how tall he was and how kindly to a small boy. Still an indelible memory. I also saw Robert Kennedy when he came through Eugene on an honest-to-God whistlestop tour down the west coast as part of his campaign, some months before he was killed. Recall he gave a good stump speech, parried some ribaldry from the audience and we left fairly pleased with the whole event, having attended in a spirit of fun, some with straw hats.

Edwards appeared in San Francisco at a somewhat controversial nightspot called the "Temple Bar" which is a converted warehouse complex with four floors, six bars and a restaurant under construction. Decor is lots of Buddhist figures of the tourist art variety, which some argue is somewhat disrespectful considering the joint exists to foster the San Francisco singles club scene, apparently tilted toward the young, restless and hetro. Interesting to get a look at, as far as I am concerned, and since Buddhists generally have a pretty good sense of humor I am inclined to think that no one is likely to have a cow over it all. Now start a "Mecca Bar and Grill" or a "Jesus Disco" and I think it would be a very different story.

At any rate, the crowd, as is often the case in San Francisco, was an interestingly varied one. Socialites to homeless, with a smattering of old lefties and a side of elders. Not the bar scene in Star Wars, but not Kansas, either. A relatively small venue, stuffed in the end with 300 or so, standing and making noise, waiting for it to begin, climbing on the TV risers and the backs of chairs, good-humored and amoral. The bar was open, serving sort drinks, something called "Smart Water" and two brands of beer. Is that civilized, or what. One of the club's bouncers was at the door, a nice bit of local color. I immediately grasped why in England the Reggae song "Monkey Man" (Toots and the Maytals) became the nickname for dance club bouncers. I think why Edwards was speaking there was because he got the space for free.

Anyhow, before starting his prepared speech Edwards commented negatively on the suggestion that $20 billion in arms should be sold to Saudi Arabia. Said it was sending arms to an area of the world already in conflict, seemed likely to spark a regional arms race. Noted that he heard Dick Cheney strongly support it, and that pretty much clinched it as being a bad idea. Howls from the audience. Said that the first action he would take as President would be to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilty. No more torture, not in our name, not on his watch. Launched into what must be his standard stump speech. No great surprises for the most part. Universal health care (not "National Insurance"), our responsibility to make sure every American gets decent preventive care, the importance of helping those at the bottom of the economic ladder, improving education, building our economy by building individual lives. Said that instead of starting wars so often he thought diplomacy should be focussed on helping other countries develop, one type of $4 one-time medication could save newborns in Africa from contracting HIV/AIDS during childbirth to infected mothers, but there is widespread lack of that medication where it is needed. Is that the value we place on a human life?

In ending he spoke of the $500 billion that has gone to Iraq. He said that it would sound like a crazy idea, but used differently that money could have given elementary school educations to every third-world child in the world. He sort of tapered off then, I think in tacit admission that would never happen.

What was striking was that he called out the Health Insurance companies and the extremely wealthy. Didn't waffle or say that "adjustments" would be needed, he said we needed a different and better way to deliver health care and that he planned to pay for it by rescinding tax cuts for those who earned more than $400,000 a year. Sort of drawing a line in the sand, that few if any other political figures have dared to, except for those with absolutely no chance. Edwards, as far as I can see, has a statistical chance, for example if someone comes forward with crap about Hillary and Obama during the primary season. Otherwise, no, he has no shot. He is helping to drive the debate, which I think is of value.

So, always interesting to see somebody in the flesh. Not as tall as Stevenson, a less funny accent than RFK, seemed a reasonable guy. He is obviously crazy to be making a run for President, against the odds, but he seems to be just cranking along like the Energizer Bunny, well-aware of the odds, but convinced he has something important to say and the energy to go out and just keep saying it. Very much retail politics, showing his face, pressing the flesh. I am sure he will be at many County Fairs. Does that kind of politics work any longer, now that Fox News is on 37% of television stations in the US? Or are we doomed to accept whoever the media decides we should like? I think that's really what it all comes down to.

Do the voters decide or does the media and the advertisements? Do we have a democracy, or are we a herd of multicolored sheep? Bred to be clipped instead of slaughtered, but still just a herd.

Arthur

Weekend Update - August 4th

• With Hillary and Obama tossing the N-Bomb back and forth, and discussing whether or not to invade Pakistan(!), we can always depend on Tom Tancredo to win the battle of stupid comments.
• Alaska's Entire Republican Congressional Delegation May Go To Jail. Well, heck, that'd be a start.....
• If you were to put $100 bills into a fire at the rate of one every second, it would take you 317 years to reach $1 trillion. Calculating the cost of this war isn't fun.
• What is fun is smacking down Bill O'Rielly. Watch Chris Dodd do it.
• Here's a good read: P.M. Carpenter's Saturday Commentary. Check it out.
• John Gibson's Boner. Oh never mind, just click on it.
• "Your Tax Dollars At Work" Department: What our childlike legislators do just before recess.
• There are now 41 Congressmembers for impeachment. Go, baby, go.
• Further proof, if needed, that those allegedly superior individuals who walk among us with expensive plastic bottles of water from which they ostentatiously sip at carefully modulated intervals are nothing more than carefully modulated ostentatious idiots. (Just like Pepsi, I fill mine from the tap) -Uncle Bob

Selling the Crap

My conservative friend sent me a note recently gloating over the fact that Eugene's only liberal talk radio station is having financial woes. KOPT has ceased all local programming, fired it's seasoned news staff, and is threatening to become a "jazz station," or something silly. While it still carries Air America programming, my friend sees this downsizing as a sign that even in "the People's Republic of Eugene," conservatism is winning. Below, an open letter to my friend:

Amazing, you can't even sell this crap to a sufficient audience in the People's Republic of Eugene.

Yep, I'm beginning to think you're right. I have been wrong about everything. Liberals are just idealistic dreamers who worship Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. George Bush is an honorable and deep-thinking man who has only the best interests of ordinary Americans like you and me. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just, well, anti-American. We as patriotic Americans must stop listening to subversive dissenting opinions. It only rots our collective mind. Surely there are more important topics to listen to, such Barry Bond's home run record or Paris Hilton's lack of underwear. People with little or no money to spend on the important things in life are not worthy of having opinions, for they have no real control over anything in our lives anyway. Only George Bush, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzonles, Sam Walton, and Rupert Murdoch know what's good for us. Anyone who tries to say anything different is full of, as you so eloquently put it, crap.

Thank you, (name withheld), for bearing with me all this time. I have finally seen the light of robotic acceptance of my place in our society. I must merely work, pay my taxes, and keep my mouth and mind shut tight. The fact that my country's constitutional foundation is being weakened and destroyed, much like my country's purposely underfunded infrastructure that's crashing down on a weekly basis, no longer concerns me. It's not my problem. How stupid of me to think of the near half a trillion dollars spent on the fiasco in Iraq as a squandering waste of our county's life blood. I know now my duty. Salute the flag. Pledge allegiance. Sing the anthem. Repeat the mantra. Illegal aliens bad. Abortion bad. Support the troops. "Climate Change." Surge. Trust. Pray.

Is there a NASCAR race on TV tomorrow? I hope so.

Love, JP