American Bigotry: A Response

Having received the following on one of those eternal forwards, I thought I’d respond by parsing the document – just so people know I actually read it instead of just assuming I’d agree with whatever it said. My comments are in brackets, I’ve removed loads of asterisks that seemed to have no point and / marks and addresses of previous recipients, but otherwise it is intact.

THIS IS SO VERY TRUE! Immediate alert: the presence of a multitude of exclamation marks is usually a sign of poor thinking ahead. Shouting loudly that something is true does not make it so.]

IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOUR POLITICS ARE OR IF YOU BELIEVE IN THE WAR OR NOT. YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER 9-11-01. [Yes, I was correct. To begin with, if I happened to be a radical Islamic Fundamentalist, my politics would certainly matter, but even not being an extremist, when discussing pretty much anything of this sort the politics and beliefs of the reader matter very much. So far, the writer is not impressing me. Nor do I have to remember anything; I know far too many people who cannot remember many events in their lives.]

Subject: “Angry Woman”

Letter from one “Angry Woman” I don’t know who wrote it but they should have signed it. Some powerful words. This woman should run for president. Written by a housewife from New Jersey and sounds like it! This is one ticked off lady. [Impossible to tell how much of this is fact, but being angry has little to do with being intelligent or rational; the opposite is more likely true. Nor are housewives noted for being experts on international politics.]

“Are we fighting a war on terror or aren’t we? [Good question, but not the rhetorical one that is presumed. For many people, myself included, the term “war on terror” is an oxymoron, since terrorists are often created by the deaths of their relatives in wars. That's why the Middle Eastern countries have been battling for decades, if not centuries.]

Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001? [Depends on who you ask, but probably not, After all, at the very least this current conflict goes back to the invasion of Kuwait by American troops in 1992, and some would say it goes much further back, even before the creation of Israel by forcing Palestinians from their lands in n1947-49. This is a continuation of an ages-old conflict; 9/11 was merely the first time a significant strike against an Israel-supporting country, the USA, was made.]