From: Katie
Date: Tue Apr 1, 2003 8:37:04 PM America/New_York
To: Evan Coyne Maloney
Subject: If you’re going to aspire to be a conservative counterpart......at least pick someone better than Michael Moore, come on. Have faith in your readership.
Mind you, this is coming from a liberal flirting with radical, but I hate him as much as I admire him. He angers and alienates as many people as he inspires. I tend to be an advocate of diplomacy and rhetoric because, you know, people actually listen to you when you’re polite and suave.
But don’t worry, you’re on the way. I can at least detect a similar subtle arrogance in both parties. For example, letting the liberals stumble upon their own hypocrisies simply by letting them speak - give me a break. You openly accept that you’re biased (which Howard Zinn also delves into in his excellent “People’s History of the United States”), so I highly doubt you’re going to admit intelligent liberals dominate your videos. It just hurts your position. However, you can easily walk out onto the street and find multitudes of mindless bandwagon patriots who justify themselves by “urgh, bomb em all.” Trust me, I see it every day. Let’s face it - finding intelligent people, period, is an uphill battle in America. Whatever movement you have, it’s going to be dominated by slackjawed idiots simply because they comprise the majority of the population.
However, they frustrate me, because I’ve expended a great deal of energy arguing and researching and questioning my position, so I kind of want my position to at least be respected, if not agreed with. I attached an essay I wrote about “dirty hippies,” which was short to meet a page requirement, but I could expound on that - and my anti-war stance - if you’d like. I think it’d be only fair to give someone a chance to answer “Why didn’t we take the oil fields after the first Gulf war?” without bumbling (incidentally, Bushes I and II had very different foreign policies - Bush Sr. was much more centrist and diplomatic, whereas Jr. is spiraling off into the nether regions of right-wing radicalism. Bush Sr. didn’t even support the Basra uprising - I doubt he’d “take the oilfields,” nor would Bush Jr. - the latter would just try and milk them for all they’re worth).
Introductions - I’m Katie, a high school sophomore from a suburb of Cincinnati, originally from Puerto Rico. I’m the founder of my school’s chapter of Amnesty International, and am in various educational reform groups. And yes, I do leave my house occassionally, and have friends (conservatives AND liberals who oppose the war). And if you have any desire to use my comments, go ahead, as long as you don’t butcher and twist them.
Paz,
Katie
Katie,
Your e-mail was so well-written that I had a hard time believing you’re a sophomore in high school. I mean, I believe you...I just wish I had written that well back then.
Anyway, perhaps my arrogance meter is also biased, but I detect no subtlety in Michael Moore’s arrogance. Mine, I would like to think, is at least concealed behind bashfulness and self-deprecation.
I think you are absolutely right that any political movement will harbor its share of idiots, and I’m not saying that the left has any more of them than the right. But it is not the idiocy I quibble with, it is the tone.
You and I are in the same business, Katie. We’re both trying to convince other people of the correctness of our views. We may be on opposing teams, but we play the same game. So I think we can both admit that it’s going to be difficult for either one of us to reach an audience that has been made numb by name-calling and personal diatribes.
Say what you will about my methods or any perceived arrogance, you will not see me write about my opposition in terms that are anywhere near as inflammatory as the epithets currently hurled at our country’s leaders. Only when the nation’s political debate stops drowning in slander will we be able to move on to the task of educating the populace about the issues we face.
Thanks for writing,
Evan
