Boston Globe prints my LTTE, SORT OF

[Warren Stupidity]

I sent the following letter to the globe last week. Lo and behold it shows up in this mornings editorial section, along with about six other letters pummeling the administration on Iraq. However, they edited the crap out of it. I'm pissed! Proud, but pissed!

Here is what the Globe mangled my letter into:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/11/27/what_have_the_iraqis_done_to_deserve_this_what_noble_cause_are_we_serving/

And here is what I originally wrote:

After watching the late night farce in Congress, wherein a Republican proposal to depart Iraq immediately was attacked by Republicans as the work of 'cut and run' Democrats, where a rumpled but eloquent old marine said what we all know to be true: that this war is nonsense and we need to get out, it is clear that everything has changed.

We now have two factions: the stay and die faction, who offer no hope but more of the same, and the cut and run faction, who are gently, or not so gently, trying to get the other side to face up to reality. And that is the problem: one side is delusional and the other isn't. As we all here have noted so many times over the past years of cascading horror: the reality based community is not currently in power.

I have three teenage sons, actually one is no longer strictly a teenager. I cannot fathom the depths of grief and despair that the families of the nearly 2100 dead, of the nearly 16,000 seriously wounded must be suffering. I have some insight from the maniacal determination of Saint Cindy of the Ditch to get her question answered about her son Casey. I hear an echo from a young John Kerry, an echo from my own fading youth, a faint echo asking "How can you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?".

To the stay and die faction I simply ask "why"? What are we dying for? What noble cause does this serve? Why are we killing Iraqis every day? What have they done to us to deserve what we are doing to them? I ask this every day and I am losing patience. There is no response other than venom and hatred and more lies on top of the tower of lies they have built.


Gone from my letter is the note that last Thursday's farce was a Republican initiative intended to deceive. Gone was my praise of Murtha. Gone my reference to Saint Cindy of the Ditch.

My local paper (not the Globe) actually prints what I write. What is up with the creeps in Boston?

[NJCher]

1. despite the edits

Your letter still packs a lot of punch. Excellent!

Maybe the references to St. Cindy were a little too esoteric for The Globe. Anyway, your letter no doubt impacted a lot of readers today and for that, I say thank you.




Cher

[Junkdrawer]

2. How ironic. They tried to slime Murtha...

by putting edited words into his mouth too, although the Globe gave you a better translation than the Rupuke Congress gave Murtha.

[SpiralHawk]

8. You nailed it, Junky

this is deliberate. It changes the meaning and slimes Murtha with NeoCon Corporate Media propaganda techniques.

The Boston Globe was a good newspaper 2o years ago. But it is a cesspool now -- licking the boots of the NeoCon masters.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. And I am fine with the Globe making any point they want

in their editorial space - but not with my letter. How annoying. Now I have to consider what botched rewrite they can perform to twist what I have to say to fit their metooist neoliberal hawk viewpoint.

[sallyseven]

3. They are owned by NYT.

They have slipped over the last few years. I long for Mary McGorey I miss her. She would have made bush sit up and listen.

[Bozita]

4. Outstanding letter! Terrific analysis of why we are where we are

Thanks for sharing.

[Aviation Pro]

5. Possibly the most disgusting photo....

...of any to come out of the pro-chimpsuck camp is this one:



Note the fear, loathing and hatred in the eyes of this 12-year old boy as he poses next to a poster of Gay Hunter George over the turkey with Sheehan's face.

[Caoimhe]

9. the kid looks inbred

like most of these neofascists do

[lonestarnot]

6. fantastic letter! K & R Congratulations for a partial and severely

edited publication. It's a start.

[drm604]

7. Great letter.

It's possible that this was simply a case of sloppy editing, but it certainly seems like their edits were politically motivated. Your point about the Republicans purposely misrepresenting Murtha's viewpoint is an important one.

I would like to offer one bit of constructive criticism. When you characterize one side as "the cut and run faction" you're falling into the trap of using the Republican's frame. This is exactly what they want you to do. Don't use that phrase. In fact, try not to use the us versus them frame at all, or at least as little as possible. Don't let them control the debate.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. I did that on purpose.

I gave them their 'cut'n'run' meme so that I could use the 'stay and die' meme without being over the top. Rather than insisting that we are not cutonion surrender monkeys, I simply ask: why are we staying? For which I believe there is now and has never been, an honest answer.

The editing obliterated my analysis of the Thursday night farce, I doubt it was an accident.