the game gets ugly

October 21, 2004 7:23 AM

Remember the (Crawford, TX) Lone Start Iconoclast's Kerry endorsement? Here's a second editorial, describing the fallout from it. Apparently some people took it pretty hard. The Iconoclast published letters to the editor, too.
posted by alumshubby (22 comments total)

Nice country you've got there, America.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:46 AM on October 21, 2004

In small town American I witnessed true repression and intimidation by law enforcement. I saw small children suffering from the effects of being fired upon by pepper bullets. I felt legitimate fear of expressing my political opinions: a brand new feeling.

Land of the Free, my arse.
posted by dash_slot- at 8:01 AM on October 21, 2004

We have been told by several avid Bush supporters that the days when newspapers publish editorials without personal repercussions are over.

Yippee.
posted by kenko at 8:09 AM on October 21, 2004

Interesting that the Iconoclast has a good record of endorsing the man who will be President: Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush.
posted by eustacescrubb at 8:21 AM on October 21, 2004

I almost linked to that story myself, dash_slot.

Don't you just love the "Jesus Was a Liberal" on the sidebar!
posted by alumshubby at 8:39 AM on October 21, 2004

From one of the letters:

As a Vietnam Veteran and after reading your editorial, I can't come to your same concussion. My VA benefits have not been cut and I now get better care at the VA hospital then i have in the past....

Wonder just how good that care is...
posted by orange swan at 8:51 AM on October 21, 2004

Second, the outsourcing of jobs is also criticized. This is in fact beneficial to the economy. Sending unskilled labor positions to other countries not only lowers prices but also allows for the creation higher paying skilled jobs.

I'll take a wild guess here and say this guy's job was not outsourced.

Your logic is skewed, Sandy. Are you say these 1,000+ fine young people have died in Iraq for no reason? Have you forgotten the 3,000+ people the terrorists killed in the attacks on the United States? Did you not read or have you not heard that the 9-11 report did indeed tie Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda together.

(bangs her head on her desk)
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:53 AM on October 21, 2004

From one of the letters in the second week;

" I’m sure you hurt his [Bush's] feelings by endorsing Kerry."

Man, that's the funniest thing I've read all week.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:03 AM on October 21, 2004

know what would be cool?

it'd be cool if one of the right-leaning mefites who are always posting complaints about how mefi is an echo-chamber and an example of lefty groupthink and bemoaning the way The Left here on mefi supposedly jumps savagely all over anybody who voices a differing opinion wrote a letter to the iconoclast thanking them for voicing a differring opinion in a conservative stronghold and denouncing those who are making threats against the newspaper and its employees.

that'd be awesome.
posted by lord_wolf at 9:14 AM on October 21, 2004

Leon-
Just a note to express my disappointment to let my friends know you were my past editor. You are a disgrace to Crawford, Clifton, and yourself.
I hope you never have a reason to pass through Crawford. What an illiterate and a failure you must be.
RJ
Crawford, TX

Hmmm. I guess this person is referring to W. Leon Smith, the Publisher of the Iconoclast. I would guess that Mr. Smith is probably in Crawford fairly frequently. It doesn't look like he is illiterate (since he wrote an editorial). And, I usually consider folks who are publishers of newspapers, even small ones, to be fairly successful, not failures.

So. What does RJ (Crawford, TX) know that I don't know....

Oh, yes! I remember. He knows that George W. Bush is annointed by God Almighty!. Silly of me to forget.
posted by mmahaffie at 9:51 AM on October 21, 2004

Bush backers sure are a clever bunch, huh? Nice folks. And well spoken.
posted by 2sheets at 10:32 AM on October 21, 2004

Funniest of all is that it's not like Bush is from Crawford. He simply purchased a 'presidential' ranch there in time for his first presidential campaign.
posted by tippiedog at 10:47 AM on October 21, 2004

See this sort of stuff kills me, because my pops will be voting for Bush. My pops is just the biggest sweetie in the world, very softspoken, very respectful, and always has his reasons for his opinions. In any disagreement, it's going to be my mom that rides verbal roughshod over my dad. It's my dad that has laid out the most precise and convincing arguments for the legalization of illegal drugs that I've ever seen. My coming out was never an issue for a fraction of a second with him, nor was bringing home a short-term boyfriend for christmas a couple years (what was I thinking?). So whenever something like this happens and people go MAN FUCK THOSE TROGLODYTES VOTING FOR BUSH, it just makes me sad.

Moore showed up here and gave a speech recently, and there were various people waving bush-cheney '04 posters here and there. They were driven away by shrill, screaming college students with kerry/edwards buttons I actually witnessed one diminuitive girl brandish a pepper-spray canister at them, including shouted threats to use it if they didn't shut up. I should note that the bush/cheney kids were like 150 yards from Moore, on the other side of the giant student union building. Not to say they were innocent lambs sent to the slaughter, they didn't exactly sit there and let people dump malts on them and torture them with hot cigarettes. It was just ugly all around. Hideous, even.

Neither side's hands are clean, and I'm far from convinced that - as many here would probably suppose - the left is less prone to threats of violence. The very fact that we have two and only two sides sucks. This whole situation sucks.

Bleh.
posted by kavasa at 11:03 AM on October 21, 2004

kavasa - well, it took several decades of cultural drift, dedicated think tank propaganda, and televangelism to get to this point.

America just, somehow, awoke to this division only lately but it's long been festering.
posted by troutfishing at 11:25 AM on October 21, 2004

Let's see, one one hand dash_slot gives us an article about police using pepper balls and batons on peaceful demonstrators and the FPP has conservatives making illiterate threats against a newspaper publishing an editorial. On the other, students at a liberal event threaten to pepper spray protesters but do not. Yeah, kavasa, that's the same thing on both sides.
posted by billsaysthis at 1:55 PM on October 21, 2004

Wait wait wait.

Wait.

I make one post lamenting the general lack of civility on both sides and someone's instinctive response is a limp, instant snark.

Well well, quel surprise, I am on the internet after all. God forbid I expect anyone to disagree ever with the merest hint of respect or decorum over even the most frivolous distinctions. Because god knows a couple FPPs on metafilter constitute a valid sample of the admittedly hyper-monolithic American society, and I'm sure meta-motherfucking-filter wouldn't possibly be subject to any sampling bias, you rude, squidgy little turd. Christ. Did your mama raise you that way, or did it take years of sucking down the bitter pabulum of your just desserts at the hands of classmates you'd scorned?
posted by kavasa at 3:33 PM on October 21, 2004

Thanks for raising the tone, kavasa. I can certainly see why a delicate flower and a fountain of gentility like yourself was so deeply upset by seeing someone brandish a pepper-spray canister at a third party.

I'm sure there are many intelligent people who plan to vote for Bush. There are some intelligent letters posted on the site by people who support Bush. However, the "we're going to run you out of town" and "you're a disgrace to almighty GOD" ones far outnumber the intelligent discussion (and they posted all the letters they got, remember!) which is more than a little unsettling.

And threatening interns at a community event is right out. I could hardly believe that when I read it. Yeep!
posted by Sidhedevil at 3:50 PM on October 21, 2004

kavasa, if you think that was a snark... Seriously I'm just tired of people throwing canards at the wall and calling them equal.
posted by billsaysthis at 5:03 PM on October 21, 2004

More on the Jacksonville protest.
posted by homunculus at 5:30 PM on October 21, 2004

He simply purchased a 'presidential' ranch

Actually, it is a farm. You need cattle (or other livestock) to be a ranch.

So what happened in Crawford is that Bush bought the farm.

mercy, please...
posted by bashos_frog at 9:23 PM on October 21, 2004

Neither side's hands are clean

Nope, but the hands that have blood on them are a damn sight dirtier, wouldn't you say?

"My brother died looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction."

Let's just keep things in perspective, OK?
posted by soyjoy at 10:08 PM on October 21, 2004

... I'm sure meta-motherfucking-filter wouldn't possibly be subject to any sampling bias, you rude, squidgy little turd.

So I guess you're done bemoaning the loss of civility in our discourse then, kavasa?
posted by rcade at 5:26 AM on October 22, 2004