The only way I can find to contact msnbc cable TV news host Chuck Todd is via Twitter.
Try as I might, I could not shrink my message to him into 144 ASCII characters or less.
So I'll post my letter here, and hope somehow he stumbles across it.
If he doesn't, but you do, stop watching Chuck Todd's show on msnbc and stop buying all products which advertise on it.
Try as I might, I could not shrink my message to him into 144 ASCII characters or less.
So I'll post my letter here, and hope somehow he stumbles across it.
If he doesn't, but you do, stop watching Chuck Todd's show on msnbc and stop buying all products which advertise on it.
====================
Chuck Todd
msnbc
On Monday 19 December in a panel discussion about the Republican presidential candidates, you gave dismissive short shrift to Ron Paul despite his surprising poll strength in Iowa. You parotted the "responsible journalist" line that Paul is a marginalized, unrealistic, unimportant candidate.
I will not debate Rep. Paul's chances of winning the presidency.
But while you publicly laugh at and heap ridicule on his candidacy, I must point out that Paul alone has pledged an immediate end to the USA's foreign wars.
Your stance is a prestigious, high-profile cog in the political machine that has killed 4500 of my neighbors' sons and daughters in Iraq, killed 1860 of my neighbors' children in Afghanistan, and has maimed thousands of these young soldiers, Marines, Navy and Air Force personnel, and physically and psychologically destroyed what remains of their lives.
America, as you perceive, accept and report it, kills its children in uniform, and that is the proper and correct way America conducts its foreign policy. You publicly label any presidential candidate who stridently promises to end these deaths and maimings a marginal flake good only for joke value.
I served honorably in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War -- the first of our foot-shooting Asian long wars which left us with military defeat and 52,000 dead American servicemen and servicewomen.
A few of them were my high school friends.
I note from your on-line biography that you have never served in an American military uniform. So like our decision-making political elite, you are highly paid and professionally praised for playing War Poker with other peoples' chips.
By your reckoning, it's okay for other Americans to risk and die in useless overseas wars. No one you know, and no one in your family, is at risk. You explain to a vast television audience why it's a sad but necessary thing for these distant strangers to risk and die, and why any candidate who objects is a silly, dismissable flake.
Republican or Democrat, you help explain to the American people why our next president will keep sending our neighbors' children to overseas wars, and will be their commander-in-chief when their flag-draped coffins return to Dover Air Base.
I do not ask for your support for Ron Paul, nor for your re-assessment of his chances for campaign success.
But I would ask you to consider which candidate clearly stands for the lives and the safety of our troops, and which candidates make foot-shooting "liar's and scoundrel's war" (Congressman Lincoln's description of Polk's Mexican War) the jingo vote-getting centerpiece of their foreign policies.
And in future, clearly tell your audience which is the only candidate who has promised to end these wars the day he assumes office, and commence no more.
With great anger and disgust,
Robert Merkin
Chesterfield, Massachusetts
SP5, U.S. Army, 1969-1971
7 comments:
According to Wikipedia Paul served as a flight surgeon in the USAF between 1963 and 1968. No more details of the where and what were given, but I am sure one can find that info on teh internetz.
Wikipedia also claims that Paul is the intellectual godfather of that bloody Tea Party and is reportedly following a policy of nonintervention and isolationism similar to what some of your fellow americans wer banging on before Pearl Harbour. This might explain why he is not interested in sending out troops. Checking out his pointo of view on various subjects is rather scary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul
At least in the position of sending US troops you and him agree, but for different reasons and with different backgrounds and outlooks. Or I have completely missed the point.
In anc case that Ron Paul bloke is very scary so don't trust him a bit, even if he "promises" to end all your foreign wars.
Nice letter, Bob. Won't do a bit of good, I fear, and Chuck Todd probably won't even see it. I no longer believe that letters I write to congress people do any good...I am sure that the same is true for journalists.
Okay okay yesterday I wrote a long reply to these Comments, but it's much too high-class for the Foetid Somment Sewers Beneath Ciudad Vleeptron, so I've posted it as the next post after this one.
Please read it. It explains, to Americans and Planet Earth, why
* I like Ron Paul,
* why Ron Paul wants to bring back The Gold Standard, and why every time Congress wants to spend 1 pfenig of my tax money, he votes NO (so everbody else in Congress calls him "Doctor No."
I also like to scream on IRC in big red letters:
VOTE FOR GUS HALL!
Anyway go read the next post, learn why Ron Paul could not possibly kill more innocent human beings or do more devastation, rapine and destruction to Earth than the last 2 loopydoopies.
Of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, in the Army we would say, "That guy could fuck up a wet dream."
It's very strange ... you're right, I suppose, Paul represents a segment and era of American politics that most elected politicians learned long ago not to associate themselves with.
But the "sensible," "realistic" candidates who all the pundits and experts can envision as the Republican nominee and, perhaps, president -- they differ starkly from Ron Paul by wanting to send thousands of American soldiers to wars in Asia and Africa.
What is it about Paul that pulls in so much non-corporate private donations? What is it about Paul that keeps him "hot," at the lead of the Iowa Caucus?
Iowa's not a notoriously racist or homophobic state.
I think Paul's promise to get America out of the foreign war business has touched ordinary Americans deeply.
In 2008 the other No Wars candidate, Dennis Kucinich, a left-wing Democrat -- I would have loved to have seen him as nominee and president.
But the Democrats just have Obama this time around. And Obama has demonstrated his enthusiasm to keep America involved in foreign wars. We're very close to intervention in Syria, and always centimeters away from war with Iran.
So welcome to Paradox. The detestable guy will stop sending our neighbors' kids home in flag-draped coffins.
The respectable guys will carry on with these interminable and ruinously expensive overseas wars.
Can you find me a candidate of any party whose clear record on racial equality and sexual orientation is progressive AND who promises to get America out of the business of perpectual wars?
Because I'll be very uncomfortable with a righteous progressive who just keeps bringing my neighbors home in flag-draped coffins. Progressives do me no favor and give me no patriotic gift when they kill and maim my neighbors' disenfranchised kids year after year.
Such a great article which Republican or Democrat, you help explain to the American people why our next president will keep sending our neighbors' children to overseas wars, and will be their commander-in-chief when their flag-draped coffins return to Dover Air Base. In which biography that you have never served in an American military uniform. Thanks for sharing this article.
oh hiya katie & your gorgeous exquisite photographs!
hey uhhh do you like Diane Arbus? be honest. don't sugarcoat it. also, what's your fave cam or camera body? Have you left silver film tech far behind? Are there any effects which only silver film can achieve?
If you have become a Faithful Devoted Reader of VleeptronZ, you will see that recently Ron Paul and I have obtained a divorce, and not amicably. Well waitasec, i will find you the post:
http://vleeptronz.blogspot.com/2012/01/ron-paul-newsletters-using-racism.html
I'm a Vietnam-era Army vet (wheeze wheeze cough sputter drool) so of course i am still indebted to Paul (and in 2008 Dennis Kucinich) for promising to end our sucky wars. Now the Great Work all Americans must do is drag this idea from the Marginalized Ignored Flake Corner, and push it loudly into the Meme Mainstream. Stop. The. Fucking. Whack. Pre-Lost. Wars.
You seem to live in the Pioneer City of America for telling wars to suck eggs and stop immediately, and with a great patriotic rudeness and vulgarity. The Bay Area just kicks butt, it is a great national adornment and treasure of urban civilization.
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