[Peace-discuss] News-Gazette

[John W.]

At 12:30 AM 4/18/2006, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

>[On Sunday our local example of the Free Press published a
>letter from one Perry Albin of Newman, attacking "Urbana
>radicals" (that I resent) for "railroad[ing] ... questions
>about the war and impeachment ... onto local town ballots."
>I've sent the N-G the following in response.  --CGE]


When ol' Perry sees the word "desuetude", the error of his ways will become 
clear to him.  :-)



>Under the headline "Voters can repudiate anti-war
>malcontents," a letter recently appeared in the News Gazette
>that condemned actions of the annual town meetings in
>Champaign and Urbana:  referenda were placed on the fall
>ballot, asking whether voters approve of withdrawal from Iraq
>and the impeachment of the administration.
>
>The letter says that I am "quoted as a spokesman for the
>effort" (which was in fact organized by the local anti-war
>group AWARE in consultation with members of the Green party),
>which has as it ends "the destruction of all that is
>traditional, and the advancement of a nihilistic agenda
>resembling that of the radicals of the 1960's."
>
>In fact, the voters at the town meeting used a traditional
>democratic mechanism that had fallen into desuetude in order
>to obtain the most traditional of American ends -- a free,
>public vote on matters of national concern.
>
>The author's contempt for democracy (and the democratizing
>movements of the 1960s and '70s) is all too typical of this
>administration and their supporters.  Far from "free[ing]
>people in Afghanistan and Iraq and ... stop[ping] terrorism,"
>their war has killed tens of thousands of people and their
>families and increased terrorism.
>
>Local war supporters worked hard to prevent their fellow
>citizens' having a chance to vote on these matters.  One can
>easily understand why: as more of us come to understand how
>the present administration lied and manipulated us into a
>criminal war, support for the referenda will grow.
>
>--Carl Estabrook