[Peace-discuss] News-Gazette

[C. G. Estabrook]

I'm told ol' Perry is a Republican lawyer, undoubtedly familiar
with desuetude in theory and practice...  --CGE


John W. wrote:
> 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