I have sinned by sending a cathartic letter to CounterPunch. I compounded that sin by doing an "I am thy father's ghost" routine directed against Alexander Cockburn, which made it all the more likely that it would actually get published, which made it all the more likely that you, Grandfather Carrol, would get the impression that I was calling you a traitor.
Surely CounterPunch didn't deserve my harsh tone. Their constant harping on the inadequacies of Bernie Sanders and Paul Wellstone, even as they repeatedly extol the virtues of Ron Paul as a great Congressman; their occasional assertion that FDR knew in advance about Pearl Harbor; Cockburn's lighthearted whimsy about Hitler's Keynesianism -- surely none of these are signs that they are a bunch of cranks who deserve a verbal thrashing. How dare I do that?
I also sinned when I wrote, on this list, that anyone who did anything to make the "re"-election of Bush more likely is a traitor. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to write, "either a traitor or a crotchety, thin-skinned old fool who will berate me even as he publicly announces his own refusal to read anything I write"? For I should have recognized, Grandfather Carrol, that even though your actions contribute -- in however small a way -- to the greater likelihood that Bush will privatize Social Security and demolish affirmative action, you are nevertheless exempt from the old-school Marxist standard to which you hold everyone else, namely, that concrete actions mean everything and good intentions mean nothing.
What shall be my penance, Grandfather? What can I do to regain that Paradise Lost?
- - - - - John Lacny
People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!