Editor,
When I read Ms. Slayton's opinion in your Friday, Jan. 31, issue, I did a bit of a double take.
Can it be that even after the shock and horror of Sept. 11 has dissipated and most of Americans hearts and minds are coming back into balance that there are some people still so terrified and so blind, that they are incapable of thinking about an issue or a president with some skepticism and depth?
I too read Terry Mulcahy's opinion, and I had a very different reaction. I was impressed by Mr. Mulcahy's willingness to express his opinion openly in spite of the Bush administration's constant propaganda that to do so is "anti-American."
Perhaps you should be taking some courses in American history. Through dissent, many times labeled "unpatriotic," "un-American" and worse, the greatest achievements of this country have come about.
I would ask you to think about the coal miners of old who were starved, beaten, massacred and labeled in the name of economic freedom and humane work environments.
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Look at the unions who helped to abolish child labor and who were called "communist" and "unpatriotic" in the process. Consider other groups of so-called dissidents, hell-bent on criticizing administrations and elected officials while toiling and sacrificing in the name of racial equality.
I would draw your attention to the fact that you would not be able to vote for the president you hold so dear if not for the women's suffragists who were given ugly labels by powerful men in the hopes that they too would be silenced. I could go on and on.
How dare these people be so "un-American" as to question their elected officials! How dare we, as a people, take it upon ourselves to affect change and improve this nation to the point that every day, thousands of immigrants are risking everything to be a part of it?
These are serious times. I believe it is most important that we Americans exercise these "privileges" to speak out. The rest of the world is watching and for the most part, they are not happy with what they see from our president. We are perceived all over the world as a giant, bullying child and if you think for one moment that entering Iraq and killing thousands of innocent people as well as sacrificing our finest men and women to the atrocities of war will somehow make this country safer, you are gravely mistaken.
Our only chance of not having retaliatory, terrorist attacks on this soil (aside from not going to war in the first place) is if the world community understands that this president, who by the way was not elected "by the people" but by an antiquated system called the electoral college and some dubious chads in Florida, is not executing our will, but his own agenda.
Don't be a sheep.
Bridgette Wagner
UNM staff
