Letters to the Editor

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 A True Patriot                           

The only reason I can imagine that you might print two hateful letters against Howard Zinn [Letters, July 11: "Truth About Zinn" and "Poor Judgement"] is to grant the opportunity for a very brief rebuttal.

Re. Phillip Howell: Yes, the United States is a republic, which consists of elements of monarchy (unfortunately), nobility (the Senate used to not be elected) and democracy (everyone else). Therefore, it is less reasonable to assert that "our government is not a democracy at any level" than it is to suppose that our founders, very much products of the Enlightenment, meant to stabilize a process of humanitarian self-empowerment.

Other blatant errors of assertion are that we have brought democracy to Iraq (we have brought only civil war) and US dedication to human rights (highly questionable). And perhaps there are motives to ascribe Iraqi resistance to a foreign occupier other than "hatred because we live free of the oppressive power of their religious leaders."

Nobody would suspect, for example, that between 1898 and 1934, US troops invaded Cuba four times, Nicaragua five times, Honduras seven times, the Dominican Republic four times, Haiti twice, Guatemala once, Panama twice, Mexico three times and Columbia four times, often staying as an occupying army and typically leaving it in the hands of a friendly dictator, armed to the teeth to suppress his own people.

Alan Langer asserts that the US saved Europe three times in the last century. Another point of view is that the United States' late entry into World War I (a war over how to divide up the world) interfered with a stalemate to be settled by negotiation. At the time, Ambassador WH Page stated that US entry was "the only way of maintaining our pre-eminent trade status," i.e  taking a share of the spoils. For this, 130,274 US soldiers "died forever." It is true that we saved the world from Hitler, but the Cold War was made worse by Truman ignoring Churchill's warnings about Stalin.

Mr. Zinn focuses on the US because a) our level of propaganda is far more insidious than the examples of infamous tyrants and b) our responsibility is far greater.

He holds a mirror up to America's face, something that a true patriot would welcome rather than revile.

Barry Hatfield
Santa Fe


 Who's truthful?                     

In a letter, Phillip Howell informs us that Howard Zinn "has not been truthful." He also says that Zinn makes statements "that are not supported by history or the available facts."

To support his view Howell writes that "…we are moral people when we stop Saddam's sons from raping teenage girls, murdering moms in front of their children, gassing others as the Kurds were gassed and the other atrocities that were Nazi-like."

In other words, when a sovereign nation that has not attacked our own does evil things, it is our (moral) right to invade it, overthrow its government and pursue whatever policies we deem appropriate. This is "truth" according to Howell; he's got it and Zinn does not.

Would Howell take the view that at any time from the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the ending of slavery in 1865, it would have been the perfect (moral) right of any nation in the world to invade the United States, overthrow its government, and pursue whatever policies it deemed appropriate? I presume that Howell doesn't question the immorality of slavery. How about in the event of widespread lynching, or the systematic denial of the political, economic and social rights of an entire population? The theft of millions of acres of land and arguable genocide against Native American peoples? Or current events in Iraq, where heavily armed US soldiers regularly storm into the homes of Iraqis in the middle of the night, terrorizing families that in the overwhelming majority of cases prove to have no connection whatsoever to "terrorism"?

Perhaps Howell should not be so certain he has God on his side.

Zinn's views deserve careful consideration as well as careful critique. As a history teacher, my high school students do this regularly. But Zinn does not deserve to be branded a liar and damned by self-serving moralizing served up as "truth."

Rod Mehling
Santa Fe


 Respect Elders                       

Kudos to David Alire Garcia for his noncondescending interview with Erwin Yarnell [SFR Talk, July 11: "Living Large"]. I'm glad I read it before being stung by Nathan Dinsdale's snotty reference in the same issue to the "battalion of geriatrics" at the Roswell festival [Cover story, July 11: "Weird, NM"].

Rand B Lee
East Pecos

 'Bad art' Retort                     

As a musician in the Santa Fe music scene, I feel compelled to call out the local music critic (Gabe Gomez) on how blatantly ignorant he is of his own experiential limitations when he publishes a statement like "what people define as the avante-garde these days is usually a silly excuse for making bad art" [Ruckus, June 13: "After Life"].

What avant-garde music have you been listening to? When was the last time you took a chance to check out some of the avante-garde in the Santa Fe music scene that you're supposed to be reporting on? It is very easy to dismiss artwork that you don't understand as "bad art" (whatever the hell that is), and just a little more difficult to spend some time with it, think about it for a few minutes, and try to see it for what it is, which, in my opinion would be a good challenge and responsibility for a music critic in a city with one of the best experimental music scenes in the country.

I don't expect everyone (or even anyone) to like certain kinds of experimental music, but if you're going to publish a side-handed comment as a music critic that dismisses a whole community of very talented, passionate, hardworking and for the most part unpaid and unrecognized artists, you had better be ready for a dialogue about what "bad art" is. If you think "good art" is that prepackaged, overproduced bullshit that you've been spoon-fed through radio and multimillion-dollar ad campaigns your whole life that every 999 out of 1,000 people that pick up a guitar want to sound like, and anything that even tries to not rely on hooks and dance beats and tried and true pop song formulas, and four-count melodies, and some douche bag, high school-poet-vocalist that thinks he has something to say about the same psycho-sexual social drama that made him go to school, go to college buy a house vote for some schmuck that actually wants to be the leader of an empire with an army, get married make a child to do the same damn thing, pay taxes for it all and die, all the while having an aching sadness somewhere deep inside that somehow it was all set up for him…is bad art, then yeah I make bad art every goddamned day.

Michael Smith
Santa Fe

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Letters to the Editor

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