November 21, 2001

The Reactor and Osama

There are some folks in Pacifica who think I ought to censor myself when I'm tempted to be critical about certain of my fellow Pacificans. Besides my wife, who would often like to stifle my written opinions when she thinks I've gone too far on, for example, the Devil's Slide bypass, there are even folks, and I mean folks with strong opinions of their own, who think the editor/publisher of the Tribune ought to do the censoring if I don't have the good sense to keep silent on my own. They don't want the pain associated with reading what I'm thinking. They especially don't want anyone else to read what I'm thinking.

Case in point: a recent column in which I discussed both Nancy Hall, a talented and well-read young Pacifica woman, and Osama Bin Laden, a man who has used his considerable wealth to finance his hobby of terrorism. I definitely touched a nerve. Comments I received ranged from vigorous congratulations and strong agreement from a number of good people, to one young lady who told me she was deeply saddened by what I had written. She asked if it was a first draft that I hadn't had time to revise. Was it a first draft? No. I was rather proud of what I had written. I still am. It took me considerable time, and several revisions. Looking back, I'd change the headline. The column did discuss both Nancy Hall and Osama Bin Laden, but Osama is deeply evil, and no one who knows Nancy would consider her anything more than misguided at worst. She doesn't deserve to be bracketed in a headline with a devil in human form.

I do find it fascinating to be put in completely different pigeonholes depending on who's doing the filing. Ian Butler probably has me pigeonholed as a stodgy conservative. And perhaps from his perspective I am. A fellow I know, a Belmont resident and Rush Limbaugh fan, has me filed under "Clinton-loving liberal or radical." After all, I am an outspoken Democrat, a longtime member of the Pacifica Democrats. I even classify myself as a liberal.

What surprises me is that some of my fellow Pacificans could have read Nancy Hall's letter, which accuses many of our highest national leaders past and present of hideous, terrible crimes, deliberately violating the rights of large numbers of people throughout the world, ("for the last half century, the U.S. military, employing the CIA, has engaged in a pattern of violence") and be more concerned with Nancy's delicate feelings than the rights of those respected national leaders not to be reviled and slandered in the columns of the Pacifica Tribune. I hope we're not so blasé' and cynical about our nation's leaders we can allow them to be accused of loathsome crimes and not even raise a hand in their defense.

The crimes of which she accuses our leaders, the men we elected to office, if they were proved in a court of law, would deserve the death penalty. If what she claims happened actually happened in the way she wrote, our nation's leaders are morally bankrupt and utterly detestable. On the other hand, she may be in error. She may believe a whole lot of information that is not actually factual. I'm sure she believes it, but I think she ought to proceed with much greater circumspection than she has demonstrated to date. I think she owes a whole roster of recent presidents a sincere and profound apology.

E mail Paul Azevedo at Paul@thereactor.net. Check his website at http://www.thereactor.net.