Speak to the point
Donna Greco’s inappropriate personal attack on me was sad. It said everything about her, and nothing about me. My satirical letter (May 15 edition) “supporting” her ideas was a response to ideas which she and others (I won’t call them “conservative” because that is a misnomer) had either stated or written, recently, and ideas which they’d been passionately advocating for months and years, in this paper and elsewhere. What I did was to sarcastically “endorse” some of their extremist views, and hopefully, make clear that they really are extreme, by using satire.
What I did not do was to attack anyone for their real or imagined personal characteristics, or wrongly assume that they take drugs which make them stupid. I certainly did not make up a fake, cartoonish personality to assign to Greco as a woman, and I didn’t call her too stupid to vote! I would never accuse any American of “craving the society of North Korea”! But that is what Greco did to me, and she did it while using language that was gross, and definitely unsuitable for respectful debate. I hope she will study the difference between political debate, and personal attacks, and the difference between accurate portrayal of a person’s political views, and gross lies about their personal character.
I am not “a left winger” as she assumes; I really dislike any extreme ideology, either left wing or right wing. I am a liberal, patriotic American, in the tradition of Lincoln, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, the Kennedys, and Elizabeth Warren. It is not left wing to be liberal, and to loathe the current extreme right wing ideology, and to deplore the militant gun culture, as well as the current hatred of the poor that is so obviously in fashion for Republicans.
My passionate environmental advocacy, and my support of the lawful civil rights of all people, including women and people who are darker skinned in our culture (like our president) also make me a proud liberal. Attacks on liberal values are so prevalent these days, there isn’t time to respond to them all. But, the abundance of right wing views in this paper recently cried out for a response from an intelligent, fighting liberal such as myself. For over 20 years I’ve been trying, mostly unsuccessfully it seems, to fight back against the tidal wave of propaganda demeaning the word “liberal,” which has been made into a slur. Furthermore, and very unfairly, “conservative” is the chosen, and more importantly the accepted label of right wingers who are certainly not what that adjective implies.
I have never supported “gun confiscation,” or denied responsible people their rights. Ask my friends who own guns. I personally hate guns because they are the chosen tool of so many madmen and assassins who have killed my heroes. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect the rights of others to own guns, responsibly. Gee, that makes me a liberal, doesn’t it? Respecting the rights of others! But, I do expect them to be human and reasonable, and to acknowledge the crisis of gun violence we face in our country today. But, for the militants, that is too much to expect.
There are so many more essential rights than the right to own a gun. What about “our” rights to a less violent culture in which to pursue happiness? Do we have no right to demand better? I will continue to fight the mindless promotion of guns, all kinds, available anywhere, and everywhere! I thank God that I feel compassion for the victims of our violent, sick gun culture. The survivors of the bloodshed speak, and they are too often shouted down by the NRA and their brainwashed minions! They seem to have lost their humanity. Our parents and grandparents did not live like this, at least here in the Northeastern U.S., and I will not accept this degraded culture. I will go down fighting, if I must, but not with a gun.
Lastly, Donna Greco accuses me of seeing unicorns everywhere, in my backyard, and while driving on Partition St., and I wish that were true. If it were true that I believe in unicorns, if those beautiful, peaceful, gentle creatures of myth and legend did frolic through my backyard, and in the fields and forests, then surely I would love them very much. Liberals like me would probably have to defend them from being slaughtered by “sportsmen”, or “trophy hunters” for their sick idea of fun. Surely adorable unicorns would be a nuisance, like the deer, or something to be killed and mounted on the wall or laid under foot to be stepped on, by ugly humans, just like so many of the beautiful and almost extinct animals that actually do walk the earth, still.
Laurel Lindewall
Saugerties
Join the family! 
