Apology

Just got another letter published in the Progressive Populist, 10/15 issue. My fourth in four months; every other issue!!! The text of the letter follows:

My friend Mick Finn (his real name), a disabled Vietnam vet, has an idea that seems well worth sharing with as many others as possible. He notes that a certain percentage of us knew with considerable certainty that Bush’s War on Iraq was a lousy idea from the beginning. Let’s be conservative and say we were 15% of the country. The polls now tell us that around 70% agree with us.

Mick’s idea is that the 55% or so who have finally gotten the message should acknowledge that they were wrong and then offer their humble apologies for questioning our patriotism at the time. Ok, we know a couple of the Democratic candidates for President have done so already, but that still leaves a lot of folks with egg on their faces. Why not emulate South Africa and begin the process of reconciliation with heartfelt apologies?

While we’re at it, maybe we could get the same consideration from those who bought Reagan’s Social Darwinist scheme a quarter century ago and bequeathed us a horrifically dysfunctional society. Many of us were immediately crying “wolf” at the prospect of trashing the Progressive Tax laws, deregulation, cowboy militarism and shredding the social safety net. By now, anyone who thinks any of that was ever a good idea is either mentally challenged or consciously evil. These so-called “Conservative” ideas were and are both impractical and immoral. The unregulated marketplace will always yield the worst kind of Social Darwinism, by maximizing its rewards to those who need and deserve them least. The result is nothing less than a Eugenics scheme, designed to give an insensitive and uncaring minority an enormous advantage over the rest of us through as many generations as possible. Their attempt to repeal the Inheritance Tax speaks for itself.