One last attempt?

[The Great Quail]

Doug,

>I guess I've spent too much time reading your posts, your attitude is
>rubbing off on me.

Doug -- come on. Even some of the people who are ideologically on 
*your* side have remarked that I have been arguing fairly. But my 
patience is wearing thin. I don't think I can make it to the end of 
your latest letter without getting a bit more emotional.

>Do you mean to say that you're polite only to people who agree with your
>pompous bs?

Uh....? No. (Oh, and how have I been pompous to you? And please, how 
is my *opinion* to be considered bullshit? I can see if I posed 
warped facts, or made up stuff; but I have been arguing fairly 
straight-forwardly.)

>Quail:
>>   I confess, I have not read everything you forwarded to the List,
>
>If you don't know what I've said, your characterizations of my comments
>don't carry much weight, do they.

And, I quote again: "I have not read everything you *forwarded* to 
the List." Unless you have been writing under more personalities than 
even Dave thinks you have, I can't see how you are claiming that your 
forwards all constitute your won comments. I have, actually, been 
reading everything you yourself write; and quite a few of your 
forwards.

>It's a free country,

Yup. Which is why you are perfectly in your right to pass along such 
information, and I am perfectly in my right to call some if it 
propaganda or drivel. Or have I missed something? Have I said that 
you should not be allowed to pass it along? That's what you seem to 
be replying to. Why oh why can you so rarely actually follow a point?

>a country that I served when called to do so by the US
>Army.  Just curious, but  are you a veteran of the US Armed Forces, Quail?

Nope. My Dad and Grandfather were; and I reached my maturity in the 
eighties, when there was no draft. My father wanted me to avoid the 
Army at all cost -- he narrowly missed Vietnam, and wanted his son to 
have a "better life." (Though he was proud of his service, as am I.) 
I was fortunate enough to go right off to college, and then I began 
teaching chemistry and nuclear power systems. But if I had to have 
served, or if there was a compelling reason that I believed I should 
have served, I probably would have tried to enter the submarine 
service. I have a thing for nuclear reactors. (It's the blue glow.)

>Or, are you just one of those slackers who will sit back and let other
>Americans bleed and die while you're watching the war on TV?

Oh, wow. That's nice, Doug. No, I'm not a slacker; nor do I have the 
fascination for watching war on TV that some people do. But let's 
face it, you really don't want to talk about this. You are not 
interested at all in who I really am, or what I really believe in. 
You are not really interested in anyone on this List, except in that 
they may support you. And now you are just personally insulting me on 
a level that I would find shameful, if I were to do so to you. It's 
pathetic.

>People like you were proven to be on the wrong side of history back in the
>60s when they were telling anti-War critics and protesters to "love it or
>leave it."

Uh, I have said numerous times that I would have protested the 
Vietnam war. But instead of listening to me, and understanding that I 
believe the situation is different, you bulldoze over my reality with 
your misplaced attacks. And I would *never* say to any American, 
"Love it or leave it."

>Do I really need to go back and quote your posts -- and Terrance's --
>telling me and others to stop saying this or that or the other thing?

Well, yeah, I would like you to stop saying certain things which are 
distortions of what we are saying. Again, NO ONE is telling you that 
you shouldn't voice your opinion, but when you venomously persist in 
making false claims about what someone says, or means, then some of 
us say, "Please stop." After you don't, we eventually say, "shut the 
fuck up." You act like a bully, Doug. Almost everyone knows it, most 
people just let it slide, because they don't have the interest in 
arguing with you. You drive people further and further to emotional 
responses, and then when they finally break down and get nasty, you 
come on like a nice, detached, reasonable innocent: "Look!" you say, 
"Look at my opponent, so angry, so full of names to call me."

The thing I find the most puzzling is the way that sometimes you come 
across fairly polite and rational. There were a few letters a bit 
back where you were arguing your point rationally. You were still 
saying the same things, but you were being *nice* and reasonable. 
Then you started to degrade again, as you always do. It's like you 
have episodes, or psychic herpes. What is wrong with you, that you 
need to *demonize* and *distort* your opponents so? That's part of 
the reason some List veterans treat you so rudely, they have moved 
from trying to understand you, to being pissed off at you, and 
finally to treating you like a cartoon target. Even though everyone 
is ultimately responsible for their own actions, you *invite* this 
upon yourself.

>Take your complaints to the mainstream news organizations that have
>reported the news I've passed along

Once again, your response has nothing at all to do with addressing my 
real question. You truncate my statement, and then reply to something 
I am not really saying. Another one of your techniques, the 
self-righteous non-sequitur.

>Get a grip, you're hysterical
>again.

Doug, I am not hysterical. I am a bit angry at you, but hardly hysterical.

Can't you find any better way to argue with someone than to take what 
they say about you and say it back at them, whether or not it 
applies? You do it over and over again.

>I'm letting you and the other war cheerleaders handle that job, I'm
>providing the part of the story you're leaving out.

Well, maybe if once in a while you actually tried conceding a few 
points, or acting like we weren't all ignorant, benighted maniacs, 
that would be more obvious.

>Actually, seeing as how so many of the active P-list participants seem to
>agree with the kind of anti-War, progressive politics Pynchon expresses in
>his works,

That doesn't mean they agree with everything YOU are saying, Doug. 
This may come as a surprise, but you are not Thomas Pynchon. (Well, 
at least I really, really hope you are not.)

>  and that it's only basically, you and a very few others who are
>gung ho for this war

You think I am "gung ho?" And you call *me* hysterical? Come on, I 
have said numerous times how sick it makes me, and how my decision 
causes me conflict. I have criticized aspects of the War on numerous 
occasion. I have actually *agreed* with you in that the traditional 
media is terribly skewed.

But again, why am I bothering any more? You are so blind, so full of 
venom and spite, you have no interest at *all* in seeing me as a 
human being. You are surrounded by real humans all around you on this 
List, but do you even make an attempt to be compassionate and 
understanding? No. And yet we are supposed to believe that you have 
all this caring and compassion for people that don't even know. Well, 
I suppose that's easier for you; they certainly can't disagree with 
you.

The fact is, Doug, I *hate* this War. It makes me sick. What the 
Jihadists have done makes me sick. I have turned it over again and 
again in my head, and every time, I draw the same conclusion: we must 
use force to eliminate the Taliban and al-Qaeda. I even think we 
should then remove Saddam, if there is any evidence at all he's 
behind the anthrax. My brain and heart are divided, and my soul is 
uneasy because of it. Do you understand that? Can you relate to that, 
without using my turmoil to further your own agenda?

Because of all this very real turmoil, I am not sure about myself any 
more. I am not proud of my decision; I am conflicted, I have doubts 
-- maybe I am wrong? Even if I am right, people are dying. I no 
longer like myself as much as I did the previous 34 years of my life, 
when I protested the Gulf War, when I protested our involvement in 
Latin America, when I fought for gay rights, when I wrote columns 
about the greatness possible in America, if we would all understand 
what Kennedy meant by grace and beauty.

And you know what, Mr. Millison? I don't need *you* to spew your 
hypocritical slime at me. You want to argue the decisions we have 
both made, fine. But please, stop this act of objectifying me and 
your opponents. Stop your distortions, and start LISTENING to what we 
are saying. It may be easy for you; it certainly allows you to dodge 
the hard issues. But I am getting *tired* of playing nice with you, 
you humorless, hysterical, miserable, fucked-up old man.

>Cordially,

Hypocrite. There's nothing cordial in your reply at all. And by the 
time I reached the end of this reply, I don't feel very cordial 
either. At least I am honest.

--Quail