Reply All

I finally snapped the other day and fired away an off-the-cuff, reply-all flame job to the sender and his whole unfortunate mail list, perhaps undiplomatically registering my impatience with any more mindless, flag and eagle image laden e-mail forwards, sappily regurgitating the official administration/FOXNews line on Amerika's reactionary, post 9-11 military adventurism.

After some brief reflection, I thought it meet to compose a brief form reply which I can store, copy, and paste, as the need arises. To ensure maximum dissemination, I think the "Reply All" e-mail option the most apropos. I'm sorry, but if you can't stand my reply all, use your delete button!

Herewith, then, I give you my new, standard, contra-jingo, reply-all form letter. Use it as is, or as a model for your own personalized version. The important thing is to circulate a more circumspect perspective.

Hello,

Umm . . . I love my country, but . . .

. . . I despise the current state of American politics, it's authoritarian socialist agendas and hypocritical officeholders,

. . . it's blatant corporate/military imperialist adventurism,

. . . it's complicity in the grand theft of the people's honest, constitutional money,

. . . it's voracious appetite for extorting and controlling peaceable Americans just trying to earn an honest living,

. . . the insane and draconian, morally misplaced, "war on drugs,"

. . . the controlled media bombarding the air and cable waves with incessant Orwellian "war is peace" propaganda,

. . . the collectivist public education machinery indoctrinating the generations with twisted visions of the historical record and the ideals of human liberty and freedom,

. . . and, perhaps most of all, the deluded, rah-rah, "united we stand" lemmings, festooning their cars, homes, and workplaces, with the flag I once respected that has become the symbol of the cruise missile, the "smart bomb," and the very evil which the American revolutionary heroes feared the most: "democracy."