Mike Resnick c/o Challenger
I read with some interest Gene Stewart’s guest editorial in #22, and it has prompted me to write one of my very few Letters to the Editor.
Now, since we have a Republican President, a Republican House of Representatives, a Republican Senate, a mildly conservative Supreme Court, and a majority of the governorships and state legislatures are under Republican control, it’s obvious that Mr. Stewart isn’t preaching to the converted. A majority of Americans clearly disagree with him, so I assume his polemic was intended to win at least some of them over.
How does he start? Well, very early on he claims that the United States has gone fascist, which is undeniably a unique way to convince the other side to listen with open minds. I have numerous relatives who suffered under Hitler in Nazi Germany, and I am sure those few who survived would be more than happy to explain to Mr. Stewart, who has never been within hailing distance of a fascist state, exactly how one differs from the America he so clearly fears and detests.
A little later on he speaks contemptuously of “the Nazi Pope”. Now there’s a creative approach to winning the hearts and minds of 60 million American Catholics. And of course the new Pope isn’t a Nazi at all; he was a member of the Hitler Youth back when not being one was often the equivalent of a death sentence for the parents. I’m not a Catholic, but it seems to me that Mr. Stewart has a little more problem with Popes than most people. Earlier he implies that only wrong-headed people of faith (and not just the Catholic faith) refuse to forgive Sinead O’Connor for publicly destroying a picture of Pope John-Paul II, the revered spiritual leader of more than a billion people.
The first fact he states - as opposed to naive beliefs that he presents as accepted truths - is that the Church persecuted Copernicus. That didn’t sound right to me, so I thought I’d look it up to see how thoroughly Mr. Stewart researches his material. The answer - found in less than a minute on the internet - is that far from persecuting Copernicus, the Pope asked him to help update the calendar in 1514, he represented the Bishop of Ermland at the peace talks in Braunsberg in 1519, he was a canon (one step below a priest) in the Church, and he possessed a Doctorate in Canon Law. So much for careful research.
A little later he takes a cheap shot at Ann Coulter. This works if he’s speaking only to people who agree with him - but as I pointed out, a majority of Americans demonstrably do not agree with him. Ann Coulter is an abrasive woman - but I’m not aware that anyone’s ever caught her in a major misstatement of fact. Liberals use Newt and Coulter the way conservatives use Teddy and Hillary - and in all cases, it’s absolutely meaningless without facts to back up the contemptuous comparisons.
Mr. Stewart claims that the 2000 election was stolen. Okay, he’s not the only one. But of course he gives no facts to back it up, merely states it as a matter of (dare I use the word?) faith. I wonder what he would have said if the Supreme Court had ruled for Gore, and the Republicans had claimed that the election had been stolen while offering no more proof than he himself presents.
He finds it either contradictory or hypocritical that President Bush gave a speech stating that we must lessen our dependence on foreign oil a few hours after hosting a Saudi prince at his Crawford ranch. Of course, the alternative would be to toss the Saudis out on their ears and make do without any replacement for Saudi oil until Anwar comes on line somewhere around 2015. It’ll raise the price of gas and heating oil up past $10.00 a gallon for the next decade, bur he’ll sure feel moral about it. Give me hypocrisy every time - but I think in this case I’ll call it pragmatism. Or better still, common sense.
He claims that science fiction, as we currently know it, is due to be “expunged, forbidden, or far worse, co-opted and controlled” by the evil ogres who currently hold the reins of power (by majority vote, not revolution or executive fiat, I must continue to point out). This, of course, is utter rubbish. I have sold to every major magazine in the field over the past three decades, and to all but one mass market book publisher - and no one (repeat no one) has ever told me what I could or couldn’t write, what subjects or words were verboten or likely to get me in trouble. I have written a novel in which the Messiah and God are the villains. I have given God speaking lines half a dozen times. I have written a 4-book series set on an orbiting whorehouse. I have had so many minority protagonists that the Baltimore Sun and the University of Pittsburgh have both stated that I was black, and a West Coast newspaper told its readers that I was Hispanic. (I’m neither.) The thought that anyone is going to tell me - or any other science fiction writer - what we can and can’t write is absolutely ludicrous, and tends to negate those (very few) points that he hadn’t already demolished by his unsubstantiated overstatements,
Throughout his editorial, Mr. Stewart makes no bones of the fact that he holds “True Believers” - i.e., religious Americans - in contempt, and views them as the enemy. It’s a curious conclusion when you consider that just about every man who signed the Declaration of Independence and worked on the Constitution - the documents he is certain are under serious threat from religious Americans - was a devout believer in God. Whereas I myself am an atheist, and I disagree with almost everything he says.
I’m sure there will be a tendency on Mr. Stewart’s part to write me off as a knee-jerk right-winger, which is his privilege, and is certainly easier than substantiating all his claims. But this is a right-winger who voted for John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, even George McGovern and Jimmy Carter, and who actually was once a very minor Democratic office holder in Libertyville, Illinois. It is true that I am no longer a Democrat, but I would have no trouble voting for a ticket topped by, say, Bill Richardson and Joe Lieberman. I believe there are valid arguments to be made for the causes and positions with which I disagree. In fact, their greatest weakness is that they are represented by an abundance of spokesmen like Mr. Stewart.
Now, since we have a Republican President, a Republican House of Representatives, a Republican Senate, a mildly conservative Supreme Court, and a majority of the governorships and state legislatures are under Republican control, it’s obvious that Mr. Stewart isn’t preaching to the converted. A majority of Americans clearly disagree with him, so I assume his polemic was intended to win at least some of them over.
How does he start? Well, very early on he claims that the United States has gone fascist, which is undeniably a unique way to convince the other side to listen with open minds. I have numerous relatives who suffered under Hitler in Nazi Germany, and I am sure those few who survived would be more than happy to explain to Mr. Stewart, who has never been within hailing distance of a fascist state, exactly how one differs from the America he so clearly fears and detests.
A little later on he speaks contemptuously of “the Nazi Pope”. Now there’s a creative approach to winning the hearts and minds of 60 million American Catholics. And of course the new Pope isn’t a Nazi at all; he was a member of the Hitler Youth back when not being one was often the equivalent of a death sentence for the parents. I’m not a Catholic, but it seems to me that Mr. Stewart has a little more problem with Popes than most people. Earlier he implies that only wrong-headed people of faith (and not just the Catholic faith) refuse to forgive Sinead O’Connor for publicly destroying a picture of Pope John-Paul II, the revered spiritual leader of more than a billion people.
The first fact he states - as opposed to naive beliefs that he presents as accepted truths - is that the Church persecuted Copernicus. That didn’t sound right to me, so I thought I’d look it up to see how thoroughly Mr. Stewart researches his material. The answer - found in less than a minute on the internet - is that far from persecuting Copernicus, the Pope asked him to help update the calendar in 1514, he represented the Bishop of Ermland at the peace talks in Braunsberg in 1519, he was a canon (one step below a priest) in the Church, and he possessed a Doctorate in Canon Law. So much for careful research.
A little later he takes a cheap shot at Ann Coulter. This works if he’s speaking only to people who agree with him - but as I pointed out, a majority of Americans demonstrably do not agree with him. Ann Coulter is an abrasive woman - but I’m not aware that anyone’s ever caught her in a major misstatement of fact. Liberals use Newt and Coulter the way conservatives use Teddy and Hillary - and in all cases, it’s absolutely meaningless without facts to back up the contemptuous comparisons.
Mr. Stewart claims that the 2000 election was stolen. Okay, he’s not the only one. But of course he gives no facts to back it up, merely states it as a matter of (dare I use the word?) faith. I wonder what he would have said if the Supreme Court had ruled for Gore, and the Republicans had claimed that the election had been stolen while offering no more proof than he himself presents.
He finds it either contradictory or hypocritical that President Bush gave a speech stating that we must lessen our dependence on foreign oil a few hours after hosting a Saudi prince at his Crawford ranch. Of course, the alternative would be to toss the Saudis out on their ears and make do without any replacement for Saudi oil until Anwar comes on line somewhere around 2015. It’ll raise the price of gas and heating oil up past $10.00 a gallon for the next decade, bur he’ll sure feel moral about it. Give me hypocrisy every time - but I think in this case I’ll call it pragmatism. Or better still, common sense.
He claims that science fiction, as we currently know it, is due to be “expunged, forbidden, or far worse, co-opted and controlled” by the evil ogres who currently hold the reins of power (by majority vote, not revolution or executive fiat, I must continue to point out). This, of course, is utter rubbish. I have sold to every major magazine in the field over the past three decades, and to all but one mass market book publisher - and no one (repeat no one) has ever told me what I could or couldn’t write, what subjects or words were verboten or likely to get me in trouble. I have written a novel in which the Messiah and God are the villains. I have given God speaking lines half a dozen times. I have written a 4-book series set on an orbiting whorehouse. I have had so many minority protagonists that the Baltimore Sun and the University of Pittsburgh have both stated that I was black, and a West Coast newspaper told its readers that I was Hispanic. (I’m neither.) The thought that anyone is going to tell me - or any other science fiction writer - what we can and can’t write is absolutely ludicrous, and tends to negate those (very few) points that he hadn’t already demolished by his unsubstantiated overstatements,
Throughout his editorial, Mr. Stewart makes no bones of the fact that he holds “True Believers” - i.e., religious Americans - in contempt, and views them as the enemy. It’s a curious conclusion when you consider that just about every man who signed the Declaration of Independence and worked on the Constitution - the documents he is certain are under serious threat from religious Americans - was a devout believer in God. Whereas I myself am an atheist, and I disagree with almost everything he says.
I’m sure there will be a tendency on Mr. Stewart’s part to write me off as a knee-jerk right-winger, which is his privilege, and is certainly easier than substantiating all his claims. But this is a right-winger who voted for John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, even George McGovern and Jimmy Carter, and who actually was once a very minor Democratic office holder in Libertyville, Illinois. It is true that I am no longer a Democrat, but I would have no trouble voting for a ticket topped by, say, Bill Richardson and Joe Lieberman. I believe there are valid arguments to be made for the causes and positions with which I disagree. In fact, their greatest weakness is that they are represented by an abundance of spokesmen like Mr. Stewart.
Those interested in intelligent opinion/commentary on the theft of the 2000 election can find the same in Paul Krugman’s August, 2005 op-editorials in The New York Times and the book he cites, Steal This Vote by Andrew Gumball.
posted by ;-p at 1:14 AM
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