Mash Notes, Hate Mail & Other Correspondence

To the Editor: From 1967 to 1986, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisc.) gave 3,211 speeches on the Senate floor, tirelessly urging ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crime of Genocide. According to Proxmire: “This is one senator who believes that ratification is not only patriotic, but also good foreign policy and a moral imperative.” The U.S. Senate finally ratified the Genocide Convention on February 19, 1986. Subsequently, The Proxmire Act, officially the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987, was signed by President Ronald Reagan on November 4, 1988, making genocide a federal crime. In his remarks at the signing, Reagan …

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To the Editor: Why do people find Trump’s behavior puzzling? The reasons for it are remarkably clear. The “stooge” strategy has been a mainstay of mafias since before the Borgias: find a prominent but indebted businessman, bail him out, own him and have him bring your agenda into the mainstream. The Russian mafia bailed Trump out of massive debts accumulated from his many failed businesses from the mid-90s through 2008, making him a mafia stooge. A mafia stooge does what his mafia boss tells him to—or else. (The “or else” is another old mafia tradition.) Since before Peter the Great, Russia’s leadership has been obsessed …

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Dear Editor, Trump says Iran is the biggest sponsor of state sponsored terrorism. It is said that the first casualty of war is Truth. No, the biggest sponsors of state sponsored terrorism in the world are the United States and Israel. Trump speaks of Peace through Strength. Actually, U.S. foreign policy is based on Might Makes Right. The U.S. military has overthrown numerous governments, including a democratic Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, and numerous others (see William Blum’s Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since WW II). The U.S. Intelligence community under Tulsi Gabbard says Iran was NOT building a …

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Dear Asswipes: In regards to the front-page rant article on your May 2 (Vol. CCLIX, No. 17) issue… [“100 Down, 1,359 To Go” – The Ed.] Now you know how the REST of US, the MAJORITY of us (Don’t believe me? Google a color-coded map of the Voting Pattern in the last election!) felt EVERY DAY of the obama + Biden presidencies… Sweating every day about what new STUNT he was going to spring on us next and worrying about what was going to be left of the country when he was done… Now it’s YOUR turn to sweat… And seeing how much you’re cryin’ …

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[Note: While we are publishing the following letter on its merits, we owe it to our readers to inform them of a personal interest: when the editor was a high school student, his world view was profoundly and permanently altered by reading Paul Krassner’s satirical magazine, “The Realist,” copies of which were lent to him by Ed Gray, the author of this letter, who was then his classmate. – The Ed.] Dear friends of “One More Mission,” I’m writing to tell you about a recent blow to “One More Mission,” our documentary film about Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and what we’re doing to respond …

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[Ms. Aiken neglected to include a salutation. – the Ed., deeply hurt by this rudeness.] On April 16, 2024 the Union Leader published an important op-ed by Rep. Len Turcotte of Strafford County. [The headline: “Accessory Dwelling Unit is a deceptive term for ‘rental unit’”.] It has never been more applicable than it is today, with dozens of bills proposed by those attempting to remove local control of zoning with ‘death by a thousand cuts’. Turcotte compared this to Chairman Mao Zedong’s attempt to control everything centrally in China. I’ve compared it to the Bolshevik Revolution, also known as the October Revolution, which was led …

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