RE: Coverage of Press Conference

["Adam Rivers" <adamrivers@prodigy.net>]

I admit, I am catholic and im proud of it.. being polish, french and
british. But PEOPLE SHOULD fly the flag of the country. If someone doesn't
particularly like our country, why should they live in it? I think it is the
responsibility of all Americans to support the country. Our country makes
some bad moves sometimes, but still, I, like many others support the
country.

~Adam






-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Berman [mailto:RockTheGlobe@rcn.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 4:02 PM
To: adamrivers@prodigy.net
Cc: Boston Interest Radio Group Thingy
Subject: Re: Coverage of Press Conference


Adam--

Not to drag this list into a definition-of-democracy speech, but...

First of all, people in this country are guaranteed by law the ability to
say or think what they want.  That's democracy.  If you take offense at
Sven's (or my) not-so-flattering opinions of our President, that's
acceptable for you to do so.  But it's not acceptable for you to tell him he
shouldn't express them, and it's _definitely_ not acceptable for you to call
him "heartless" and insult him for it.  I (and I'm sure Sven does too) feel
absolutely awful about the tragedy that happened yesterday and have nothing
but sympathy for the victims and outrage towards those who perpetrated it,
but that doesn't mean that my personal opinion of George W. Bush makes me
any less emotional about the situation or more of a heartless person.

Second of all, I will concur with people who have previously expressed here
that there wasn't much that could be said about the situation after a
certain period of time.  While I found that I personally couldn't stay away
from some form of news feed, be it CNN or CBS Radio or whatever, I grew
tired of the commentary after a while because no one had anything new to say
and it basically all became conjecture by former government officials as to
who did it and what they would've done had they still been in the
administration and what we should do now.  I tended to keep turning the TV
or the radio back on to news stations or stations carrying coverage after a
while, but I fully understand why some stations resumed quasi-normal
programming -- but they still understood the gravity of the situation and
kept their listeners informed.

Lastly, for someone who keeps talking about needing to support your country
and its citizens, do so without also attacking your countrymen as well.  Not
all of us feel a burning desire to go out and buy an American flag, and
telling someone they need to go do so in order to support their country is
tantamount to hauling an atheist or a Jew or a Muslim into a Christian
church and telling them they need to pray to Jesus for the safety of the
souls who died.  People will find their own ways of expressing their
feelings, just let it happen and I think you'll find that the support will
be there.

--Keith