This is my first diary. I had always imagined that my first DK diary would be something substantial, carefully-crafted, and focused on the kind of special issues that I have particular knowledge of. But something local and immediate has come up that has provoked me to shelve all that and get this one up.
The local newspaper of a town in Pennsylvania that I know well, the Sunbury Daily Item, chose to recognize Memorial Day by publishing a letter to the editor that appears to call for violent "regime change" and the summary execution of the president and members of his administration.
To the families of those fallen heros whose blood lies on the sands of Iraq; don’t you think it might be time to rise up against an administration who has adequately demonstrated their gross incompetence?
I think the appropriate, and politically correct, term is regime change. Forgive me for being blunt, but throughout history this has previously been accompanied by execution by guillotine, firing squad, public hanging.
I have absolutely no reason to expect that current practice should be any different. The end result is elimination of the problem, the method is superfluous. When society dictates, the end always justifies the means, otherwise the action would not be taken.
This sort of promulgation of hatred, violence, and the overthrow of democracy is painfully commonplace online, but its appearance in print in a regular newspaper is something else, and printing it as in recognition of Memorial Day is really disgusting. If you are a resident of the Sunbury area and subscribe to the Daily Item (or advertise in it), you might like to reconsider that. Wherever you live, you can easily share your views about this with the Daily Item here:
submit an online letter to the editor.
UPDATE: May 26th's issue of the Daily Item contains five letters to the editor, all offering strong objections to the publication of yesterday's misguided letter. You can see them here. FURTHER UPDATE: The hateful letter has been taken down - you can note its absence at that same web address. YET ANOTHER UPDATE: The Daily Item has apologized for "bungling" the troubling letter to the editor. See new diary here for more info.
Mon May 25, 2015 at 8:48 PM PT: Top of the rec list - wow, thanks, folks! Heck, I'll have to do this again!
2:34 PM PT: Another thank you to the DK community for such an impressive response to this diary, including some awesome letters to the editor of the paper in question. I am thrilled by this first diary-writing experience, but humbled by the recognition that I'll probably never see anything like it again!
A couple of commenters have taken issue with my use of the term "assassination" (I was picking that up from Facebook discussions; it seemed to be how many people read the letter). They are right that there is no explicit call for assassination in the "classic" sense in the letter, so I have changed that wording in the diary title and text.
5:15 PM PT: The Sunbury Daily Item for today, the day after its editorial error on Memorial Day, printed 5 letters to the editor objecting to the letter printed yesterday. I've added a link at the end of the diary, above; you can look at 5 pages without subscribing. The letters are all from local writers, but strike many of the notes that Kossacks sounded in their letters. We'll see what the next couple of days bring. If you write a letter, it might be good to acknowledge this good first course-correction.
6:50 PM PT: Good News, I'd say!:The hateful letter to the editor from Memorial Day has now been removed from the website of the Daily Item (thanks, Penguinn, for noting this!); today's letters responding to it are still there to be read. I'll check tomorrow and let you know if any editorial response is forthcoming.
Thu May 28, 2015 at 9:12 AM PT: The Sunbury Daily Item has published an editorial apologizing for printing the crucial two paragraphs of the "regime change" letter. Kossack letter writers, you ROCK! Check out my new diary with links and quotes!
