Sequim Gazette Editorial and Letters to the Editor

Something about self-righteousness never seems quite right.

I recall a boyhood friend whose religion differed from mine. No matter that neither of us was old enough to understand the ramifications of what we learned in our respective churches each Sunday; each of us was certain he was right.

At one point in a discussion that we never should have started, he plugged each ear with an index finger and repeated, "I don't care what you say. I am right and you are wrong."

I'd laugh at this childish superiority if I didn't encounter its ilk every time I open my e-mail here at the Gazette.

Nestling like poisonous snakes beneath rocks are the political polemics whose authors take no prisoners. Heck, they won't even wound anyone, slaying with their swords of moral indignation anyone who holds a different belief.

They resemble Aginners in their narrow-mindedness but they are much more passionate.

I call them True Believers.



The devil's in the difference

True Believers adhere to any religion, political viewpoint, scientific (or unscientific) theory or belief that their race or ethnicity is superior.

No matter what their stripe, they share one practice: They demonize their opponents.

Liberal True Believers call conservatives nazis.

Are they - the liberals - out of their minds? I've met racial supremacists who could quality for that label, but not even the most devout worshippers of Calvin Coolidge advocate secret police, mass slaughter of minorities or single-party government.

Not to be outdone, conservative True Believers label liberals communists.

That rattling sound you hear is their lug nuts bouncing around in their mental hubcaps.

Actual communists have proven themselves mostly to be common thugs. If they have an ideology that's any more enlightened than Al Capone's, it is state control of all commerce from production to consumption.

The liberals I know haven't the slightest desire to put the Hurricane Coffee Company under federal jurisdiction - or to make the Gazette a state-run newspaper.

Thus it was with some faint hope of moderation that I went Sunday to hear Cindy Sheehan, famed peace activist and nemesis of George W. Bush, speak at the Olympic Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship in Agnew.



Pass the labels, please

At first, that hope was buoyed.

"I hate labels," said Sheehan, who made news when she camped at the entrance to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, after her son Casey was killed in Iraq.

"People have a hard time defining me: 'Is she a socialist?' 'Is she a communist?' 'Is she a revolutionary?'"

Sadly for me, though, she had no such hard time defining her opponents.

The "robber class," she called them, many members of which she called "banksters."

Mind you, I agreed with much of what Sheehan said, especially that there's a widening rift between economic classes in the United States.

The problem with her jail-the-robbers battle cry is that American capitalism permits poor folks (Sheehan calls them "the robbed") to find ways to grow rich - and many manage to do so.

What keeps knocking the pilings out from beneath true socialism in the United States is people's hopes that they can educate themselves, get better jobs, build businesses of their own or invent better mousetraps.

Like a slot machine, the odds may be rigged, but enough people pull the handle and hit the jackpot to keep us believing in the system.

Sheehan also advocated shunning banks and joining credit unions, avoiding supermarkets and frequenting farmers markets, and boycotting big-box stores and patronizing local merchants.

It's a laudable idea but not a new one. Some rural communities weathered the Great Depression by forming strong local economies.



I'm not the media

I probably felt most discouraged when she disparaged "the media." I think that's the same "media" that true-believing conservatives despise.

As I told Sheehan, however, I've been in newspapering for more than 30 years and never met "the media," just reporters and editors who mostly tried their hardest - beset by True Believers from all sides - to tell the truth.

Sheehan's pitch would have had more appeal had she refrained from demonizing her targets, which struck me like downshifting a manual transmission without using the clutch.

I wish her well, however. There's a deep need for social justice and people with Sheehan's gumption are needed if our rifts ever can be closed.

Still, I'm reminded of Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages" -

"In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand

At the mongrel dogs who teach

Fearing not that I'd become my enemy

In the instant that I preach ..."

And, of course, every demon has his or her own demonization.

Checking a fact on Sheehan's life, I ran across the Web site Cindy Sheehan Watch.

"Cindy Sheehan, is she nuts? You bet!!!" it trumpets.

"With Crazy Cindy, it's about the money. It's ALWAYS about the money. Always was, always will be."

No it isn't, wasn't, won't be if this old ink-slinger's face-to-face assessment of Sheehan is correct.

But it sure sounds like a True Believer.



Jim Casey is the editor of the Sequim Gazette.