I admit that part of the purpose of this letter is to answer my critics concerning a letter I wrote quoting Salon.com writer, Glenn Greenwald. Mr. Greenwald described Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention as display of “cheerful viciousness.” Today, the day this letter is being written, the governor debates Sen. Joe Biden, and that should provide further evidence of her cheerful viciousness because that is all that she has left to offer.

The main purpose of this letter is to pass on this quote from Mr. Greenwald’s Oct. 2 column in Salon.com magazine: “The Right in this country — meaning the faction that followed George Bush for the last eight years — long ago ceased being a movement of political ideas and is driven by two, and only two, extreme emotions: (1) intense, aggressive rage towards their revolving doors of enemies, and (2) bottomless self-pity over how unfairly they’re being treated. As their imminent defeat looks increasingly likely (potentially on a humiliating scale), these two impulses are in maximum overdrive, feeding off one another in endless self-perpetuation.”

The truth has simply exposed trickle-down economics as being nothing more than enriching the few at the expense of the middle class; that “No Child Left Behind” was anything more than planned action by the right to discredit public education and teachers; that the right lied when claiming the Iraqi people attacked us on 9/11 and that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons; the false claims that there is a liberal media bias when mainstream media is mostly controlled by the right wing; the lie that allowing the market to do it’s job without tough federal regulatory oversight will result in fiscal responsibility and endless prosperity; that electing a president you could have a beer with was more important that competency and intelligence; the ridiculous notion that it is perfectly fine to discriminate against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters; the lie that undocumented immigrants working in our country for decades are the enemy; and the most important for me is the ridiculous notion that unions are bad when in fact it is strong unions which created prosperous middle classes and the American dream more than any other element or action in the history of our country.

Ted Hinnenkamp

Albert Lea