STATE TRADITION LIVES ON

Maybe there is something in the water served up in South Carolina that makes their Congressmen act so strangely while doing the Peoples' business.

South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson became an instant national ogre Wednesday night when he interrupted President Obama's health care reform speech with a very audible "You lie". An stunned gasp was heard throughout the Congressional chamber and Obama blanched in disbelief at such a rude and indefensible interruption, softly muttering "not true" in response.

One must go all the way back to May 22, 1856, for a worse example of Congressional etiquette and yes, it was another South Carolina Congressman, Preston Brooks, who was involved. Brooks entered the Senate chamber to confront Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner over an anti slavery speech Sumner gave three days earlier, and beat him into unconsciousness with his Gutta-percha wood walking cane.

Obama fared a lot better than Sumner over misbehavior by a South Carolina Congressman. It only took the President about three seconds to regain his composure and continue his oration. It took Sumner three years before he returned to the Senate.

We shouldn't be too hard on Congressman Wilson. Apparently, he was just following a state Congressional tradition.

Originally published in Glen Ellyn News, September 16, 2009

CONG. PETER ROSKAM'S AUGUST, 2009 REPORT CARD ON MIDDLE EAST WARS

September 9, 2009

Congressman Peter Roskam
150 S. Bloomingdale Road, Suite 200
Bloomingdale, IL 60108

Dear Congressman Roskam,

You sure got a bang for the 12 billion bucks you voted Congress to spend for our criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in August.

Seven GI’s were killed in Iraq and 51 in Afghanistan, the latter deaths representing the highest monthly death toll in the 95 months of this senseless and failed and endless venture. The overall American death toll there has reached 820, with fully 56% coming on your watch over our war policies.

While the seven Iraqi deaths were the lowest monthly total in the 78 months of that senseless and failed and endless venture, the grand total is now a staggering 4,343, making the overall death toll in two wars, 5,163, with 1,802 or 35 %, occurring since you took office in January, 2007.

In your short Congressional career of 30 months you have authorized nearly 400 billions of borrowed dollars to achieve these needless deaths. And on the subject of unnecessary deaths, how many of the one million Iraqi dead have occurred during your unquestioned support of the war party which apparently has not a trace of conscience for their mis-deeds?

What have you accomplished with the four billions of borrowed dollars you have already authorized in September? How about the cowardly bombing of those two hijacked fuel tanker trucks in the Kunduz Province of Afghanistan? It incinerated 130 Afghans, many of whom were innocent civilians as deserving of a peaceful and long life as your family and my family. One of the reasons I became an antiwar activist 46 years ago during the escalation of our criminal Vietnam War, is that I see myself and my family members in the faces of the common people we needlessly slaughter in far away lands. Sir, you would do well to do the same.

You should also use your influence as a Congressman to get photographs from the military of the charred hunks of flesh that were once peace loving folks who were just seeking fuel to survive in an Afghanistan wrecked by our brutal occupation. Keep those photos on your desk near the voting button and look at them long and hard before you vote to spend another dollar on these abominations brought upon us by some of the most unsavory folks I’ve observed in 58 years of following public affairs.

Respectfully yours,



Walt Zlotow