OVER THE EDGE November 7-21, 2007 Letters to th Le If you’re reading this, it means your in- trigue has overcome your disgust at the Hit- ler-sodomy cartoon in last issue’s ‘Letter to the Editor’ section. Although the cartoon ap- peared beside NUGSS’s scandal response, I assure you that we do not believe NUGSS is that angry with us, nor would they stoop so low. Furthermore, there is speculation that we editors of Over the Edge made the cartoon ourselves in order to ‘stir it up’ and generate controversy for the sake of controversy. This too cannot be further from the truth. No, the cartoon was indeed the infuriated response of one reader who took offence to my Rumbling Echo column featured in Issue 3 (the Blue Man Group cover). The obvious question is why, (oh why!?) would we print something so inflammatory, disrespectful and distasteful? The short answer is that I wanted to prove a point. In short, the point is this: agree or dis- agree with what I (or any other writer/editor for that matter) write in Over the Edge, you have a right to say something about it and we will print it. Every class I visit in my efforts to bring new writers into the fold gets this mes- sage from me: Over the Edge is the student’s voice on campus and as such, it relies on stu- dents actively engaging each other on today’s issues and events, be they on campus or on the ' other side of the world. Now, I understand that some of my opinions (which do not masquer- ade as news, since they appear in the Opin- ions section) are controversial and unortho- dox. It is my hope that people will challenge my ideas so that an atmosphere of productive discourse and debate permeates our campus. I also understand that we are not infallible. When our Production Coordinator, Tyler, re- ceived the cartoon, he rejected it out of hand for its vulgarity and its personal assault on me. Nasty words were exchanged. Fortun- ately for the cartoon’s ‘artist’, s/he submit- ted it anonymously. Unfortunately I missed the fact that Tyler labelled the artist “Some _ Douchebag”. For that I apologize to the artist. When I saw the cartoon, I saw the opportunity to make the above point in the most effective way possible. I decided to include it in the ‘Letter to the Editor’ section. The response was immediate. People may be confused or disgusted, but they are talking. From the aver- age reader to the student berating NUGSS to UNBC administration raising both eyebrows, people are talking. Days after the issue hit the stands a suspi- cious bag was left at our office door. A note claiming to be from the artist accepted the title of “Some Douchebag” and called us filthy vaginas s/he sought to clean up. The note asked us to print the explanation letter featured in this issue. The letter was contained on a floppy disk attached to a Tupperware full of human feces. As you can tell from that let- ter, my Rumbling Echo column regarding Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York touched a Allow Me to Retort; Cody Willett Responds to the “Cody Sucks” Comic few nerves. I’d like to take this opportunity to clarify some misunderstandings and respond to some accusations. First, the notion that I am anti-American is simplistic and inaccurate. I am anti-current- American-policy. I went to Seattle this past Thanksgiving and had a great time aside from when the mean border guards gave me a hard time. American people are by and large de- cent people who are led by an administration that has little regard for the sanctity of human rights (think NSA wiretaps, Guantanamo, uni- lateral military action and support for authori- tarian regimes friendly to Western interests). The biggest fault I find in Americans is their propensity to support and elect governments which behave in such a manner. The Artist Formerly Known as ‘Some Douchebag’ says that just like Ahmadinejad, I believe 9/11 was an inside job by the Jews. This is also incorrect. I have no evidence that ‘the Jews’ had anything to do with it, nor to I believe the Jewish people to be capable of acts of such horror. Ahmadinejad, while the hard- line conservative mouthpiece for a theocratic regime with a terrible human rights record, merely seeks to provoke us to ask the ques- tion: how many inconsistencies and holes in the official 9/11 story can such an educated Western culture tolerate before we demand a better and fuller explanation? There is little doubt that radical Islamic fundamentalists hi- jacked those planes and flew them into build- ings. They didn’t just do so because ‘they hate our way of life’. Security lapses could be the tip of the iceberg. We must ask ourselves that old Latin motiv- ation question lawyers love: Qui bono? Who benefits? Oil is pegged to and only sold in American dollars. OPEC countries (like Saudi Arabia) sell their oil in dollars, which they in- vest in the US Federal Reserve or use to by American arms to maintain their grip on pow- er. The Japanese can buy oil only in American dollars. They must sell Hondas in America to generate foreign exchange reserves (i.e. US dollars) to buy their oil: All the US has to do is print money to facilitate this global exchange system. It is no secret the world economy was backstopped by US gold reserves until 1971. That changed to oil after the creation of OPEC around the same time. Perks from con- trolling this economic structure would be hard to give up. I encourage you to research this “petro dollar cycle”... YouTube has a good video and this information is scholarly valid- ated if you want to look. Anyways, in 2000 Saddam Hussein snubbed the US when he started selling Iraqi oil in Euros. Suddenly the US had to start selling more Chevy’s in Ger- many to have Euros to buy its sizeable share of Iraqi oil. What kind of breakdown in the cycle would have resulted if countries started following Saddam’s example? Also, search a document called “Project for a New Amer- ican Century” whose advocates and signator- ies include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and Paul Wolfowitz. This document advocates and blueprints the augmentation of American hegemony by all means neces- sary, including war and strategic control of resource flows. I’m not making this stuff up. WMD’s as a reason for invading Iraq? It is far more likely Saddam’s switch to the Euro in 2000 was the first in the chain of horrible, monstrous events still occurring today. Re- search it yourself. The problem is that we do not like to hear these dots connected in the media. This is very unsettling stuff. So, when I say some- thing like ‘bless [Israel’s] snow white soul’, I refer the Israeli government’s repeated hu- man rights abuses against Palestinians, not Israelis themselves. Of course we hear reports of Palestinians committing suicide bombings that kill Israeli civilians, but do we ever hear about how the Israeli government denies the displaced Palestinian people access to an ad- equate water supply? That I made a sarcastic comparison between Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York and Hitler going to Buckingham Palace was thoughtless after taking a jab at Israel’s record. However, my sarcasm was meant to make fun of the uproar Ahmadine- jad’s visit had caused by saying how much the visit is NOT like Hitler going to England. We give Ahmadinejad’s visit meaning by lik- ening him to feared dictators of the past. So, Ahmadinejad’s visit is NOT like Hitler rising from the dead to stand in front of a city full of Jews to murder six million people all over again. The Artist Formerly Known as ‘Some Douchebag’ makes the point that Jews suf- fered at the hands of ‘white people’ during the Holocaust. Boatloads of Jewish refugees were tumed away from Canadian, British AND American shores due to our anti-Sem- itic policies. The creation of the state of Israel is our penance for that crime. However, that penance perpetrated its own crime, namely the displacement and subjugation of Arab Palestinians. In our support of Israel’s actions, we again have blood on our hands, Just a few weeks ago Israeli fighter jets, supplied by the US, bombed targets in Syria they claimed were nuclear research facilities. That bomb- ing raid, like the one they carried out on Iraq years before, is extra-legal and is an act of war. Just because we’re worried that Syrians and Iranians MIGHT develop the same bomb Cold War America and Russia terrorized the world with does not give Israel the right to bomb its neighbours with impunity, especial- ly since Israel has ‘the bomb’ themselves. You might counter that Ahmadinejad is re- puted to have said Israel should be “wiped off the map” and he denies the Holocaust. Well, that’s half true. Our Western media reports it that way, but taken in context, Ahmadinejad said the state of Israel was created on the map where no Israeli state had existed before, and for its behaviour, could be removed from the map (with a similar act of the UN). Also, Ah- madinejad knows how sensitive an issue the Holocaust is to Israeli Jews. As they denounce him, he chooses to hit them right back by pro- posing that scholars revisit and question the accuracy of the Western-generated historical facts relating to the Holocaust. This is a cheap shot, no doubt about it. However, it is his right to question what we in the West regard as hist- ory. After all, to the victors (of WWII in this case) go the spoils, and the right to write hist- ory as they see fit. Now, I don’t know what high school the Artist Formerly Known as ‘Some Douchebag’ went to, but for myself and I expect most other Canadians, there was no cheering as those planes killed thousands of people on 9/11. Indeed as I watched the second plane hit the World Trade Centre my stomach dropped, for somewhere inside my grade eight mind I understood that the world had fundamentally changed. In the days and months that followed I, like the rest of my Canadian brethren, sym- pathized with the victims of that tragedy. So did most of the rest of the world, Terrorism is wat by other means and war on civilians is lower than low. However, as the American reaction to 9/11 unfolded with the Patriot Act, the failure to catch Osama, the myriad excuses to invade Iraq, and now the rhetoric surrounding Iran’s nuclear program that sym- pathy has been all but squandered. The world is changed. It is meaner and it is headed for more war if present attitudes prevail. Mo- mentum is with those who seek to use 9/11 as justification for intensified attrition. That is why I write things to make us think twice about denouncing those who stand in the way of this selfish agenda. In my article I called attention to Ahmadinejad’s terrible human rights record and his denial of homosexual- ity in Iran. He, like any other leader, must be held to account for his misdeeds. That does not mean, however, that everything that he says is without merit. Just because you can find some common ground in his world per- spective does not mean you support his every action or policy. It is common practice among those seeking to stifle meaningful debate to liken their opponent to another much-hated figure. Hence my sarcastic reference to the American representation of Ahmadinejad as a Hitler-like figure. Also I guess that was the motivation for the Artist Formerly Known as “Some Douchebag” to put me in a Nazi uni- form and show me joyously getting all of Hit- ler’s love. The comparisons are not apt, but if Ahmadinejad is prepared to dish it out and take it, then so am I. Cody Willett Editor In Chief Some Douchebag Apologizes Dear editor, I apologize to Cody Willett, the editor-in-chief of Over The Edge, for drawing the cartoon titled “Cody Sucks” printed in the last issue. Also, I apologize to production manager Tyler Clarke, as well as Cody Willett, and the entire staff, for verbally abusing them and their work in correspondences. Most of all, I apologize to the staff of Over The Edge, especially Cody Willett and Tyler Clarke, for submitting unprintable materials to their newspaper. I also apologize to the readership of Over The Edge for bringing the level of discourse on our campus to a new low. After much reflection, I realize now how wrong my actions were, and I am profoundly sorry. I understand now that political statements are better made through calculated reasoning rather than personal insults and shock tactics. I hope a more respectful atmosphere of political debate comes out of this apology , and look forward to making up for my vulgarity with more mature forms of discourse. Yours truly, “Some Douchebag”