Letters to the Editor

I'm lovin' it — as I'm telling you now like I told you then, I'll be on the sidelines with a grin.
Steve Horner
Denver

Congressman Roudebush of Indiana stated: "These people that these bills will affect are anti-Americans. They burn the American flag. They want to help our enemies." From Congressman Sikes of Florida: "Those who incite to violence should be punished whether or not freedom of speech is impaired."

The late Abbie Hoffman replied: "Any means — any means necessary. That's a phrase of great interest to commissions on violence...a means of raising their revolutionary consciousness...you ought to think about changing...society...to the extent that you're willing to risk your life. If the Democratic Convention had been held in New York, I think the city would have given us $200,000 and gotten the Beatles to come over and play in the park, and everything would have been groovy. That's what I told the Chicago officials to do.... I think I could say from experience that the amount of violence is inverse to the number of people I planned to pull Hubert Humphrey's pants down...up on the podium."

Get out the vote!
Brother Love
Denver

There were misstatements and inaccuracies in Jared Jacang Maher's story last week. Here are some of them.

The Recreate '68 name was explained to Jared; the group is named after the year, not an event (it is not called Recreate Chicago 68). The headline on the web version of the story — "Chicago in 1968 was a place of violence and chaos. Some activists would like to re-create those good old days" — is misleading and inflammatory; in the press conference and in other public forums, R-68 has made it clear that we are trying to avoid what happened in Chicago. What R-68 wants to re-create is the spirit of mass political participation that marked that year, when millions of people believed their participation in the political process could make a real difference and acted on that belief — a spirit that has been lost in the last forty years. R-68 has adopted a non-violence statement and has at every opportunity mentioned non-violence. R-68 did not commandeer website names; they were bought and paid for over the natural course of events, and the total price was $126.

No one who is in Transform Columbus Day, Recreate '68 or affiliated with Woodbine is affiliated with the Earth Liberation Front. Because that organization has been labeled "terrorist" by the government, this is a very threatening statement.

As for Colorado AIM, it is the largest single and most active AIM chapter in the country, not a tiny and disavowed splinter group. Barbara and Mark Cohen individually have large spy files, not "one" of the most massive spy files. Massive is the AIM file, which was over 1,500 pages.
Barbara and Mark Cohen
Denver

Editor's note: The Cohens are correct; the total amount for those websites was $126. And while last week Glenn Spagnuolo told Jared Jacang Maher that R-68 was still considering drafting a non-violence statement, Mark Cohen provided such a statement to Westword. At Spagnuolo's request, Westword withheld the name of the group training at Woodbine that has had connections to the Earth Liberation Front; it was neither R-68 nor Colorado AIM, as Jared's story makes clear. Neither Glenn Morris nor Glenn Spagnuolo has responded to Jared's calls since that story was published, although there's been a lively discussion of the piece on the web (join in here). And for the record, Spagnuolo told Jared he was born in Queens, not the Bronx. We apologize for the errors.

Playlist, Michael Roberts, October 18

I wanted to let you know I was disgusted with Michael Roberts's review of Kid Rock's new CD, Rock N Roll Jesus. Since it debuted at number one in Billboard in its first week, obviously Roberts is slightly out of touch or out of brains. Bob Ritchie is a lyrical genius as well as amazing in combining his own music with flashes of past hits to give the listener a feeling of nostalgia while being wowed by the new music. Anyone who cannot feel this is sad, in my opinion. And why does an album have to be one genre? Open up your narrow little mind and enjoy the music.
Angel Bryant
Loveland

"Chain Reaction," Adam Cayton-Holland, October 11