I was one of serveral people copied on the original email (bottom).  I'm friends with the original sender and she obviously copied a several other people too.  Some of her other friends are real tards.




_________________________
Ruth-
I could not agree with you more.  I cannot add much to your response.  I have only two additional thoughts:

Since when did opening up a dialog with your enemy...become appeasing??  And, have we really been talking with Iran...really?  Not for the last eight years, that I've seen.  And look where that's gotten us. As tough, distasteful, and scary as it is, just talking is not selling out or even implying that we do not hold true to our values. It's approaching the problem from a different vantage point (although I'm the one that thinks we haven't really engaged our enemy, Iran, since the days of Madeline Albright's tough, no-holds-barred speak).  Last comment on this subject...WWJD???!!!  I'm nominally a Catholic, too...long story.  But I still follow His teachings and ask myself...what would He do??  I think He would continue to reach out, even if 10 lifetimes of history indicated that it would be fruitless to do so. Never, never, never give up.

Second and last thought.  This is America - I'm grateful every day to live here - .where we can have a discourse like this one and where, pretty much, we all (or our great grandparents and their parents) traveled across some body of water to get here....enslaved people and took this land from the only people who really have a right to complain about sharing space with other ethnicities.  However, either they don't complain or we can't hear them.  The Native American only comprises about 17% of our population and it's estimated that by 2050, they'll be gone entirely.

xxxx


––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
From: Ruth


My God! That poor woman. How she must suffer with no money or power and not being a celebrity. Having a PhD and not knowing how to reach out to effect change...hmm, where did she get that PhD? I know people with only a GED who make wonderous change in this country. And I wonder, did she get that PhD  without any help from government programs or student aid? As we used to say in the inner city, minority hiring, hourly wage warehouse, paybacks are a bitch.

One thing I would like to know is why is it fine for all the banks and auto companies to get bailouts and but when regular everyday people need help, that means they are deadbeats. What about the people who bought houses they could afford and then they got laid off by one of those sterling companies that are now begging for help?

One thing she has wrong there. No one has EVER been required to learn English to live in this country at any time EVER!!!
People only had to learn enough English to pass the test if they wanted to become a citizen, and trust me, in the past that is all the English many of them learned. I can give you examples from many old immigrants I have befriended and others of my own family.
I wonder if she even knows any modern day immigrants. I know some people who have lived in this country their whole lives and never learned English.

Replacing Labor Day with Eid? How horrible!!!. They happen about the same time of year. They aren't asking for it in addition, they are replacing it only for themselves. They work on Labor Day and get Eid off. Big deal, or is Labor Day a religious holiday now? Christmas is a national holiday for Christ sake! Why can't other religions have holidays too?. Are we so narrow minded that we can only allow what we prefer? I can tell you that I have worked on many Labor Days, Memorial Days, Fourth of Julys, Christmases, Thanksgivings, and New Years and I am nominally a Christian, And, wow, I can't believe she is defending Labor Day. Most people of her class and economic status think Labor Day is a socialist, communist plot.

I work with many Muslims and have for many years. There is nothing in our workplace that has changed because they are there. Oh, yes there is...when we have potlucks, we identify dishes with pork, as we do with the Jewish co workers. Which is just fine with me because I think pork sucks. It is not the other white meat, it is the pig eating garbage meat... gross.

The best part of working with other cultures and religions is LEARNING. They have so much to show us just as we have to show them.

The only reason why this upper class educated middle aged woman should feel powerless is because she is a woman in a country who values old white men to be superior to women, blacks, and anyone who doesn't look like them.

I am sorry, I have no sympathy for overprivileged people complaining about their tough lives. I can match and trump every sad story they can come up with.



––––- Original Message ––––-



A very interesting piece and worth reading by one and all!
WHAT SHE SAID.........................


This letter was sent to the Wall Street Journal on August 8, 2008 by Alisa Wilson, Ph.D. Of Beverly Hills , CA, in
response to the Wall Street Journal article titled "Where's The Outrage?" that appeared July 31,2008.

Really. I can tell you where the outrage is. The outrage is here, in this middle-aged, well-educated, upper-middle class
woman. The outrage is here, but I have no representation, no voice. The outrage is here, but no one is listening for who
am I?

I am not a billionaire like George Soros that can fund an entire political movement.  I am not a celebrity like Barbra Streisand that can garner the attention of the press to promote political candidates..

I am not a film maker like Michael Moore or Al Gore that can deliver misleading movies to the public.

The outrage is here; but unlike those with money or power, I don't know how to reach those who feel similarly in
order to effect change. Why am I outraged? I am outraged that my country, the United States of America , is in a state of moral and ethical decline. There is no right or wrong anymore, just what's fair.

Is it fair that millions of Americans who overreached and borrowed more than they could afford are now being bailed
out by the government and lending institutions to stave off foreclosure? Why shouldn't these people be made to pay
the consequences for their poor judgment?

When my husband and I purchased our home, we were careful to purchase only what we could afford. Believe me, there are
much larger, much nicer homes that I would have loved to have purchased. But, taking responsibility for my behavior and my life, I went with the house that we could afford, not the house that we could not afford. The notion of personal responsibility has all but died in our country.

I am outraged, that the country that welcomed my mother as  an immigrant from Hitler's Nazi Germany and required that she and her family learn English now allows itself to be overrun with illegal immigrants and worse, caters to those illegal immigrants.

I am outraged that my hard-earned taxes help support those here illegally. That the Los Angeles Public School District is in such disarray that I felt it incumbent to send my child to private school, that every time I go to the ATM, I see "do you want to continue in English or Spanish?", that every time I call the bank, the phone company , or similar business, I hear "press 1 for English or press 2 for Spanish". WHY? This is America and our common language is English and attempts to promote a bi or multi-lingual society are sure to fail and to marginalize those who cannot communicate in English.

I am outraged at our country's weakness in the face of new threats on American traditions from Muslims. Recently, Tyson's Food negotiated with its union to permit Muslims to have Eid-al-Fitr as a holiday instead of Labor Day. What am I missing? Yes, there is a large Somali Muslim population working at the Tyson's plant in Tennessee . Tennessee, last I checked, is still part of the United States . If Muslims want to live and work here they should be required to live and work by our American Laws and not impose their will on our long history.

In the same week, Random House announced that they had indefinitely delayed the publication of The Jewel of Medina, by Sherry Jones, a book about the life of Mohammed's wife, Aisha due to fear of retribution and violence by Muslims. When did we become a nation ruled by fear of what other immigrant groups want? It makes me so sad to see large corporations cave rather than stand proudly on the principles that built this country.

I am outraged because appeasement has never worked as a political policy, yet appeasing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is
exactly what we are trying to do. An excellent article, also published recently in the Wall Street Journal, went through
over 20 years of history and why talking with Iran has been and will continue to be ineffective. Yet talk, with a madman
no less, we continue to do. Have we so lost our moral compass and its ability to detect evil that we will not go in and destroy Iran 's nuclear program? Would we rather wait for another Holocaust for the Jews - one which theywould be unlikely to survive? When does it end?

As if the battle for good and evil isn't enough, now come the Environmentalists who are so afraid of global warming that they want to put a Bag tax on grocery bags in California; to eliminate Mylar balloons; to establish something as insidious as the recycle police in San Francisco. I do my share for the environment: I recycle, I use water wisely, I installed an energy efficient air conditioning unit. But when and where does the lunacy stop? Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map, the
California economy is being overrun by illegal immigrants, and the United States of America no longer knows right from
wrong, good from evil.. So what does California do? Tax grocery bags.

So, America , although I can tell you where the outrage is, this one middle-aged, well-educated, upper middle class woman is powerless to do anything about it. I don't even feel like my vote counts because I am so outnumbered by those who disagree with me.

Alisa Wilson, Ph.D. Beverly Hills , California