The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

Personal attacks don't help discussion

Pudgy? Of all things, I'm pudgy? Yes after moving out of the dorms and being able to eat and drink what I want (McDonald's, Burger King, beer) I may have gained a few extra pounds, but am I really pudgy?

That's the way John White chose to describe me in his guest column on Tuesday. I'm the "F@#k Everything" guy that he spoke of, and I would like to get a few things straight.

My shirt did read "F@#K the MILITARY." Two girls have cried after reading that line and others have had words with me. I tell them I am referring to the military as a whole, the institution of the military that has killed over 30,000 Iraqis, not the individual soldiers.

Many of my friends, unable to afford college, were forced to join the military. I hope they all come home quickly and safely. As for the comment of seeing a marine while wearing the shirt, one of my oldest friends, who just began attending SIUC, is a marine and has absolutely no problem with what is said on the shirt.

Secondly, it is kind of surprising that the comment about the military received a larger response than the final and largest complaint: "F@#k America because we're F@#ked." I guess it's the "If you're not with us, you're against us" attitude that Mr. bush preaches. Everyone first and foremost must support the military, and if not then you are anti-American. I am not for your war Mr. Bush, and I AM NOT anti-American.

It is that attitude that causes people like John White to attack me. It is that attitude that caused the lone bush supporter to antagonize the protesters on Route 13 calling us Communists on Saturday and personally call me P@#sy Boy.

I am a TV production major and a political science minor. My father is a newspaper man (a former DAILY EGYPTIAN writer in the early 1970s), so if there is one thing in this messed up country that I hold dear to me, it is that "Congress shall pass no law... abridging the freedom of speech." So why is it that when I choose to exercise that right I am called a pudgy Communist p@#sy who is starving for attention? I agree that they have just as much right to call me this as I do to say "F@#K Bush," but the difference is I am commenting on the way our great land is being ran while conservatives like to attack those with dissenting views.

Teddy Roosevelt wrote in an editorial for the Kansas City Star that "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

I do not stand by this president and I will criticize him. If you feel the same way as I do, I ask you to stand up and do something.

Mike Russell
senior, radio-television

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