I just fired off this letter to the editor of the City Pulse, Lansing's psuedo-alternative newspaper. (You can't claim to be "the paper for the rest of us" and be totally and completely in bed with local business and Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, who is, at best, a center-right, Lieberman-esque sort of Democrat.) It was easy to write, but painful to pare down to the 250 word limit that they set for letters to the editor.

With that many inaccuracies on display, you have the choice between running over 250 words--and thus pissing away any chance of the letter being published intact, if at all--or stick to stressing very general themes and giving them a pass on the factual problems. It's like being asked "why do you hate America?" and given exactly ten seconds to respond.

The final version of the letter was a not entirely satisfying compromise between the two tacks, while staying at exactly 250 words, but it should still be interesting to see if they publish it.

(For no good reason other than frustration at it's chances of getting published...and the fact that the login page for my political blog over at RedTV doesn't seem to be working...I'm reproducing it here.)
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Dear Editor,

I was shocked and disgusted by the City Pulse's disgracefully inaccurate coverage of Saturday anti-racist protest in Lansing.

The City Pulse evidently disagrees with the tactic of directly protesting neo-Nazis and wishes every one had stayed back to take part in a politically meaningless, feel-good “diversity celebration.” The problem is that groups like the Klan and the Nazis exist to intimidate the rest of us, especially non-whites, into silence. Even with the best intentions, telling people to stay away, and scolding those who do show up to protest, furthers that purpose.

I was a proud participant in the protest the City Pulse slanderously called a “mob.” It was about much more than the theatrically extreme white supremacism of the NSM. Many popular signs and slogans on display throughout the protest, such as “Nazis support MCRI” and “Who’s the immigrant, pilgrim?” connected the issue at hand to those aspects of the white supremacist agenda that have recently “gone mainstream” in Michigan and elsewhere, such as calls to abolish affirmative action integration programs and to deport 12 million brown-skinned workers who are hypocritically deemed to be “illegal immigrants.”

Did one individual smash a window? I don’t know. I didn’t see it happen. I did, however, see many incidents of unprovoked aggression toward peaceful protestors by policemen drunk on their own power.

The Nazis have a right to free speech, but that’s a two-way street. The rest of us have a right to protest them. That doesn’t make us a “mob.”

Sincerely,

Ben Burgis