Fear factor
Jack Lessenberry, you are wrong in one assessment: The domestic policy of the Republican Party is not to make white people feel comfortable and secure (“The white people’s party,” Metro Times, August 13-19).
The entire domestic program of the Republican Party is built on one basic premise — fear everything. And if you don’t know what to fear, they’ll tell you. (No one should be surprised at the gross cynicism and hypocrisy displayed in their use of the 9/11 tragedy to spur their own agenda.)
There is always the basic fear underlying racism: That if blacks (or any minority) gain power, they might do the same thing to us as we’ve been doing to them!
Fear, with any of the bogeymen they conjure up as the political climate dictates, is the best weapon they have in controlling and manipulating the less intellectually endowed. Fear drives people to the suburbs (and beyond). Fear drives them to surrender their own liberties. Fear drives them to support wars under the slightest pretense. Fear drives them to a political party that only in the last years (as you point out) has layered several veneers of polish and gloss over its true message: Might (and white) makes right! —John Campbell, Detroit
No fun
What a wrongheaded editorial decision — to devote an entire page the week of the scheduled Detroit reunion of Iggy and the Stooges to the overwrought, pretentious musings of a Canadian (for godsakes!) rock connoisseur-poseur, whose considered opinion (barely discernible through the muck of his prose) is that Kiss was better than Iggy and the Stooges (“Dr. Stoogelove,” Metro Times, August 13-19).
This is a joke, right?
I’m old enough to have actually seen the early Stooges shows Morgan mentions, and the reality was every bit as powerful as the “myth” that has arisen about them.
Clearly, as evidenced by his own writing style, Morgan prefers the use of layers of hideous pancake makeup and cheesy costuming — or, journalistically, an outdated “gonzo” wordiness — which conceals an absence of substance and originality.
I’m all for pointing out when the emperor is wearing no clothes (OK, a pun in Iggy’s case), but the whistle-blower must speak truth to power.
Morgan is simply a dork, and a fool with bad taste. Metro Times should be ashamed for pulling this prank on its readers. —Christina Hill, [email protected], Bloomfield Hills
Not right
It’s fine to print Jeffrey Morgan’s recollection of the Survival Of The Fittest-era Amboy Dukes’ superiority to the Stooges, but to do so in celebration of the Stooges returning to Detroit after more than three decades of being as influential as the Beatles? That’s in bad taste.
I guess it is a Detroit tradition to underappreciate what we should be proud of. The rest of the world regards Iggy as a great artist and a musical innovator. Even Miles Davis dug the Stooges. Then again, it is precisely this Midwestern narrow-mindedness that the Stooges were rebelling against in the first place. —Matthew Smith, [email protected], Hamtramck
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