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April 22, 2005
 DEAR
HEIDI: CAN WE TALK?
By
Joe Guzzardi
Ms. Heidi Beirich
C/O
The Intelligence Project
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Avenue
Montgomery, Alabama 36104
Dear Ms. Beirich:
I trust this letter will find you
well.
And I hope that you will forgive my
lengthy delay in corresponding with you. I am rude not
to have written earlier.
You no doubt recall that during the
late summer of 2003, when I was a (Democratic)
candidate for governor in the
California recall election, you told
Modesto Bee reporter
Eric Stern that it was
"very scary" that I had aligned myself with the
"true
haters" in the immigration reform movement.
During Stern’s
interview with you, you told him that because of my
associations, I am on the
Southern Poverty Law Center’s "radar."
I am not at all sure what your
statement means. But it has a decidedly unfriendly tone.
And I have since noted—with
dismay—that, during the intervening year and a half your
organization has taken a keen interest in VDARE.COM,
where my columns appear, as well as some of its
contributors. (You have also
attacked The Lord Of The Rings movies for
being “Eurocentric” and patriarchal but I
won’t go there).
All of this is troubling and
bewildering.
Consequently, I write to you with
the hope that we can take steps to improve the strained
relationship between our two organizations.
Since you have indicated an
interest in my activities and knowing that it must be
difficult to keep me on your "radar" since we are
separated by 2000 miles, I herewith offer you a detailed
breakdown of my daily schedule to help you locate me
whenever you may feel the need to do so.
This gesture is made in complete
and total good faith.
-
7:00 A.M.: Lodi
Dog Park. I take
Fido and
Sparkle to play with their friends Buster,
Jack, Teddy,
Kona and Ozzie.
-
1:00 P.M.—Home.
I read mail, channel surf, send e-mail, pull weeds, etc.
I am sorry that I cannot provide more specific detail.
My midday activities vary according to how much time I
have and how energetic I feel.
-
Evenings:
Anything, save attending "hate" rallies, is
possible. At this time of year, I like to listen to
baseball, grill, or drive in the country to watch
the magnificent California sunsets.
While I hope this information is
helpful to you, I suspect you anticipated something much
more sinister.
You see, this is where the mystery
surrounding your fixation on VDARE.COM deepens.
VDARE.COM advocates
enforcing immigration law. That means we take a
tough stand regarding illegal aliens.
And those of us who write for
VDARE.COM unanimously agree that
legal immigration and
non-immigrant visas—both consistently made more
generous over the past four decades—should be tightened
to reflect the nation’s true needs.
In short, we favor
upholding the law. And we are critical of a
federal policy that we—and the vast majority of
Americans—think has
run amok.
Oddly, this infuriates you. And you
go to
great lengths to paint us as racists.
The racist charge is
familiar to me. But the interesting thing is that it
is only made by people who don’t know me. Those who have
met and
worked with me have a very
different viewpoint, I assure you.
So let me get to the point of my
letter.
Mending fences is difficult through
the mail. I suggest that we meet at a mutually
convenient time to hash out our disagreements face to
face.
Here is my e-mail address:
jguzzardi@vdare.com Please drop me a line to
let me know what might be doable for you.
If your
Intelligence Report responsibilities take you to
California, perhaps I could show you around.
But if you have no plans to visit
the West Coast, then please know that I have a summer
vacation that begins in June.
I will be glad to travel south so
that we can sit down and resolve our differences like
adults and without rancor.
I await your response.
Yours most hopefully,
Joe Guzzardi
VDARE.COM
Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English at the Lodi
Adult School, has been writing a weekly newspaper column
since 1988. This column is exclusive to VDARE.COM. |
