Counterculture Connections

Reading Paul Krassner’s “The FBI and Me--an American Story” (Commentary, July 4) made my blood run cold. The night before, I watched a videotape of “Waco: The Rules of Engagement,” about the slaughter of the Branch Davidians. That made my blood run cold, too. Like a lot of liberals, I make jokes about J. Edgar Hoover in drag, and I have always felt mild contempt for the FBI.

But the more I see and read, the more I have come to dread the very thought of these brutal federal bureaucrats, with their vendettas against people like Krassner and David Koresh and God knows who else.

How can we allow this to happen, America?

Margo Kline

Santa Barbara

Krassner’s article reminds me that not only do we have the freedom to expose corruption in America, we also have the freedom to expose left-wing ideologue hysterics like Krassner. This guy doesn’t like America. But you don’t see him leaving, as a number of liberals promise to do. That is why liberals will always be a minority and need to be challenged every time they try to pile their poop on your porch. America, to me, is to toss this article in the trash, not knowing who Krassner is and not being interested in finding out--but knowing his kind.

Thanks for printing this message from the godless left. It makes me feel good that I am not that hysterically paranoid.

Dennis Fenton

Pismo Beach

Krassner made me realize how much we miss the voice of an authentic counterculture. Today, as we witness corporations cutting “exclusive rights” deals with foreign governments, soft drink manufacturers monopolizing school campuses, shoe companies affecting national policy and product advertising raised, literally, to an art form (movie directors are plucked from the ranks of TV commercial directors), there is no such thing as the loyal opposition. There’s no resistance to the commodification of American culture--no student groups in the streets demanding that we reexamine our values, no protesters burning their credit cards. The only crowds of young people we see today are those attending movie premieres or waiting in line for the early release of a CD.

Krassner’s excellent piece may have been intended to provoke outrage, but for me (a gray-bearded liberal), it elicited a painful nostalgia.

David Macaray

Rowland Heights