Patriots’ corner isn’t full of rude, rough hooligans
After reading Lynn E. Emerson-Walsh’s letter to the editor (July 2) describing the behavior of the support-the-troops demonstrators who turn out on Sundays at the corner of 12th and Commercial (and this day and time information serves as an invitation to others!), I am truly amazed and irritated at the picture she has painted of the patriot demonstrators.

The way she described it, you’d think they were just were a bunch of Hells Angels hooligans tossing beer cans, roughing up old ladies and flipping off motorists. As anyone who spends more than 10 seconds observing the four corners on any Sunday can plainly see, nothing could be farther from the truth.

It is the patriots’ corner that maintains decorum, respects people’s rights, and doesn’t play vulgar lyrics (noticed in a June 25 letter to the editor by Gayle Babcock from Bellingham). On the other hand, classic country music is hardly the basis for an obscenities charge unless you’re in favor of Sharia Law.

So why aim such malevolence at this group of people who are out there to support our military in a time of war? I think you know; because it’s not very gratifying for pacifist demonstrators to watch so many people in the general public loudly and shamelessly (through honks and waves) endorsing those very “warmongers.

In psychology, fantasy is defined as the creation of exaggerated mental images in response to an ungratified need. I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think there are people out there on Sundays who wish so hard for a Utopian world that they perceive things that simply aren’t there, and this psychosis is brought on by the sight of people proudly waving Old Glory.
Nelson Stewart
Anacortes