Neo-controversy
As a member of the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality, I think Kristian Gravenor’s rant against “the concept of police brutality” and “society’s misfits” shows that the Mirror is slipping fast [“The false leaders,” March 21]. Gravenor’s hip and humorous style only made his neo-conservative message that much more insidious. In the next sentence after denouncing activists as paternalistic, he advocates that “society’s misfits should be dragged kicking and screaming from their squalor,” but he exposes enough of the faulty assumptions behind this neo-conservative agenda of blaming the victim. About affordable housing, we are told that the cheapest housing is the “duplex they can buy after working hard for a couple of years and saving their money.” Ignored here is the fact that with the average Quebec wage of about $13 an hour, an individual can’t get a mortgage for much, let alone a duplex. Also, how is anyone supposed to save the thousands of dollars for a house when all their post-tax income is spent on rent, food, transport and utilities?

In any case, about a third of the working population earns much closer to the minimum wage; they do all the service and grunt work that Gravenor and his ilk take for granted. Another neo-con assumption is that these “ill-fitting citizens” actually want a place in this society, that the issue is how best to help the poor. Here are different assumptions: this commodity-dominated, exploitative society alienates us “misfits.” It alienates me from nature, from doing fun and meaningful work. It rewards me for pursuing greed and using people, it debases empathy and denies autonomy in the name of those who profit from this economic system. Instead of asking how best to help the poor, consider asking how to not exploit differences in people’s abilities and that no class of people should have a vested interest in poverty’s perpetuation.

As for writing “the less said about the organizers of COPB the better, particularly since I might have to make small talk with them at future social functions,” Gravenor said too much already and small talk won’t be an issue if we’re ever sipping drinks in the same room. If his small talk includes trying to shame his kid by writing that it was “unendurable” that “my three year old spilled my new bottle of vodka on the kitchen floor” he should tolerate having an ounce or two of vodka thrown in his face.

—Bernard Cooper, COPB member

Pro- and anti-PETA
Your interview with PETA’S Ingrid Newkirk [“Carnivorous cruelty,” March 21] was a gem. Several people in my neighbourhood who normally don’t read the Mirror picked up this issue due to the publicity it generated. I know several people who turned vegetarian late in life, especially Jews and Italians, due to health and ethical concerns. So please, all you animal rights haters better jump on to the bandwagon. I’ve heard CJAD’s stellar sports broadcaster Dino Sisto announce on the air he is a vegetarian. Please keep running more such articles to inform the masses. If you then get angry right-wing mail, publish it, but allow rebuttals too. There are many vegetarians and animal rights activists out in the city.

—Levi Ritzberg

I read your interview with the co-founder of PETA and I must say I never liked this organization. It reeks of hypocrisy. It is unacceptable to promote or approve of vandalism as this Ms. Newkirk does. She defended a native hooligan who ransacked a laboratory doing experiments on animals. Big deal! Maybe that idiot prevented scientists from finding a cure for AIDS or cancer. He’s irresponsible and so is PETA for supporting such fanatics.
Over the years, PETA has assaulted women with red paint because they committed the crime of wearing fur. This is nauseating. To be vegetarian for your own health is one thing, but transforming this diet into a dogmatic religion and shoving it down others’ throats is another matter. PETA is as menacing to our personal freedoms as the religious right. Your interview failed to insist on their advocacy of violence and support for terrorist organizations like the Animal Liberation Front. You only grazed the surface by being too complacent. Rather than false-angels like animal-right activists, I think I prefer to read interviews about Ron Jeremy—while chewing at a big T-Bone!

—Laurent Cauchon