As a long-time resident of Asheville, I decided last week to pick up a copy of the Daily Planet for the first time — the Jan 18-31 issue. 

I’m always excited to learn more things about what is happening in my local communities, and as an avid MountainX fan, I was interested in branching out. 

Inside the first page, I was met with “The Daily Planet’s Opinion: The ‘wokes’ threaten to be the dangerous new authoritarians.”

I do not wish to pick a fight with conservatives openly expressing their opinions — doing so in response to an article which seems to be genuinely concerned about cancel culture and violations of the First Amendment would be rather ironic. 

However, I do wish to mention some of the methodological errors I encountered. 

Firstly,  The Daily Planet uses the quotes of two avid and vocal socialists to support the opinion that so-called “wokes” wish to turn the U.S. into an emulation of totalitarian socialist and communist states.

While both George Orwell and Albert Einstein were naturally opposed to fascism, they were also opposed to prejudice — and they were in favour of the socialist utopian ideologies that pursue equality of outcome, what The Daily Planet warns is the ultimate goal of the “wokes.” 

Furthermore, The Daily Planet uses this article to equate the opposition of racism, sexism and homophobia in our great nation to “unenlightened dogma.”

Understanding the concern about cancel culture and the modern challenges to an American expressing their opinion, is it not a fundamental concern of conservatives, liberals, and woke leftists alike to decrease the amount of bigotry present in the melting pot of the world? 

It seems The Daily Planet should perhaps be concerned more with the harmful methodology of wokeness then its beneficial intended effect, lest the paper be seen as supportive of racism, sexism and homophobia. 

I am, again, not opposed to the expression of opinion that the social environment of political Twitter is horrifyingly toxic, and yes, perhaps authoritarian. 

I agree with it, from a fundamental position. I favour the unabridged expression of one’s First Amendment rights. 

I am simply worried that The Daily Planet’s summation of this issue is puzzlingly contradictory, overreliant on buzzwords, and leaves what I hope is the mistaken impression that the paper supports American prejudice. 

Even still, I look forward to picking up the next issue.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As for assertions in Suslowitz’s letter, the Daily Planet’s main point is the need to oppose authoritarianism and  totalitarianism, which Orwell and Einstein, indeed, opposed.

Orwell, who claimed to be a “democratic socialist,” was well-known for his opposition to authoritarionism and totalitarianism, as evidenced by his two dystopian classics “Animal Farm” and “1984.” 

As for Einstein, while he did favor socialism, he also steadfastly admitting his training and expertise was limited to theoretical physics. Essentially, Einstein said his backing of socialism was based strictly on his philosophy, rather than on economic theory.

U.S. is under attack â€” from within

I just read H.K. Edgerton’s article (a Daily Planet interview with Edgerton headlined “Reparations for local blacks? ‘Nobody owes me anything!’ Southern heritage activist contends” that appeared in the Feb. 01-14 edition)... 

Great! It’s “more of the real history we don’t get.”

When the United States was first being settled, the North had a large amount of Roman Catholics from the countries of Europe — and some people thought anything and everything they could make money with, like the deadly poison tobacco, it did not matter the harm.

The same thing with the slave trade. This was not done by a poor man with maybe just a mule and a cow. It was done by the Roman Catholic countries of Europe, with ships.

They saw they could make a lot of money and a lot of the slaves wound up on the Southern plantations. Amazing!

Now, years later, after making all this money hauling and sellling the slaves, they used the issue of slavery against the South to start the Civil War!

From Mexico through Argentina, every country is Roman Catholic. Mexico is 97 percent Roman Catholic. Roman Catholic people are running human trafficking and the drug cartels!

The Biden administration is helping this criminal industry. 

The Roman Catholic church is sending the people.

The U.S. has over 800 military bases around the world, securing their countries and borders. When (then-President Donald J.) Trump tried to fix the U.S. (Southern) border, the Pentagon said we can’t use the military to fix the U.S. border.

The Pentagon is not working for the U.S. people.

The U.S. is under attack!