Letters to the Editor
William Timberman
Published Letters: 3298 Editor's Choice: 7
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What is to be done
[Read the article: Blogger criticisms and the national media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In a conversation with a fellow Democrat several days ago about party unity, working for a common cause, etc., he mentioned the national motto, e pluribus unum. A noble sentiment, I told him, but also a misleading one, especially for a party which has often been criticized, and not without some justice, as a more or less organized rabble.
I mentioned Bob Dylan's line about the politician eating pizza one day and chitlins the next and got a laugh out of him, but afterwards, darker thoughts about our national identity began gnawing at me, as they always seem to do these days. Our diversity can be a rich source of humor, but as we were all once told in grade school, it is also the source of our strength as a people. Why, in the era of media conglomerates, has it come to seem such a weakness?
Glenn's systematic debunking of our media-appointed pundits reflects an unsettling answer. As with the party, so also with the country; the problem isn't the e pluribus part, it's the unum part.
Our economically rationalized media isn't in the business of arriving at a national concensus; it's in the business of manufacturing one. Things are so much easier, so much more economical when politics is reduced to appeasing those who can do you real harm. If we write to the Washington Post, or CBS News, unless there are hundreds of thousands of us, all with a single message, there's no reason other than a sense duty to investigate the issues we raise, let alone respond to those who've raised them. When Dick Cheney calls, or representatives of AIPAC or the Family Forum, attention must be paid. Advertising dollars, continued preferential access to the movers and shakers, even the social standing of the owners is at stake.
It's been said before, here and elsewhere, that our government, and our media, have gone into business for themselves. It's therefore in their interest to narrow the constituency which they serve. When that happens, as it obviously has, our diversity works against us. One faction can be -- and has been -- played against another, reducing the political process to something more manageable, if also more volatile, for our elites.
Which brings me again to our motto, and to my friend's appeal to it. Coalition-building on the left seems the only response to our present corrupt and dangerous political situation which might actually prove effective. The right is already hopelessly compromised by the devil's bargain it's made with our neo-authoritarians, and the leadership of both parties is fully invested in the status quo.
For any hope of lasting success, though, we'll need the people in all their diversity. My hope is that with people like Glenn, and others like Seymour Hersh and perhaps even our own humble selves preparing the way, it will eventually become easier, rather than harder, to persuade them to get up off their couches and lend a hand.
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Self-delusion is a right-wing disease
[Read the article: A hallmark of idiocy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Titus Pullo:
Your America-haters is itself a nasty little bumper-sticker of a smear. The left doesn't hate America; it hates what right-wing apologists for unilateral militarism and authoritarian government have mistaken it for. Folks like yourself, who wouldn't be able to find America if it snuck up and bit them on the ass, which it's very likely to do if you don't leave off trying to turn it into a banana republic with nuclear missiles.
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A matter of definition
[Read the article: A hallmark of idiocy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Titus Pullo:
I would call the people who ordered our invasion of Iraq America-haters. Certainly they hate the American Constitution. You see, TP, our dispute is fundamentally about what things mean; no one is obliged to accept your definitions simply because, like all good scoundrels, you wrap them in the flag.
In the end, the people will decide who hates America and who doesn't. They also know, as you apparently do not, that America is what the people collectively decide it is, whether it's what you find in your dog-eared copy of Rush Limbaugh's catechism or not.
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Paul Rosenberg
[Read the article: A hallmark of idiocy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...the last shall be first. Beautifully done. As clownsense says, thanks.
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The Logician
[Read the article: A hallmark of idiocy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nabalzbbfr emulates his mentor Dick Cheney: the absence of calls for violence in liberal blogs is proof of their intent to foment violence.
I'd say it's a good thing for you that you're not a lawyer. Lord knows what even a strict-constructionist judge would make of arguments like that, let alone a jury.