Letters to the Editor
William Timberman
Published Letters: 3298 Editor's Choice: 7
-
Gira al centro
[Read the article: Neoconservative radicalism has reshaped our political spectrum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Interesting how libertarians and old new leftists like myself are finding a center, however small it is, and putting up sharpened stakes around in defense against the idiots of all kinds who've turned the Republican Party into a circus which only Fellini could describe. Half of them are singing Giovanezza, and the other half Onward Christian Soldiers. Where's a sane conservative to find refuge?
Well, not with us, I think. The libertarians are already uncomfortable, except perhaps for Mona, with all this talk of reviving social democracy, and conservatives, who hate taxes even more than they love living in a civilized country, wouldn't think much of any liberty which didn't allow them to sit like Fafnir on top of every penny they ever earned.
It ain't the right we've got here, and it ain't the left, but at the moment it ain't the center either. What to do, what to do? Do you suppose that we might actually find some sort of concensus in conversations like the one we've been having here today? Maybe, but I can't imagine such conversations getting anything but short shrift in either of our two political parties at the moment.
There's much work to be done, clearly.
-
a Valentiniano
[Read the article: Neoconservative radicalism has reshaped our political spectrum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As in that other Italian golden oldie?
Avanti populo
alla riscossa
Bandiera rossa,
Bandiera rossa....
Ma chi trionferá, eh? That's the question, innit?
-
I wonder,
[Read the article: Neoconservative radicalism has reshaped our political spectrum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Valentinian, if bebop knows that one. (I'll bet he does.) In any case, it sounds like a sentiment that he would endorse wholeheartedly, as do I. Thanks for the consolazione.
-
I was about to say....
[Read the article: Neoconservative radicalism has reshaped our political spectrum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that mine at 7:05 (my time) was not meant to hurt feelings or give offense, quite the opposite in fact. I was also about to say that I'd happily avoid referring to you or your comments in the future if that is what you want.
Then I read your latest. You ask for comment, so it seems okay to break the pledge I was about to give. For what it's worth, I think that the message sent to you not only misunderstood you, but was pretty nasty about it. I think it was more about the writer than about you, and more importantly, I don't share the writer's view of your comments here, of your motives in writing them. Follow your own muse would be my advice, as we all have to anyway. There are those of us who think well of what you've done here, and I'm one of them
But back to the topic I originally intended: Please excuse whatever transgressions you believe I'm guilty of. I won't repeat them, at least not those concerning you.
-
Artless
[Read the article: The Politico's John Harris replies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When confronted, deny the subtext. Rely on it when making your public pronouncements (Glenn Greenwald's criticisms are ideologically motivated) but otherwise pretend that there's nothing to see here, and that everyone can safely move along.
This practice is fundamentally dishonest, and couching it in a nice turn of phrase doesn't -- and can't -- make it any less so. I don't know who John Harris thinks he's fooling, but the idea that his calling makes him exempt from the criticisms of those with less experience, or that his motivations are too sublime to be perceived by the hoi polloi, simply won't wash.
There is a subtext; he employs it without shame when it suits his needs, and his pose of being merely the purveyor of non-ideological good works is simply that, a pose. Calling him out has worked, I would say. I especially love the part about how a person in his senior position doesn't usually reply at length to such baseless, ideologically-based criticism, but....
That but is worth the price of admission to Salon, I would say, and is the truest measure of what's to be gained by your bulldog-like refusal to let these folks off the hook.
-
Toothless
[Read the article: The Politico's John Harris replies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The conservative mindset is still the majority in this country, and what you better hope that happens is that they are not pushed too far. -- Poco
As a famous warrior once said, Bring it on.
-
I don't think so
[Read the article: Neoconservative radicalism has reshaped our political spectrum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The principal problem with the American Left and the Democratic Party is that they represent, to varying degrees, socialism in a country that generally doesn't want much socialism -- kdwmson
This is wrong on two counts:
1) Varying degrees of socialism isn't a historically accurate characterization, in the sense that it blurs distinctions between vastly different political ideas, and does so with an ideological bias, that of right-wingers who, having successfully turned socialism into a curse word, now intend to broaden it into a definition which can be applied to any opponent they wish to discredit.
2) The American people may not want socialism, but they liked -- and like -- the New Deal just fine. Look back at some of Paul Rosenberg's recent comments for the poll data which shows pretty conclusively that Republican fogwhores are lying to themselves and to us about what the American people believe. For them, the agenda is to keep voters from voting on the real issues by redefining them as something else. This has been a moderately successful propaganda effort, but the evidence suggests that it has worn out its welcome, and may soon be seen for what it is by everyone, not just by us.
-
Somewhat belated
[Read the article: Neoconservative radicalism has reshaped our political spectrum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is very late, but I had another thought about that fire-and-brimstone e-mail, bebop.
The derangement at the heart of it is that sex is bad, and sexual references worse. What would he have made of the cavalier poets, I wonder, or the fertility celebrations of the ancient world?
How would he feel, for example, about Where the bee sucks, there suck I, or That's a fair thought to lie between maid's legs?
Anyway, what he denounces as perversion is in fact how the world came to be in all its glory. It's a shame that the mystery is still hidden from him.
-
@ kdwmson
[Read the article: Neoconservative radicalism has reshaped our political spectrum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, we disagree, but our disagreement is the fundamental one between genuine conservatives and liberal social democrats. Perhaps another time we can have at it. In the meantime, the statism of the Republicans must take precedence....