Letters to the Editor
FredrickBernanke
Published Letters: 170 Editor's Choice: 8
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Are There No Elites in the Republican Party?
[Read the article: The rubes and the elites]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Lind's essay is nothing more than a polemic against the Democrat Party writ large, masked as some sort of pious yet ironically intellectual, criticism of Obama's (true) statements; for good measure, he throws in some Limbaugh Operation CHAOS-style faint praise for HRC.
The Republican attitude toward, and policy actions that effect, working class people are not even on the table for discussion. They are implicitly assumed to be the opposite of elitist Democrat-Stevensonian: namely, Republicans respect the fact the the working folk know their place in society, generally sell themselves short both intellectually and economically and need only the validation of millionaires of their culture to be happy campers all. Reagan, of course, was the best at that strategy.
Lind assembles various far-out quotes from marginal entities like Seattle Alternative weeklies or a kook-billionaire's auto biography to support his case against Democrat Party progressive elitism. Those citations do make a good general case for the superiority-complex most educated suffer from, regardless of party affiliation or geographic location, toward people less educated than they themselves. But they do not contribute anything of significance to the specific issue--which Lind pretends to address--of Obama's remarks (or HRC's scummy response to them.)
Lind's writing skills are so obviously excellent, that one can therefrom infer he knows full well what he is doing, and knows that politicians in both parties have essentially the same opinion of the working class: we need their votes.
And to get their votes, politicians flatter working people; it's a fundamentally dishonest tactic, but it works.
Obama made two mistakes: He talked about small town folks to a big town audience, referring to the former as "they," something nobody likes to be referred to; and--even worse!--he spoke the truth.
If Lind's article persuades any Obama supporter--even one-- to jump ship and hop aboard the HRC's USS Cynicism, he's admirably succeeded....And Rush Limbaugh et al thank him greatly.
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Does "Iraq-as-a-Nation" Currently Exist?...Did It Ever?
[Read the article: What will they really do about Iraq?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]All the arguments related to the future of Iraq contain within them the presupposition that Iraq was actually a real "country" before our grossly misplanned and under-manned invasion.
De jure, it was. But was it any sort of "country" de facto? Or was it merely a geographically outlined swath of the earth that was convenient for the then-superpowers to designate a sovereign state?
Did Saddam know what he had on his hands and create his regime based on his knowledge that, without a brutal centralized government that ruled with unchecked, capricious and arbitrary brutality, "Iraq" would disintegrate into what it is today?
Without the presence of the occupying power (the USA) would there be any unifying force left in Iraq? Do its citizens consider themselves Iraqis first and foremost? Or do they internally identify themselves as Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds or who the hell knows what?
McCain is hopeless, but neither HRC or Barack are.
If either of the later is elected POTUS, they should free themselves of the erroneous notion that Iraq is somehow a legitimate nation, however one defines such. It's a radical suggestion, and in no way is intended to demean the poor, suffering inhabitants of that piece of geography.
Obama or Clinton must think the unthinkable if they and their advisers are to design a withdrawal strategy that doesn't merely invert the irrational, uninformed Bush invasion strategy.
Benjamin's article reflects the views of sundry foreign policy "experts," says the author. They undoubtedly are chock full of specific knowledge regarding Iraq; but they also interpret their knowledge within the context of the legitimacy of Iraq-as-a-Nation.
Let's hope the new (Dem) president can break the shackles of conventional thinking and analyze the situation from a completely new point of view.
We ran in with our eyes closed and our fingers crossed; let's not repeat the scenario on our way out.
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Glenn: Take a Peek at the Quantity of Letter Responses Generated by Various Salon Articles
[Read the article: David Brooks' fictitious defense of his industry's behavior]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]1. You are the only Salon writer doing his or her job differently from those other journalists you are criticizing.
2. I do not always agree with your analyses.
3. But does not the content of Salon, especially measured by the quantity of Letters responses to specific articles, lend support to the assertion that this is what the Regular Folk are interested in? Compare the Letters generated by Walsh's inane articles to, for example, the recent article on Iraq war policies by Benin.
4. "Establishment journalists" are Regular Folk. They're not theoretical physicists, they're not mathematics professors, they're not poets, law professors, philosophers, painters, composers, brilliant entrepreneurs; basically, they are decent writers with decent middle-brow worldviews. They actually do care if Barack wears a flag-pin and so on.
Glenn, just look around your own Salon staff of "writers;" Voltaire ain't gonna be among them. It sucks, for sure. But it's true, for sure.
Keep up the good work.
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The Photo Says It All...Barack & Two Famous Losers
[Read the article: The haunting of the Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Joan Walsh, you sure know how to edit a tendentious magazine.
But the subliminal attempt to equate HRC to Harry Truman makes me want to puke. She is the antithesis-incarnate of Truman: blunt, sometimes vulgar, damn-the-torpedoes Truth (Harry) vs. scheming, mendacious, self-serving Lies (Hillary.)
In fact, it is McCain who comes closest to wearing the Truman mantle, policy differences notwithstanding.
If HRC has any historical legacy, as Truman certainly does, hers will be Hillary=Lies; in contrast, Harry=Truth.