Letters to the Editor
Elephantman
Published Letters: 1312 Editor's Choice: 15
-
Here's some real Salon stupidity on display:
[Read the article: Selective defenders of free expression]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Heffalump (Elephantman)
So Heffalump, what about Guliani's attempts to pull funding from a museum because he didn't like the content? You know, the content he couldn't be bothered to actually see himself? I'm sure you have some nonsense about how that's not censorship because they can find some other place to say it, like all those giant privately run museums that are in every city in the country.
Threatening action, even economic action by private groups, because of speech is censorship. Speaking out against it is not, making threats is.
-- Lynx
What that was all about was the spending of public monies. Giuliani, quite rightly, thought that as an elected executive office-holder, he ought to do something about public funds being used to insult a large segment of the electorate.
[It is a lesson that I wish NPR and PBS might learn from.]
Say what you like. Publish what you like. But do not expect that private broadcasters will publish any deliberate insult that you might care to issue.
This is the funny thing. You'd never see Rush Limbaugh complain about censorship. He pays his own way, thank you very much. He's not begging for grants or donations or more budgetary funding. Rush is negotiating his next deal. Are you listening, Garrison Keillor, Terry Gross, Ira Glass and Amy Goodman?
-
I have an even better idea, Diana
[Read the article: Selective defenders of free expression]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If we're going to use mindless neologisms like "Islamofascist" for the dirty, dark-skinned people we're supposed to unselectively hate, then I say we use "Christofascist" for people like Eric Rudolph and David McMenemy. It's every bit as insightful.
I have a better idea. Let's not call people like Rudolph anything but what they are. Convicted murderers.
Now, how many terrorist/murder prosecutions have you got going in Iran? In Syria? By the Palestinian Authority?
The "insight" as you say, is that we have a law-based society to handle such matters, and where our laws cannot reach to provide us effective national security, we have a civilian-controlled military.
This is a much better methodology than the absurd "Christofasist vs. Islamofascist" reduction. After all, the so-called Christofascists in the 20th and 21st centuries are responsible for a handful of criminal-setting murders. The fascist anti-semites and Islamofascists are responsible for wars and the deaths of millions.
-
totallyblase...
[Read the article: Selective defenders of free expression]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hahaha! Ya got me! So Rush actually DID once complain about being censored when he thought (wrongly, I note) that Tom Harkin actually was trying to 'censor' Limbaugh.
Harkin claims he never intended to censor Limbaugh and that his amendment to an appropriation bill never mentioned Limbaugh.
I note, however, that one of the 13 Armed Forces broadcasting service "channels" carries NPR on a 24/7 basis. Given that status quo, Armed Forces broadcasting really ought to carry Limbaugh. For balance. And can you just imagine the outcry if anyone tried to pull the plug on NPR's leftwing feed? Simply examining NPR's content, it seems, is enough to prompt outcreis of censorship.
-
Other than "Muslim extremism" (which I think is actually a more pejorative term than "Islamofacsism") is there any greater, more real, more unpredictable and more active threat to world stability right now?
[Read the article: Jamie Kirchick's fantasies of the grave Muslim threat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Really.
Yesterday, Glenn himself used the term "Islamofacsism." Maybe he did so as a kind of rheotrical stalking-horse, I don't know. But it is a much better, much more descriptive term than "Muslim extremism" or "Fundamentalist Islam" or even "Wahabbism." I don't care how fundamentalist or how extreme someone's Muslim faith is. All I care about is when they want to kill me while I am on an airplane. To a much lesser extent, it would be nice, as an American tourist, to be able to visit some of the beautiful places in the Islamic world. But not if someone is going to park a car loaded with explosives outside the hotel.
"Islamofascism" is the best term to describe the general notion of flying U.S. airliners into buildings, blowing up bridges and tunnels, sending suicide bombers into Tel Aviv restaurants, and blowing up US emabassies, Spanish trains, and Indonesian nightclubs.
Of course there are other threats in the world. North Korean nulcear trafficking. Russian mischief held over from the Soviet era. Hugo Chavez's systematic dismantling of personal and economic freedoms.
But seriously -- is there any greater threat to American's security than the threat of Islamofacsists committing large-scale acts of terror? Either on U.S. soil, or to U.S. allies like Israel, or to the global economic infrastucture, most particularly mideast oil production? And let's not forget that the 21st century's first genocide, in the Darfur region of Sudan has been committed by, or at least under the insulation of, Islamofascists. Quite a record of achievement.
So does anybody seriously argue that the Islamofacsism threat, while not the only threat to world peace, stability and economic growth, is anything other than the most serious threat?