Letters to the Editor
Frankly, my dear, ...
Published Letters: 635
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Domestic military operations
[Read the article: The U.S. establishment media in a nutshell]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not just Posse Comitatus
It's also the Insurrection Act, which limits the use of the military. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act
The Rubber Stamp Congress amended it to basically allow the President to call out the miltary when he felt like it, but this Congress (in one of its few acts to undo its predecessor's harm) took that power away from Bush.
— BreadbakerYes, thank you. I was aware that the Insurrection Act (of 1807!) had been vitiated by the 109th Congress (a name that will live in infamy) around about the same time that they were stripping away habeas corpus, setting up secret military commissions, and providing immunity from prosecution for those who tortured in the name of their country. I had not realized that the 110th Congress had un-broken the Insurrection Act (of 1807 [restored]). That is why I didn't bring it up in the context.
But you are quite correct that the Insurrection Act and the Posse Comitatus Act both regulate the extent and circumstances under which the military can be used domestically. I'm sure that the Insurrection Act grew out of things like the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791-94 and the Posse Comitatus Act was a result of the military occupation of the south after the Civil War.
The two laws are in fact complementary in that the Insurrection Act defines the conditions under which the military can be used to oppose insurrection or rebellion while Posse Comitatus says that the military can't be used for law enforcement otherwise.
These are principles of our democracy. One does not use the military against the citizenry. For those who think doing so is a good idea, I have two words: Kent State.
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But if we win in Iraq ...
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... we get to advance to the semi-finals in Iran.
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Fox news should have to run a disclaimer with every broadcast
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think it's fairly obvious to anyone with the cognitive ability of an eight year old that he would like to deny the kind of content Fox and Limbaugh currently serves up under the nomenclature of 'mechanisms for truth'
And of course anyone with the cognitive ability of an eight year old would realize that no one can believe anything that Fox news says because they have defended in court (successfully) their right to lie to the audience. Yes, the Florida Second District Court of Appeals held that there are no laws prohibiting broadcasters from falsifying or distorting news reports on public airwaves. So there is no objective criterion by which one can determine whether Fox news is lying or not at any given moment. (http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/11-the-media-can-legally-lie/)
While e-man and pw obviously enjoy being lied to (hence their full-throated support for Fox news, not to mention the Bush/Cheney crime cartel), most of the rest of us don't. Hence we would like to see some mechanism for being able to tell when the news is being factually and honestly reported. I mean, you get a good head start on this by just not watching Fox news, but it's just not enough.
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A failure to perceive the problem
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]e-man: NPR and PBS are different. They are obligated to their public boards. I have a right to try to influence those public boards.
Has anyone said you don't? Marketplace of ideas and all that.
And when I count the liberals and conservatives at NPR and PBS, it is thoroughly one-sided.
As long as there is no fairness doctrine, there is no such thing as "one-sided". Marketplace of ideas and all that.
There's no "conservative Bill Moyers" at PBS. There's no conservative "Frontline." There is no conservative counterpart to Democracy Now! on NPR.
What would you call a "conservative Frontline"? — "Deadend"? What would you call a "conservative Democracy Now!"? — "Fascism Forever!"?
That's a problem, for PBS and NPR.
No, that's a problem for you. Marketplace of ideas and all that. What you don't seem to realize is that when corporations own and subsidize media the media are answerable to and support corporate agendas. When corporations don't own and subsidize the media the media are subject to the marketplace of ideas. You may not like it, but the solution is not to buy out the media but to make your ideas more palatable to the marketplace.
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totallyblase
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah, you look at that list and you might get the idea that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is anti-war or something.
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Video
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]now available on ThinkProgress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/07/uninformed-cokie-roberts-leaps-to-cheney%e2%80%99s-defense/
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kitt
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cheney's answer wasn't quite as abrupt as that. He continued his response with something like: "I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls." But his response to "You don't care what the American people think?" was definitely "No."
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So ?
[Read the article: Public opinion on Iraq ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Who cares what the American people think.
We can't be blown off course by fluctuations in the public opinion polls.
The American people will do what their leaders tell them. That's what democracy is all about, isn't it?
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Maybe
[Read the article: Public opinion on Iraq ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]bignose: I guess I think it can be fixed.
Some things can't be fixed:
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty-Dumpty together again.Quite possibly Iraq can be fixed. But not by the US military. When fixing a broken watch by hitting it with a hammer doesn't work, using a bigger hammer isn't the solution.
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You know that, and I know that
[Read the article: Public opinion on Iraq ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]bignose: This ain't a fairy tale.
But sadly some people (like nabalnazi) think it is. They think that David Petreaus is going to ride in on his white horse and slay the Al-Qaeda dragon and then all the dead Iraqis and Americans will come back to life and we'll all live happily ever after.
More sadly, they don't seem to be able to understand why no one outside of A. Lincoln's celebrated some of the people that you can fool all the time shares their delusions.