Letters to the Editor
bloomsbury
Published Letters: 365 Editor's Choice: 5
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Brantm
[Read the article: In the military we trust]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find it impossible to believe that you believe what you're saying, but then again, the military in America is a product and it's been sold very cleverly and at great expense to most Americans. Not all by any means. To say that they're fighting the last war and not planning for the next war is demonstrably untrue. America has corporatized war and in order to make a profit they need to have wars going on all the time. And they do. The military is a sacred cow which cannot be criticised in movies, in ads, in songs and certainly not by politicians. Any organization that cannot be criticised will go on making the same mistakes and it will be a law unto itself. It is a typical far right organization: harsh inflexible rules within but if anyone from 'outside' attacks the organization itself, it closes ranks and deals with the 'problem'whatever it may be by its own strange rules - not those of the democracy that surrounds it. The similarity to the mafia is all too obvious. This system has now been transposed to Guantanamo Bay and terrorism trials. The same situation existed in pre- world war I Germany. The civilian institutions had lost control of the military that was supposed to be protecting them and their military led them to disaster from 1914 to 1945. Kaiser Wilhelm had a withered arm so he had to go out and prove he was a Prussian military hero by having WWI. Hitler would have remained a backstreet brawler and agitator if he hadn't been a decorated war veteran.To criticise him was to criticise the Fatherland. The army and the far right in politics and the corporate world put him where he was. The German army believed it had been 'betrayed' because it was impossible that they could have lost the first world war. Clearly it was leftwing sabotage that caused them to lose. I read similar remarks on Salon all the time regarding both Vietnam and Iraq. The state needs to regain control of both the US army and its secret service - they are public servants, not masters of the universe. John McCain and Joe Lieberman are on their side and will do what they want. Obama won't be able to stand up to them, he's too young and inexperienced, but it's no exaggeration to say that America's future as a democracy depends on the army and the CIA being curbed.
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the truth
[Read the article: In the military we trust]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The truth is kenneco, as Jack Nicholson so famously snarled, 'You can't handle the truth'- and you've got a lot of company.
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death wish
[Read the article: House Republicans stage protest walkout]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Clearly the Republicans have a death wish, electorally speaking. Every time Bush uses his veto to defend waterboarding or to deprive children of health cover he puts another nail in John McCain's coffin. Now they're walking out, like children who can't get their own way. This is how the Nazis behaved in the German Parliament. It became quite normal for the Nazis to rise as one thug and exit the Parliament when things weren't going the way they wanted. In the end Parliament became a rabble and out of that chaos the dark side was able to take control of the state. Bush's position is quite different. He is the dark side but he and Cheney's days are numbered. The neo cons hate McCain anyway and would rather eat worms than see him become President so I suppose they've reached the stage of wanting to take the Republican Party down with them. They've never been capable of a constructive thought or action so it's to be expected. A more amoral and incompetent bunch of cowards has never occupied the White House.
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hatred and its forms
[Read the article: David Shuster, scapegoat?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Scratch a racist and you find a sexist but it doesn't work the other way. A man who hates and despises women may not necessarily feel the same way about other races. Shuster hates Hillary Clinton: you couldn't find a single US 'news personality' who doesn't. It seems to be a requirement. The sexism of the mainstream news media is also a given but they usually hide it behind 'analysis' and 'some people say'. Imagine how much Shuster loathes Hillary Clinton to lose control of himself on TV like that. He knows what 'pimp' means, everyone does. His hatred wasn't only aimed at Chelsea, but at Hillary as well. I didn't think anything the right did or said could shock me any more but when I read that Barbara Olsen had said that Chelsea Clinton should be assassinated so that the 'line' couldn't be carried on I WAS shocked and appalled. The fact is, what Shuster said is mild compared with what the right says about the Clintons behind closed doors. They elicit the same visceral hatred that was directed at the Kennedys (and still is) and for the same reason: they want to make America a more just and equitable society. The right has the money and the power and the hatred and they know how to use it. But this time, I think the voters have other ideas. Like all of the right Shuster is rattled, that's why he got so careless. What he said was absolutely disgraceful and drags public discourse into the gutter, so he should be fired. But really, to fix what ails mainstream media in America you'd need to send in a squad of top gun psychiatrists. Then again, mainstream media is a rotting, corrupted corpse so perhaps it's the undertakers you need.