Letters to the Editor
Happy Friend
Published Letters: 117 Editor's Choice: 2
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Sad Sack
[Read the article: The paranoid withdrawal fantasy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Some half-wit said:
"Sorry, but Sihanouk isn't as qualified as the Vietnamese to know whether the U.S. could win in Vietnam, and when you ask the very Vietnamese who were fighting against the U.S., they come to exactly the opposite conclusion. For example, General Vo Nguyen Giap, in his 1985 memoir of the Vietnam war:
”if it were not for the disunity created by ... stateside protests, Hanoi would have ultimately surrendered.”"
I can think of few things more pathetic than people who cart the old "Stab in the Back" argument when it comes to Vietnam. Sihanouk was right. The war's architects were wrong. If after slaughtering 3 million Vietnamese, we still hadn't "won" only a sick fuck would say that we should have stayed longer and killed more people. We were a more destructive force in Vietnam than Communism ever could have been. Any one with any objectivity at all will admit that.
What really pisses me off is that I know we will have to listen to a new version of Hitler's "Stab in the Back" argument in years to come about Iraq.
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Denial
[Read the article: The paranoid withdrawal fantasy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Paglia's denial of global warming is indicative of just how conceited the woman is. I do not pretend to understand the science of climate change, but it does seem that there is consensus among the scientists that man-made climate change is taking place. The other thing that strengthens the case is that the only dissenters take money from big oil. Please don't cite one or two contrarians who don't fit this description.
The fact is, if global warming were happening, the oil companies would spend money to fund deniers to keep the conversation open (at least in the eyes of the ignorant public). Since that is clearly happening...
I do wonder why people not employed by Exxon would waste the energy to argue against global warming. What do they gain from doing so? I think that the reason they do is because global warming represents a fundamental challenge to their worldview; it is a problem whose nature demands action on the part of nations and the international community. For people who hate the idea of the commonweal as a matter of ideology, it seems like they would rather die than admit that a problem requires collective action to address, hence the libertarian propaganda mills churning out anti-global warming bullshit.
Anyway, why does Salon let this woman write here? She is provocative for no reason. Saying that Rush has always supported US soldiers is laughable and had to have been done purely to provoke. That man has shit all over any soldier, past or present, who did not tow the line on all his bullshit.
When compared to Glenn Greenwald and Juan Cole, Paglia is just a bad joke.
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Salon Sucks
[Read the article: It depends on what the meaning of the word "I" is]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Salon fancies itself a progressive website. Why then does it appear to boost the candidacy of Hillary Clinton even though she is demonstrably neither the most progressive nor the most electable Democratic candidate?
Is it the vajayjay? Does the idea of a woman president excite the Salon staff so much that they will work for free as her spin doctors? Is it because of a closeness with Bill Clinton and all of the Democratic establishment that wants to stay in his good graces? I am asking this because I do not know and would like for someone to explain it to me.
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Myopic Identity Politics
[Read the article: How Hillary could tank]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hillary is the worst candidate, in part because of the anti-feminist backlash of recent years. Read Susan Faludi's book "Backlash" for the long explanation of this.
It isn't fair that so many people have such hatred for Hilary because she personifies what they see as the decline of the fortunes of the American man as compared to women.
But fair or not, I can really see Independents (and of course Republicans) voting almost unanimously for Romney or Giuliani or Thompson because they just can't stomach the thought of Hillary in the White House.
She has the highest negatives of anyone running for the office. It will only get worse. The money spent on this next campaign will be insane. You can't go by the primary numbers. When all the slimy GOP contributors get behind a single candidate and realize that a Democrat in the White House will mean that they actually will have to pay taxes, the cash will pour in to Republican coffers. And all that money will be used to slime Hillary, who voters are inclined to dislike anyway.
Hillary is the doom bringer. Please ladies, realize that however excited the idea of a woman in the White House makes you, there are more important things at stake than your chance to deal a blow to patriarchy (like more war in the Middle East, income/wealth inequality, America's journey into quasi- fascism/corporatism).
I am not saying that it is impossible for Hillary to win, but the only reason that she even has a chance is because of the fact that the GOP hasn't, uh, done the best job recently.
That said, if we nominate Hillary and she loses, I will never stop saying, "Mother-fucking told ya so!"
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Wait a Second...
[Read the article: Scent of a nursing woman]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Didn't Broadsheet get all snippy when a study came out that said that women who were ovulating make more in tips than women who weren't (or especially those who were menstruating)? Wasn't that deemed a waste of the scientific method? Isn't this study sort of in the same vein?
I am not making any judgements about the scientific merits of either study. I just think it is unseemly when someone disparages scientific findings out of hand because they do not conform to one's sacred belief system. In my opinion, that is more of a right-wing reflex and Broadsheet should be a little embarrassed, especially when evidence of hypocrisy is pretty plain to see.