Letters to the Editor
WeikuBoy
Published Letters: 487 Editor's Choice: 62
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Be Cool
[Read the article: God save the queen!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In 'The Queen' an astute Tony Blair aide refers to the hopelessly out-of-touch monarch and her entourage at Balmoral as "Planet Zog" (as if the Blair govt was trying to explain human emotion and the grief over Diana's death to alien life forms). We were watching with subtitles -- we watch all British films with subtitles -- but it might've been "Zod".
This might be a good time to talk about "neocon." I was quite taken aback the first time I criticized the neocons and was promptly accused of anti-Semitism. Apparently Wolfowitz, Perle, and Feith, are Jewish; but Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld are not; and I am no more inclined to blame "the Jews" for Iraq than for 'Be Cool' or other bad Hollywood movies.
"Neocon" to me refers to the might-makes-right neo-imperialist wing of the Gop, whose main concern during the past three decades has been establishing U.S. bases atop the world's oil supply. I imagine those persons who are concerned with the defense of Israel see U.S. bases in the Middle East as a good thing; but I don't see the Israel lobby as the real driving force behind Dick Cheney & Co.; and I'd bet the Israelis themselves are too smart to have imagined that the US/UK occupation of Iraq would benefit them much.
If "neocon" has a more insidious meaning -- e.g. if the Limbaughs of the world and their red state dittoheads have made it a code word for something else -- please tell me.
William & Mary (and Anne) were of the House of Orange.
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It Gets Worse
[Read the article: A hit job on Keith Olbermann]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The hit piece on Keith Olbermann was merely the tip of the iceberg.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/05/pelosi.php
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I Feel Elephant's Pain
[Read the article: Democrats bear responsibility for restoring habeas corpus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Elephantman says: "By the way, did Nancy Pelosi get around to hiring process servers to sreve [sic] subpoenas on all of the trial witnesses in the Hindu Kush?"
Don't be too hard on our resident dropper of elephantine b.s. Mere 28% approval of a "wartime" unitary executive who controlled all three branches of govt has gotta hurt.
Seems the ol' Saddam bin-Laden [whoosh] Osama Hussein sleight-of-hand ain't workin' like it used to; and even wal mart shoppers are starting to wonder why, 5.5 years after 9/11, the real al-Qaeda is treated as neither a law enforcement OR a military matter.
Personally, I think John "Gates of Hell" McCain's little stroll through the market with the U.S. Army is what finally did it. In any event Elephant's job just gets tougher every day.
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Lefty Code
[Read the article: God save the queen!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]David Sugarman says, "When lefties use 'neocons' they are using a code word for Jews."
It has not been my understanding that anyone at Salon or at the "lefty" sites I frequent is using "neocon" to mean Jews. But I'll gladly look at any examples you care to provide.
Also I seriously doubt the author(s) of 'The Queen' used Planet Zog as an anti-Jewish dig or were aware of its (alleged) racist meaning. But what do I know about British subtlety?
Thanks for finding me innocent of anti-Semitism, though.
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Baroque Queens and German Kings
[Read the article: God save the queen!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Stefan, it's not boring or nonsense. William III of Orange-Nassau (the William of William & Mary), was the son of William II of Orange and an earlier Mary of England (a daughter of Charles I and a Stuart). The later Mary (of William & Mary) was also a Stuart by birth, but Orange by marriage; and her sister Anne, as you said, was the last Stuart (d. 1714).
Most interesting is WHY George of Hanover was invited to be King of England (instead of, say, James Stuart, the bastard son of James II). This was no less than the final act in the revolution that had begun two centuries earlier with England as a Catholic kingdom under Henry VIII, and ended with it as a firmly Protestant nation under the House of Hanover, or Windsor. During which time, among other things, Puritans settled Massachusetts.
The story is told magnificently in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy, a wonderful work.
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Who Lost China?
[Read the article: When China's Red Army asked the U.S. for a favor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Way Cool post, Andrew. Indeed, we can only speculate how much shorter the war might have been had the U.S. helped the Chinese Red Army against the Japanese. Of course, the idea of arming communists to help defeat America's enemies was simply too radical back then. [Insert comical link to socialist-realist WWII-era poster of Josef Stalin.]
So instead Chiang sat the war out in Chongqing (Chungking), delighted to have the U.S. defeat Japan while he warehoused an arsenal (humped over the Himalayas or trucked in from Burma by Americans at great cost) to use not against the Japanese but against the Communists. Not that it did him much good in the end, as the Chinese people rallied around those who had fought the Japanese and spurned those who had not.
Your younger readers might not know that the U.S. liaison at Yenan (Wedemeyer?) and diplomats familiar with the situation "on the ground" in China during WWII were urging the U.S. to abandon the useless Chiang Kai-shek and instead aid the Reds. It was their reports that, after "The Peanut" fled to Taiwan behind the guns of the U.S. Navy, were taken out of context by TIME magazine ("Who lost China?") and McCarthy and enabled the Gop's witchhunt against "communists" in the State Dept. and elsewhere.
Thanks for turning me on to Frog in a Well and for reconnecting me with the Landsberger site for socialist-realist PRC poster art. Bike California, if you must; but I love this stuff. Finally, I mean no disrespect to the people of Taiwan and their great achievements.