Letters to the Editor
Ben Sen
Published Letters: 541 Editor's Choice: 98
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Secular Central
[Read the article: Hollywood gets humble]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In the current polarization, it has become safe to say Hollywood takes it's role as "secular central" seriously, preserving the rights of the believers as well. (Not that the hard line believers would think of extending the same freedom.)
It's been rehearsing for years. But this time it makes an "out" lesbian it's MC. It turns itself over to the campaign against global warming. It snubs the guy (what's his name) who makes fundy movies and drunken anti-semitic remarks. It absolutely flaunts internationalism and capitalist entrepreneurship, and makes heros of those who make charity and charitable works a priority. (As if this is a value everyone should emulate!)
Its host makes jokes in front of a billion people as if pot won't destroy you. The people who are honored make a point of their humble beginnings in what is almost an annual ritual to combat the disease of pretense and status.
And it does it all, now, in a way that says: join us. We have more fun, and yeah, we get rich at it. If you want to be a hard ass and thump your book, go ahead, but don't expect us to join you either.
No wonder every creative kid in America and the world dreams of getting up on that stage. It's not a perfect world, but it makes a lot more sense than a world that sees everybody else as the enemy, insists on playing dumb, and wants to live behind a wall.
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This Ain't Kansas, ToTo
[Read the article: The speech Hillary should give]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm going to disagree strongly on this one. It plays directly into the Hillary and Bill are "connivers and schemers," category now rampant in the MSM. I expect it of Herbert at the TIMES, and even Friedman, but here at Salon where it is totally unnecessary--count me out.
SHE CAN'T WIN ON THIS ONE. As the first woman running for president any tag that makes her appear ambivalent is death--and exactly what the right wants to hear. I'm sure Limbaugh is delighted by the confusion among the pinkos.
It has become incredulous that so many who should know better (Paglia, Walsh, and now Kamiya) keep beating it over the head, and it doesn't bode well for the future. It lacks a perspective that I think HRC has as the candidate, and is a display of the kind of subtle "third party" (I'm an independant, I'm an independant) thinking that's going to sink the Dems in '08. I don't think you folks really know what you're up against.
How about asking Obama if he doesn't think it's opportunistic that he claims he'd "never" vote for the war now that it is clear it was a mistake given the midterms? That's fair.
Look, I understand the importance of keeping the playing field open as long as possible, and moving the candidates toward the "perfect" PC world, but this is a cheap shot, and should be seen as such by those who know the game.
I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE VOTED FOR THE BLOODY WAR IF I HAD PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS AND THOUGHT HASSAN HAD WMD'S TOO--AND SO WOULD YOU. This ain't Kansas, ToTo. Why not get off your high horses now, and start to get real sooner rather than later. Do you want a Dem to win the election, or don't you?
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The Smart Rats
[Read the article: Why do journalists suddenly love Al Gore?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I call them the smart rats. All they are really interested in is showing how informed and smart they are. Their pride is having no attachment to any value other than "winning," "status," and their bank accounts. That's how Gore came to be their victim--he wasn't enough of a winner for them.
The right wing has a friend in the rats, but still they vilify them not knowing any better. They are too smart to practice any loyalty or solidarity or any real concern for the long term interests of the country, or to the real interests of the middle class who are not being served by their elected officials. We live in a time of selfishness and cowardice. By now during Viet Nam, we had heroes. Today--we got none!
Too suggest working people deserve a break is to insult a smart rat's intelligence, since they don't matter in their "real" world of power, and what is "politically" expedient, i.e. they don't pay anybody's bills. Don't mention any deeper morality they may be asked to share--they have access to the White House and keeping that is more important than the truth.
They know the right people; they are members of an elite--they know when to keep their mouth shut, they are America's professional opinion makers--the heirs (they think) of journalists in a business that used to believe there is a higher purpose to writing than stroking their own egos, and tooting their own horns.
Yeah Joe, I hear you. Congratulations for pointing it out. I also see the incredible mess we are in because of this sorry lot. Those who leave an indelible mark, the Murrows, the Twains, the Whitmans, the Emersons, the Thoreaus, the Arendts, the Blys kept their distance and their own minds.
Did you see the piece on Arendt in this week's NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS? Her idea of the "banality of evil" based on totalitarianism in Germandy is here, and it's now. It isn't fire eating dragons who are destroying America--it's nice people with spotless kitchens who go to church every Sunday and think you're evil if you don't.
If the election in 2000 and '04 didn't get through to these bo-bos, it's hard to imagine what can. The evolving spectacle of the Democrats eating their own tail, and that of their young has just begun. The MSM is egging them on, and as far as I can tell blogland isn't doing much better.