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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Tyrannity Watcher
Published Letters: 8
As a constitutional history professor at a liberal arts school, I constantly struggle to convince students (and parents and wiseguy critics of my profession) that I have a hard job--teaching students to read, think, and write. I see that as the extent of my role as teacher.
As simple as liberal education's goals are, you show once again that liberal education has failed our leaders and pundits. Joe Klein and his editors (like others whom you have noted) does not effectively read, think, and then write. Therefore, Klein and the like are simply failing as literate adults. He and they should not pass an undergraduate class, let alone tell us what to think and do.
Thank you, Mr. Greenwald, for simply doing the hard work of reading, thinking, and writing. That is a surprisingly rare set of skills.
Dear Glenn,
To my emphatic agreement, let me simply add that Dan Lipinski in the Illinois 3rd House District has to be the worst example of what you describe. His father, Bill, the long-time incumbent ran for the Democratic nomination in 2004 and won easily. A few weeks before the general election he withdrew and the Illinois Democratic Committee met with him for 15 minutes, late at night, behind closed doors before emerging with their new nominee, his son, then residing in central Tennessee where he was an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee.
In this heavily Democratic district that includes part of southwest Chicago and adjacent suburbs, Dan was the winner. Still worse, a family friend with no funding ran as the Republican in 2004 to help insure that Dan faced no more than token resistance. He holds the seat by twice winning close-fought primary battles against divided, woefully underfunded opposition and landslide general election victories.
Democracy for America has tried to challenge Lipinski, but against Lipinski's endorsement by Barack Obama and the financial backing of the Rahm Emanuel machine we've raised a pittance. Beyond the undemocratic arrogance of Lipinski's appointment, the bad policy results are clear. Lipinski is one of the bluest of the blue dogs. He has a very low rating from Planned Parenthood (he's as anti-choice as Henry Hyde) and the ACLU and every other progressive group. From his perch on Transportation, he advocates more highway construction and doesn't bother to say anything about Chicago's public transit crisis.
Thanks for the good work you continue to do. I look forward to your ideas for how we can break up this dangerous bloc of scions.
Sincerely,
Benton Williams
Assistant Professor of American Constitutional & Legal History
History Department
DePaul University
Mr. Greenwald has again accurately named and described a real phenomenon in American political and cultural life--the neocon syllogism that opposition to any Israeli policy = antisemitism. If this phenomenon has indeed lost its power, who then was the last victim of the phony antisemitism smear? I nominate Norm Finkelstein of DePaul University. Following a pattern described by Mr. Greenwald, his employer denied him tenure in 2006 (despite an exemplary publication and teaching record) in a move many have seen as a response to a smear campaign led by Alan Dershowitz.
Benton Williams
History Department
DePaul University
See Daily Beast's me-too coverage: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-19/is-he-toast/
Richard Wolfe all but acknowledges the facts that Greenwald lays out but first blames Dodd for not doing a convincing job of making people believe him:
"Meanwhile, Dodd’s painful explanations prompted a mix of frustration and chuckles at the White House.
"On one hand, Obama’s aides dislike the finger-pointing. Some administration officials explain that Dodd’s initial attempt to limit executive pay was far too broad, and would have punished banks big and small, including community banks—who all could have sued the federal government for far more than the sum of their pay packages."
Benton Williams
DePaul University
My first inclination, as a native Arkansan raised to despise and resent Texas, as an Illinoisan proud to have supported Obama, as a progressive Democrat with dreams for an America with universal health-care, world class education from birth through adulthood, and finally as a proud American who would like to see his nation be the civilized place it can be, my first reaction is to say, "Let them go." With those electoral votes and that vile congressional delegation gone, the increasingly regional Republican party would have to move to the center or die. But, then I recall the tradition of Texas and southern progressivism. Lyndon Johnson and a host of Southern Democrats raised on the New Deal broke the back of southern massive resistance by finding common ground among the poor and the oppressed. We can do that now. As a child of the South, I know that progressive-minded whites and African-Americans have worked with unparalleled courage to fight the power of local, petite aristocrats and faceless national corporations and can do it again. Letting Texas go would be easy and would improve the odds of electing good and decent people to national office. And working with progressive Texans to make a better America would be hard, but infinitely more humane and better. There are millions of progressive and working class African-Americans, Latinos, and whites in Texas and throughout the South. Let's build a new coalition that isolates Perry and the treasonous snakes in the Texas Republican Party by meeting the needs of all Americans. God bless America and defend us from secessionist traitors!
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
