Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 1444 Editor's Choice: 20
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William Timberman
[Read the article: The role of political reporters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"If Mr. Silber, or you for that matter, think we who work for political parties, no matter what our reasons, are part of the problem rather than part of the solution, who should replace us?"
You're assuming that replacements are needed.
Can you justify the assumption? Our first president deplored political parties and argued that they were not only not needed, but should be avoided at all costs. Washington, therefore, would not have given the question itself any credibility.
Perhaps you should review his reasoning.
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Associative Individualist
[Read the article: The role of political reporters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Re: Scalia. A wingnut's wingnut.
JUSTICE SCALIA BANS MEDIA FROM FREE SPEECH CEREMONY
"How free is speech if there are limits to its distribution?," C-SPAN Vice President and Executive Producer Terry Murphy wrote in a letter to the City Club's president.
The ban on broadcast media "begs disbelief and seems to be in conflict with the award itself," Murphy wrote.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/media_watch/jan-june03/scalia_3-19.html
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William Timberman
[Read the article: The role of political reporters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]C'mon now, don't you think you're being just a teensy bit disingenuous?
No. I clearly showed that you are being disingenuous. And more that a 'teensy bit'.
You still haven't justified your assumption. Because you can't. Which is why you evaded the question.
Try again.
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William Timberman
[Read the article: The role of political reporters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mmm...I think I'll pass on your offer. It's much too foam-flecked for me.
I haven't offered you anything. I posed a question you dare not answer.
You lose.
Next.
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Associative Individualist
[Read the article: The role of political reporters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Re: Tuesday, January 8, 2008 06:47 PM
http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/07/media_coverage/permalink/5514e224b1d163bd0a710e3383930646.html
That was eloquent. And inarguable.
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Associative Individualist
[Read the article: The role of political reporters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I would argue that the problem is . . . the violently authoritarian world-view and cultural narcissism shared in varying degrees by the vast majority of supporters of both major political parties in the US.
I submit to you that this world-view of authoritarianism and narcissism is carefully cultivated by the military-industrial complex (MIC), which has undue influence over both parties, and derives its revenues from illegal wars, profiteering, bloated military budgets, and enormous sums of 'accidentally misplaced' Pentagon funding - enormous meaning trillions. These guys have profit motives at scales where political responsibility is obsoleted and any human becomes disposable.
But if you try to rein in the MIC you get smeared as 'weak on defense'. How do you get past that, when the MIC itself has indirect ownership control over the spin on last week's injustices and atrocities, and has had years to brainwash the average American?
That's the conundrum you have to solve.
Once you've solved that one, you'll then be able to solve the impending Financial and Ecological problems, which can't be solved until you've fixed the Political problem which enables them.
Having solved the Political problem, solving the Financial and Ecological problems will be even less easy. The US is so deeply in debt it has to reach up to touch bottom, and will keep falling until it finds the bottom and gets weird ugly; the global population has crowded out all exploitable regions of the earth, overgrown its planetary petri dish, and is due for a die-off. You're probably going to have to write off a few hundred million lives right off the bat.
The good news is that if you can solve even a quarter of any one of these problems, you can get Nobel Peace. Even if you do have global catastrophes on your hands.
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RE: Moody's lament: Our job is too hard
[Read the article: Moody's lament: Our job is too hard]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not a matter of it being 'too hard'. The fact is, the system depends on CRAs not doing their jobs.
Contemporary financial instruments are designed to obscure their creditworthiness for the purpose of hiding the fact that there's little more than a sliver of actual assets backing them. The total paper value of all financial derivatives is estimated to be somewhere over $400 trillion - several times more than the total market capitalization of the global economy. That's pretty thin.
Worse, access to underlying assets is several layers away for the more complex instruments, to the extent that they could be said to have no effective underlying assets at all. This is reflected in real estate foreclosures that get stalled because the financial agency trying to foreclose have no documents showing they have any financial control over the real estate.
The way to solve this is to require that all such financial instruments have transparency with respect to the relationship to underlying assets. Mandating this requirement would force the collapse of the system, since it would expose the fact that many instruments are simply hot air.
Just an aside.
In the long run, capitalism as presently constituted must eventually fail, precisely because the concept of financial return requires that total production increase as a result of financial activity. The assumes that economic activity can increase indefinitely. Which is impossible, because the planet is finite.