Letters to the Editor
aeschylus
Published Letters: 219 Editor's Choice: 4
-
Whatever you do...
[Read the article: Should I take my husband's name?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]don't each of you abandon your names and adopt a hyphenated amalgam of the two. Ugh.
It comes down to this: whose name sounds better? Some last names just don't have anything to recommend them when spoken aloud. Go with the better sounding name. I wish my brother-in-law had taken my sister's name, because his is just lame. There isn't a single first name that goes with it (and no, it's not Weinberg).
-
@MICKI
[Read the article: Chris Dodd's perfect squelch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Choosing one's own doctor isn't a big deal? How about deciding which car one can buy? Which clothes? Shall we let the government decide our diets? Who cares! It's all food, right?
There are good doctors and not so good doctors. Get stuck with a bad one, and then tell me you don't care about choice.
-
Dump the bitch.
[Read the article: My wife keeps cheating but we have two kids. Should I leave her?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And I hope your next lady friend is more careful with her Blackberry.
-
America is not an empire...
[Read the article: American empire, going, going ...]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]and all the books in the world won't make it so. Consider what defines an empire (taking Persia, Athens, Rome, and Britain as examples): the military annexation of foreign territory; placing one's own people in charge of annexed provinces, complete with military presence that acts as a police force; extracting a tax from these provinces; imposing one's own government and legal system of the provinces; supplanting the local language and currency; forced participation in military. All of the empires mentioned did these things to varying degrees.
Since 1898, America has done none of these things. We haven't annexed anyone. We didn't force our military bases on anybody. Our troops abroad don't serve as the local police (normally, see below). France asked us to leave, and we did. We certainly can't force the rest of the world to follow us militarily (France and Germany ring any bells?) We don't tax the rest of the world. We don't send American governors to forcibly rule other nations. We haven't imposed our laws, language or currency on anyone.
Now many will point to the "obvious" example of Iraq as proof of our empire. They're wrong. Good analogues to Iraq are postwar Japan and Germany. We helped create democracies and ran the two places for a while, but only for a while. Those countries run themselves now. And so will Iraq, eventually.
And as for "cultural imperialism," render unto me a fucking break. If the rest of the world doesn't want our McDonald's and Bruce Willis movies and rap music, they are free to stop buying it. There aren't any marines protecting Starbucks in some faraway land like it's an embassy or something.
What America exercises over the rest of the world is hegemony. Our hegemony may be heavy-handed, but it's far from empire. Anyhow, the direction China and India are headed, I'd say multilateralism might come back in fashion soon.
-
@mikmor
[Read the article: American empire, going, going ...]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The definition of empire I propose is quite reasonable. Do you have a better one that fits historical models? The countries you cite are examples of American *hegemony* (often misguided), but not empire. None of those countries has become the 51st state, nor do any pay us tribute. Nor do we have troops there round the clock. We exert *influence*, but that's not the same. Even in the case of (e.g.) Iran, that was back in the 50's, no? I'm not endorsing what we did. But empire denotes a sustained military presence and governmental control over a country. The American Empire is, at best, metaphorical.
I'm not defending the whole of American foreign policy. But words have meanings, and the U.S. is simply not an empire. That doesn't mean it's de facto good, but it's not an empire. We *can* criticize the US without losing all perspective.
You have a Happy Thanksgiving, too.
P.S. Screw the Native Americans. They had homefield advantage and they still lost ;)
-
Those cold-hearted bastards!
[Read the article: Just one more reason to be thankful]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hope the new legislation passes asap. Do these guys think that bonehead plays like this won't get out?
-
*Lots* of issues here...
[Read the article: My mother's dying words were, "You'll never be good enough"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but let's concentrate on the one in the headline. My dad died a little over a year ago. We did not have a good relationship. While my mom tells me "he really did love you," mostly what he *showed* was that I was an idiot and an inconvenient waste of his time. It takes a long time to come to terms with parental rejection.
Anyone whose last words were so hateful is (pardon me) a huge, yawning asshole. Fuck 'em.
Keep on keeping on. Do your job. Continue with therapy. And remember: no one defines you, but you.
-
first caveat is a red herring
[Read the article: A solution to the stem cell debate?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You seem to be implying that embryonic stem cells would cure diseases quickly. We haven't cure sh!t since polio (apologies to Chris Rock).
-
Mikmor: thanks for the schoolin'
[Read the article: American empire, going, going ...]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jesus Christ, where to begin:
Since the English word "empire" comes from the Roman word "imperium," there were therefore no empires before Rome? That's brilliant. Are you spending all your MacArthur genius grant money on model airplaine glue? "Empire" is a concept expressed by different words as culture and language dictate. The Greeks called it "arche," for example. The Persians had empire, the Greeks did, the Macedonians did, the Mongolians did, and on and on. And please don't etymologize to me, punk. I've got a PhD in Classics: I'll eat you alive. (It's so cute how you think using an *English* dictionary is something to flaunt.) Aeschylus was a "playwright," by the way.
All your rantings notwithstanding, hegemony and empire are not the same thing. Empire is direct control -- hegemony is more indirect. Rail against the evils of American hegemony until the cows come home. I don't deny there's an argument to be made. BUT IT'S NOT EMPIRE. Empire sounds sexier than hegemony, I know. But that still doesn't make it so.
Happy Thanksgiving.