Letters to the Editor
Asinistra
Published Letters: 47 Editor's Choice: 1
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Joan Remember Camille?
[Read the article: My last word (for now) on sexism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Joan, was it really necessary to send us all the way across cyberspace to find evidence of sexism against Hillary when you host the Queen of Hillary Haters right in your own backyard? From TODAY'S Paglia (who, as she likes to tell us over and over and over again, is "a Democrat" ...ho-ho):
"I agree that the male staff who Hillary attracts are slick, geeky weasels or rancid, asexual cream puffs. (One of the latter, the insufferable Mark Penn, just got the heave-ho after he played Hillary for a patsy with the Colombian government.) If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say Hillary is reconstituting the toxic hierarchy of her childhood household, with her on top instead of her drill-sergeant father. All those seething beta males (as you so aptly describe them) are versions of her sad-sack brothers, who got the short end of the Rodham DNA stick.
"The compulsive war-room mentality of both Clintons is neurosis writ large. The White House should not be a banging, rocking washer perpetually stuck on spin cycle. Many Democrats, including myself, have come to doubt whether Hillary has any core values or even a stable sense of identity. With her outlandish fibbing and naive self-puffery, her erratic day-to-day changes of tone and message, her glassy, fixed smiles, and her leaden and embarrassingly unpresidential jokes about pop culture, she has started to seem like one of those manic, seductively vampiric patients in trashy old Hollywood hospital flicks like "The Snake Pit." How anyone could confuse Hillary's sourly cynical, male-bashing megalomania with authentic feminism is beyond me."
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You gotta lotta splainin' to do, Johnny
[Read the article: McCain's century-long problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here to help via TPM, via the New Yorker, Rick Hertzberger sums it all up nicely:
"But what the context shows, I think, is that yanking that sound bite out of context isn’t really all that unfair. McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal—that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay."
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Talk about decoupling!
[Read the article: Through a bong, darkly]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What always kills me about these assessments of the 60s is the premise that this generation (m...m...m...my generation) sprang fully-grown like, man, totally crazy out of Zeus's head. The fact that we were the offspring of that holiest of holy "greatest generation" never seems to register. What responsibility did that generation of warriors who vanquished fascism and Hitler have for unleashing legions of dopers, rockers, and sex maniacs on the world?
Answer: very damn little. We're talking about kids in both instances. We come into the world and make of it what we can. We react to what's there already. We don't bring tangerine alarm clocks or stock market crashes with us. As left and anti-war as I was back then, I have no doubt that if me and Jerry Rubin and Cassius Clay had been our fathers fathers, we, too, would have been taking fire on Anzio, and they would have been chanting, "Hell no we won't go." The thing about the destiny of generations is that no one sits around in a board room planning what's going to happen. They just freakin' happen, ya dig? That's why we called it a happening.
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Elephant in the Room
[Read the article: McCain's century-long problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The thing about McCain's comment and the reaction of those who aren't bothered by it is its blithe acceptance of American Empire.
From the US Military Command website:
"U.S. European Command, in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany, is responsible for 13 million square miles in 89 countries and territories. This area of responsibility begins at the North Cape of Norway and extends through the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, through most of Europe and parts of the Middle East, to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The Command's mission is to support and advance US interests and policies throughout the region and to provide combat ready land, maritime, and air forces to Allied Command Europe or to US Unified Commands."
The arrogance and/or ignorance with which the American public lives with its "white man's burden" is really stunning. Perhaps McCain has done us all a favor by raising the cost, the wisdom, and the desirability of maintaining this Pax Americana indefinitely.
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You earned your gold star, lady!
[Read the article: Obama and the white working class]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I want to give a little shout-out to "episcomom" for getting to the heart of the two most important points of this post.
One, (despite lots of typical knee-jerk hysteria from Obamiacs) it was a complimentary--if grudgingly so--take on what Obama said and did (even with her obtuse warning to Obama that he "doesn't ever again seem to disrespect the disadvantaged working class while he's flattering the overadvantaged class that attends his fundraisers." To make sure he doesn't SEEM to do that again, Joan, he would have to become chief spokesman for the Clinton campaign, executive producer of MSNBC news, and--alas--the editor of Salon).
Two, episcomom accurately assesses how Obama differs from Kerry (and too many other Dems in this regard) by not running for the microphones to issue an apology every time one of these bogus issues pops up. We have just never ever seen a politician with such a sense for teachable moments as this guy.