Letters to the Editor
WinSmith
Published Letters: 99
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Elephantman
[Read the article: Bill Kristol, great man of sacrifice, on the duties of Passover]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anyone who desires war because it turns them on, makes them feel important, gives their life meaning, while sending others off to actually fight and die, is "bloodthursty."
Should we give Joe Lieberman a pass simply because he's an American Senator?
Is there some USA badge you can put on that turns you into an infallible human being?
Lieberman is vile because he advocates for war without bothering to consider the consequences. He suffers from no self doubt. He has the "true believer" conviction of every historical fanaticist who does great harm, be they Al Qaeda or Hamas.
Human beings are human beings. Those of us who go down the dark path of rage, bloodthirst and vile pro-war fanaticism are the same. Simply being from a different country doesn't grant an exemption clause to being a warmongering, bloodthirsty fool.
Vile human beings are in every country. I hate to break it to you.
But maybe if I put on a flag lapel pin, it'll make things better.
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Kristol on the Daily Show
[Read the article: Bill Kristol, great man of sacrifice, on the duties of Passover]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Another question is why people like Jon Stewart keep allowing this discredited fool on their shows.
The main enabler of media pundit frauds are the shows that keep booking them because they're "entertaining." Shows like The Today Show, McLaughlin Group or the Nightly News.
Until we get a new crop of pundits into the rotation (and God knows how we can do that), we'll be stuck with the same liars and fools who created the problems in the first place.
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Movie Hero
[Read the article: John McCain's serious foreign policy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What's surprising? McCain is auditioning to be the latest actor in the right wing audience's movie theater of the mind.
It's all performance, dress up and John Wayne heroism by way of 1970s Clint Eastwood lawlessness.
McCain is auditioning. It's part WWE wrestling, part Arnold Schwarzenegger blockbuster.
Republican voters don't believe in reality, they believe in an awesome kickass movie with American heroes bombing the bad guys. The specifics of the debate are as irrelevant as the plot points in "Live Free or Die Hard."
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Rambo III: "I'm Your Worst Nightmare"
[Read the article: John McCain's serious foreign policy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Found it on YouTube, crusty old John McCain's recycling lines from 1980s Rambo movies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKq7ushFlhk
It's right at the end, around 1:35.
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Anti-Semitism and Israel
[Read the article: John McCain's bid for American Jewish votes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Glenn-
You consistently conflate the accusation of anti-Semitism towards those who conflate support for Israel for "dual loyalty" with political manipulation without consideration for a larger understanding of both perspectives. They are not causal at all.
The fallacies in your argument are threefold.
1. They create a false binary -- Either "dual loyalty" accusations are anti-Semitic, or they are not. This is a false binary. Some may be, some may not be. You cannot rule out one or the other simply because you feel Anti-Semitic accusations are being manipulated for political benefit. That could well be true without having any effect on whether or not the accusations themselves are indeed anti-Semitic (I've seen numerous ugly "Joe Lieberman D-Israel" posts on Daily Kos that are never directed at, say, a non-Jewish republican with the exact same stance on Israel)
2. You write:
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American Jews support aggressive American policies in the Middle East because they are devoted to Israel -- all sorts of ugly invective and accusations of bigotry rain down upon them. When they point it out, they promptly stand accused of anti-semitism for suggesting American Jews possess "dual loyalty," of displaying "a species of prejudice so extreme as to border on obsession."
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"Dual Loyalty" to the Nation State may be, along with the Blood Libel, the oldest and strongest part of Anti-Semitism's power over the past 1000 years. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion forgery, written in 1895, elaborated that Jews infultrate governments as part of global mischief to benefit their own people. This was well before Israel existed.
Why you consistently fail to grasp this point Glenn is because you refuse to historicize the realities of the "Dual Loyalty" label.
You want it to exist in a vacuum, based only on the facts in 2008. That many Jews actually do support Israel, and therefore to simply point this out is to be "factual" and no need for further consideration of the anti-Semitic canards it invokes is needed.
Much of loony right wing foreign policy is driven by born again Christians. But as a leftist and a Jew, I constantly have to hear about how "Bill Kristol" is Jewish and so is "Norman Podhoertz" and they are all disciples of the Jewish "Leo Strauss."
What should I label this, Glenn? Factuality? Finding Jews in academia/politics and linking them as part of an ideological cabal is the foulest and most destructive form of anti-Semitism.
What to make of the Jews on the left in media, journalism, academia, entertainment and politics? Sy Hersh and Noam Chomsky, Josh Marshall, Jon Stewart or, say, Naomi Klein?
Their Jewishness is not relevant, but the Jewishness of Joe Lieberman and Bill Kristol is?
This is why there is anti-Semitism involved on the left, just as there is on the right.
To dismiss it as "stifling legitimate criticism" is to fail to account for the fact that, in many cases, both are true. Yes, the wingnuts manipulate anti-Semitism labels to hide their bullshit.
But that doesn't mean people don't invoke the Jewish backgrounds of those they don't like because of embedded conspiracy theories that date back over 100 years and fueled pogroms and the Holocaust for the entire 20th Century.
To dismiss the legitimacy of anti-Semitism on the left simply because a fool like Joe Lieberman uses it to shield himself from criticism is to make a leap in causal logic that the very real "Dual Loyalty" smears that are basically the left's equivalent of flag pins on the lapel.