Letters to the Editor
SusanMc
Published Letters: 463 Editor's Choice: 1
-
Impacts
[Read the article: A genuine political sea change?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Karen M:
It is easy to discount simple words, but you never know when you say or write something that will have an impact on someone else who is one of those on-the-street activists. It is all to the good.
There is also the issue of all the political donations they enabled-- I supported many candidates through FDL's Blue effort, donating online, sitting right at my computer. A bunch of those candidates won, too, and they were liberals I would not have known about without the blogosphere.
-
Scapegoats
[Read the article: A genuine political sea change?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]William Timberman:
Did Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Harry Gold actually pass atomic secrets to the Russians? Did Alger Hiss spy for them at the State Department? I don't find the evidence completely compelling, but suppose for the sake of argument that they did exactly what they were charged -- and the Rosenbergs and Gold were convicted -- of doing.
Was it treason? In the narrow sense, yes, absolutely, but there's a broader sense, a moral sense, in which what they were said to have done could be considered as something quite different.
The other question is: did they get fair trials? This reminds me of the new documentary that's out about the Sacco and Vanzetti case, produced by Peter Miller, who works frequently with Ken Burns.
http://www.willowpondfilms.com/sacco_and_vanzetti.html
I just saw the film a couple of weeks ago in L.A. and it will be opening in a bunch of theaters around the country in May; the schedule is here:
http://www.willowpondfilms.com/news.html
The question I was left with at the end was not, "Well, were they guilty or innocent?" but instead, "How could the officials involved sleep at night after participating in this travesty?" I especially liked how the filmmakers compared the perception and treatment of immigrants at the time of the trial to post-9-11 sentiment about Muslims. From the NY Times review:
Less didactic and more piercing is the sense that two human beings were killed despite inconclusive or conflicting evidence, as an example to fellow travelers. The judge in the case, Webster Thayer, told the jury, referring to Vanzetti, "This man, although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless culpable, because he is the enemy of our existing institutions."
** Full Disclosure: I'm a friend of the editor and co-producer-- but the film is still excellent! Various reviews:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-sacco6apr06,1,5834189.story?coll=la-entnews-movies
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117933239.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?res=9E06E4DE1130F933A05750C0A9619C8B63
-
Ondelette
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The office makes the man theory all came from Johnson and the Civil Rights Act, the idea that even a segregationist, once made President, would do the right thing, because of the responsibility of acting on behalf of their country.
I had a Poli Sci teacher back in college who felt the same way about the Supreme Court. She claimed that no President yet had successfully stacked the Court because most of the individual Justices involved eventually rose to the challenge and transcended politics. I'll bet she's rethinking that theory now. I tend, actually, to believe that men (and women) will, more often than not, do what they think is best when handed grave responsibilities-- but you sure can't count on it.
-
Consequences
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt and the "Triumphant Top Gun"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]GG:
Any decent human being who authored such idiocy...
Well, there's your answer. That piece should be laminated and framed, and Hiatt should have it read to him every morning at breakfast-- right before he's forced to cover the funerals of the soldiers whose fates he helped seal. Just being ignored is too good for him-- if he were held accountable for his words in some fashion by his employer, THAT would be nice.
-
Disbelief
[Read the article: The right's explicit and candid rejection of "the rule of law"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]GG:
The point here is not to spend much time arguing that Mansfield's authoritarian cravings are repugnant to our political traditions.
But it is important to keep the spotlight on the underpinnings to why they think as they do, and I thank you for that-- because otherwise, I'd have a hard time conceiving that any American citizen could believe as Mansfield does. So often I am in complete befuddlement about what I hear coming out of the mouths of our country's "leaders," as it goes against everything I've been under the impression we stood for, for most of my life. Any pride I've felt in "being an American" has only ever flowed from the ideals on which our Government is founded, and the times I've seen them made manifest. It's nice to know that my violent disagreement with Mansfield and his RW disciples over issues such as surveillance, intrusive government, Constitutional rights, the balance of powers and Princely Executives can be traced back to their own apparent belief that the American Revolution really need never have happened.
-
Carefully Taught
[Read the article: The right's explicit and candid rejection of "the rule of law"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]prunes:
Do they have like an alternate civics curriculum in Wealthy Scion-land, or what?
Probably. Mansfield mentioned a couple of years ago in a C-SPAN interview that Bill Kristol was his "best" student ever (other than the student who became his second wife, obviously). As we all know, Kristol learned so much from Mansfield that he's never wrong about anything!
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/bill-kristol-pundit-superstar.html