Letters to the Editor
Westmiller
Published Letters: 83
-
Overwhelmingly Likely Ultimately
[Read the article: Exclusive capitulation report: House Democratic leadership circulates FISA bill]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... nobody with whom I've spoken ... denies that the House is overwhelmingly likely ultimately to bestow amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms.
Consider why this is so (in my not-so-humble opinion):
1. In the absence of immunity, legal discovery is likely to show that telecoms were "following orders" for unwarranted wiretaps long before the current program. I suspect that Democrats are not willing to boil Bill Clinton in the same pot with George Bush.
2. Every politician is humbled by the threat (even if frivolous) that they will be held responsible for the next terrorist attack ("when, not if") by denying the administration every power imaginable ... allegedly to evade a forever threat. The Support-Me-Or-Die meme is getting old, but it still works as Support-Me-Or-Lose-Your-Seat.
3. Telecom officers, administrators, and employees are a huge constituency that profits from, and therefore nurtures, expanded political power, stimulating paid political discourse on their corporate resources. I'm sure many of them recognize the risks of expanded totalitarian discretion (some even refused the illegal wiretaps), but many see the huge profits derived from expanded government contracts, legal or not, as a good and very profitable enterprise.
-
Hypocracy is the Only Political Crime
[Read the article: Who cares if Eliot Spitzer hires prostitutes?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A politician won't be shunned for lying through his teeth; he's safe when he kills thousands of people on bad information; he can't be faulted for granting huge favors to friends (if it's without compensation); he can violate the U.S. Constitution with impunity. But, he can't actually do what he says ought to be illegal.
The reason? Big, powerful government is all about trust, faith, loyalty, and the virtue of those to whom we grant total, arbitrary, and supreme power. The burden of any form of oligarchy is that the practitioners have to be consistent. They can't do what they say others ought to punished for doing.
The Spitzer case has nothing to do with prostitution. The investigation was started because Spitzer tried to hide his payments, which - as we know - is "probable cause" for believing someone to be a terrorist, from federal snoops. And, we know Spitzer was a terrorist: spreading fear among all of those who dared to pay for sexual favors ... or conduct any kind of financial transaction that aren't explicitly approved in advance by law.
The media is only guilty of titilation, but that's their job: selling crass sexual amusements for a price. No hypocrasy there. The crime is not being horny, it's failing to report the price of horniness to the IRS.
-
Conform Greenwald!
[Read the article: The religion of balance and centrism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... those who preach balance and demand a centrist critique of everything are the ones who are mindless, misleading partisans.
Didn't you know that "centrism" is the new "objectivism"?
There are no truths, facts, nor objective criteria that conform with reality. The only reality is found at or about the 50% mark of public opinion. That's "balanced" and "fair".
No one is supposed to notice that, if your opinions are within a few points of 50%, then 98% of what anyone else says must be absolutely and totally wrong.
Didn't anyone tell you that, if you want to be an elitist, you have to act like one?
-
Simple Ignorance Skews Public Perception
[Read the article: Time magazine invents facts to claim that Americans support Bush's domestic spying abuses]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... 54 percent believe these taps have prevented some acts of terror. [Poll]
What the public doesn't know, because the media won't tell them, is that neither taps nor direct infiltration have prevented any acts of terror. At best, the billion dollar program - and all of the prosecutions - have precluded the contribution of a few hundred dollars to allegedly terrorist organizations [arguably "charitable" in a perverse sense].
Review the few dozen successful prosecutions [among many dozens more that were discarded by judges] and you will find that the "terrorist activity" consisted solely of making contributions (sometimes with FBI money) to a few disreputable Islamic "charities."
Those that incorporated any kind of planning for a "terrorist act" were laughed off by judges as preposterous. Most of the plans were created and promoted by FBI infiltrators, so they could get some kind of allegation, mainly for PR purposes, and at any cost - including the risk that they would be attempted.
Nor does any media report that 90% of the terrorists "captured" and put into Gitmo were handed over by an "Islamo-Fascist Dictatorship" (Pakistan) because they were enemies of the endorsed American puppets. They aren't prosecuted because there is no evidence against them, only the speculation and fears of Pakistani military intelligence.
The entire War Against Terror is a fabrication, at least in its execution and results.
-
No Questions Left
[Read the article: McCain's repeated "slips of the tongue" on Iran and al-Qaida]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The only real question is whether he meant to say it due to profound ignorance or the will to deceive.
It's clear that both are true.
McCain and other war hawks crave a profound ignorance of facts. Everything has to be dissolved down to "US v THEM". Facts just confuse the issue. All opponents of any U.S./Israeli policy are "al Queda", the bad guys, no matter their ethnic, religious, or geographical characteristics. Those who point out the facts are, necessarily, "al Quada sympathizers" who want America to lose face and suffer defeat in Iraq.
Deception is absolutely essential to maintain the illusion of elitist expertise for those who council war and national "self-sacrifice" in the pursuit of imaginary Boogeymen. Thus, as Cheney notes, it doesn't matter what most people think about the Iraq war, there remains a "national concensus" (among the war hawk elite) that we're winning in Iraq, solely because of the enlightened wisdom and secret knowledge of our leaders.
Big Brother Knows Best, even if he's totally wrong on the facts.