Letters to the Editor
diggeracity
Published Letters: 2
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Extremism may be closer to McCain's heart than political correctness
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My opinion is that McCain's al-Qaida-Shi'a conflation has a long history and is especially popular among that segment of his base that believes Islam to be irredeemable. If 13% think Obama is in fact a Muslim, I'd suggest--strongly--a greater percentage believe this is a 'clash of civilizations.' This posit is popular elsewhere than in the Christian fundamentalist camps.
It goes like this:
al-Qaida enjoys support on the so-called Arab street.
Islam proffers a conception of its being the last Abrahamic revelation.
This conception makes a duty of converting the un-believer.
All Muslims are called to this unless they are themselves heretics and unbelievers.
The above conceptions enjoy support on the Arab street.
Islam is equivalent to the Arab street.
Islam wants to convert the non-believer.
Thus: IT HARDLY MATTERS WHAT THE NUANCES HAPPEN TO BE.
It would be charitable to state this is poppycock. Yet, it would be a mistake to underplay the support of the American street that is vulnerable to hooking up 'we don't do defeat' with 'Islam wishes to defeat us.'
...just my opinion, yet, McCain does seem to play to this crowd. His job is to scare enough of the middle undecideds into going along for the ride such a clash of civilzations promises.
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SO MUCH TO CRITICIZE
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Charlie Rose should have had Lewis Lapham on. See: The Road to Babylon; October 2002, Harpers. As the saying goes: 'it's all there.'
The frustrating thing from my view is that the punditry keeps their jobs no matter what happens outside the TV studio. If a cage match between HRC and BO is good theatre, McCain pimping 'the US doesn't do defeat' during his Victory Tour, is good theatre too.
If this all leads to bombing Iran, 10$ gas, a depression, etc., the whole crew of toothsome TV commentators will occupy screens coast-to-coast telling us how awful the theatrical turn of events are.
But they won't be able to say "I told you so." To me this is a kind of folk nihilism pitched via a reflexive onslaught of self-promotion.
Do they actually care what happens or do they care more about giving the viewership their fix of drama and horse race calls?