Letters to the Editor
cabdriver
Published Letters: 594 Editor's Choice: 8
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Enough with the biker baiting...
[Read the article: Playing soldier]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Garrison, I want to like ya, but stereotyping is stereotyping.
In this case, the only impact of an op-ed like this will be to add a little more weight to the chips already carried on the shoulders of many scooter people, in the process providing more reinforcement to the impression that "liberals" are the biggest problem in their lives- overgeneralizing, condescending, and above all INTOLERANT of anything and anyone that offends their haughty, over-refined aesthetic sensibilities and arrogant intellectual pride.
Not all liberals are like that- but having lately perused a heaping helping from the comments sections in Salon, I realize that people can be forgiven such mistaken perceptions, because they aren't wholly unfounded.
You all want to keep writing off the people in the classes and categories that you imagine to be beneath you...the Republican Party is more than happy to accept them. The Republican leadership may bamboozle them, hoodwink them, exploit them, and even use them up and throw them away...but at least they don't openly disdain them.
The Republican Party leadership also knows better than to mock their ideals, which tend to be deeply and sincerely held. Even as they've run those ideals way over the red line of Cognitive Dissonance, the Republicans can still pose as upholders of those ideals- as long as they can point across to the other side at people who deride them and sneer at them, and who hurl judgements that they imagine demonstrate superior discernment, but which more often come off like the consolation prizes of loser passive-aggressives.
Garrison, I'm not saying you did that by expressing your mystification at the connection between flag-waving bike rallies and Memorial Day, but...let it roll off. You don't need to read too much into it. Those folks are just gathering to feel something positive...meanwhile, underneath there is often turmoil. The promises that led to this war have turned sour, bitter, and rancid. Some people still need time to sort it out, and touching base with their patriotic idealism in the course of that doesn't necessarily equate to a Nurnberg rally.
False dichotomies:
The sound of loud "alt/noise/pop/rock" in the park vs. the sound of Harleys in the park...wait, that really is a dichotomy...hmm, let me think...
Toyota Priuses vs. Motorcycles (do a mileage comparison)
Americana vs. Country music. (? ...no- make that ???)
Baklava vs. apple pie (don't make me belabor the obvious)
Reading critically vs. orienteering with a map and compass (both require practice and sharpen the mind)
etc.
It just makes me tired.
@ Sandy Yago:
"have you ever seen a fat black man with ponytail on a Harley?"
Oh yeah. More than once. But then, I'm a long time resident of Sacramento.
Other places only think they've seen it all.
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Finkelstein's academic rigor
[Read the article: Israel imposes a 10-year ban on American critic of Israeli policies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My understanding was that Finkelstein was not given tenure because he did not publish in refereed academic journals. His books certainly don't pass academic muster.
An opinion isn't transformed into a fact simply because it's phrased as a simple declarative sentence, and modified for emphasis.
Norman Finkelstein's work has managed to impress such notable historians as Raul Hilberg and Ian Kershaw. Neither gentleman is noted for their sloppy scholarship.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/content.php?pg=3
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/content.php?pg=2
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@kevred
[Read the article: Playing soldier]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can take some of your points, except when they descend into hyperbole ("Where it's impossible to love your country and also question it, or suggest that those who served it by military service are somehow just as human and fit to be judged as the rest of us."..."impossible"? Give me a break.)
But it sounds to me as if you're only addressing the "name-calling, personal insults, and bitter bickering" that has emanated from one side in the discussion- from the people defending the bikers.
There's been at least as much of that from the anti-bike rally faction- and, in my assessment, much more lengthy harping on stereotype. The bigotries expressed by self-professed liberals sound just as unfounded- and loathsome- as those expressed by culturally intolerant right-wingers. In this particular thread, it seems to draw inspiration from the caricature "all bikers are fat longhairs" and spirals downward from there- their choice of motorized transportation pollutes the air "with gas fumes" (45mpg gas fumes, using 1/2 the road space of an auto), and they sometimes use them for superfluous recreations (the horror!- their sin alone, apparently); it takes no physical effort to pilot a motorcycle (oh, is that right?); they're all knee-jerk patriots; they're all fakes; they'd all stomp your face in for disagreeing with them politically (notwithstanding the multiple comments patiently offered in refutation of those canards, which in turn draw little or no conciliatory response, or even notice, from the stereotypers.)
As for those deploring the idea that anyone would deign to criticize Garrison Keillor for expressing his dismay over the event of a Memorial Day motorcycle rally- he's free to express his disapproval, and those of us who disagree with his views are free to express them here, in response. I'm fairly sure that GK gets this, even if some of his defenders seem to have a problem with it. I wish more people could express their views without adding so much poison. Maybe some day, they'll learn.
As to the name-calling, ad hominem attack on myself from "jeffersonian"- I don't get into those sorts of battles on-line. I'll simply note that the existence of a pronounced deficit in common courtesy is abundantly clear from their letter archive, and I find that unfortunate.
And regarding "jeffersonian's" depiction of Sacramento- some of us love it.
We think it's groovy.
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sounds like agitprop
[Read the article: Al-Qaida's female warrior]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I doubt we're getting anything like the entire story there.
Yeah, I think the whole Islamic terror thing is awfully hyped- you know, World War 3, my ass- but still, there's no need to encourage our adversaries by printing their press releases, just because they've come up with a "feminist empowerment" angle. They're dangerous, homicidally violent people.