Letters to the Editor
fillups44
Published Letters: 15
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Thanks!
[Read the article: The last word on Jewish baseball players]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hi Joan,
While I love the internet for making things like Salon available to me, I do dislike the sort of humorlessness and codemnation that comes from many (and I do realize this is a humorless condemnation of sorts).
However, instead of a diatribe about such things, I want to thank you for the grace, humor and thoughtfulness of your writing. I look to your column for a cool rational voice amidst the clamor and am always rewarded for seeking it there.
Please continue to fight the good fight!!
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If the Gods had meant us to vote...
[Read the article: Dianne Feinstein, symbol of the worthless Beltway Democrat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One of the most alarming (for this progressive voter) sections of Jim Hightower's book If the Gods Had Meant us to vote, They'd Have Give Us Candidates (written just before the 2000 presidential election) is the depiction of the Democratic party as corporate appeasing automaton's who were so focused on fundraising that they virtually had no convictions to speak of.
As we see the country in a very real constitutional crisis, involved in a war which is massively draining our human and material resources, with the executive branch in real need of oversight, with the continuing onslaught of civil rights including the unthinkable loss of habeus corpus we see the Democrats making small, calculating decisions that aren't addressing any of the most pressing issues of our time. In fact, they are often, actively continuing some of the most egregious abuses of civil rights and enabling further law breaking.
Hightower's book is right on target in its depiction of a Democratic party that has lost sight of representing its base and seems only to exist to fundraise. This certainly is not the case with some individuals but the majority of the Democratic party seems to fit the most dire descriptions in Hightower's book.
Al Gore's presidential campaign was ran in the same small minded calculating way. In the years since Al Gore has won respect and popularity by actively promoting the causes he seemed to have left behind during that horribly ran campaign (which in recent Democratic tradition attempted to offend no one and made no one happy at all) that allowed for such a close election (which caused the fateful Supreme Court decision) when he should have been the easy victor.
One hopes that prominent columns such as Glenn's serve as wake up call to a party that has largely left behind the very people it exists to serve and, at this point, appear to serve no one.
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Thought Provoking!
[Read the article: Conservatives blast Petraeus as "sycophant savior"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks Joan for bringing this to light. It does strike at the heart of a lot of the inconsistencies of this war on terror. It is serious, it needs to be fought in earnest but we won't always give the military the protection it needs, the equipment it needs, the top personnel it needs to do what "we" supposedly wish it to do.
This is similar to the very way the invasion was carried out (although in those halcyon days, I suppose, the idea was our military was to be joined by the grateful throngs of the liberated). There is an illogic that haunts the plans that we hear for Iraq.
Thanks once again Joan for a thought provoking column!!
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The Plummeting Popularity of Congress
[Read the article: Telecom amnesty would forever foreclose investigation of vital issues]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While this congress seems to be always concerned about how it is being perceived, they also seem unconcerned about their popularity in the polls. With each capitulation to the Bush administration, they sink lower and lower in the popularity ratings and yet they continue on this path.
Ostensibly, the breaking of the Repulicans' control over Congress was a rebuke to the path the current adminstration was taking us down. Yet, the current Congress seems more and more like the Republicans they replaced and they're doing so in the face of lower and lower polling numbers.
One can't seem to credit the current congress for doing anything because it is right, moral and would stop the very real problems created by too much power and secrecy in government, but one would think they would do it because they wished to remain in the good graces of the people who elected them.
One wonders if the DNC or the politicians are looking at these numbers with the appropriate concern. Does the will of the people matter at all?
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A Sign of Decline??
[Read the article: The year in celebrity scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As always, a finely written article by Heather Havrilesky.
The very ubiquity of this celebrity news is part of what is so annoying about it. One finds oneself knowing the lives of these celebrities without ever clicking on Gawker or Perez Hilton or any of the other sites devoted to the uncovering of the celebrity lifestyle. I have almost no knowledge of the actual work produced by most of these celebrities and yet I know much more than I care to about the personal wreckage of their lives.
Meanwhile one can search in vain for meaningful dialogue about the suspension of Habeas Corpus or find a person who knows it even happened and what it means to their rights as citizens.
It seems like such a close analogy to the fall of the Romans with the amphitheater and the Roman Circus serenading the masses with more and more debased entertainments while they were all collectively flailing into oblivion. The cacophony does make it difficult to concentrate on what is important and vital for our society to move forward in a positive and informed manner.