Letters to the Editor
ironpath
Published Letters: 10 Editor's Choice: 1
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Feingold is a true patriot
[Read the article: Patriot Act games]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Senator Feingold consistently demonstrates the qualities I would like to see in a President of the United States. His hat should be in the ring. And to the sabbath gasbags who apparently have the rest of the Democratic Party cowed, the message is that there is something more fundamental than being viewed as "too liberal." That would be having principles and sticking with them.
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simplistic
[Read the article: "Sicko"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You write about "...the frustrating Moore earmarks -- most notably, a deliberately simplistic desire to render everything in black-and-white terms, as if he didn't trust his audience enough to follow him into some of the far more complex gray areas."
It seems to me that if Bowling for Columbine were simplisticly bw, Moore wouldn't have brought his own NRA membership and the high level of Canadian gun ownership into consideration. For sure, these didn't make BFC profound, but they saved that film from a simplistic trajectory critics hang around Moore rather, well, simplistically.
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Revenge of the...?
[Read the article: Bob Novak is not one of the popular kids]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"If that were true, it would place Novak in the same company as nerdy right-wing intellectuals like Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Samuel Alito and Kenneth Starr -- homely, brainy Debate Club types who embraced conservatism as a form of revenge against the swinging '60s liberals."
So that's what we've all been suffering under... The Revenge of the Nerds? Deep down, I always knew it.
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W's god is too small
[Read the article: War, chaos and Bush's faith]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Blue Jean makes an important point bringing up the fact that every time W screwed up, somebody's always been there to save him. Perhaps this is the god of George W. Bush: the savior of his soul is the same thing as the savior of his ass. And as long as he's in the White House, the rest of us have to wait for his goddam godot with him.
The scary thing is, it's as if we've been living through Unbreakable for the past six and a half years, and the clues have been there all along!!! We should have known, we could have known, but the plot carried us along and here we are.
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Obsessed with Hillary
[Read the article: Stalking Hillary]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is something delightfully pre-pubescent about these Republican's obsession with Hillary Rodham Clinton. I'm just waiting for one of them to lose it altogether and yell "Cooties! Hillary's got cooties!"
What's delightful is that letting one's obsessions show is a tactical blunder of monumental proportions, right up there with leading with one's chin. This is a promising sign for the forces of good.
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Pax Americana in Progress
[Read the article: Bush's non-exit exit strategy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I recall the eerie similarity between the goals for a Pax Americana stated in "Rebuilding America's Defenses" and the lead up to the current occupation of Iraq. One would think that time and reality would have discredited the neo-con vision, but that would make one "reality based."
Hell's bells, you can't have a Pax Americana without permanent bases in the region. Controlling the world means controlling the world's energy supply as much as we can, and being able to control Iraq's spigots is one key. And that may well mean, as Greg Palast contends, keeping the spigots turned off in order to keep oil prices high.
As for the insurgency, pesky colonists are to be expected. The key is to make sure they keep the bulk of the fighting amongst themselves.
As for the troops, every empire requires a cannon-fodder class. Limit their career options at home, say nice things about them publicly once they're in uniform, and try not to tip your hand too often (Walter Reed, inadequate armor, inadequate rest between tours just shows the true contempt for this class).
And if you can't manufacture consent at home for your messy business of empire maintenance in the full Lippmannesque sense, at least you can manufacture enough confusion that the herd will move on to other concerns.
As for Iraqi's telling us to leave... if a Gandhi showed up and began galvanizing the people, he'd probably have to be eliminated.
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We look for the keys under the lampost
[Read the article: Seizing American supremacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Perhaps the ebb in American hegemony is best summarized by the Brent Scowcroft quote, "We are being wrestled to a draw by opponents who are not even an organized state adversary."
Well, of course we are being wrestled to a draw... this administration hasn't shown any evidence that it knows what it's doing, and Scowcroft's bewilderment underscores why.
The core narrative of our global power is rooted in World War II, when we prevailed over organized states. That's what we know how to do. So when a nasty NGO attacked us on 9/11, we eventually looked for an organized state to beat up on.
As a good number of thoughtful people have pointed out (see, for example, http://www.d-n-i.net/) wars between organized states -- with clearly defined adversaries fighting on clearly defined battlefields for clearly defined territory -- belong to the past. We should no longer expect postmodern adversaries to resemble modern-era adversaries. To be bewildered that we are wrestled to a draw by those who are not organized into states is to be backing into the future.
Our disaster in Iraq resembles a tale of the Sufi wise-fool Nasrudin, who was kneeling on the ground under a lightpost. Somebody came along and said, "What are you looking for?"
"My keys."
"Where did you drop them?"
"Over there," and Nasrudin points to the dark under a tree.
"Well, why are you looking here?"
"The light is better here under the street lamp."
(hint hint hint: killing people and breaking things won't work as the primary way to assert power anymore.)