Letters to the Editor
Jkalos
Published Letters: 486 Editor's Choice: 3
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Its really strange
[Read the article: The endless, meaningless blather from the Washington establishment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but the last few years have made crystal clear to me that most republicans, most democrats, and most of the mainstream media are simply one huge group with the same agenda: and they put on a good show of having differences that matter to confuse us poor souls who want to think we live in a free society with a free press, etc. etc., because it is so very scary to face up to what the actual situation is. And the final straw or nail in the coffin of my hopes was the democrats being voted into a majority by people disgusted with this war and then to have them make so clear by their actions that they are simply another wing of the same group (the actions being the truth and not the words, of course). And what has happened to the Iraqi people is so damn sad and terrible and heart rending; such a horror perpetrated on those people by my country; and then the collateral damage, so to speak, the dead and wounded American soldiers (odd, isn't it: the American troop casualties we carry on about, which are horrible, are really the collateral damage, because the main suffering is on the innocent civilians in Irag). And the only ones not getting hurt are the leaders on all sides: the terrorist Islamic leaders who sent out their suicide bombers to die for them and the political leaders both democrat and republican who send the soldiers off to fight and die for them and the media that spins, spins, spins for the leaders so they can eat and drink with them and profit by their association. And the only thing that has relieved the gloom at all has been to read stuff like Glenn Greenwald writes, and to read what most of you here have written: really some incredibly heartfelt and eloquent comments here that give the me the small bit of light that there are others who see all this too. I want to thank you Mr. Greenwald for writing here, and for all you fellow thinkers in the face of this horror who have posted: thank you as well. It is truly a thing of despair and yet there is the hope of fellow human beings who think and speak out. Jacques Ellul wrote in one of his last books (his sequel to The Technological Society) something to the effect that the harsh wind of corporate technocracy was not something you could simply overturn through some simple act of violence or policy; but that nontheless we could look for spaces of freedom to be human in, and exercise that freedom, "trembling in the cracks", as he put it, not abandoning hope, realizing our humanity in our trembling freedom. I heard Elie Wiesel once say something to the effect that finally you speak out the truth so as not to let yourself down, so as not to let yourself become less than human: that even if no one listens it is still better to speak up: that you will then avoid the despair of losing your humanity. To all who have spoken so clearly on the this thread I give my thanks, because it seems it has not yet come to the point where I am seeing and speaking alone, and that is something to be grateful for, one small thing in these sad times.
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@pantanal
[Read the article: Are Democrats planning still worse FISA capitulations?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You wrote:The Democrats are largely spineless and are scared of their own shadow, but in the absence of a third party with a viable chance of winning the presidency, there's no alternative to the Democrats if we wish to regain the democracy we lost under Bush/Cheney. The worst Democrat is infinitesimally better than the "best" Republican.
I used to think that until I have seen how the Democratic congress is acting. Their actions have convinced me that Nader was in fact right about their being just one party with two components shadowboxing to distract us. the Democrats are not spineless and scared: they are quite intelligently sticking to their principles, revealed under the principle that actions speak louder than words.
And I find that very depressing. I wish you were right, pantanal, because the world would be less scary if you were. But I am reluctantly thinking you are not right, and that we are in quite a fix.
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Is this how it felt
[Read the article: The war president "at peace" with himself]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]to live in all those other empires that fell, in the days of their disasters? Did Romans gathered in the baths have discussions about the mad leaders who were bringing it all down around their ears? Were there retired military patriots in the baths, feeling they had served Aurelius in vain, when, as in a nightmare, his mad son was pulling everything good and noble down? Did they comment to each other about how the Roman senate had failed in its duties to safeguard the republic, driven mad by their lust and greed? History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. History is shrieking in my ears this morning like a mad clown with the face of George Bush. Behind him sits Cheney, anxious and paranoid and frowning, muttering madly to himself. Behind them are the senators and congressman, all of them with fiddles, fiddling, while the fire grows. Behind them all are the ones who voted for Bush, blowing on kazoos; and behind them are the ones who could not be troubled to vote: not talented enough to play the fiddle, or even a kazoo, they merely whistle, while others just tap their feet or nod their heads in time to the shrieks and wails of the nightmare.
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Ah farragoNW,
[Read the article: Blackwater and "Magic"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]thank you for your very fine response, so eloquently stated. "It ain't no sin to be glad that you're alive." Indeed.
My thoughts are with you and your family as your son does his duty.
Let's all spit it in the face of these badlands.