Letters to the Editor
Jkalos
Published Letters: 492 Editor's Choice: 3
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me again
[Read the article: The right's game-playing with "dual loyalty" and "anti-Semitism" accusations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]wrote: What Herbert doesn’t say is that for most Iraqis there sill is no electricity, no sewage, no clean drinking water, Iraqi children are not safe to attend school, the women of Iraq are not save to walk alone anywhere, and it wasn’t just the Museum, the library, the Health Ministry that were ram shacked and looted, but schools, the university too so that Iraqis that have NOT become refugees yet, live in complete anarchy whereby US military troops are building walls – to contain them – not to liberate them.
It can't be said often enough: the real horror of Iraq is what our country has done to the Iraqi people. That is what needs to end: not the "war"--because it is not a war. It is an occupation of a foreign country that is wreaking havoc on the innocent.
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How important is this issue?
[Read the article: Obama advisor Greg Craig: Adding insult to injury]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]HamBone wrote: "There are other issues in the world besides FISA. .."
That statement crystalized a question that has been nagging at me. Much of the language surrounding the issuehas given me the impression that the FISA bill in fact eviscerates one of the amendments to the constitution:that it in essence nullifies an essential freedom guarnteed by the constitution. That is
my general impression of the language against it. Recalling my long ago oath as an Army officer to support and defend the constitution of the United States, I wonder: does this cross such a threshold? If it does than the issue is not just one issue among many others, for it would seemto have an instrinsic status that makes it not liable to be used as a means to an end.
So what exactly is the situation here? Is:
1. Something of intrinsic status being violated? a first principle?
2. If so, is the argument that Obama will be better on other issues while McCainviolates this first principle as well? So that voting for Obama is really making the best
of a really dismal situation? Is the real game already lost, and now we are just pragmaticallydeciding what to do?
3. If this thing has instrinsic status, why wouldn't at least some senators or congressmando more than just make speeches, etc? Wouldn't something of this status demand civil disobedience. Even in the senate? If soldiers are dying in Iraq, will not a senator be willing to embarrass himself on the floor of the senate to educate the public in a real way? A sit in? a hunger strike by the senators? Are they all sell-outs, even the ones doing the speeches like Feingold,etc?
4. Or has the FISA issue not crossed the threshold I described? the one of a fundamental violationof the constitution? So that it is not that important, as some assert? Not a core issue of civil liberties? The rhetoric surrounding this so fantastic, it is hard to get one's bearings.
My question to you, Glenn, is: if you view this as what I call an intrinsic issue, would not the call to vote for Obama over McCain be a counsel of desperation? Of almost despair? If it
is a matter of first principles, then one is led into the realm of individual conscience, and not voting begins to make some sense (along with some acts of civil disobedience, if it seems they would have an effect).
Oh well, just some questions I have.
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Glenn's Irregulars
[Read the article: The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sign me up, Derbig. It has a good sound to it. We will infiltrate the unclaimed territory and bushwack the unwary with our atypical
insights.
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Bebop-o
[Read the article: Torture and the rule of law]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Meet the Depressed"
That is a good one.
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A Plea
[Read the article: All-Star dumb stat watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for a new invention: when you click it on your remote control it blanks out the sounds of the announcers, and just leaves you with the sound of the game and the crowd. I would pay good money for such a device. My son and I got so tired of listening to McCarver and Buck ramble on and on and one . . . It would also be cool if there were an option to blank out interviews with players and managers during the game as well, along with another option to blank out the strange and absurd graphics. Just want to watch the game: can't the fox guys get that? Any electronics whizzes out there?
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@arne
[Read the article: Al-Marri and the power to imprison U.S. citizens without charges]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Beautiful pictures of beautiful people. I wish you great happiness.
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Bebop-o
[Read the article: Al-Marri and the power to imprison U.S. citizens without charges]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I will mail off a card to your friend tomorrow.
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I'm curious
[Read the article: Batman vs. the lavender genius of crime!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]as to how you evaluate your own certainty of your judgment of the Batman film and those like it. By that I mean, I enjoy such films, as a sort of mythic dreamscape: the comic books of my youth writ large. And yet you seem so sure that if I approve of these things that I am regressing somehow, or demeaning myself; that if I find real meaning and pleasure in it that it can only represent something a more mature and learned individual would be ashamed of. If I enjoy the film and it helps me think about things, are you so sure that my thoughts are not "deep" enough to satisfy some criterion of profundity? The teenager in this fifty year old man just wonders at your certainty of all this (and looks forward to delighting without repentance in seeing it with his own teenagers).
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I'm with ondolette
[Read the article: Political harmony v. the rule of law: an easy choice for the political establishment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]in putting out the letter the the prosecutor at the Hague. I feel it is important to bear witness and not remain silent. I heard Elie Wiesel say once that we must bear witness against inhumanity even and especially when it seems to serve no practical purpose in the utilitarian calculus; because in bearing witness we are affirming our humanity and refusing to forget what it means to be truly human. Please sign our letter or write one of your own. The letter is at:
http://humanityagainstcrimes.blogspot.com
I am not sure all of what such things accomplish, but one thing I am sure they accomplish: that I reminded myself and others of what is important in being human.