Letters to the Editor
Dana Runs
Published Letters: 144 Editor's Choice: 14
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News: No Indictment for Rove
[Read the article: More questions than answers about "Sealed v. Sealed"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tuesday, June 13, 2006 7:00 a.m. ADT
At this hour, both Patrick Fitzgerald and Karl Rove's attorneys are saying that Rove WILL NOT be prosecuted in the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation. No indictment has been filed, and none will be.
Check this story out. You'll find both that the Truthout story is proved false and that posts from Progressive Majority are more reliable than stories from Truthout. I look forward to reading Ash's and Leopold's response.
Progressive Majority
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We interrupt this program for an important news flash
[Read the article: Bush to the media: Shut up and wave the flag]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While you are all engaged in an arcane WWI debate, the real attack marches silently on. There is something different about this particular call for press loyalty. In fact, it is no such thing at all, but only a Trojan Horse, disguising itself so that we may become distracted from and even complicit in the attack that is already underway. Goodman's article is an example of that unknowing complicity.
What we are really seeing is the beginning of the effective demonization and dismantling of the American press as a source of information and knowledge for the body politic. What the right successfully did to "liberals" and "trial lawyers" it is now doing to "the press." A campaign that never found its footing in the clumsy, shrill cries of "liberal media!" has gained substantial traction and a working strategy in the post-9/11, "You're either with us or with the terrorists," paradigm. Sadly, Mr. Goodman fails to recognize the attack for what it is, and his article instead serves only to splash another coat of invisible paint on the wooden horse.
I pray that the media are quicker to recognize the nature of the attack than liberals and lawyers were. By the time those groups discovered what was happening to them, the damage had already been done. While liberals still struggle to escape emasculation by redefining themselves as "progressives," and while chants of "courtroom litigator" begin to supplant the hate-filled shouts of "trial lawyer," the Republican Blitz-meme rolls on to conquer a new foe. But I wonder, will the press recognize and thwart the attack before it is too late?
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Why September?
[Read the article: Time to think]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't think the six month timeline has anything to do with not caring about the troops. It has more to do with the fact that politics will have set its own end to Mr. Bush's grace period for the surge, and Republicans will have to make a decision.
The government's fiscal year begins October 1st. In September, just before the new fiscal year, Congress will vote on budget and funding bills for everything, including the war. Democrats are virtually certain to include tough new troop withdrawal conditions in them. And Republicans will have to go along, unless, by September, congressional Republicans see reports of actual, solid results of the surge that they can wave around with patriotic glee. So the "or else," means, "Show us tangible progress giving us cover to continue support for you, OR ELSE we will have to vote with the public's wishes on funding bills."
The fiscal year and the 2008 election cycle are driving this "or else" cut-off, not a lack of support for the troops.
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Interesting reactions.
[Read the article: Beyond biological sex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This subject isn't going mainstream anytime soon. The reactions of two of the three posters before me is indicative of the level of hysteria surrounding this subject. But those letters shouldn't be written off as hatemail, for they both contain valid points beneath the vitriol. It's true: men are confused by the increasing and contradictory array of traits demanded of them in the name of gender equality, and the lesbian community has a definite Janice Raymond, "trans-women are men attempting to subvert female space and feminsim for the ends of patriarchy," way of thinking, which seems to be commonly held.
It's an interesting subject, and as a lesbian woman I am more and more realizing that gender roles are less inherent than they are cultural imperatives, designed to keep people in line. After all, our culture is held together through a series of accepted rules about actions and thought. The most basic of those surround gender. To challenge those imperatives is to challenge everything we thought was true.
But I think this Newsweek article is a good thing. The more varied the gender expression in our culture, the better it is for all of us. The old gender rules no longer serve us.
The king is dead. Long live the queen!
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You might feel otherwise had you been Falwell's target!
[Read the article: Tinky Winky says bye-bye to Jerry Falwell]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Of the "be nice" finger-waggers, mchebert's letter is typical: "I always disliked Jerry Falwell, but the fact that someone is not decent does not give others leave to be indecent also. ... You either say something innocuous and nice, or keep your mouth shut. Nothing else is needed."
I'm guessing that most of these folks weren't Falwell's targets. As an "out" lesbian woman with a butch partner and a bi-racial baby on the way, I have been heaped with abuse from Falwell's supporters in the wake of his vile words. His blame of the 9/11 attacks on me and others like me provoked a great deal of threatening actions toward us. Invoking God's name and Falwell's words, his supporters have threatened, castigated, spat upon, pushed, grabbed and harangued us, called us terrorists and traitors and a threat to children. All this for the sin of daring to walk the earth and breathe the air as an "out" lesbian. I have felt real and reasonable fear because of what people did when they heard Falwell's words and put them into righteous, wrathful action.
Tell me, finger-waggers, if a man entered your bedroom at night and proceded to attack you, how would you react when he dropped dead of a heart attack in mid-assault? Would you "say something innocuous and nice," or would you celebrate the end of his reign of terror with relief and unfettered glee? The man was a tangible evil that threatened real people's safety and peace. Please show some of the class you insist upon from the rest of us, and kindly forgive us for being unseemly enough to celebrate our attacker's demise. Thank you.