Letters to the Editor
David Buckley
Published Letters: 153 Editor's Choice: 9
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Blumenthal's Myopia
[Read the article: Condi's trail of lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ms Rice's recent public displays of statesman-like "resolve" and "backbone" on the issue of torture are reptilian (to put it mildly), but are par for the course in Uncle Sam's long history of politically-appointed and publicly-salaried apologists. Blumenthal may not be aware of it, trapped in the Beltway mentality as he is, but the U.S. is notorious for its principled defenses of the unprincipled. Has he forgotten the morally challenged and dim-witted Ms Albright of the Clinton Years? Has he forgotten her public defense (on prime time TV) of economic sanctions so barbaric that they were conservatively estimated to have killed some 500,000 Iraqis, most of them children? This, Ms Albright haughtily reminded us, was a price "we" were willing to pay to "bring Saddam into line" in the "peaceful" attempt at "regime change" that preceded our current more bellicose barbarity.
Unfortunately, the tortured and morally reprehensible doublespeak that is the stock-in-trade of US "public diplomacy" did not begin with Ms Rice. Nor, indeed, with Ms Albright. America's open embrace of its manifest imperial "destiny" may be relatively recent, but its penchant for lies, innuendo, half-truths and distortions is as old as the Imperial Republic. David Harvey in his recent best-selling analysis of "The New Imperialism" reminds us that "Even internally, [the U.S] has a history of ruthlessness that belies its attachment to its constitution and the rule of law. ... [The] amazing thing," he goes on, "is how much is both known and documented from official or quasi-official sources [about this ruthlessness] and what a grizzly, despicable, and deeply disturbing record it is."
Ms Rice's recent tortured defense of torture in the interests of "Freedom" is a sad but not entirely unexpected addition to that record.
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THE O/FREY LESSON: TV SELLS (out), LITERATURE DOESN'T.
[Read the article: Oprah's revenge]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are only two meaningful things to be said about the Oprah/Frey soap opera:
First (and I realize this is self-evident, but it needs to be reiterated on a regular basis): There is nothing "good" on TV. Indeed, the only "honest" thing on TV, the only "reality" it purveys, is to be found in "live" (but, usually, tape-delayed) sports coverage. On every other front, TV is a gigantic, culturally-endorsed, corporately owned LIAR. Everybody with a fully-functioning brain knows this. Indeed, it is so patently obvious, that it usually requires a "higher" education to fully obscure it from view. ("Culture Studies" my a--).
Second: Ms Frey's dubious contention that Oprah's book-club is spawning "serious" readers by the million simply by endorsing known "classics" and contemporary "Literature," surely this canard has been dealt a Death-Blow by The Frey Affair? How is it possible to be a "serious" reader of Faulkner one minute, and be taken in by Frey's flatulence the next? Is it because Oprah herself is NOT a "serious" reader, but only a "serious" endorser of serious reading? And isn't THAT, after all, what TV does best: sell endorsed products? If Oprah and her mass-produced cookie-cutter audience of "You Go Girl" Cheer-Leaders could read through Frey's relentlessly sophomoric book without realizing how irredemably No Brow it really is, then surely it's time for Ms Frey and other "critics" to step up and expose this LIE too for what it is? And isn't The Oprah Book Club LIE, ultimately, more damaging than Frey's piddlingly inept scribblings? Or does Ms Frey think it more important to hide behind the illusion that the sale of 300,000 Faulkner volumes in one season is proof positive that Americans DO enjoy and understand "serious" Literature ... or even "literature" ... despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I don't watch Oprah. I do read. The latter is sufficient to save me from the ludicrous idea that Oprah's (or Anyone's) Book Club is all that is required in order to turn me into a "serious" reader.