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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
thomas dumm
Published Letters: 73 Editor's Choice: 3
If you look at the letters to the editor section of the NY Times this morning, there is unanimous response to the insipid Charles Fried op ed of the other day suggesting the usual -- that it would be damaging to go after the torturers. What is sickening is that Fried was once Solicitor General of the US and now teaches CONSTITUTIONAL LAW at Harvard Law School. The good thing is that the response in the letters was so powerfully and intelligently for prosecution. The Times tries to sample letters according to the wieght of what they receive, so this is very good.
If Glenn's argument that pressure is needed is to be followed, we need to press like mad on this. Today is important because of the confirmation hearings on Eric Holder. WIll any Senator ask him if he intends to uphold the law? Or will the critical questions be those of the hypocritical and cowardly senior Senator from Pennsylvania, concerning Holder's lack of independence from Bill Clinton? (Yes, Arlen Specter, he who would denounce the Bush Justice department, and then vote for everything they desired.) It will be interesting to watch.
Glenn,
It is worth noting the wording in Lichtblau's article today, especially since you caught his error in the report yesterday. Read this sentence carefully:
"Mr. Holder said the practice of waterboarding terrorism suspects, used by the Central Intelligence Agency on three prisoners after the Sept. 11 attacks, represented torture." (A16)
What does "represented torture" mean? Holder didn't say "represented." I do not have Holder's testimony in front of me, but I watched it yesterday and he was answering a question, "Is waterboarding torture?" and he said, if I recall prescisely, after mentioning that we have prosecuted people for war crimes for waterboarding in the past, "Yes, it is." I know he never said, "Waterboarding represents torture." That would have been, forgive me, a tortuous sentence. Now, that difference may seem minor, but the ongoing reluctance of reporters to call torture, torture, even when judges are throwing out cases because the evidence was gathered through torture, is amazing.
These little things can slip by. I thought it worth noting.
Put away childish things, and try to restrain yourself, oh commentators.
What do you think the President of the United States is supposed to say? The game is over, the country is a miserable place, go home and tremble?
There were several good things said in the speech. Obama came close to directly accusing ex-president W of abandoning all the principles of law. He announced a return to responsibility, told us that we need to get to work. He announced the need for government to provide for health, education, and welfare, and put those who say otherwise -- nay saying Republicans -- on the defensive for the first 100 days, hopefully. He wants a return to rule of law.
His language was inspired, and were the expectations game not being played, it would already be more highly praised.
So, those who expected more, really. Talk about naivity hiding a cynicism!
Wall street hates democrats, even though we always save their sorry asses.
Neuroscience is a complex field, and indeed works against the simplistic idea of simple causality between affective and intellectual states and the field of human action. The best neuroscientists understand the open ended character of affective reasoning in both degree and social impact. This doctor is not well representing the field, but is instead reducing it to a series of deterministic slogans.
Most disturbing is his argument at the end of the article, calling on Madoff to be forced to submit to examination and "non-invasive" experiment as part of his sentence, should he be convicted. Does this man have any idea concerning the history of such interventions? When coupled with his determinist view of human behavior, the whole article smacks of the most authoritarian, indeed, eugenicist argument I've seen in recent years. Simply appalling.
I want to pose another question, or angle on the question. What if, maybe, the new husband was being IRONIC, silly, making a JOKE? Then, the shattered and bereft response of the letter writer, the inability to get over the fact that she was not very smart about travel costs combined with her sense of sacrifice over attending the event, would account for the decision of the other couple to decide, Holy shit, this isn't your day, dear. We invited you, attend, be happy, but don't be all upset about things, and if that is the way you are going to respond, then fuck off.
Really.
It is becoming quite clear that the torture regime is connected to the wish to pump up the desire to invade Iraq which is connected to the desire to placate the oil industry which is connected to... oh, never mind.
To suggest that the Bush/Cheney administration is less than the worst, worse than Buchanan, far worse than Nixon -- is both appallingly ignorant and viciously revanchist.We tortured people under the rule of these criminals, who drove the economy into a ditch.
Stop this shit, Salon. It isn't evenhanded to have such an apologist, it is supporting fascism.
Been decades since I've seen ole Harry Dean Stanton in that movie, but I seem to recall that the repeating sign isn't "Plate of Shrimp," but "Plate o' Shrimp"? Or am I misremembering?
He never mentions the explicitly racist comments. To take but one example of his failure to address the question.
Come on Salon, we readers write in about this shit, but really, what bugs me is not the responses, but that you might actually be PAYING this moron. He is totally evasive, and seems to think that we are stupid, that we would take at face value what any political strategists -- be they GOP or Dem -- present as reasons these days. Under the guise of anonymity, this guy could be telling us secrets of the crypt. Instead, we get bullshit boilerplate. Please, stop paying him.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
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