Letters to the Editor
New Deal Democrat
Published Letters: 210 Editor's Choice: 43
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Obama is right (mostly)
[Read the article: Obama: Bush is confused, but the enemy is real]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Whether or not Obama's new speech comes in response to the establishment's perception of his "wobbling," the excerpts quoted here seem to be more or less on the mark. There are still plenty of Muslim fanatics who want to wreak havoc in the West. The fact that Bush has made exactly the wrong decisions about the use of our resources over the last six years doesn't mean that Al-Qaida or other groups have given us a reprieve.
However, I would disagree to some extent with Obama's apparent dismissal of Iraq. The tragedy is that we're obligated not to completely abandon it. That doesn't mean we should remain as an occupying force, but we owe it to Iraqis to help them in whatever way we can to put their country back together again.
And the fact is: nobody has any idea what will happen when we leave. Will it split into three separate states? Will another Saddam-like dictator emerge? Will it become another Afghanistan - a "failed state" that's overrun by fanatics like the Taliban? Or could it, against all odds, become a prosperous Arab democracy? We chose to introduce chaos where there was order (of the admittedly brutal sort), and we'll reap the whirlwind for years to come regardless of what we do now.
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Enjoying the spectacle
[Read the article: Quote of the Day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I admit that I've been enjoying every moment of seeing these young, zealous right-wingers (Jennings and Goodling) being served up by the administration as an appetizer to Congressional investigators. Granted, many of the diners are toothless, and are only gumming their prey to death, but occasionally a Leahy or a Schumer will be able to get a juicy bite.
One wonders if any of these twerps has backed off the Kool Aid enough to understand how they're getting royally screwed - how they're being cynically used as fodder by their superiors. If they were actually intelligent, instead of merely clever and ideologically blind, they might see their predicament as part of a much larger picture wherein the right wing always sees its underlings as expendable. And unfortunately, all of us who aren't millionaires are their underlings. (See the Iraq War for the best example of this.)
So I doubt this will be a learning moment for any of them; Bush, after all, speaks directly to God. For me, though, it sure reinforces my understanding of the right-wing mind.
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What does Stanley Kubrick have to do with "Star Wars"?
[Read the article: Art movies: R.I.P.]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Honestly, that's a really ridiculous association. Kubrick's only science fiction film, "2001: A Space Odyssey," couldn't be farther from the sentimental swashbuckling of George Lucas. Kubrick had far more in common with the European directors Paglia waxes rhapsodic about than he did with his American peers.
You can see the decline of American filmmaking in the gap between the two "Star Wars" trilogies. The first series, uneven though it was, still had the grand craft of the classical Hollywood period going for it. The second was simply execrable.
Ultimately, though, Paglia's take on movies is right. Even the films that are generally considered intelligent today seem weightless compared to Fellini, Bergman, Antonioni, or even (the very old-school) David Lean. You get the feeling that today's filmmakers aren't really struggling with existential demons; they're just well-educated, upper-middle-class kids out to make a career for themselves.
If you haven't done so in a while, go watch one of the great films made in the '60s or early '70s. American ones will do just fine: "The Godfather" films, "Chinatown," "The Last Picture Show," etc. You'll be overwhelmed by their intelligence and their trenchant observations on the human condition. Their lack of pandering to the audience is positively bracing.
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I'm so sick of hearing about gay marriage
[Read the article: Don't ask, don't tell]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm gay, I have a partner, and this is simply not the most important issue for us. I've never understood why the gay establishment chose to take this issue on before we even have a nationwide employment non-discrimination act, for example. Talk about misplaced priorities. (Yes, I know HRC is working on employment non-discrimination, but that effort is amazingly low-profile compared to the whole marriage mess.)
It's just not tactically smart. It alienates even some people who are sympathatic to gay rights. Like it or not, a dwindling but still considerable number of straight people just aren't ready to consider same-sex relationships as being on-par with theirs. This whole BS debate plays right into the hands of the Christian right.
I understand that there are important legal privileges that come with the designation of marriage. I also know that long-term couples can create a reasonable facsimile of marriage through other legal arrangements. Why take this on when there are other, more urgent battles to fight (the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for example)?
The most ardent proponents of gay marriage have an unseemly craving for middle-class respectability. They desperately long for every last vestige of establishment acceptance, and have latched onto the moonlight and magnolia romance of marriage like a drowning man grasping for a life preserver.
Besides, what's wrong with civil unions? Shouldn't every "marriage" in a secular republic be a civil union? There aren't too many issues that make me feel like a Marxist but this is one.