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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Sounds like Gibley is a more arty propagandist than Michael Moore, who's just tawdry. If Gibley can get O'Hehir to wish torture on our fellow Americans, it must be effective propaganda. Andrew, let me know will you when internet broadcast beheadings of American held detainees becomes part of US policy, that would be a story, we'd really be aping the enemy then.
Poor ol' Mike, and it would appear a lot of other folks out there, sure seem fixated (and apparently quaking in their birkies) over the beheading thing. See, that's how these things work. Fear works on the faint-hearted. How many letters have you read, or times have you heard (most recently from fear-monger Rudy), that there are hordes of swarthy allah-akbar-shouting kaffiyeh-wearing scimitar-waving cold-blooded killers out there just waiting to invade our shores and either cut or saw off our heads because we ain't killing 'em fast enough 'over there'. P!ss on you faint-hearts. The hell with you. I enjoy the view from up here, not down there cringing on my knees . . .
I don't hate America or the troops.
Hi Mikes,
You seem quite fixated on what various criminals have done to some American citizens. Terrible crimes indeed, but what do they have to do with the US government torturing people? Are you saying that the US government is allowed to commit any crime that anyone else, anywhere, has done?
Perhaps you think that the people the US government tortures are the same people who behead Americans. Hint: in most cases, they aren't. And even if they were, torturing and murdering them would still be an atrocity and a crime, if the words "American justice" retain any meaning at all.
-Jeremy
Comparison and Contrast is one of the simplest essay forms. It is taught in high school, and, in remedial classes, it is taught yet again in college. You don't have to be especially smart to write to the formula.
Here is an example of the simple formula:
America is the good guys.
1.
2.
3.
(list three supporting reasons why we are the good guys)
Those Arabs over there are the bad guys.
1.
2.
3.
(list three supporting reasons why those Arabs in Iraq (Afganistan, Iran, etc.) are the bad guys.
Follow with a brief concluding statement.
Now that everyone had passed basic essay writing, would anyone like to consider this: We are a democracy. Therefore, we must earn our good guy badge every day. We don't get to act like everyone else whom we abhor. We don't even get to discard others' rights and keep our own constitutional rights to ourselves. We have to consider the rights of all on every possible level. This is because, once we disregard the rights of others, the bad guys in our own nation "will come for us."
ask the Pope.
>>A good question for the Salon crowd to consider is how can any religion who believes its god-given duty is to dominate humankind ever be sated?>>
I'd take Kennedy over Bush any day.
For years many of us have said that Bush is dangerous. Our reasons have been vented and yet Bush remains in office. He continues on his merry way and we do little more than vent our opposition. By now you realise that this is a wheel that turns around and it goes nowhere. It seems that dangerous people are allowed to hold office until they have caused an enormous amount of damage in the form of deaths and ruined societies. After they have wreaked their damage we hope that someone will replace Bush and that they will right the wrongs.
I expect that Bush will spend the rest of his life in comfort with all of his limbs intact and his empty head telling all of us how he was saving the world from terrorism except that after he left office a nasty Democrat undid his good work. Unfortunately, Bush seems to lack a conscience and I doubt that he will be troubled by his legacy. That will be our problem. This silly rich boy has grown up to tell the world how it should be run into the ground.
Robert James speaking out from Sydney.
Says Victoria L--
“First of all rage is never a noble or constructive sentiment. We all feel but it should not be proudly paraded about as if it were a badge of honour to be so unnuanced in our reactions. Rage means you are seeing things in black and white.”
I would venture that the ability to feel rage for the misfortune of others, for the horrific torment wrought by bullies even if it’s not happening to you, is certainly far more noble than whatever it is that’s compelling you to smugly sit back and continuously, persistently intone about how tedious and puerile you find Salon's articles. Just how many letters have you written about that very topic, anyway?
“And I fail to see how my calling O'Hehir self-loathing and condemning his rage are hypocrisy, but nice try.”
Huh. That’s funny, because in your letter you explained that you condemned his rage on the very lofty grounds that ‘rage is never a noble or constructive sentiment.’ And yet in the very same letter you label Andrew as a ‘self-loathing class act.’ Elsewhere on this discussion you call someone an ‘ignorant Salonista.’
Unless you can somehow prove these statements are noble or constructive, you are the very definition of a hypocrite.
This, Victoria L.--
“So you laud O'Hehir's rage at the fate of "unconvicted, untried people" and then attack me for calling O'Hehir a hypocrite when he describes dumping naked "unconvicted, untried people" in the middle of a harsh desert. You deserve a special hypocrisy award, a-ignatius.”
Is why I asked you
"and are you disputing that detainees - who have not yet been tried - are being tortured?"
To which you responded with--
“I made no comment on that subject and it is dishonest to introduce that idea. You can't defend O'Hehir's sentiments so you manufacture false one's and suggest that I hold them?”
You called me a hypocrite on the basis of the idea that Bush Co. are ‘unconvicted and untried’and thus Andrew’s rage at the atrocities they’ve committed is unjustified. So by that logic, I guess we are to understand, then, that you feel that it hasn’t been proven that the detainees are being tortured under this administration– right? That’s why I asked you if you were disputing it. Your response? Oh, that you made no comment on the subject and it was *dishonest* to introduce that idea.
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"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
