Letters to the Editor
Baldie McEagle
Published Letters: 992 Editor's Choice: 3
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Pessimism vs defeatism
[Read the article: The latest revelations of lawbreaking, torture and extremism ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hope my own posts haven't been interpreted as advocating defeatism. I think the degradations we are seeing now were made possible by a vast, slow restructuring of American society/political economy that is not often examined here. And that it will take decades of convulsion---convulsion, not voting, not letter-writing---to move us on to the next stage. (I don't believe there is ever any going back---even if a sort of "restoration" is achieved, it will only be a compromise. That's how these things work.) This is a revolution 50 years in the making.
Despite the obvious advantage to the Right that was 9/11, much of the administration's policies seem so flimsy to me that I can imagine a few choice SCOTUS decisions flipping the whole mess on its back: the administration has been out on a limb for several years now and has covered its vulnerabilities only by neutralizing the other branches of government.
Still, it's the complicity of various elites that has allowed the neocons to to take their gamble, and win. So far. Despite this complicity, the shortest path I see to a collapse of this administration and all it stands for is for it to take all the rope that has generously been provided it, and hang itself.
And even that won't lead to a restoration. I don't see the Constitution being restructured to be more modern/European, however obvious the advantages, without a civil war or occupation. Think the Marshall Plan in reverse.
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@OliverA
[Read the article: The latest revelations of lawbreaking, torture and extremism ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't see those wars as anything but attempts to keep the war machine fed. I see them as successful programs to distract the public while the war machine adjusted its diet, not as attempts to let off any dissent-related steam. After all: WHAT dissent? Has there been viable dissent (mass, organized) in the US since 1968?
As for the question of civil war---no, not yet, and probably never. I can't say it's worth a war until I myself have the gun in my hand.
We don't normally expect to have to take matters into our own hands. That's what the political system is for. I won't be ready to risk my life or livelihood until it is already at risk. That means the bodies of middle-aged white guys will have to start turning up with signs of torture. Then, and only then, can I commit to taking matters into my own hands.
Fawnlust is right. This would be an excellent example of the administration hanging itself, if they waterboarded a white guy, maybe a journalist.
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@guywho pretendstobeanemperor
[Read the article: The latest revelations of lawbreaking, torture and extremism ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We certainly are, Tib old boy, we certainly are.
But not the way you think we are.
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@scooter in short pants
[Read the article: The remaining GOP base -- the 30%'ers and the Broder/Ignatius pundit]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution.
That's what you call the "high road"?
I'd hate to see what you would call the "low road."
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Eminence grise
[Read the article: The remaining GOP base -- the 30%'ers and the Broder/Ignatius pundit]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The strategy is to maintain one's own eminent position ("dean") by simultaneously propagating the establishment line (hard right content, moderate language) while refusing to talk to anyone who talks to the "loony left" or, to be fair, probably the loony right as well (although by current standards the you'd have to live in a compound to be part of the loony right).
As long as the Dems tolerate the netroots within their party, they will be denied an audience in the Dean's chambers. The Op-Ed section is not for presenting oppositional opinions but for showcasing a convincing variety of flavors of the official opinion. It's like the old USSR, except that it's not the "Party line" to which expression is limited within the semiofficial media organs---it's the "bipartisan line."
There's another similarity. The Party had its opposition too, but it was "safe." If you were "safe," you got a dacha in the country and a house in Moscow. Left and right formed one political class.
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@"Bo" Peep
[Read the article: The remaining GOP base -- the 30%'ers and the Broder/Ignatius pundit]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It certainly could. Do you see it? I do.
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To answer your question, Glenn:
[Read the article: The remaining GOP base -- the 30%'ers and the Broder/Ignatius pundit]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, we could have a more government-worshiping pundit class.
Imagine a priesthood whose sole task is to divine for the kingdom at large the wishes of the gods, like that of the Egyptians.
Then imagine that the gods are those men who have have been decreed such by their own order, as did the emperor Augustus, following the example of Julius Caesar.
Then imagine that these "gods" live on the moon, in an airtight bubble, where they wander their gardens blissfully unaware of the wishes and needs of the people.
I'm pretty sure that would be worse.
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Next week
[Read the article: Stop your sobbing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]maybe we'll hear from Bjørn Lomborg, courtesy of Salon!
Yay!
Now, by "celebrate" they mean "wank," right?
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@McGarrett50
[Read the article: Stop your sobbing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're right that we shouldn't assume the climate of any time or place is "right." But we don't all live north of the tropics, either. You forgot to mention the back yards of those who live to the south of us.
Further, there has never been a time, since the great extinctions, when habitats all over the world have been less healthy, less diverse, less prepared to absorb climate change under altered circumstances, than now.
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@northbranch
[Read the article: Stop your sobbing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is that expression of heresy "right-wing?"
No, but it is fairly butt-ignorant.
For starters, you have confused "harmony WITH nature" with "harmony IN nature."
Now why would you do that?
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@Margalis
[Read the article: Stop your sobbing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This sort of social construction nonsense is just something people dig up when they want to discredit something but are too dumb or lazy to figure out how.
Or when they just want to bring the discussion to a screeching halt and make everybody look at them as though they are important. Hmmm ...