Letters to the Editor
studio2054b
Published Letters: 9
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Artificial Belligerence: The myth of right wing masculinity
[Read the article: National Review's new tough guy, Mark Hemingway]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Glenn,
Book title/subtitle suggestions follow. Also, I suggest looking at Jack Katz' Seductions of Crime, especially the chapter "Ways of the Badass". He is writing about the core insecurity behind masculine adolescent posturing in everything from petty criminals to serial murderers but he thinks certain basic principles ought to be applied also to white collar criminals and politicians (and leaves this task to someone else/a future work).
I write about this connection in an article called "Design by Force: The New Intelligence": http://politary.wordpress.com/2006/05/12/design-by-force-the-new-intelligence/
Thanks,
Wes
TITLE
Artificial Belligerence: The myth of right wing masculinity
OTHER SUBTITLES
Deflating the tough-guy pretensions of right wing bullies
The myth of right wing virility
How the right wing projects weakness as strength
The insecure core of right wing bravado
The frail core of right wing machismo
The sham of right wing toughness
The insecure psychology of right wing swagger
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An Engagement Beyond His Presidency
[Read the article: The endless, meaningless blather from the Washington establishment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Related thoughts here: http://ketchupandcaviar.com/2007/09/14/an-engagement-beyond-his-presidency/
And here: http://ketchupandcaviar.com/2007/09/14/bush-and-the-primacy-of-the-political/
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the horror
[Read the article: CNN's John King responds]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Too good. Reading through King's email, knowing in advance how Glenn would publicly dismantle it, I almost felt sorry for him. You want to warn these guys off, like soon-to-be-victims in horror films: "don't go in there!" And yet they do. They always do.
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How Obama's legislative experience helped him beat Clinton
[Read the article: "Name some of Barack Obama's legislative accomplishments ... if you can" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A summary here:
http://ketchupandcaviar.com/2008/02/20/obamas-legislative-record-and-how-its-related-to-hillarys-defeat/
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Pundit Shamanism
[Read the article: The ornery pride of the political journalist]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://ketchupandcaviar.com/2008/03/05/pundit-shamanism/
One small not on the press and pundits: part of their pseudoscience of political strategy is to assign causes to events. They do this with a disregard for analysis that amounts to superstition. Hillary won last night because of her 3-am ad, because of Obama’s negative press coverage, and so on. They quickly forget that Obama eliminated large Clinton leads in Ohio and Texas to make these states closer than they were supposed to be. We are meant to interpret a shrinking of Clinton support as a strategic victory. Even barring these inconvenient facts, there is simply no way to know how effective certain strategies are. The assignment of causes is merely free association that flatters the notions of “strategy” and the role of the press in determining elections. It’s the same sort of free association that underlies the art of prophecy in less intellectualized societies–the reading of birds or entrails. These superstitions have merely been cloaked in enlightenment trappings–polling, “strategy”, and other pseudosciences. Finally, the machinery that drives all of this is the distinctly American value of nihilistic Machievellianism: nothing is good or bad, but power makes it so. And so the pundits read their tea-leaves in the service of the mysterious art of power-acquisition; deep down even the pundits know that what they do has no predictive power, that is really an excited ritual dance around the idol of the deity Power, who requires that intellect be sacrificed at her altar.
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A Conspiracy of Old Women: Geraldine Ferraro and Identity Envy
[Read the article: Hillary's race against time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We know that old women are Clinton’s demographic.
The question is whether we want them ruling the country.
I think that’s the deeper subtext of the recent stupidity of Geraldine Ferraro: it’s not so much racism and as competing identity politics: victim-status-envy. Old women who are so close to vindication they can taste it, flush with scorned entitlement as they feel their chances slipping away. It’s no accident that Clinton’s campaign has also exploited tensions between blacks and Latinos.
The real meaning of Ferraro’s comment: why isn’t Clinton going to win because she’s a woman? The significance of age here is their direct acquaintance with the past and the compromised place of both women and blacks, the coming of age in a period of transition for both groups. One revolution gets pitted against the other, as if envious siblings were competing for the attention of neglectful parents. Perhaps that envy has undergone an atavistic decomposition into the prevalent racism of those times.
Obama is where he is because he’s tapping into a desire for decency. Clinton is where she is because in the entitlement of her and her followers, they are simply unaware of their own haggery: fair is foul, and foul is fair.
Poor Graymalkins!
What I’m really trying to say is that Geraldine Ferraro would not be in the trouble she’s in if she weren’t an old woman.
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Being Misinformed and Worried abou the Election is not Necessarily Obama-Worship (Please Appear on Olbermann's Show)
[Read the article: Keith Olbermann's reply and Obama's secret plan to protect the rule of law]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think you guys should be able to hash out this disagreement in a friendly way -- and it would be very educational to viewers if you do it on air on Keith's show. I'm sure Rachel Maddow can vouch for you. (I encourage any other Greenwald fans to lobby for this appearance on Olbermann's Kos Diary).
One note on substance here: I'm not sure it's fair to say that Olbermann is simply making excuses for Obama or engaged in Obama-worship, and perhaps it was that accusation regarding his motives that made him react with some vitriol. You have to remember that many a) do not have as deep an understanding of FISA as you and b) are worried about Obama losing the election. You don't have to worship Obama to have that worry, and it's not entirely flip-flip if Olbermann doesn't fully comprehend the compromise bill but has a sense that it's an improvement. That he's wrong about this and needs better information is where you come in: a) educate Olbermann and his viewers (if you can get on the show) and b) make the case that Obama will not be sacrificing the election if he stands on principle here. (If you don't think (b) is the case, address the question of whether you you think he ought to sacrifice the election by standing on principle or compromise now and make harder stands after he has power).