Letters to the Editor
Ché Pasa
Published Letters: 913 Editor's Choice: 2
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Re: Klein, Hewitt, Romney, and Our Imperial Adventure in Mesopotamia
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's all of a piece.
Romney is the Corporatist Choice for president, and his upticks in the polls are a demonstration of how fully the corporate media can catapult its own propaganda any time it wants to. Media ownership has decided on Romney. Hewitt's job is to fluff Romney (Medved has also been enlisted in the fluff brigade) during this pre-campaign. And it is working.
I heard part of the Klein v Hewitt dust up, and it was quite a donnybrook with a good deal of hollering and mutual denunciations, made with extraordinary vigor by both participants. There was something seemingly contrived about it, but that doesn't mean it was entirely phony. Klein's standing among the punditocracy has been in decline for years. Like Krauthammer, he is widely seen as little more than a crank, suffered rather than admired. Kicking Klein for writing trash about Romney (if that's what he did, I haven't read it and don't intend to) is a step in formulating a "winning strategy" -- by demonstrating that if a crank Liberal like Klein hates Romney, then Romney must be the ideal candidate for the 28% wingnut rabble who listen to Hewitt. I say the dust-up seemed somewhat contrived because Klein went along with it, doing his part as it were.
So Alter has discovered the Truth, that Iraq is part of America's New Imperium? Good for him. (Actually, I think he's known all along.) But this is a discussion we do not have in this country, in part because our Overlords strongly believe the establishment of American global hegemony and direct imperial administration of overseas territories has nothing to do with us, We The People. We are as irrelevant to this project as the interests of the native peoples of Iraq are, and just as disposable.
Our government, as an institution, has bought in to this Imperial dream and goal, lock, stock and barrel. Party is irrelevant, the bi-partisan decision was made, and there is no sign that any branch of government, or either major party, will go back on that decision any time soon, if at all. They have pledged to fulfill this Imperial goal no matter what, and clearly intend to follow through no matter what We The People have to say about it. They may not have any love for the current Emperor, but from now until Eternity, the Presidency will be an Imperial office. Soon, the sham our elections have been for years now will be accepted as the way they "should" be (note: Our Dems have been singularly disinterested in doing anything about inconvenient election facts, while jabbering quite incoherently about how there are all these problems to be solved... eventually... when we get around to it... about the same time we get around to impeachment... well, never.)
Should the People have anything to say about the revival of American Imperialism? Why should it be a subject of public debate? Go back to the debates of 1846-48, or 1898-1910, our previous imperialist expansion eras. Many high profile voices were raised in opposition to these conquests and seizures of continental and overseas territories. None of them mattered in the least. Once the decision to Imperially expand was made, nothing whatever was allowed to interfere. The USA still holds the continental territories seized from Mexico. Hawaii is a state -- regardless of the Natives. Same with Alaska. We may discuss why the Philippines and Cuba are now independent -- so to speak. But we should also discuss hegemonic plans for Cuba once Castro is gone. And recall that the American military has been operating in the Philippines to suppress Muslim rebels ever since 9/11. Conditional independence, as it were.
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Bush and the Busheviks should have been called Radicals from the get
[Read the article: The great right-wing fraud to repudiate George W. Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]-- as some of us were doing -- and they should never have been allowed to claim any -- ANY -- "conservative" cred. Ever.
But of course that didn't happen. No, they were lavished with all manner of obsequious palaver -- from the Media, first and foremost, from the monolithic Republican Party apparat, from the Democrats, for the love all that's Holy, and from most of the self-declared Lefty Blogosphere -- declaring the Radical Busheviks "Conservatives", and all their opponents "Liberals." Left wing liberals. Socialists. All of them.
It was pure foolishness.
Instead of hammering away, constantly, relentlessly, incessantly at the absolute Radicalism of the Busheviks, practically everyone adopted the notion that they were Conservative and represented Movement Conservatism.
When obviously it was never the case.
I have argued here and elsewhere that True Conservatism in this atmosphere of Bushevik Radicalism is to be found pretty much only in the ranks of Mainstream Democrats.
Well. Unfortunately, it may be too late to do anything about it.
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What SomeNYGuy said
[Read the article: The great right-wing fraud to repudiate George W. Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]@ Tuesday, June 5, 2007 02:32 PM