Letters to the Editor
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Bravo Mr. Olbermann
Thank you for your reasonable, eloquent, and quite correct piece.
It is past time for someone to really get down to it about "king george".
Thanks very very much.
ndiman
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Thanks -- xititjur99 for the ref. And Mr. Olbermann,
you do resonate, big time. Bless you and Coulter and Greenwald and so many dedicated people, the internet, we all just want to know the truth as we can sort it. Chomsky made the point that Americans were more effectively propagandized then the Soviets. In the seventies. Just look how smooth that road was up to here. The internet is the birth place of deviation; the empowering of an individual through dialog and choice. Citizens who question and care, no matter how they judge it. There's definitely art in all this.
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Olberman's j'accuse
To Keith Olberman:
Excellent and provocative. Unfortunately, what you ask for is unlikely to happen. The only way that it could even possibly happen is if Congress were to exert serious, genuine pressure, as they did with Richard Nixon – that pressure was the cause of his decision to resign - and we have repeatedly seen the strength of this Congress’s backbone and integrity.
Regarding Nixon: I disagree with you that Nixon was acting out of some remnant of patriotic feeling for the well-being of the country. He was clearly acting, to the end, out of self-interest and self-protection. I further disagree with any of the historians who consider Gerald Ford some kind of hero for “sparing the country” the “agony” of an impeachment. An impeachment, like any legitimate act for justice and the law, may be wrenching, but is just as likely to be purgative and cathartic.
To those Bush-Cheny lovers who respond to any criticism of them by citing Clinton’s failings: Believe it or not, it is entirely possible to dislike and disapprove of BOTH Clinton and Bush. Not everything is either-or. And didn’t you ever learn that “two wrongs do not make a right”? Under your logic, because Clinton acted badly, Bush should be permitted to act badly. Nonsense. Clinton is the center of a cult of personality and those who adore him seem happy to throw themselves, their devotion and their dollars at him – no matter the damage he did to the country and to the once-worthy Democratic party. NAFTA, Lewinski (et al.), those pardons, the phony “black president” ruse…all of the flim-flam that Clinton dragged us all through (and promises to continue in the next few years) – that’s what the Clintons gave us. They hijacked the Democratic party and made it into a mirror image of the Republican party and in so doing, reaped the millions of dollars they enjoy. Senator Clinton has SUPPORTED Bush-Cheny in everything they have done, in the place where it counts, not in her rhetoric, but in her Senate votes!
Bush-Cheny-Rove & Co. have so perverted and debased this country’s fundamental “essence” that one wonders if we can recover from them. The list of their wrong-doings is so long and so egregious, from minor to major, that it would take too much space here to review. Suffice it to say that the concept of impeachment was invented for such as these. That Nancy Pelosi assumed the position of Speaker while almost simultaneously saying that there would be no impeachment proceedings emanating from Congress told everyone exactly what kind of political system we now have and it’s not made of the same stuff that we commemorate and celebrate every July 4th.
Final comment: Mr. Olberman, you rightly said that the Bush abrogations of Constitutional protections were designed to “stifle dissent”. Sadly, it seems to have been entirely unnecessary. Where is the dissent? Where has been the dissent? Self-interest seems to know no boundaries; we can see now that the dissent of the 1960’s had as much to do with the draft as with the wrong-ness of the war and Nixon. The draft and the self-interest in avoiding it. Now, with no draft, citizens seem to care little what this president and his courtiers do.
We saw on TV yesterday, some “public service” ads that were attempting to link July 4th celebrations with the “support the troops” attitude and with Bush war-making. I actually heard the baseball announcers for the St. Louis Cardinals game on the 4th thanking "the troops" because "they make it possible for us to to able to play baseball." What?? More hijacking and revising of our history for Bush-Cheny! July 4th used to be called “Independence Day” and for exactly the reasons that Mr. Olberman detailed. It was a revolution and it was very, very hard won. People today don’t seem to be made of the same stuff as people then. We can be grateful for the intellects, the vision, and the courage of the country’s founders and we can be grateful that they were not of the ilk that we have today. Read the Declaration of Independence and see how many of the charges against King George could be made today against Presidents George and Dick. If the leaders are so much less laudable today, then does it follow that the citizenry is also less laudable?
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Finally, "I accuse, I accuse" is recognized
Keith's "I accuse" riff comes directly from the famous open letter hadlined "J’accuse!" by Émile Zola in the Dreyfus Affair.
See the end of this famous rant:
http://www.chameleon-translations.com/sample-Zola.shtml
Here's context for the letter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_Affair
What I love most about Keith's special comments is his awareness of history. He knows his stuff.
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Belief
Is there anyone who ever remembers changing their mind from the paint on a sign? Is there anyone who really recalls ever breaking rank at all for something someone yelled real loud one time?
Everyone believes in how they think it ought to be.
Everyone believes and they're not going easily.
Belief is a beautiful armor but makes for the heaviest sword. Like punching under water, you never can hit who you're trying for.
Some need the exhibition and some have to know they tried.
It's the chemical weapon for the war that's raging on inside.
Everyone believes - from emptiness to everything.
Everyone believes, and no one's going quietly.
We're never gonna win the world, we're never gonna stop the war, we're never gonna beat this if belief is what we're fighting for.
What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand?
Belief can.
What puts the folded flag inside his mother's hand?
Belief can.