Letters to the Editor
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A cocktail party of Bushco Heideggers
All the self-important, water-carrying members of the punditocracy. I think they fit the bill.
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Test.
I wrote a letter that went out there into the blogosphere. I'm glad. It would have ruined any good/bad reputation I imagined I may have had...thanks.
The tree peepers are peeping.
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anwaya
Yes, it's probably unfair to be singling out old Heidegger. But the mystification of knowledge represented by all these idealist schools of philosophy, the tendency to create questions and statements that on the face of them make sense, but are really just word games -- all that seems to be a necessary part of radical right politics.
You're with us or against!
Don't you love America?
We will win, if we just have the Will.
We're fighting for Freedom.
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They use words that seem to make sense, but when you look at them, they are free of any referents.
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Peep Peep
Many folks think they're birds or insects and don't believe they're really frogs.
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A concrete question
Isn't George Bush an ontological question? If so, can ontology in this case be explained without being preceded by a bit of epistemological research?
In other words, it doesn't seem to me that the most abstract of philosophical investigations is as without referents as you claim. And yes, that would include Heidegger's.
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The Future
Yellow Dog: If we survive as a republic until February 2009, it will be by chance - and possibly the grace of a General who launches a coup.
Man. If I believed that, I'd be packing up my family and heading north.
jenniebee: Do you really think the military would forcibly remove Bush if he declared a state of emergency that extended his term of office?
Why would he DO this? To what end? I mean, he's already spent all the money.
I'll admit it's farfetched
I'm in agreement there. I remember the same sorts of "sky is falling" remarks before the 2006 election, and everything went fine.
what has happened since November 2000 that didn't seem like farfetched, paranoid imaginings right up until the time Bush did exactly what no "serious" person believed he would do?
While perhaps no one predicted just how much damage he would do, plenty of people saw many of the abuses coming (Glenn) and called them when they happened.
Frankly, my dear: He is not the one who has created the unitary executive and those who have are not going to be willing to give it all up because of some silly election.
How is he going to pay for such a take-over? This supposes a whole army of folks (mostly government employees) behind him and in cahoots on such a plan, and I say he doesn't have them. Or Superpowers.
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@David
Could you explain for us newbies why you live in the U.S. (if indeed you do) and not in Israel? Because I can't for the life of me figure out what the fuck I or any other American owes Israel for, especially considering how fucked up this country has become carrying water for Israels right-wingers.
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Our Regal President
If Stelzer's observation is accurate - that Bush feels compelled to answer to Divine Providence rather than the will of the people - then we really do have a regal president.
This is the mindset of a regent.
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Killing enough Iraqis and Iranians to create the new Soviet,er, Pro-American Man.
I wonder about a perceived God who would counsel a war for democracy in which the US Army competes with the Ba`ath and the Badr Corps for chief terrorizer of journalists and closer of radio stations and newspapers. Does Irving Kristol and Leo Strauss keep copies of the liar's gospel around or do they hear instructions in their heads too?
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Re: The Problem with the Neocons
But it's not just the neocons. WFBuckley, Jr. is not a neocon. Russell Kirk was not a neocon. The neocons are just one sector of the political right, and the one that happened to come to power at just this time in our history. WFBuckley, Jr. is just as responsible for this as Pat Buchanan and neither are neocons, but they are enablers. It might have been different had the conservative movement listened to Viereck rather than Buckley in the 50s.
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Reactionary/Vindictive
Israel has already proven that the military approach will not work.
The ideology is vindictive and reactionary and simply stupid.
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William Pfaff
For an excellent analysis of the neo-con world view, check out William Pfaff (www.williampfaff.com). He is an American journalist who has been writing about US foreign policy for over 40 years (for some years now based in Paris).
It turns out that Bush Junior is just the latest incarnation of the idea/ideology that "America is special" and therefore has a moral mandate to remake the world in its own image. Much of today's "anti-Americanism" is simply the rest of us (ie 95% of the world) saying "huh?"
Dick Cheney was recently in Australia (to thank us for our support in the GWOT) and apparently he gave instructions that his hotel room TV was to show only Fox News. Just think, an hour or so of BBC World or, Allah forbid, Al Jazeera, and the guy a heartbeat away from the button might have widened his world view an inch or two. Or not.
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To sysprog at 9:08:25
Some people think peepers are crickets and they are wrong. They have to take a "lesson" from me and "earmark" this...We can't be too sure about anything. Don't take anything I say to the faile-fraud's bank.
...Tree peepers came down to Earth from the Moon. Many Yoms ago the cricket use to sit and dangle her feet out-over from the white crescent spring night to sing. Humans' needed HELP. People still ignore the tree peepers. It's so sad. Glenn and others get ignored too. People 'stuff' cotton-wool in their ears.
...The old brain Lymphatic System, cortisol and hormone 'stuff' about 'literally,'...Literally...there are billions of neurons cells sending electronic messages to help us survive on this planet. Tree peeper frogs are the liberal version of good Polly on Earth. Don't ignore any ones help. We need more HELP than we dare admit.
...The modern brains are not adapting to neocon rule very satisfactorily. We often go "haywire"...Messages need de-coded. All the overused neurological synapses in our brain and spinal chord seem to be misfiring just like a farm mechanical contraption. It's a mysterious and not easy to diagnose what is non-unidentifiable?
...Its a phenomena we are AOL experiencing at the same moment, trapped in time and space.
...sysprog, they are tree peepers, not cricket, or down-sized non-happy tiny winged dinosaurs. Often people think this Salon just discusses the insignificant banalities of our Time. I disagree. It's a magnificent LESSON in neocon insane monkey business. Remain happy.
We are experiencing great strides in advanced physical, neurological, and evolutionary break throes. We be okay.
Ps. A money can travel 30-miles per day looking for a good honest Chiquita banana CEO. They are not to be found anywhere.
sysprog.
I earmark most of what you say. EARMARK me. In old days when the wool was 'stuffed' in the ears of politicians during Tree Peeper Time, the "liberal" sheep had a distinct 'mark' cut into the sheep's ear to identify the masters sheep. It was where the saying, "MARK MY SHEEP, or EARMARK sysprog's word. Everyone knew by the distinct marks or 'tag' on the EARMARK of the sheep ear. If the one-Lost stray sheep was from the estate of sysprog or Why? A EARMARK was a signature. sysprog.
Often a person could discern if the night clack, clack, clack sound came from a cricket, black insect, or a tree peeper. We lost touch with our billions of neurological fried-synapse which putter, misfire, and make us wish to enroll in the National Center for Clinical Infant "Lesson's" Learned Programs?
Glenn's Salon point us in the 'right direction.' >moon.