Letters to the Editor
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Believe it or not,
KD, it's my name. You can't help what you're born with, can you? Well, not unless you're John Wayne or Jay Gatsby. What my name sounds like, or calls to mind, isn't something which concerns me overmuch.
You claim to be a classical liberal. You sound more like he who is not to be contradicted, which is an odd persona for any liberal, classical or otherwise, to adopt. Paul R. has you, I'm afraid. Disdain for those not of your class, as God gives you to see your class, just about sums it up.
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Timberman!
I like the name. No disrespect to the name intended.
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Let’s all try to keep our eye on the ball.
Glenn, as usual, has done an excellent job of pointing out and illuminating the pathetic condition of the MSM today. I understand that it’s tempting to think “that’s just the way it is, and we should just be satisfied with saying, attaboy Glenn!”
With the current state of the nation, as “extraordinarily rendered” by this administration, no resource potentially available to assist in effecting its release should be discounted. Until relatively recent history, the MSM had fulfilled a useful role in maintaining some perspective despite the Beltway spin/propaganda machine. We should not now assume that all media and journalism practitioners are beyond redemption. Bill Moyer’s recent piece on the unnoticed role of McClatchy/Knight-Ridder in the run-up to this war is proof that not all is lost yet. I assume that is at least partially what motivates Glenn Greenwald to continue putting a focus on the failures in journalistic integrity that are arguably the accepted standard today. He doesn’t stop at pointing out these failures. He has demonstrated a willingness to confront these matters with the practitioners of the “profession”.
I don’t think it’s helpful to turn the thread into sidebar issues such as the merits of Libertarianism or whether the FDA is sufficiently useful in preventing death or harm to the powerless. Rather, we should be trying to provide any assistance we can in an effort to salvage what heretofore has been a respected and necessary component in the prevention of abuse by our elected officials.
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Once You Crack The kdwmson Code, It Just Keeps Getting Clearer, and Clearer!
kdwmson:
There's a tendency among libertarians, liberals, and communists to say that "real libertarianism" or "real x" or "real y" has never been tried and therefore can't be criticized. I think that is basically bunk.
What's basically bunk is that one of these does not belong. And the one is liberalism. Of course there are plenty of cases where liberal ideas have been watered down, or poorly applied. There are also plenty of cases where liberals were too timid, and needed serious prodding--as FDR did on race from Eleanor and others more radical.
But the locution that "real liberalism has never been tried" is one that I, for one, have never heard in all my born days. And the reason for that it pretty simple: everyone knows that liberalism is not the same sort of rigid, idelogical construct as communism, libertarianism, or "conservatism" in the mind of movement conservatives. And so, when you see kdwmson toss "liberalism" into that mix, you just know that whole purpose of concocting it in the first place is to smear liberalism through false association.
And here he goes:
There's a tendency among progressives to create ever-more-elaborate conspiracy theories (Halliburton, Fox News, voting machines) to explain away the basic failure of progressivism to achieve anything more inspiring than a massively dysfunctional welfare state.
So many lies, so little time! First off, liberals have achieved far more than kdwmson lets on, starting with the creation of the modern American middle class, putting a man on the Moon, ending racial segregation, ending the legal subjugation of women, producing dramatic enviornmental improvements, effectively decriminalizing homosexuality, and moving a long way toward the still-distant, but clearly attainable goal of full equality for gays and lesbians, and oh, yes, creating a welfare state that--although significantly smaller than its European counterparts--still manages to keep tens of millions of people (mostly children and the elderlyh) from living in abject poverty.
Second, the "conspiracy theories" kdwmson cites are not conspiracy theories at all. Conspiracy theories are the specialty of the right, with two classic tributaries--classical anti-Semitism (dating back to the First Millenium) and secret society conspiracism (dating back to the end of the Crusades). The modern forms date from the nation-building of 19th Century conservative regimes, casting the Jews as cosmopolitan outsiders, and the French reacationaries blaming the French Revolution on the "Bavarian Illuminati." The characteristic of such conspiracy theories is that they seek to blame a small but all-powerful hidden cabal for nefariously thwarting the good-hearted efforts of the people, and their organic leaders. The most compelling evidence for such conspiracies is their cleverness in hiding all evidence of their existence--except, of course, for those who know how to read "the signs."
Such conspiricism runs throuhgout the history of the Amrican right, throughout the nativist movements of the 19th Century, into the Red Scares of the the 20th Century, and "new world order" conspiracism of the late Cold War and post-Cold War era.
In contrast, the "conspiracy theories" that kdwmson alludes to are completely different. They are quite specific, reality-based accounts of malfeasance. People went to jail for what happened with Enron, and others could well go to jail from Halliburton. Folks have already gone to jail for election tampering--in Ohio, sentences for 2004 recount shenanigans just came down a couple of months ago. And as for Fox--well, their propaganda is documented online on a daily basis. The evidence is embarrassing in its quantity.
Time, however, runs short. So dissecting the rest of this message is left as an exercise for the reader. Suffice it to say, kdwmson's mask of reason has slipped entirely off his face, and his drool is starting to follow.
Thanks again to jojo++ for really getting the ball rolling on this one!
Ooops. Just can't resist:
On the other hand, classical liberalism is modest in its ambitions; it makes promises it can keep.
Not so much. Read you some Dickens, boy!