Letters to the Editor
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Ok so you win
George Bush's administration is the only one in the history of recorded time since ever was, since mankind dropped from the trees to ever act craven. Everyone else, everywhere and since forever and ever were blessed with unicorn munificence, grace and purity. In fact the word 'politics' didn't even exist until around the year 2001 or so. We were all ageless immortals living in the Garden of Eden till then.
Thanks for clearing that up. And please feel free to carve out another 2500 word epistle on how much I suck, again. I can just picture your ink stained fingers banging sweaty over the keyboard for endless hours to slay the dragon as your blood pressure rises and rises.
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It's really simple..
If Shooter is doing good, the economy is doing good.
Shooter, you ain't in the top 1 or 2%. You ain't even in the top 5 or 10%. When the crunch comes, you will feel the pinch like everyone else not in the top 5%.
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Yes, Mrs. Fat Lady
"Ok so you win"
You can stop right there. You've said all that needs to be said. And you can't carry a tune anyway.
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Yes and this takes us full circle
Salon, and so much of other like it, are just blogs with people standing around screaming and backslapping one another about how wonderful they agree each other is. We wish you well with that. I can suggest that the people here who autonomic yawp that of course, America is the same thing as Nazi Germany and anyone to the right of Eugene Debs is an enemy of the state, get it wrong. Badly wrong. But, this is the internet, so no harm no foul. Please continue.
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Still not getting the point
"George Bush's administration is the only one in the history of recorded time since ever was, since mankind dropped from the trees to ever act craven."
Still don't get it, do you? Or just wilfully ignoring what's really the point?
"Someone else did it first!" is not an excuse for it to happen now.
As Glenn is fond of saying, "Do you really not see that?"
No kings,
Robert
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Neocons' rejection of the rule of law extends to the personal level
Since waterboarding isn't torture but is just a pleasant aquatic exercise, I would like to list some of the people I would like to have this enjoyable experience. They are Cheney, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, the boot licking generals, and all the evil neocons and their supporters.
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Clue-less-ness: (n). Continuing a sad song after everyone has left the building....
... and "damning with faint praise":
[L.W.M.]: And some say Glenn Greenwald's trolls are the classiest on the internet.
[shooter042]: I had no idea we were the subject of discussion elsewhere in the blogosphere, but I for one will accept the compliment.
I'd note also the classic snip out of context. "Shooter" hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Which accounts for his other post on how rosy everything is. Damn fool doesn't even know he is singing a sad song.
Cheers,
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Neocons don't believe in democracy
My mom, herself a brilliant constitutional attorney (who died at far too young an age), would spend 15 to 30 minutes every night with us kids talking about some clause of the Constitution. This practice started before we could read and continued through high school. She believed that she had an obligation to make us understand the fragility of our Constitutional system and the various threats to it. While a staunch Republican, she focused on the dangers of extreme belief to our Constitutional system whether on the left or the right. To her, the danger of the left was obvious -- the further left one moves, the greater the necessity that the government redistribute wealth. The more the government redistributes wealth, the more powerful it and the people who run it become. When the government redistributes all wealth, no check on government power exists. And all power residing in one place is always very bad to civil liberties and democracy. On the right, she would explain, a tendency exists for those in power to believe that they are smarter than the general population that they have THE solutions and can run the country better and more efficiently. Democracy gets in the way of efficient decision making -- thus the less democracy, the better. Democracy just gets in the way of efficiency and a better country. Consequently, power concentrated in the far right become just as dangerous to a free and democratic society as a government that collects and redistributes all wealth. Growing up, I never really understood the argument -- how could people at the far right ever believe that democracy is bad for society? Had she lived, I have no doubt that my mother would agree with every word of this article and would no longer identify herself as a Republican. The danger of the current neocon movement to democracy in this country is evident. Few perceive the threat, and even fewer perceive it as real. Kudos to Glenn for voicing the thoughts of those few of us who do recognize and worry about the threat, but don't have the words, time or energy to do anything about it.
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Michael Harold
My (poet) hero.
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Is not exceptional elitism of the governing one of their guru, Leo Strauss' premises
I am certainly not a Leo Strauss expert but I understood that he advocated a notion that the people could not govern themselves but required an elite who were exception and who would decide and govern as they knew best.
The people should, if need be, fed notions of democracy and even of religion so that the leaders in their infinite wisdom could act in their (supposedly the people) best interests.
I wonder at his being considered the neo con philosopher since he interpreted his ideas through a revision of Platonic thinking. Now that's conservative!
I don't think the likes of Pearle, Kristol, Frum and other desciples can even consider questioning their acts and those of their gang since they are de facto the elite and therefor the best to lead any society.
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Shorter RealName:
"Hitler was worse."
That really is his entire point, I wasn't kidding.
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Your point is what?
Tyrants and dictators are sort of as bad as the entirety of American history but that's ok because we get to wear their t-shirts and throws rocks through the windows at Starbucks.
You need not Godwin everything. You need only point to the Heroes of the Left and the mucked up countries they own and operate. Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Columbia and Cuba are either at or near or heading toward the bottom of economic development in the continent. South Africa has negative population and economic growth now and yet its rulers hold up Zimbabwe, Burma, North Korea, Syria and Iran as their models and friendly partner states. I don't know if you read the newspapers much but ZA, Syria, and Zimbabwe are not what I would call rule-of-law kinds of places. Well sort of they are, as long as the law is the law of the leader, whatever he happens to decree. And while I suppose it's convenient foil for you tapping away at Salon.con to openly cheer the sacrifices those miserables have made in order to, what? Score rhetorical points against the US? I wonder if my leftist well wishers would entertain seriously the notion that those places are horrible. Truly horrible to live in. At least from the reference point of the people tapping away at Salon.com.
I'll give you a personal anecdote. A few years ago in West Africa a European company was installing a cheap labor textile plant. This would require about 2000 people initially. People who at that time were either farmers or small merchants or did whatever they could to eek out. At one point the usual suspects from the western NGO's swooped in to protest and 'educate' the locals about the evils of globalization. About how evil it was to work for 85 cents a day at a sewing machine. I can't remember anyone who listened to them because it represented for many of them, the first time in their lives they had a little money in their hands. They could buy things instead of slaving in the bush all day with coffee plants and such. So while it's a noble posture to stand on your box and scream about how the west is evil and there's no difference between the US and the Heart of Darkness it would behoove some of you to actually experience that.