Letters to the Editor
-
Mere citizens
or even cannon fodder, don't count. They are all endlessly absorbed in their own macabre dance with each other.
-
@Svensker
If they saw images of caskets coming home, of blown up Iraqi kids and crying mothers
This is what gets me. It really bothers me to see kids with their legs blown off from land mines, or covered in white phosphorus burns... these are just brutal weapons.
-
Questions for tiberius
1. How can a two year old child have a three year old child?
2. Can a human being really stoop so low as to let the air out of his tire just to avoid taking his child to the playground?
3. Are you hoping Bush will lower the enlistment age to four, for your child's sake?
4. Will your child ever know a happier day than when you are eventually carted off in a straitjacket?
-
SomeNYGuy, Tiberius is just raising a conservative
"The modern conservative is engaged in one man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
~ John K. Galbraith
-
Froomkin's column is up...
...and he has more heartening news (if there can be such a thing), with excerpts from and links to those who were not taken in by GWB's speech last night, some of whom actually noted the fictions.
http://washingtonpost.com/whbriefing
-
The bigger the view the bigger the problem
Religious Leaders are not speaking out against this war ....
... not to even whisper the name "Guantanamo" ...
These people should answer for their (apparent) silence.
susan sunflower
The list keeps getting bigger: government, press, corporations, now religious leaders. Are we talking about a near total breakdown of the Enlightenment based social compact?
Our society neutered the effective counterculture with money and advertisement during the 70's through the '90s. We still see the effect of this, when genuine innovation occurs on the Internet, for example, it makes it only a month or two down the road before billions of dollars and hundreds of minutes of media attention corporatizes it. Countercultures are necessary to open societies just as black markets are necessary to underdeveloped economies. The consequences are now apparent -- there is no effective force to counter the culture.
There is a reason the Chinese government is so scared of Falungong. It is a movement critical of social and governmental corruption, gestated in Buddhism and Taoism. In ancient China, rebellions were nurtured in the temples, where they had cultural, social, and legal asylum, and came suddenly streaming forth already armies, with their yellow turbans or with their red turbans, to overthrow the emperor.
When asked about our corporations helping finance the Chinese government to police its citizens with surveillance techniques and internet spying and data mining, Our government responded that: "It’s not appropriate to interfere in the private decisions of Americans to invest in legally incorporated firms." The "legally incorporated firm" in question was a thinly disguised branch of Chinese government intelligence, interested in stifling labor unrest using face and gait recognition. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/business/worldbusiness/11security.html) Besides, its a good place to test the NSA equipment for next year's executive orders.
When the social contract that binds us becomes an accessory to this much corruption, killing, torture, and poverty of mind, isn't it finally time to talk about amending it, reining in the corporations, busting up the press empires, indicting the politicians? If still no, then is it time to dissolve the ties that bind men into nations? I have no overwhelming desire to be bound to a nation of terminal greed and violence.
-
caught in the spin cycle
I think the years of amoral spin have finally caught up with the neo-cons. GG is right, they don't have a leg to stand on, but rather than join in a dialogue based on some sort of consensual reality, they are trapped in a spin cycle based on years and years of deceiving and obfuscating in the name of "our side is right." They would rather make no sense and destroy lives than have the "other side" be proven right.
-
"...but at least 30,000 American's and their families got some good news."
Yeah... maybe. (I was born in Missouri.)
Still, another 130,000 Americans and their families got a preview of some pretty bad news.
-
I heard this before but forgot all about it...
"The modern conservative is engaged in one man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
~ John K. Galbraith
-- Jim Montague
Generalizations are tricky, but this one seems more true to me as time goes on. I would have argued against it some time back, and I think some rubes are just taken in by the PR, but the conservative big wigs? This is exactly what they do. That's why they hate every program that helps the poor. This also dovetails with the point I was making yesterday (rather heavy handedly) that religious conservative use their religion as a shield for their of hate others and their basic selfishness. They completely ignore the message of Christ, who was a hippie after all.
-
...about raising conservatives...
It doesn't always work out according to a parent's plans... just consider the late, great, and much-missed Molly Ivins.
-
just curious
5000 troops home by Christmas, 30000 out by July 2008? Isn't that... you know... a timetable? Won't that embolden (or emboss, or italicize, or something) the enemy?
-
Finger in the Dike, yeah right!
They all have their collective finger in the dike of alleged, catastrophic disaster, but none of them will admit that there is no water on the other side of the dam. It's all a huge, false claim of impending doom, in an attempt to avoid the obvious point that GG makes...they all lost their pants in the rush to war!
I remember when the USSR, whom we were repeatedly told would blow us to smithereens, simply evaporated, just like the great communist threat in Vietnam and the Berlin Wall...things can just slip into meaninglessness. So this big story of impending disaster is a huge excuse for their pushing an unjust war. Watching them all squirm is making me uncomfortable. O'Hanlon was pathetic on last night's TV broadcasts, and McCain and Lieberman are completely unhinged.
cliff
-
Interests (#1)
Mr. Bush:
"And we are ready to begin building that relationship – in a way that protects our interests in the region and requires many fewer American troops."
This did not make any sense to me or my wife. What interests do we the people of the US of A have in Iraq that need protecting? Is this some sort of republican code language?