Letters to the Editor
-
the only thing missing...
in those photos is one of the Kagans leaning against a Hummer...
-
RMP @ Leave
RMP, I'll gladly defer to you on that.
-
Innumeracy
When I first heard of the concept of "innumeracy", it sounded like a snotty little math-teacher neologism.
But it seems like every day I see people who literally cannot compare two big numbers, who cannot make estimates, who do not understand compound interest, who do not understand how basic accounting works.
It is not hard to get a calculator and make some quick estimates about something like tracking troop numbers, but if you don't even know where to start, you are at a loss and will believe anything some politician says.
The issue is, to me, most clearly demonstrated in the pernicious and seemingly immortal trope that "Democrats raise taxes" and "Republicans lower taxes".
If the government needs $1 for the budget, they can tax the dollar, or borrow it. If they borrow it, it will have to be paid back with say, $1.06 (the six cents are the interest) in taxes next year. Or, you could cut the budget item and tax $0.
The second option is a higher tax, and this is the option that Republicans have universally chosen since 2000.
Now, if Republicans really cut the budget instead of growing it to record levels, their "tax cuts" would really be tax cuts. But instead, we have been saddled with an enormous tax burden that will drag on our economy for years.
Many liberals are concerned that Republicans only "cut" taxes on the wealthy, but even the wealthy are getting screwed: the Republicans have borrowed SO much money at this point that I suspect the effective tax burdens on corporations and the wealthy are climbing overall, even if at a lesser rate than the poor's.
Republicans have taken advantage of the public's misunderstanding for years now, it's completely dishonest and an incredibly stupid way to run a budget, besides. It's going to bite us all.
-
The Hypocrisy of Neocon Warriors
Glenn, another tremendous job in exposing these shameless people and their culture of death. One of the ironies about their success in driving so much of the mainstream media narrative is the fact that, in reality, these are the kind of people that most mainstream talking heads profess to hold in contempt - Ivy League educated armchair warriors, elitists, hypocrites, empty suits. You know, not the kind of people you'd want to have a beer with. Interesting how they, along with our president and vice president (and most of their inner sanctum) get a free pass through the John Wayne cultural landscape in which we all still live.
-
Dammit!
Correction:
Where I wrote:
our Congress has already squandered nine times the [national budget] on pork alone
that's wrong. I don't know where my brain was, thinking about too many things at once.
I meant to say:
our Congress has already squandered nine times the [cost of the Iraq War] on pork alone
Yeesh, that's what you get for composing posts in pieces with copy/paste.
-
Perilous straits, eh?
"You're supposed to back your own troops against a river so they have no escape and will redouble their efforts to fight."
As I recall, the Germans backed up all the way to Berlin from 2 directions, across more than one river.... and then lost.
-
I'll Just Be Honest Instead
I guess I could take the time to write an insightful, scathing letter filed with rapier wit and near-fatal sarcasm. but I don't really think that the Kagan family are worth it. I'll just give you the AM talk-show version: Pasty-faced, candy-assed chickenhawk back-entance whores who would faint if they had to carry a basic combat load across the street. Fuck them and the guttersheets that print their self-serving smut. I'm a bit of a first-amendment and anti-death penalty absolutist, but this kind of bottom-dwelling scum really gets up my nose and makes me question my beliefs.
Whew! Sometimes reasoned debate and comment just have to bow to honesty.
-
Pictures worth 1000 words
It's been great that GG has started posting photos with his blogs - you get to see that the Kagans look as loathsome as their writings are.
-
The Kagans and their ilk . . .
During and before World War II they used to be called "patrioteers", which the dumber ones at sites like Hannity.com are still happy to answer to.
Webster's defined it as "An ostentatiously and volubly patriotic person who makes a career of patriotism for his own benefit".
-
Thanks for the help
My daughter is working on a PhD. in psychology. She has a field day with Glenn Greenwald's columns. So many seething insecurities bubbling just below the surface. Classic passive-aggressive behavior. She might finish early at this rate!
-
Ridiculing Kagans' physical appearance
Is in the same vein as these cartoons:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/sturmer.htm
-
@Quillian the Elder
My daughter is working on a PhD. in psychology. She has a field day with Glenn Greenwald's columns. So many seething insecurities bubbling just below the surface. Classic passive-aggressive behavior. She might finish early at this rate!
No passive-aggressiveness in THAT comment, boy...
-
Cheap shots at those who deserve it are fine, but don't obsess about the physical characteristics thing
I've known plenty of people in various anti-war movements who were pale, or overweight, or who couldn't run miles or look tough on a movie about war. Yet the amount of courage they possessed inside made them seem larger, and braver, and stronger than might have seemed from their outward appearance.
Similarly, knowing how evil these right wing twits are colors how they look to me. Our view of how people look is often passed through a filter we have of who they are inside. Look at how deranged the right wing got over John Kerry's 'long' face.
While I encourage every opportunity to brutally mock these cowardly warhawks at every turn -- and sure, this includes putting up photos of the cowardly, non-serving war-mongers who relish the battlefield horrors to be inflicted on others -- I would suggest that we not get too wrapped up in such an analysis until you've got some weird, nearly totalitarian theory of how their physical appearance determines their philosophy.
Unless you're doing some individual's actual biography and it turns out that their personal physical weakness and fearfulness really does seem to manifest as a maniacal public commitment to warfaring by others.