Letters to the Editor
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Slander?
you've slandered me from pillar to post
I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't slander have to be untrue?
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The Republicans And The Media Whores Are The Enemies of The Nation
The Republicans depend on lies and innuendo because they can't win a fair fight on the merits.
It's as simple as that. Petraeus lied to the American people and allowed himself to be used as a propaganda tool. In so doing, he showed where his true loyalties lie -- with Bush and the Republican party, not the country.
If Moveon's truthful ad is a scandal, then how much more of a scandal does that make Ledeen's dishonest and cowardly attack on General Abizaid?
And where are the media whores wondering how this will hurt the Republicans? Oh, that's right: as far as the media whores are concerned, nothing ever hurts the Republicans -- at least not if the media whores have anything to do about it (which they unfortunately do).
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typical
I've noticed this for at least 30 years. The right-wing in this country *never* says what it means. Because people of that pursuasion know full well that most Americans do not share their views. The Right has, mostly, been extremely careful to camouflage its views, except when preaching to the choir (O'Reilly and Limbaugh and Malkin and Coulter are good examples of the latter. They preach to their choir, so they seldom hide anything).
But guys like Ledeen...he knows perfectly well that he'd be hung on his own petard if he made his views explicit. If he was completely candid in a truly public forum about his agenda.
Authoritarians are always this way. In every country. In every time. They know they're in the minority. They know their views are mostly unwelcome. So they hide those views until they get power. And sometimes they hide their views even then, knowing the delicate line they must walk.
I suspect the American Right is getting a bit restive. More people are seeing them, however vaguely, for what they are. Make's 'em nervous, I expect.
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that they have been "at war with us since 1979.
Devalued meaning:
There was a time when the phrase "at war" actually had a meaning. Unfortunately ever since some clever soul coined the phrase "cold war", the meaning of the word has been draining out of it until it now means little more than "permission" as in permission to kidnap, permission to torture, permission to kill indiscriminantly. All of which were granted because some students took hostages in 1979?
Say it ain't so!
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Not a crime: a blunder
Ledeen did answer your question. Selling arms to Iran was worse than a crime (which would require intent), it was a blunder. They meant to sell arms to Iraq, but they screwed up, and by the time they realized their mistake, they'd lost the receipt.
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I think the question can be reasonably asked
Does Glenn Greenwald hate America, or merely our fighting men and women defending our freedom?
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Holding Ladeen's Feet to the Fire
Glenn,
I applaud your tenacity on this issue. I think it wise to sound a steady drumbeat regarding Ladeen's definition of the realtionship between Iran and the United States. Too often we see the right-wing propaganda machine wriggle out of these scrapes because we simply lose the steam to keep at them.
The ramifications for allowing his mendaciousness to continue are profound, as he will have rediscovered that sure-fire method of controlling the present - rewriting the past. This allows great latitude to do anything, say anything, be anything, because the possible accountability simply disappears. We will have completely moved into Orwell's world. If he is allowed to rewrite history so drastically, than we might as well close up shop and wait for the rest of our freedoms to be shredded and burned.
His unwillingness to even respond to your queries is a sign of how close you are to hitting the mark. Keep at it.
How can he possibly say he is a patriot if he is willing to casually torture history itself? I always thought that America was supposed to set the best possible example. I think I remember the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution hinting at notions like that.
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to camouflage its views.
Actually even Coulter and Malkin camoflage their views.
The refer to "illegals" when the actually mean "wetbacks". They referto "Islamofascists" when they actually mean "ragheads". Don't worry though, their readers render the translation effortlessly.
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Hey,
that's what the AM radio is for.
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It IS astounding that the Right's agenda...
is so vile that they have to lie about it. It was not always so, but has been for some time. The Cons are really lucky that they control the beltway media, or they could not get away with it. Might be starting to change and they are scared shitless.
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Next time you have ML on the line
ask him if he is willing to consider the possibility that we've actually been at war with Iran since 1956, when we conspired to overthrow their democratically-elected government and replace it with a pro-US fascist puppet?
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George Lakoff on Metonymy...
From the Huffington Post, some excerpts: [Posted September 20, 2007]
The US Senate will make linguistics history today. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell actually brought to the floor a bill based on a linguistic trope called "metonymy." The bill also makes history by trying to censure an ad. But the most "damning" part of the censure is not what is in the ad, but what is in the heads of people who use the metonymy trope.
Here's an example of how metonymy works. It is a mental operation. If you say, "The US invasion toppled Saddam Hussein," you mean it toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. The Leader stands for the Institution he or she leads. In a frame containing both a leader of a government and the government, the Leader can stand for the Government.
This metonymy works for generals as well. A general in uniform reporting to Congress can be seen simply as himself. But if you use the Leader-for-Institution metonymy, you can see the general as standing for the entire armed forces. Thus, an attack on the general can be seen, if you use the metonymy, as an attack on the entire military. The use of the metonymy isn't automatic in this case. People can use it or not. If not, an attack on the general is just an attack on the general.
The Republicans' own use of this metonymy is coming up in the Senate today. It is in a Republican bill to censure the use of the metonymy -- by the Republicans themselves!
[snip]
Now the scene moves to the US Senate. Senator John Cornyn of Texas has introduced a bill saying the following:To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Forces-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces.
It goes on to condemn MoveOn as the source of the "attacks." Now how did "and all the members of the United States Armed Forces" get in there? By metonymy! A metonymy used not by MoveOn, but by Senator Cornyn himself! The bill is actually condemning the people who wrote and introduced it, Cornyn and Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.