Letters to the Editor
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Ayach
I have to ask; how many people are imprisoned in Canada as a result of these laws?
Given that the incarceration rate in Canada is about one seventh what it is in the USA I would have to guess that the number is either zero or very close to zero.
Compare and contrast with the United States, where we have literally hundreds of thousands of people locked in cages for the "crime" of possessing a common weed.--Ayach
And that, Ayach is how you try to deceive. It is abundantly clear.
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Aych
Yeah- the experience with the great hypocrisy of the GOP and "Conservatives" since Bush has caused me to re-examine a great number of things- the Cold War being one of them. I now see that "conflict" as primarily a giant scam. In fact- I see the post WWII "Right" to be one giant great scam as well. It started out with William F Buckley defending the MIC- and it has alwasy been about that since- with a thin veneer of rhetoric that they never deliver on about "small government".
It took me a while to see that the warfare and the welfare Mega State of DC are intertwined- and to see how the two parties keep both entrenched- and how their "partisanship" is almost entirely an act.
I also no longer reject anything merely because of the source as I used to. I wouldn't read "The Nation" because it was "left wing" and thus couldn't be trusted. I wouldn't read "Left Wing" historians on the Cold War because they were "Communists". I now read everything and take into account the "ism" of the author in judging its merits and veracity but I don't reject other perspectives out of hand.
In debating reich wingers- they simply refuse to believe anything or even consider anything that isn't from one of their own- that hasn't passed some ideological test first. ANd this is also common on the Left as well. It pretty much means that unless their own side admits to being criminals- they will never believe they are. And since no one ever says they themselves are criminals- that is never. What would it take for your standard reich winger to see Bush as a criminal? Nothing less than Bush admitting so on Live TeeVee with his hand on a Bible and a DNA blood test afterward to prove it was him who said it- and not a "librul" body double.
The biggest problem in our culture is that "truth" isn't objective. It is subjective. Truth is what your "ism" calls for. One side will advance one idiotic petty illogical arugment one day to defend their sides' wrong doing and the next day they will bemoan the use of the same idiotic petty illogical argument by the other side to defend their guy. No one is consistent.
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Peas in a Pod
Chris, I respect your breaking out of the righty pack, but I think that the way you lump all liberals together is a little misguided. The only reasons liberals defended Clinton is because he needed it. No president ever faced such an onslaught as he did. And I think you should give liberals a little credit; none of us have ever been such mindless followers as say, the recent Republican congress.
I would have to echo Will Rogers, when he said, "I'm not a member of an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." It's still true.
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@rollotomasi - re: Odom's Warning
I'd bet some in the active command, supported by respected retired officers, have a good sense of where to go with this.
It would seem likely they have their own brief.
I'm pulling for them not to let it stand as is.
It would be a very unusual challenge, but the military has been abused, no question.
It sounds old fashioned, but it is, in the end, a question of honor.
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TO: Associative Individualist. CC: Glenn Greenwald and Cocktailhag
NB: The “CNN John King Responds thread is closed, so I have to post this response to Associative Individualist here. It relates to the topic of journalism anyway.
Associative Individualist asked: “Why are you having trouble with the obviously valid point that any "proof" of the existence of any such non-adulatory questions is clearly King's and/or CNN management's responsibility, not Glenn's?”
Because they are Glenn’s claims, so he has to prove it. They are not King’s or CNN’s claims. That’s obvious, isn’t it? I’ll make it as clear as possible by asking the question and answering it, and if you come up with a different answer then you have to prove it.
QUESTION: Did Glenn claim that King only asked those four questions, or did King and CNN claim it?
ANSWER: Glenn claimed it.
Therefore, Glenn has to prove his own claim. CNN’s aired segment doesn’t prove it, because of the obvious likelihood of editing.
Title of Glenn’s original post: “McCain spokesman John King of CNN”
From this we see that Glenn’s focus is on John King’s motivation, and Glenn was trying to prove that King’s motivation was to aid McCain. So that’s what Glenn set out to prove. Glenn was focussing on King and his interview, not CNN and its segment.
Relevant statements by Glenn:
1. “CNN reporter John King had the opportunity to interview GOP presidential candidate John McCain last night on McCain's press bus, and these are all of the "questions" he asked…”
2. “…That was the whole interview -- all four questions.”
From this we see that Glenn was claiming that King’s interview was weak on the grounds that:
1. The questions (that were shown on CNN) were bad.
2. Important questions were not asked in the interview.
Glenn proved that the questions shown on CNN were bad, but he didn’t prove that those were the only questions in King’s interview.
Part of the weight of Glenn’s argument came from the claim that King asked only those four questions. Glenn repeated that claim twice (see quotes above) in his brief analysis in order to support his premise that King did not apply any pressure in the interview.
The onus is on Glenn to prove his own claim that important questions were not asked in the interview. If you make a claim, you’ve got to prove it. Glenn made the claim, so he’s got to prove it. That’s how these things work. Sure, King or CNN could attempt to disprove it, but the onus isn’t on them to do so. The onus is on Glenn to prove his own claims in his own argument. That’s what a good journalist would do.
Re: “...had you previously written something about receiving a check from the Australian government that she could have been referring to?”
No. Cocktailhag was just airing her delusional projections in public.
BTW, there was no need to apologise. I was just asking if you were in the “us vs them” mode i.e. Team Greenwald vs Team MSM. That “us vs them” mentality blinds us to the weaknesses of our own side and the strengths of the other side.