Letters to the Editor
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How to make the world love us redux
Oh, and isn't head slapping (beatings), temperature extremes, isolation, stress positions, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and rape, attack dog intimidation, genital electrocution all part of the US torture program? I invite you to differentiate the two...-- Northwestwoods
Unfortunately you've conflated Club Gitmo with the amateurs at Abu Ghraib. But you are correct, if we want the world to love us like they do Russia, we should bring back the Abu Ghraib practices. We would have to re-authorize waterboarding, real beatings like those depicted in the article, take away catered meals, and dig some dungeons. But that would all be worth it to curry favor with the majority of other countries, yes?
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Jim White
Awhile back I put up and excerpt from the ACLU's 2008 Work Plan. I can't find the full document online, but in the section discussing FISA was this concluding sentence.
If a law that includes immunity and unconstitutional basket warrants is signed, your can rest assured that ACLU lawyers will be in court challenging it as quickly as humanly possible.
Not sure how they imagine that, but there are lawsuits pending. By passing a bill with immunity and basket warrants, the Senate (ratified by the House) may scuttle those suits, but there may still be a avenue the ACLU can pursue. I've consistently read through various threads that many expect the bill to be challenged in the courts if it is signed into law. The problem, people concede, is the various courts are populated with Bush appointees.
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re: "Operation Bolivarian Freedom"
Hey Bob, you'd catch more gullible lefty's if you got a spell check. Otherwise it was pretty good.
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What's wrong with this sentence?
Hey Bob, you'd catch more gullible lefty's if you got a spell check. -- shooter242
Ya think?
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Homer
Ya think?
-- William Timberman
Doh!
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Der Untertan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSyEwZ7Zg5c
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adnoto
That was a good piece by Chris Floyd you linked at your sig. This has got to be one of the most truthful statements I've read recently.
Looked at from the outside, as an attempt at some kind of rational statecraft or coherent, competent military policy, the two wars [Afghanistan and Iraq] look like a bloody shambles: lurching from here to there with no clear purpose, entirely counterproductive, spawning more and more of the very terrorism, chaos, extremism and repression they purport to be combating.
BTW, what was up with Chris' site yesterday? Interesting graphic, but it sure wasn't Empire Burlesque.
And, I really don't think I earned [Space here for Jefferson quote that everyone is ignoring]. Actually, I did try to respond to this, and took the thread off topic in the process.
Since you're a runner, if you haven't already seen it, you might appreciate the link at my sig.
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Walter, Walter
"You've established yourself as a lying neoconservative propagandist and we know that you're selling turds. And we don't need to try one to know it's not going to taste good."
The world's biggest shit-eater speaks with authority on these things.
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@proximity
http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/12/amnesty_day/permalink/1a442ba7ea4461a7df25c8ba7188d309.html
I couldn't help but notice that you skipped right past this response on your way to the "Go Cheney Yourself" reaction.
Is it your habit to ignore reasoned and appropiate responses to your posts because they would interfere with the namecalling, overgeneralization and basic misrepresentation that constitutes the bread and butter of your contributions here?
The fact remains that when it comes to the debate over FISA, the assumption of bad faith is only rational. After all, the administration's actions taken alone, represent along string of misrepresentation, stonewalling, out and out lying (particularly when describing opposition to their plans) and the primary beneficiary of their deceit are people who have engaged in what can only be described as sadistic practices.
When human decency is being thrown under the bus, "good faith" is unlikely to be far behind.
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Ya think?
Whew, good thing I wasn't trying to perpetuate a hoax. But in the end, I should have left well enough alone to see how many fish he'd catch. Perpetrate.
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@rosiepup
For all the good that Leninism did Lenin, I'd be more than happy to recommend it to our current Realpolitikers. It more suits their egos than pixie dust, even though it isn't notably more effective.
-- William Timberman
Thank God the Democrats won control of the Senate... otherwise, think of how different everything would be. -G.Greenwald
Signature line of second to last commenter on this post election 2006 thread at Kos.
Everyone should read the diary until they understand how this works.
It's Up to US, Not to the Leadership: More on Overton Windows
(...)
Understand very clearly how this works. For the last 12 years, the GOP has been pretending to be moderate, while its rabid dogs like Ann Coulter push the discourse further and further right. The Party looks good, the base is kept happy even though it doesn't get everything it wants, and the very definition of moderate changes. Meanwhile, of course, the political temperature of the water starts to slowly boil the average American froggie, who is taken unawares.
Now, obviously, we do not want to repeat Republican tactics step by step. We don't want to drive this truck as far left as the GOP has driven it to the right. To do so would engender a Democratic defeat as decisive as the drubbing we have given the GOP this year. However, this country's discourse now stands SO far to the right that the people are ready for a change, and a major correction is now long past due.
But that correction will take TIME. It will take MONEY. It will take MANPOWER. But above all, it will take significant effort from all of US--even more effort than we get from our Leadership.
The American people are not looking for major shifts leftward in public policy right now because they have NOT been PRIMED for them. The Overton Windows are still shifted dangerously far to the right, in Fox News territory. To make major shifts right now would be political suicide. Remember that the Republicans did not attempt to destroy habeas corpus and the EPA in 1980; they waited until 2006, when the public had been appropriately primed by their think tanks. Our wait will not be so long--but a wait it will be.
The American people are not looking for recriminations against the Bush criminal regime right now, much as we may devoutly wish for them. Given fresh crimes uncovered and borne of subpoenas over a year from now, we might get them. But not now. We might even have to wait until they leave office. But please keep ultimate victory in mind: more important than seeing them locked up in the brig or even removing them from power prematurely is discrediting forever their corrupt and mendacious ideology. And that will take time.
And time is on our side. The Republican disaster of governance will not stop now; it will redound over the next two years. Iraq is still a mess. The economy is still a house of cards. Our education system is still a disaster. We're still the laughing-stock and object of scorn in the world. The people will remain as angry at Republicans now as they were at Democrats during the 80's and 90's. And we will use that to our advantage if we are PATIENT and give it some TIME.
So do not be disappointed in Pelosi's House and Reid's Senate. Hold their feet to the fire and don't allow them to triangulate, of course; but be PATIENT.
Remember that, in the overall scheme of things, it is THEIR job to be "moderate" and push no-brainer policies that the American people will approve of: raising the minimum wage, doing something coherent about immigration, giving tuition tax credits to the middle class, funding stem cell research, etc.
And it is OUR job to push the envelope for more progressive policies and shift the very terms of debate in the country--but without stabbing our own guys in the back. We're the vanguard, and they're the rearguard--intentionally. That's how it works.
So take heart--and do not be overly disappointed in our Leadership. The job of MOVING that Overton Window is up to US. The job of the Leadership is to make sure that they stand squarely in the CENTER of that Window by turning the "Popular" and the "Sensible" into "Policy", as we shift it left by turning the "Radical" and "Unthinkable" into the "Acceptable" and the "Sensible."
The HARD work falls to us to do what we must. As does the need for us to be PATIENT as the Leadership does what THEY must.
Together, we can shift this thing back to the Left--where it belongs.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/8/21054/7249
What other choice is there? Jefferson may not have agreed with Washington's and Hamilton's use of force to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, but he wasn't urging the rebels on, either.