Letters to the Editor
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Huckabee put Ari in his place.
For a Fundie, it's entirely necessary to address anyone with name on the Jewy side of Jewishness with skepticism.
Radical Cleric Mike Huckabee did just that.
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@Jerry Dumpf
Neither you, Shooter or Elephantman would be executed by Che.
You can't have everything, and no one wants a repeat of the French Revolution, anyway.
As a young man studying medicine, Guevara travelled roughrough[›] throughout South America (by motorcycle, boat, horse, and hitchhiking) [5], bringing him into direct contact with the impoverished conditions in which many people (particularly the indigenous peasantry [6] and some lepers [7]) lived. His experiences and observations during these trips led him to the conclusion that the region's socio-economic inequalities were a result of capitalism [8], colonialism [9], neo-colonialism [10], and imperialism [11] and thus could only be remedied by socialism through revolution; prompting him to intensify his study of Marxism and travel to Guatemala to learn about the reforms being implemented there by President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. Arbenz's eventual overthrow in 1954, with help of the CIA in Operation PBSUCCESS [12][13], partially at the behest of the United Fruit Company[14], would radically revolutionize the young Ernesto. [15]
Later while in Mexico in 1956, Guevara joined Fidel Castro's revolutionary 26th of July Movement, which fought a guerrilla war [16] and ultimately seized power from the regime of the U.S. supported [17][18] Cuban dictator [19] General Fulgencio Batista in 1959. For a few months after the success of the revolution, Guevara was assigned the role of "supreme prosecutor", as understood under revolutionary theory, overseeing the public "revolutionary tribunals" [20] and executions of between 55 [21] and a few hundred suspected war criminals associated with the previous regime. [22] For his part Jon Lee Anderson author of the biography 'Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life' [23] has stated that: "Those persons executed by Guevara or on his orders were condemned for the usual crimes punishable by death at times of war or in its aftermath: desertion, treason, rape, torture, or murder." [24]
(...)
He was appointed commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, and during his five-month tenure in that post (January 2 through June 12, 1959),[63] he oversaw the trial and execution of many people, among whom were former Batista regime officials and members of the "Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities" (BRAC), a unit of the secret police known by its Spanish acronym. José Vilasuso, an attorney who worked under Guevara at La Cabaña preparing indictments, said that these were lawless proceedings where "the facts were judged without any consideration to general juridical principles" and the findings were pre-determined by Guevara.[64][65] It is estimated that between 156[66] and 550[67] people were executed on Guevara's extra-judicial orders during this time.[68] Of note, Che biographer Jon Lee Anderson has contended that through his five years of research that he was "unable to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed an innocent." [69]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara
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It would be more worrisome....
... if they wingers didn't attack him. Eh?
Though, for me, "going over the heads of the MSM directly to the people" would mean taking Social Security privatization back off the table (put there in Iowa, and please don't tell me to go check the website), and commit explicitly to Universal Health Care as a principle, which both our famously free press and our "creative class" seems perfectly happy to let him back off from.
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Thank God for Glenn Greenwald
Those of us who understand what a sewer the news media has become would go completely insane were it not for the insights of the very few REAL journalists, such as Greenwald, who dare to speak the truth.
Thank you, Salon, for continuing to publish his very important work.
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Poor Rush
He must be at quite a crossroads right now.
It will interesting to see how Anal Polyp Man spins his conversion when he realises he has to support McInsane in order to stop Barack the Magic Negro from being elected to the most powerful position on earth.
What a fucking putz. I didn't realize whales had feet but they surely do as this specimen has his own size 20 lodged firmly in his own foaming maw.
Just more proof of 'evolution' in action, I suppose.
BTW: No offense PW, Shooter, Elephant Puke....not to disparage a 'media personality' to whom you all truly aspire (guffaw).
I could not help noticing the sheer volume of trollmail on this particular thread. The trolls are afraid, they are very afraid. In the their hearts they know McInsane will not be the next President. An overwhelming majority of Americans are anti-war and bomb bomb bomb Iran is going to make a terrific TV commercial.
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Silver Lining
Great post, Glenn. You are completely right. But I think there's a silver lining: while John McCain is mindlessly adored by the "mainstream" press, I don't think rightwing nutjobs like Limbaugh, Coulter, and Hannity can force themselves into full God-worship mode with St. John the way they did with GWB. Granted, they are going to slime Obama and slime him good. But without a paragon of virtue like Dubbya to hold Obama up against, how much can it hurt?
I suspect this election may look a bit like 1998, when the wingers hated Bill Clinton with everything they had...but only had boring old Bob Dole to compare him to. Let's face it: rightwingers NEED a Daddy Figure to pump and worship in order to really get their blood flowing. Howie Kurtz might love the guy, but it's been an awful long time since McCain strapped on a tight-fitting flight suit...
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Glenn, reading your post
reminds me of what I, along with many supporters of John Kerry, believed in 2004. We believed that Kerry would be less susceptible to predictable GOP attacks on his character and his patriotism tan, say, Howard Dean because of his status as a war hero and longtime member of the Senate. The opposite was true--the GOP (and the enabling media) were able to completely turn that narrative around and transformed Kerry into a military-hating, Jane Fonda-worshipping, injury-faking commie.
They will try to do the same to Obama. They will go after his strengths and try to transform them into weaknesses. They will try to control the narrative. They will try to drive Obama's approval rating so low that Americans will believe that they have no choice but to vote for a medicore candidate like McCain to prevent a Che-loving, terrorist-sympathizing, America-hating, Hitleresque psycho like Obama from ever sniffing the Oval Office. I think it's possible that this strategy will backfire, but I'm not confident about it--it will take every ounce of our collective effort to keep the GOP from controlling the narrative.