Letters to the Editor
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-- Qpublic
"And to Madam Fauntleroy [sp?] - you keep at it and know that there are lurkers [and sometime posters] who are supporting you. Some of the folks on this thread are clearly trying to provoke and not actually engage in true dialog."
Thank you for your kind words. Bigotry is alive and well in America. Even on the pages of Salon.
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funker
Oh, and the fatality count in Vietnam, for Americans (the only lives that count, right?) was over 58,000. I know. I went to the long black wall and ran my fingers over the names of friends and brothers who died for nothing. I served 68 to 72, so don't give me that patriotic bullshit. Those men and women died for politics, as the 4001 (and at least 1500 "contractors" who are privatized military) have died for oil and stupidity. Their bravery, their honor, their amazing commitment, is for oil, ironically, and for the bloated ego and warmongering monomania of Bushit. Semper fi.
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@ Tom
I went to the wall too.
It moved me profoundly. I really had no idea just how moving it would be, but running my eyes across all those names, reading them, pronouncing them, moving on to the next one was undescribable.
It was similar, in fact, to a synagogue I visited in Hungary, I think it was, with the names of all the deported Jews etched into the walls.
There were thousands of them. As I stood there reading each name, they just became so tragically human.
God help us all.
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Wright
Clearly Wright was correct on all points except for the AIDS comment, maybe. The truth is that most white Americans are clueless about how lucky they are to wake up every day to experience the advantage of white privilege. The fact that so many were upset about Wright's comments is proof of this cluelessness.
That said, I find it more astonishing that people that Kamiya actually get paid as so-called journalists. Obama is so shallow, says so little, and has proven himself to take his senatorial duties so lightly that I am more amazed that people need someone like Wright to cause them to question Obama's candidacy. Here's a suggestion - take a look at his record, read what Sean Wilentz and Matt Gonzalez have written about him. Men have made a mess out of the presidency so it's high time we gave the more intelligent gender a shot at it. Hillary Clinton speaks eloquently but she also says something. Her senate experience won over even her harshest repub critics. She has the skills, dedication, and work ethic to be president - Obama needs to spend a few years actually doing something and then maybe he'll be qualified to run for president.
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@ Tim Baird
"Hillary Clinton speaks eloquently but she also says something. Her senate experience won over even her harshest repub critics. She has the skills, dedication, and work ethic to be president - Obama needs to spend a few years actually doing something and then maybe he'll be qualified to run for president."
A legitimate point, and the crux of the issue.
I despise Hillary Clinton but I recognize that she is qualified to be president. She will not be incompetent.
Yet I also think the skills you adduce are less of an argument for the presidency than they are for a more ancillary role. A cabinet post, e.g.
To me (to me) a president should have vision, wisdom, humility, integrity, etc. A president should be a leader, meaning someone who can lead.
In my judgement, Hillary Clinton has little in the way of what I would recognize as leadership ability.
This is an honest disagreement, I think.
How you answer the question of who's more qualified depends on the criteria by which you decide.
That often gets lost, as if there is one set of agreed-upon, objective criteria.
I believe Obama is qualified to be president, based largely on observing his campaign. I wasn't particularly high on him to begin with, but the campaign has impressed me in many ways, and I've been especially impressed by his learning curve.
This man has advanced light years from where he was a year ago. He is a man if immense gifts, would you agree?
I'm not shilling for him, by any means, just trying to note that there are, in fact, valid reasons to vote for both candidates. The one you choose depends on the criteria you use.
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Political emotion
@ Tom
I went to the wall too.
It moved me profoundly. I really had no idea just how moving it would be, but running my eyes across all those names, reading them, pronouncing them, moving on to the next one was undescribable.
It was similar, in fact, to a synagogue I visited in Hungary, I think it was, with the names of all the deported Jews etched into the walls.
There were thousands of them. As I stood there reading each name, they just became so tragically human.
God help us all.
-- weeping for brunnhilde
You know, as the ramifications of this election cycle sink in, and the bigotry takes its focus, and the challenges mount, it makes me reflect how deeply this matters to me. It outrages me, it shames me, I am in despair--that this is my country, so they say--with so much potential, and such wonderful people in it--that so many people are being harmed, by this, my government. When I stop to consider it I become quite disturbed. There's this myth that those people in Washington are accountable to us, the voters; if only it were so, because I would do so many things so differently. I know so many people with brilliant and beautiful ideas who want very earnestly to contribute to making the world a slightly better place to live in.
But the government spends its money transforming minerals and metals, burning up calories in order to build... weapons, which explode as they're designed to do, and necessitate more building--of houses, schools, and roads this time. It's good for the economy. The Pentagon has decided not to report Iraqi casualties, basically because it was such bad PR in Vietnam. All those souls... millions of people were touched by this awful tragedy. How many millions must die before we admit the possibility of cursing America?