Letters to the Editor
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You call that altruism?
You claim that the Democratic Party's governing committee and members of left-liberal activist groups are "just as committed to their altruistic vision of a future America as are conservatives". Really? "Just as committed"? Does that mean that conservatives are just as committed to an "altruistic" vision of America as are Democrats and liberals? How so? I mean, you were addressing your comments to a man who expressed a bloody, vicious desire to shoot his fellow Americans, just as many other conservatives do on a near-daily basis. You call that "altruism"?
You also claim that Rush Limbaugh, who evaded military service as a youth and now routinely bashes war heroes and others who have actually served their country in a time of war, "has unwaveringly supported the military for nearly 20 years". That's astonishing.
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@Anonymous
I think you mean that she is smarter than you and I.
No, he meant "smarter than me and you."
"smarter than" in this particular instance requires an object. Between "me" and "I", "me" is the object.
Apparently he is smarter than you. =(
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Agenda driven
"Paranoid"? I find it amazing that you can use such a headline mocking the comparison of a withdrawal from Viet Nam while every problem of the Iraq war is easily and willing compared to problems in Viet Nam. It is very clear people in this country want only certain parts of history remembered or actually change history to suit them. Once again we have the pushing of an agenda masquerading as journalism.
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Interesting
It’s interesting, and kind of telling, that so many on the left – the same left Mrs. Paglia is a member of. That she dares to deviate from the scripted responses means she is the enemy apparently. How lovely. Oh not that you tear at Mrs. Paglia, whom I personally adore and respect even when I don’t agree with her; but that you would destroy one of your own. The right seems to be doing the same, though it’s slightly less shrill about it.
So go ahead and destroy internal dissent, remove the evil of thought and rational inquiry from your ranks – it’s always a good idea isn’t it? And, with luck, the Right will follow your lead and both major parties will become irrelevant. Then perhaps we can have real representation, dozens of parties vying for seats, even the Presidency, with a real chance of winning. Ah the dreams of youth.
As for Mrs. Paglia, should she read this post, of her I have but one request. I have someone I correspond with in the Netherlands (she happens to be a married Lesbian, legal there, but frankly its irrelevant to my point here) who was telling me this charming story her daughter had made up about refrigerator mice. I would love for her to be encouraged to write this story and publish it. The world needs more charming stories and fewer horrific ones.
Thank you for your indulgence.
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Why do commenters...
Keep making generalizations about the "left" based on the comments following Paglia's articles? What the hell do several persons' internet ramblings have to do with the "lefts'" opinion about the views Paglia espouses? And what the hell is the "left" anyway? Does it act and speak with uniformity? Is it comprised of a single viewpoint?
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The simplest facts about geology seem to be missing from the mental equipment of many highly educated people, like you, these days.
Global warming is causing widespread climate change, so "the resent cold waves in South Africa and Australia, the most severe in 30 years" is a strong argument for global warming happening.
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leave Iraq now?
As a regular citizen with no special insights or information regarding Iraq except the various arguments that I hear promulgated by a multitude of "observers" and "experts" whose careers and reputations (and deadlines) are vested in the deftness of their articulations, I remain confused.
Let me give two reasons for my confusion as to the realistic reasonableness of your argument to leave now. 1.) I am a big NPR fan. Let me use the Diane Rehm show as an example. Every time she has a show with a few well versed "leave now" spokespersons followed by an Iraqi spokesperson, the Iraqi always ends saying "the US cannot leave now, millions will die." I have always found that interesting as though the person "over there" did not get the memo telling what to say or either the "leave now" proponents are all idealistic partisans out of touch with the "facts as they are now on the ground." Can you offer the names of influential Iraqis who are arguing for a "leave now" policy"? Bush, the architect of this war, has said the US will leave as soon as asked. That does make it hard to argue against except to continue serving certain enumerated political points of view. 2.) It was more than interesting, shockingly informative has one tries to read between the lines, that not one democratic candidate could say that the troops would be gone by '13. It would depend on "facts on the ground."
Don't get me wrong. I am a pacifist. It is an individual choice. I, however, accept war as a part of human history and I try to observe the events and "fallout of choices" as an impartial observer from Mars. I ask what is best for history? What is the most efficient course of human action now....not what aligns best with my idealism or, God forbid, serves the next election cycle best.
If you can address the two questions, you might be able to reduce my confusion created by the conflict between idealistic political policy arguments and the realism within which we have to write the course of history.
Thank you.
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C-
Even less focused than usual, and trying to cloak dull boomer rock bands in the mantle of pertinence gets sadder all the time. C-.
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Tripe
"Anyone can read up on Holocene geology and see that climate changes are caused by polar wandering and magnetic reversals."
Your simplistic spume on Global Warming might elevate itself to the level of mere ignorance if the willfullness of the underlying self-righteousness were not so manifestly evident. Anyone who would bother to read up on the Holocene geology as your above quoted fan suggests would discover that the current climate change is radically and demonstrably different from what has occurred in the past. But obvously you're just so much more clever than 20,000+ climate scientists, to whom the idea of investigating the geological record (and/or solar output, etc.) would never occur ...
Oh, wait, it did occur to them, which is why they know the contemporary events are different. Rises in GHG's such as CO2 and CH4 always *followed* temperature rises in the past, and contributed to such temperature rises as part of a climatological feedback loop. Anthropogenic forcing has introduced these feedbacks into the atmosphere in the absence of any such previous natural causes, and is triggering extremely rapid and unprecedented changes -- unprecedented because the forcings are human in origin and are unleashing processes which are already significantly redefining the planet's ecology in time-frames that no land-based life above the level of a cock-roach is well equipped to handle. (Cock-roaches, on the other hand, can deal with just about anything.)
Anyone who had so little integrity as to even glance at the basic scientific literature on the subject would already know this. Such information is freely available on the web, for example in the form of the IPCC's AR4 Working Group 1 publications. (Look in the index, under "Paleoclimate":
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Index.pdf)
Alternatively, one can confront such denialist tripe as you espouse directly by going to one or more of the numerous point-by-point rebuttals that can easily be found, such as:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
But again, one would have to be blessed with some infinitessimal scintilla of integrity such as would inspire them to actually find out what the facts are, rather than just braying on a topic about which they are monstrously and willfully uninformed. But ignorant ideology is always so much more exciting when it is untroubled by the tedious effort of involved in learning facts.