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This is a no-no, reprinting most of a Times column from behind their “Select” wall, but since Marc is recooperating, it might stimulate some discussion. I’d be interested in hearing vets like MB and rlc comment on this.
My Life in the Army
By ROBERT WRIGHT
Published: April 3, 2007
(My father was an army officer.)…Growing up in, or at least amid, the Army helped make me a liberal — not because I reacted against my environment, but because I absorbed its values. If all of America were more like the Army, it would be a better country.
People think of the Army as hierarchical, but compared with the private sector it’s a bastion of egalitarianism.
Yes, the Army’s “blue-collar workers†— privates, corporals, sergeants — defer to its “white-collar workers,†the officers. That happens in corporations, too. But on an Army base you don’t send the white-collar kids to good public schools and the blue-collar kids to bad public schools.
We all went to school together — either on the base or at a public school near it. My claim to fame is having played basketball at the same high school, on Fort Sam Houston, where Shaquille O’Neal, son of a sergeant, later played. (I encountered O’Neal in a hotel lobby a few years ago, and it turns out he’s less fascinated than I am by our intertwined histories. Puzzling.)
I had friends from the Army’s biggest minority constituencies, blacks and Hispanics. Among soldiers, too, exposure to diversity, along with the practical need to live with it, could be benign. My father grew up in Texas in the 1920s, amid common use of the n-word, and I never heard him use it.
Which brings us to social mobility. My father was the son of a sharecropper, and he dropped out of high school after both of his parents and most of his siblings had died of various diseases. He lacked the polish to impress, say, a Morgan Stanley recruiter, but during World War II, the Army gave him a chance.
That meant better health care than his parents had gotten, thanks to socialized medicine. My “blue collar†friends and I went to the same doctors. The doctors weren’t all great, but I’m still alive, and we avoided one creepy thing about inequality in America today: people like me get arthroscopic surgery lest stray cartilage impede our golf swings, while low-income people, in unseen ways, die for lack of good health care.
My father said Army people were as fine a group as you would ever meet, and the evidence was on his side. They were conscientious and unpretentious. And they can be surprisingly soft. Good commanders have a commitment to their troops that borders on love, a feeling that in the corporate world doesn’t generally emanate from the executive suite downward. (I said love, not lust.)
That’s partly because in the Army, the stakes are so high. Sending people into battle isn’t something a good person does with detachment. Before the Iraq war, when the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, testified that the postwar occupation would require hundreds of thousands of troops, he was showing not just prudence but devotion. He didn’t want his soldiers needlessly imperiled.
As a reward for his devotion, General Shinseki was disparaged by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Rumsfeld wanted to show how cheap war can be, and now our soldiers are paying the price. I wish some people on the left had a deeper respect for the military, but lately the left isn’t where the most consequential disrespect has come from.
The crowning indignity was Abu Ghraib, an outrage that was initiated by civilians high in the Bush administration and has stained the U.S. military’s hard-earned honor, strengthening stereotypes that I know are wrong.
My father, Col. Raymond J. Wright, retired…having given three decades to an institution he loved. He died in 1987. There are lots of things I wish he had lived to see, but the way the Army’s been treated recently isn’t one of them.
Robert Wright, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, runs the Web site Bloggingheads.tv. He is a guest columnist this month.
Nice, but I don’t buy it. It stikes me as being fifty to seventy-five percent of the truth. Sorry, but Tommy Franks was not a civilian when he signed on Rumsfeld’s plan, took his medals for the disaster and went home. Civilans are forcing the Military to trample international law? Please. Read “Imperial Life In The Emerald City”, the reactionary and horrific W years could not have happened without the clueless Military/Republican Bush base. There is no doubt the Pentagon’s public relation arm helped keep Americans in the dark about what was happening in Iraq for far too long.
An interesting question is “Why are liberals so frightened to attack, or even critique, the Military?” Why do are progressives feel they can make a viable case against the war based on the safety of our troops? (“I’ve got no moral problem with the invasion”).
Talk a look at O’Reilly cutting the mic on Col Ann Wright
and consider this blog’s basic cluelessness on both Fox News and the Republican’s war on the Geneva conventions ( “I like the quirky Lindsey Graham even more now”) and almost total lock step on the surge (the Republicans will end this war”). Ann Coulter isn’t the only thing that many progessives find easy to ignore.
Robert Wright is one the best essayists around these days.
I once worked on a DoD logistics software project for a guy who was the son of an Air Force general. He passed on to me a saying his father was fond of: “It’s not where you are, it’s how far you’ve come.”
It wasn’t an idle comment, exactly, in that context. One of the people on our project had retired at the rank of colonel. He’d been a Dust Bowl kid. Like many Okies of his generation, he probably hadn’t seen a flush toilet until he was in his teens. Another guy, also a retired colonel, had served on Truman’s commission to desegrate the Air Force. His origins were similar humble (and his upward arc impeded by racism, but less so in the Air Force than in civilian life, both before and afterward.)
It is a sad statement about America that the military probably offers more equality of opportunity than American society as a whole. Death, even the prospect of it, is a great equalizer. It’s no way to run a whole society (and of course Wright is suggesting no such thing), but there are lessons in it. I’m glad I learned those lessons. I didn’t like *how* I learned them — my daily commute from Berkeley to Lawrence Livermore during that time seemed like a descent into a maelstrom of madness, especially during Gulf War I. But I have to admit it was a way to meet certain kinds of people I probably never would have met otherwise, and that I’m the better for it.
As best I can tell from the dates that are given, the author and I ought to be approximately the same age. I was never in the military, but grew up near a, now closed, SAC base in upstate NY. The presence of the military had a profound effect on the demographics of the area, and local schools seemed to contain as many children of military as civilian parents. My very first job was in a non-com club. From my exposure to those military kids and their parents, and the enlisted I met and worked with, Mr. Wright’s experience is similar to my own.
Perhaps it was the “times,” K. Nardy. And, maybe much has changed since then. As a civilian family, we developed close relationships with a number of military families of all ranks. It was egalitarian. It was fraternal. It was responsible. It was also humble, and honored to serve. I’m not sure I’d judge the entire military by Tommy Franks. But, again, maybe it was different then.
As for Abu Ghraib, it’s worth taking a look at a recent piece in the NY Times, “A Conversation With Philip G. Zimbardo, Finding Hope in Knowing the Universal Capacity for Evil.” In the right circumstances, we are all capable of Abu Ghraib. Each and everyone of us. The only dividing line might be in our individual abilities to tolerate it.
Yes I know that his very name sends some into a crazed frenzy but I’m posting this excellent three hour discussion C Span hosted with Alexander Cockburn
Reg, can’t remember the fellow who took me to task here for reporting “Counterpunch” had called Global Warming “Junk Science.”
They had seemingly scrubbed their site of such references; nice of Alex to bring us back up to date. Also nice to remember the next time they’re telling us Al Gore is an Axe Murderer, or some such…
Thanks “listener”, I appreciate the response. I’m not sure how we lost sight of the fact that the Military is just another branch of the Goverment, ripe for corruption as the rest; simply because a lot of nice, decent people join up. But as I see it now, mainstream liberals must everything in tidal waves of blather about the finest people in the country ( when it’s a conservative, it’s the greatest instatution in the history of civilization); and progressives seem to hate the liberals for not fighting their battles for them.
So, sickingly, the damage we’ve done to Iraq will be pinned on the Iraqis. Again, force yourself to watch the O’Reilly.
Also, more shame for this blog: Remember Lindsey Graham hoping the SC would reverse the Bush White’s bagging of habeas corpus?
Opps. This was day’s after this blog wrote about Graham like he was a hero. After he reversed himself; it had only scorn for one of the few Dem’s who crossed over and backed Bush.
(Just go to tinyurl.com and follow the instructions — it’s very easy.)
Pretending that “a few bad apples” was all that Abu Ghraib amounted to was sort of the flip side of the propaganda mechanism that also gave us the story of Pat Tillman getting cut down by Afghan insurgents rather than our own, and the Saga of Jessica Lynch. But then, as always, truth is the first casualty of war.
“Cockburn sides with Woody on global warming in that interview. Weird ….”
Yeah, and he also derides Peak Oil, preferring Thomas Gold’s hypothesis (“Deep, hot biosphere”),that petroleum is a renewable resource — a theory with underpinnings in Soviet research, and still popular even now in Russia. Last I checked, however, only a tiny fraction of assessed reserves qualify as abiogenic. Thomas Gold had a lot of interesting theories, but not many of them ever panned out. He was/is a kind of Che Guevara figure to people who can be found near the fringes of science. (Nikola Tesla being another one — but at least Tesla built some stuff that worked.)
“It is a sad statement about America that the military probably offers more equality of opportunity than American society as a whole”
Did anyone else catch David Graeber’s brilliant essay in Harpers magazine a few months ago. He argued that leftist and liberals generally misunderstand peoples motivation for joining the army in the first place. His arguement is that working class kids sign up in the Army for the same reasons upper middle class kids seel out liberal arts educations–the pursuit of altruism. If I understand him properly Graeber is saying that virtually no children of working class Americans will ever become drama critics or human rights lawyers. This is due to the closing of opportunities for a truly liberal education to those without more economic resources than the working class possesses. On top these economic barriers there is also the crucial role of unpaid internships. Here’s his provocative conclusion
“Why do working-class Bush voters tend to resent intellectuals more than they do the rich? It seems to me that the answer is simple. They can imagine a scenario in which they might become rich but cannot imagine one in which they, or any of their children, would become members of the intelligensia”
So if working class kids wish to pursue some higher calling, something other than mindless money making, what options do they really have? Graeber says two. They can either seek employment with thier local church or join the army.
I am just running out the door for a day long trip to San Diego (in the USA all of April) so will only comment briefly that this seems to me an over romanticized view of the Army I knew from 1969-1971. It sounds more like a backdrop for a Scorcese movie. We had the lifers and the grunts; the lifers were over represented by poor Blacks who made good in the Army by being sergeants, and the grunts were draftees. I don’t think altruism had much to do with it, even if that is one of Wright’s big topics, and until Sept 11 it probably had little to do with who joined the military in the present day.
Here is the less romantic side of being in the Army today:
The Department of Defense has identified 3,247 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:
JC sais, ‘Cockburn is Ulster Irish’. He is? I had read that he was born in Scotland and raised in County Cork, nowhere near Ulster. Just curious – a bit of an irishman myself.
I liked the Wright essay (as I’m a fan of Robert Wright’s stuff), but it did seem to paint an overly rosy picture. I remember back when I was floating around my local community college and I started to seriously consider the Navy as a route to go. I visited the local recruiter’s office and when they asked me what highschool I went to, I told them and their reply was ‘Oh we’ve had plenty of fine recruits from there, here maybe you know them,’ and they pointed me to a posterboard full of recent recruit’s pictures as I rolled my eyes already knowing what to expect. I did know them, and they were some of the biggest goofoffs and jerks (and plenty rascist to) that I knew of in high school, all products of Chicago’s fine public school system. I thought, ‘jeez, the Navy thinks these guys are ‘fine recruits’?’ This was the Navy to, whose standards are higher than the other branches. I think this kind of recruiting is fairly typical, and even worse in the Army, and especially now, with standards having been lowered even more.
I wanted to correct myself but my post was “on moderation” – I was under the genuine impression that all non-Catholic Irish were considered “Ulster Irish” – and I think his mother was a protestant, though I don’t know.
What I said before:
Stan Goff, as I recall, points out in his book Full Spectrum Disorder, that military life was part of what converted him to socialism. Military bases are in many ways, cornucopian socialistcolonies..abundant commons, economic planning, egalitrain housing schemes, etc. Outside of the Boykin crowd, most military members are actually, at least socially, quite progressive. They need to be.
Just for the record, I snipped the opening section of Wright’s essay that sets his recollections of his dad’s army in the context of the late ’60s, when there was a serious draft. Also a serious war. At least for a time, Wright’s family was stationed at the Presidio, which was undoubtedly the most beautiful army base in the world.
First off, Marc, I too, wish you well as you reCOOPERate (sorry, couldn’t resist).
Thanks folks for the great links.
On the one you posted reg, I can testify as a vet, that the army was an ‘affirmative’ experience. I’d mostly agree with Wright’s theme of egalitarianism. Serving in the military really exposes you to a merit based institution. Sargents and squad leaders aren’t leaders for no reason. It becomes self evident rather soon on, that skin color counts for zero as to whom has the mojo to be a leader.
As an 18 year old enlistee, I’m confident that I wasn’t racist or bigoted toward minorities, but at that time, I was no doubt somewhat susceptible to stereotypes. The very act of going through boot camp and AIT forces you into the melting pot and starts dissolving one’s preconceived notions and stereotypes about others. You lose the ‘other’ or ‘me’ and you become more of the ‘us’ and the ‘we’. You’re all the same: same shaved heads, same sweating BDUs, same M16s… And by the time you do ‘live fire’ maneuvers, those stereotypes and prejudices ought to be completely burned out of you because you discover in a very real way, that your own survival is dependent on the competence of the GI next to you. The army, or the military overall, obviously is not the only place where one could come to appreciate the virtues of egalitarianism, but I’d say it sure does speed up the learning curve.
Here is something to consider about the Army. The difference in salary between a recruit (PVT E-1) and the Chief of Staff (A four Star General) is about 13 – 1. Both receive the same medical care and have the same PX and commissary priveleges. Both have the same number of vacation (“Leave”) days. It is true that that NCOs and Officers have their own clubs and when I was in you couldn’t buy liquor at a “Class Six” store if you were under the rank of E-5 but that was about it. Oh, and enlisted got their uniforms while officers had to pay. They also had to pay for their mess, except in the field.
Markos, over at KOS, said it was the army that made him a liberal as well. I know this bursts some bubbles but that’s the way it is.
And one more thing. The army is the only place in american society where it is likely that white man will have a black boss.
Hope you feel better Marc. I’m still fighting off a bout of the flu.
Meanwhile, have you seen over at Little Green Fungusballs that Nancy Pelosi has adopted the headgear of Islamofascism.
(As have Laura Bush and Condi Rice, if the photos are to be believed.)
We’re, like, totally surrounded.
Also – just in case you missed it, here’s the best Pajama’s Media Exclusive Breaking News ever (well, at least since that Khamenei guy “died” ) :
“Was Drudge Right After All? Bob Owens thinks he might have been right, at least partially, in his information on ‘McCain heckled by CNN reporter’. (Confederate Yankee)
UPDATE. Well, it seems not. (Raw Story)
PJM Barcelona 4:22 AM”
It would appear that the intrepid reporter who worked up that Bush National Guard documents debacle for Dan Rather has landed a new gig in, uh, PJM’s “Barcelona Bureau”. And they don’t even have to climb out of bed.
The “Source” for the “Heckling” story was a correspondant from AFP who told others that no such incident occured. Boy the pajamarama crowd must really be getting desperate when they misquote a FRENCH news source!
Look, did you really need Michael Ware to tell you that McCain was full of shit? His stroll thru the Baghdad market was so impromtu that he only took 100 soldiers, three armored humvees and three helos along. Why I do that every time I go to Albertsons, don’t you?
And see Juan Cole for what happened in the marketplace the next day.
No wonder McCain is tanking in the polls. He now owns this war and its an anchor arouind his neck.
It’s actually an interesting, if elusive, set of distinctions.
Presumably it’s a naval station, an army post and an air force base. My next question is how do the verbs work? Can you be stationed at a base or based at a post while posting on your website ?
“Here is something to consider about the Army. The difference in salary between a recruit (PVT E-1) and the Chief of Staff (A four Star General) is about 13 – 1.”
Yeah, and there are no $220 million Golden Parachute deals for generals who screw up. Not to say there aren’t many who pass through the revolving door into the “industrial” part of the military-industrial complex after taking retirement. Still, if you’re possessed of unusual executive talent, getting rich that way is definitely taking the long way around.
First: Marc, get well soon, that’s an order, not a request!
Second: Reg, thanks for finding that article and posting it. It offers a solid look at the inside of living in the military. I too was born and raised in the Army and enlisted in ’69 for my own “career” although that didn’t pan out because of a rather significant hearing loss. But, the same things that made Wight a liberal, made me a conservative.
(My father was an army officer.)…Growing up in, or at least amid, the Army helped make me a liberal — not because I reacted against my environment, but because I absorbed its values. If all of America were more like the Army, it would be a better country.
My dad too was a career soldier. Fought in three wars, WWII, Korea and Vietnam (one of the early ones ’61-’62 under Kennedy) and retired after 32 years as a full bird. Everything that wright said is true but his learning experience was somewhat different than mine. I suspect that it was the details (…”The devil is in the details”…) paid attention to that account for the differing positions vis-a-vis political stances. Again, thanks for finding that. Dad died in 2000, and old soldier that he was, his gruffness and his love is missed.
What got wiped out by moderation:
I wanted to correct myself but my post was “on moderation†– I was under the genuine impression that all non-Catholic Irish were considered “Ulster Irish†– and I think his mother was a protestant, though I don’t know.
What I said before:
Stan Goff, as I recall, points out in his book Full Spectrum Disorder, that military life was part of what converted him to socialism. Military bases are in many ways, cornucopian socialistcolonies..abundant commons, economic planning, egalitrain housing schemes, etc. Outside of the Boykin crowd, most military members are actually, at least socially, quite progressive. They need to be.
Reg your status on post depends on whether you are “Cadre” (Perm. Party) or a member of a “Hosted” Unit. For Example – when I was assigned to NSA I was assigned to the US Army Security Agency Liason Unit at Fort George G. Meade, MD. PP’s there were in HQ First Army – the Host Unit. Hope that clears it up.
rlc – apparently my posting status is a member of a “Hosted” Unit, thanks to MC and RP. And the last time some guy told me “Drop and give me twenty!”, he’d snuck up behind me with a gun. Everything’s crystal clear.
And, since Marc is still indisposed, I’m going to suggest that anyone who wants to read a couple of very good posts on current stuff check out richard’s two latest “elsewhere”. One is on the Pelosi “Syrian Visit Scandal” and the other on AttorneyGate – wherein Orrin Hatch is shown to be an incredibly disingenuous guy ( to put it politely and avoid impolite stuff like “lying scumbag”, etc.)
Really good commentary that yields factual info I, for one, didn’t know…and easily available to anyone who clicks on my alleged name, above. (I’ve been tending to cut, paste, link and post cute and/or snarky pics recently – Richard actually writes stuff. Stuff that deserves to be read.)
Also, GMR – thanks for the thanks. I’ve noticed that a certain “liberalism” sneaks out of your reactionary crust occasionally (I say “reactionary” because pushing the “Bush 2004″ bandwagon in the face of enormous evidence of supreme incompetence and dishonesty wasn’t a “conservative” position IMHO, it was blind contempt for a perceived liberal “enemy”, no matter what the cost to our country) and I’d attribute those moments of slippage to precisely what Wright discusses in his article.
I think McCain is getting a bad rap for taking 100 soldiers and two Apache helicopters along with him for the Baghdad walkabout. After all, he took the great risk that those helicopters would get shot down and land on his head.
Reg I just read over at TPM (rapidly becoming indespensible for anyone trying to keep up with events) that Orrin Hatch now says he got confused. He was referring to Alan Bernsin – a classmate of Bill at Yale who was a Law Prof with little prosecutorial experience and did head up the Clinton for President campaign in Southern California. He later resigned as US Attorney in Sad Diego to become Superintendent of Schools for that city.
Well that’s an understandable error. I mean one person is a WASP Male prof while the other is an Asian-American Woman prosecutor.
What possible reason could Hatch have had for referencing an obscure Clinton appointee’s curriculum vitae in the context of discussing Carol Lam ? Hatch is just plain full of shit. He was blowing smoke into the wingnut balcony. Limbaugh circulated this crap and the lizard brains have ingested it as part of their alternate reality. It’s a trial lawyer’s tactic – when you’ve got nothing, blow smoke. I retract my earlier mis-characterization of Hatch. He’s not incredibly disingenuous. He’s a lying scumbag.
Now Reg you’ve simply got to stop being so suspicious! And if you believe that the Angel Moroni gave those golden tablets to Joseph Smith then is this so hard to swallow?
When I was a teenager and a budding Deadhead, Kerouac, et. al were my heroes. Rereading Kerouac now, I think he was a major influence on me, but a hell of an overrated writer. Burroughs and Ginsberg – particularly Burroughs – retain their spot in the pantheon though.
reg: “I’ve noticed that a certain “liberalism†sneaks out of your reactionary crust occasionally…”
reg, that is because you really have no concept of what a conservative thinks or how he/she goes about arriving at a conclusion. My support of Bush in ’04 had less to do with Bush than it did with the scumbag called Kerry, one of the few, if not the only officers to duck out of duty after three minor wounds (very minor if I might add) leaving his buddies. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that for example, Fox doesn’t get passed on the ambassadorship because of his politics, yet Bushco can’t fire 8 attornies because of theirs? Or if you want to speak to abject stupidity “no matter what the cost to the country” try Pelosi’s visit (and any other idiot republicans that went with her) to Syria, a country that all but fools acknowledge is one of the major state sponsors of terrorists.
And, having said all that, you are welcome, when you post something I agree with, I’ll always say so.
Here I was hoping we could have a nice nostalgic conversation about the Beat Generation when you have to hop on your swift boat for truth and muddy the waters.
Seems like most of Kerry’s army buddies haven’t been informed that he was such a scumbag; they still show a lot of affection and respect for him.
There is a difference between the firing of the attorneys and the opposition to Sam Fox, though in part it depends on viewing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whom Fox so generously supported, as the despicable scumbags which they are.
And by the way, to all former/ current Kerouac/Ginsberg fans I recommend the book ‘When I was Cool’ by Sam Kashner, a very funny memoir of his years studying with Ginsberg, Burroughs and Corso at the ‘Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics’.
Sorry to see you’re still laid up Marc but if want to pass the time you might pick up a copy of Robert Randisi’s book “Everybody kills somebody sometime” a noir set in 1960 Las Vegas during the “Summit” at the Sands. Seems someone is sending threats to Dino and Frank asks Jack Entratter to look into it. He gets one of his pit bosses to investigate and . . .
Since I know you like crime fiction and Vegas I think you’d get a kick out of it.
jcummings I think any examination of the Beats would conclude that Keruoac (and Neal Cassidy) was the glue that held the gang together. Ginsberg didn’t name the writing program he founded at Naropa “The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics” for nothing. The tragedy is that was not who Kerouac was. People kept confusing him with “Dean Moriarity” (Cassidy) when he was just a shy Canuck from Lowell Mass, devoted to his mother and the memories of his dead brother. Rereading him recently made me see just how Roman Catholic an author he really was.
Evets, amazing! I just finished reading that. I kept thinking of Joni Mitchell’s song “To aging Children” in the Peter Pan like way Ginsberg and Corso refused to grow up. And is there a sadder guy than Bill Burroughs Jr? I’ve never been a big fan of the old man – he literally did get away with murder – and this portrait only confirmed it.
And Corso never did. I was at the memorial service for Ginsberg at the Wadsworth Theatre in W LA and Corso was a guest speaker and it took all of Ann Waldman’s and several others attention to keep him calm.
RLC – socially I agree – esp. with “Cowboy Neal” (see the Dead’s song “The Other One”) at the wheel….but I truly think that Jean Louis De Kerouac was an overrated writer, perfect for nascent bohemianism but no Burroughs.
I agree about his (Buddho-)Catholicism…in fact Kerouac was a reactionary. See the old firing line thing with Buckley who assumes he’s a “liberal” and he sputs drunken Bircher stuff. When Timothy Leary gave him and other beats LSD at a gathering soon after the release of Manchurian Candidate, Kerouac thought he was being brainwashed by communists – particularly Ginsberg.
I can’t deny that Kerouac – I’ve read all his stuff – had a profound influencce on me. At the same time, I don’t think that he had anything profound to say in the long run, aside from On the Road.
I had a 29 second conversation once with Corso after one of his readings. A fetching damsel happened to walk by and he just melted away, never realizing that I still had several compelling points to make.
Of course for the Dead Neal was the bus driver for Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. I really wonder how many of those folks actually read “On the Road”? Kerouac was also an alcoholic – a pretty common condition among American writers (see Faulkner, Fitzgerald, O’Hara etc.). As I said a pretty sad life.
No he was not a hippie. Didn’t like them. Remember his crowd was composed on Ivy League dropouts who actually did read.
I assume everyone here has read “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test”. I lost my copy and its next to impossible to find these days. But I know a lot of people who consider it to be a pack of lies from begining to end.
Still – it didn’t hurt Tom Wolfe none
I think On the Road will last for a long time as a young adult classic. I re-read it a few years back and was surprised that it still resonated in a lot of places and almost never made me wince. As for Burroughs, he may be ghoulishly funny in spots, but I can’t say I’ve ever been moved to re-read him. Are you sure you’re not grading these guys on their politics?
I used to like Tom Wolfe when he wrote non-fiction, esp the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. He seemed almost human in those days. There was some generosity in his writing and the people in his books seemed almost human too, unlike his fictional characters. They appear to be drawn up to prove some kind of Hobbesian polemical point. And all the wit has turned rancid.
Enough said. I read that far and it not only made my point but told me everything I need to know about the way you think.
I also know how many conservatives think, because I grew up among them…and it ain’t all the struff of your remarkably rotten Rovian Republican Party or your Wingnut Webbie friends by a long shot. The notion that you know the first thing about liberalism is belied by the big tag on your website, something to the effect of how easy it is to take down liberal ideas. Coming from you and Woody, that’s just laughable.
You are invested in,literally, a pack of right-wing talking points that are tantamount to lies on both the attorney narrative and Pelosi’s trip. If you can show me any criticism of the GOP congressmen who traveled to Syria – or of Gingrich’s independent overtures to China when he was Speaker, or Denny Hastert traveling to Columbia in ’99 and telling the Generals to ignore Clinton’s appeals regarding human rights, I’ll take your Liberal Derangement Syndrome as regards Pelosi (and Kerry, for that matter) seriously. You live in a far-right cloud cuckooland and I’m afraid you don’t have a clue how baseless and thin most of the crap you spit out for public consumption actually is.
But, like you said, if you get something right, I’ll admit it. Also,if you catch me in a factual error, I’ll be happy stand corrected. I won’t whine and try to bend the discussion like your friend Woody always does when he spouts total nonsense that has no evidentiary basis whatsoever.
If I want to “understand how conservatives think”, I’ll read Michael Oakeshott or Edmund Burke – not the latest childish crap emanating from The Corner, Drudge’s sheet or a totally disingenuos moron like Glenn Reynolds – who serially links things that have absolutely no basis in fact. (Most recently the slander of Michael Ware.) Frankly, I think in many respects post-New Deal liberalism – that tends to emphasize a mix of social and economic stability AND mobility, using limited government for both ballast and leverage in an essentially market-based system – has more in common with Burke and Oakeshott than the radical masterminds of the DeLay-Era GOP, the Neo-Con Cult, Markets Uber Alles Ideologues or the Religion-Racket Right. But that’s another discussion.
“If you can show me any criticism of the GOP congressmen who traveled to Syria” – I meant to add “among the Webbie Wingnuts and Hate-Radio crowd prior to Pelosi’s well-publicized trip, I’ll take your line on this seriously. I doubt if you can. It was the old “Hate-Liberals Derangement Syndrome” at work in a particularly odious fashion – particularly in the attacks on Pelosi for doing what Laura Bush and Condi Rice have also done in the same circumstance – i.e. respecting a religious tradition. These were just cheap, totally dishonest shots and they came from most of the bastions of “conservative” opinion. Which have become remarkably cheap
Speaking of contemporary “conservatism”, I can’t wait for certain Honchos of the Religion-Racket Right to start opportunistically sucking up to Serial Adulterer, BabyKiller, Homo-Hugging, Drag Dressing Rudy Giuliani if, as it appears with McCain tanking and Mitt looking increasingly ridiculous, America’s Mussolini – I mean, America’s Mayor – becomes the most viable GOP package. It will be quite a spectacle. I have Zero sympathy for any among this crowd, and it will serve them right if their well-indoctrinated base revolts in the name of the Lord. Time for a 3rd Party candidate of the Wingnut Right if Rudy manages to wangle the GOP nomination.
How’d I get pulled into some stupid argument from reg? I’m just trying to get a cheap GTO if Marc doesn’t recover.
In the meantime, Marc, I’ll be glad to make some posts for you on topics on which I am well versed–illegal immigration, global warming fraud, baseball, and the War on Terror, a term that the Democrats have banned. Figure that out.
Tomorrow night: John Smoltz goes against Tom Glavine in a great pitching matchup, as the Braves entertain the Mets at Turner Field. Attending the games will prohibit me from reading the classy books discussed in this thread.
Not at all on their politics. Burroughs was all over the map – was even a scientologist for a while. On the Road does not make me wince, and I reread it at least every two or three years. But his other stuff does make me wince, at best. Just a matter of taste.
If I am judging them though, its not the politics per se, but I believe that Burroughs was in his own way – check his underrated nonfition – a profound philosopher and social theorist.
“From what I hear Fred Thompson is gaining on Rudy and may even be a jowl ahead.”
Best news yet – Fred Thompson 2008 is a great Twofer. Increases the Dems liklihood of taking the White House and we get someone else on Law and Order who can better fill Steven Hill’s shoes as DA.
“Bushco can’t fire 8 attornies because of theirs?”
They can. The question is, how should such blatant, interventionist politicization of U.S. Attorney’s offices be treated ? “If it feels good, do it!” “If we can get away with it, fine!” “Anything illegal about this ? Then it must be okay.” Should this departure from established precedent (no matter how much the rightwing lies – with their phony “Clinton Did It” mantra – about the aberrant nature of these “mid-stream” firings without cause, directly politicizing the offices of federal prosecutors) simply be deemed “business as usual” for future administrations or should it be exposed and protested as a danger to the legal process ? And nobody on the Dem side lied about why they’re going after Fox. He’s a creep and a crony. That’s what this administration apparently admires in its appointees. Screw him.
The only thing Bush has going for him at this late date is scandal fatique. The more crap that turns up, the more diffuse and “normal” it begins to seem. I do have to give him credit though, for destroying the credibility of the Republican Party in just a couple of years. Maybe Ralph Nader was on to something…
particularly in the attacks on Pelosi for doing what Laura Bush and Condi Rice have also done in the same circumstance – i.e. respecting a religious tradition. These were just cheap, totally dishonest shots and they came from most of the bastions of “conservative†opinion. Which have become remarkably cheap
reg, I could care less what Pelosi wore, but there is a big problem with going to Syria, she may be in violation of the Logan Act:
The Logan Act makes it a felony and provides for a prison sentence of up to three years for any American, “without authority of the United States,” to communicate with a foreign government in an effort to influence that government’s behavior on any “disputes or controversies with the United States.”
Your cherry picking of my comment about what she did and interpretating that as what she wore is symptomatic of your argument style.
I am no fan of Pelosi, but can’t complain about diplomacy, but if one wants to apply the logic of the Logan Act to Pelosi, then what about the Israel lobby, the Taiwan lobby, Denny Hastert’s personal lobbying for the Turkish government, etc.?
jcummings, I won’t disagree you regarding Hastert he should have been prosecuted as should perhaps Pelosi if the facts are as presented We know for sure that Bush didn’t want Pelosi to go, did he ask Hastert to go? If so, than Hastert would not have been in violation. I don’t know, do you? The Israel lobby and taiwan lobby and any other foreign governments lobby are allowed to lobby us, that is not what logan is about. Now, if you mean American citizens working for those lobbys, that still doesn’t apply because they are registered via act of congress for just that purpose, too, they are not trying to disuade/persuade the foreign govt, they are trying to disuade/persuade our government.
But Jcummings I’ve got bad news for you. The Washington POST just closed their Toronto Bureau which was the last newsbureau in Canada by a daily US paper. So I’m sorry to announce that, since the US media no longer considers anything going on in the Great White North to be newsworthy, I’m going to have to ignore anything you say. After all its just not newsy!
No, in the case of Hastert and foreign lobbies that American politicians travel to their contries to influence/be influenced by their governmnt, are just as much under your logan act bullshit as what Pelosi did. I mean I think Bush’s anger, as well as his oppoition to the Democrats’ exist strategy is grand theatre. In the first case, Pelosi is probably officially representing America but doesn’t want Syria to officially know that, so they concoct the whole story that she is on the outs with her leadership, hence giving her more personal credibility, in a public diplomacy sense. Second of all, in terms of Bush and the Democrats’ tepid “antiwar” resolution that everyone badmouths – is a big help to Bush, who does need an exit strategy after all. But he needs his base to think that he’s against it. All grand political theatre.
The Department of Defense has identified 3,252 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the death of the following American on Wednesday:
The Wall Street Journal editorial page, with typical judiciousness, gets the Pelosi trip quite wrong. First, George Logan was not a member of the Congress when he made his “pacifist” trip to France. (He was elected to the Senate three years later, in 1801.) Second, Pelosi did not make the trip to negotiate with Assad, but to talk with him. Third, this is not a “wartime” situation–in fact, we continue to have diplomatic relations with Syria. Fourth, as others have noted, numerous Republican members of Congress have gone to speak with Assad. In fact, it was a Republican, Chris Shayes, who first told me that I should go over and interview Assad. Fifth, the media coverage of this on CNN and elsewhere has been abysmal. (Do you think CNN would repeatedly call itself the best political team on television if it actually was?)
I’m sorry, but this line of argument is really, really ridiculous. The Wall St. Journal (and GM) is suggesting that some enterprising prosecutor ought to indict the Speaker of the House because she doesn’t have the “authority of the United States” when it comes to talking to foreign governments? The second American in history to face prosecution under the law ought to be the Speaker of the House? The law is obviously not intended from preventing elected government officials from communicating with foreign governments. Original intent when convenient. Can’t you just accuse her of undermining the troops or something?
“this line of argument is really, really ridiculous”
Really, what do you expect?
And GM, if you don’t think your friends in the wingnut brigade haven’t been raking Pelosi for wearing a headscarf, you haven’t been on your computer. Kudos for not stooping to that level of stupidity. I mentioned those attacks because they have been a central theme of the anti-Pelosi chorus. And your angle about the Logan act is plain nuts. Look at the source…The WSJ editorial page-a bastion of wingnuttery and falsification. Probably the only major newspaper opinion page that never bothers to acknowledge and correct its numerous errors. And Turner’s a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, one of the neo-con cult groups, ginning up talking points. Total, unadulterated crap. If Nixon wasn’t prosecuted for doing backdoor negotiations with the South Vietnamese in order to undermine Humphrey in ’68, any attempt to use the Logan act against Pelosi for talking with a foreign leader is an absurd proposition. You guys really are getting desperate, aren’t you. I remember the good old days of your triumphalist pronouncements on all things Bush. It must really sting to be consigned to the scrapheap…
Has Joe Klein come back from the dead ? His columns are getting better and he seems to be inclined to engage his critics at the Time blog rather than just display contempt. This can’t last long.
Reg, Mavis, RLC, please not that I said “may be” in violation. I’m not an attorney, nor a prosecutor. I’m merely noting what the WSJ has said in its online Opinion Journal. The guy that wrote the article however is an attorney, and former chair of the American Bar Associations standing committee on law and national security. I would suspect he might know more than the four of us.
Having said that, just because a law is old and unused, doesn’t mean that it can’t be used. What Pelosi and the republicans did was dispicable from the standpoint of honoring our national interest in not dealing with states that have been named as supporting terrorism especially when the state involved is one who is probably involved in the hell in Lebanon as is Syria and their clients/puppets Hezbollah. I don’t give a crap who buys into that argument, it is flat out dispicable in my opinion, those folk we know murdered 200 plus Marines and have been implicated in the killing of numerous pro-democracy elements in Lebanon.
Let’s take jcummings sceneario that Pelosi might have been officially representing the US in which case, implausible as it may seem, might be completely accurate. Pelosi would not have been acting illegally and would then have been an Agent of the US. As I noted Hastert may have been. That would be an interesting ending to this whole story.
Perhaps the Logan act is one more reason to sun-set all federal laws.
Don’t you think the issue of how to respond to 240 marines being killed in Lebanon should have been settled in 1983 when Mt. Rushmore Ronald took strong military measures against those responsible ? Or whatever it was he did…
This spiel above as to why Pelosi or any other congressional figure shouldn’t be allowed to visit Syria and question officials about policy is on of the most jumbled, over-simplified expositions on the question of how to deal with the tangled web of the Middle East I’ve ever read. This whole deal raises another burning question: should Cong. Mike Conway (R – TX), Cong. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and others be prosecuted for recent discussions held with Cuban officials about ending sanctions ? These were consultations in which the congressmen (a bipartisan group, for the record) explored a policy option with a foreign government considered an enemy of the U.S. that they actually might be able to effect.
The “Hate Pelosi” subtext of this tendentious bullshit just screams through this “scandal” fabricated by folks who, frankly, have a record of being wrong every time they open their mouths on related issues. Somebody tell me one goddam thing regarding strategy that we’ve heard from GM’s end of the galaxy on the central quagmire facing us in the Middle East these last several years that’s turned out to be worth the pixels it’s printed on. Pelosi’s become “Clinton Lite” for these crackpots – a target of opportunity, even when the “opportunity” is something they make up.
The conversation has obviously moved on to where this submission is now off topic, but for those curious about letters to the editor in response to Robert Wright’s My Life in the Army ….
I kind of wonder about A.C. What happens to a celebrity of her nature? Generally, if female, they implode at some point. What I can’t decide is will she implode as the result of some level of over exposure. Or, will she implode when someday she’s fully ignored. That she keeps upping the ante seems evident; she’s escalating. I kind of wonder what would happen if one were to simply sit and give her their undivided, but wordless, attention. Would she keep ramping up the rhetoric until she catapulted over the edge of sanity. Would she suddenly hear herself and become so frightened of her own internal landscape that she became mute? Or, would she simply back down, and dissemble? I wonder if AC wonders if she’s real. For now, she seems able to defend against the realization that the joke is on her; dissembling as ego defense. She has become, or is rapidly becoming, a caricature of herself. Unless she understands she is a mere character in her celebrity drama, the end of celebrity – which will surely come – won’t be pretty. Rule One: Never read your own press. Failing Rule One, Rule Two: Never believe it. Failing Rule Two, Rule Three: Secure a landing for free fall.
The Department of Defense has identified 3,253 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the death of the following American yesterday:
COON, James J., 22, Pfc., Army; Walnut Creek, Calif.; First Cavalry Division.
Maybe we could get John Biskupic, the USA in Wisconsin to file Logan Act charges. After all the Court of Appeals there has cited his work in brining cases that are “Way past Thin.”
Don’t you think the issue of how to respond to 240 marines being killed in Lebanon should have been settled in 1983 when Mt. Rushmore Ronald took strong military measures against those responsible ? Or whatever it was he did…
Incidentally – ain’t gonna happen, but I would welcome it if Bush instructed his mighty AG Gonzales to file Logan Act charges against Nancy Pelosi. What’s left of the GOP’s credibility would be effectively reduced in short order to a couple of dark rings around the toilet bowl.
Ohio Republicans disagree on mission to Syria
Thursday, April 5, 2007 3:51 AM
By Joe Hallett and Jack Torry
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
House Republican Leader John Boehner of West Chester yesterday accused Speaker Nancy Pelosi of going to Syria solely to embarrass President Bush, a charge rejected by an Ohio GOP lawmaker traveling with Pelosi.
Rep. David L. Hobson of Springfield, who joined Pelosi and other lawmakers in a meeting yesterday with Syrian President Bashar Assad, disagreed with Boehner that Pelosi “came here to embarrass Bush. I think she came here to reinforce certain policies, understand the region better and have the region understand her better.”
In a telephone interview last night from Saudi Arabia, Hobson said Pelosi “did not engage in any bashing of Bush in any meeting I was in and she did not in any meeting I was in bash the policies as it relates to Syria.”
Instead, Hobson said, Pelosi and the congressional delegation urged Assad to curb the number of suicide bombers who cross the Syrian border into Iraq to “murder our troops and the Iraqi people.”
April 3rd, 2007 at 6:50 am
This is a no-no, reprinting most of a Times column from behind their “Select” wall, but since Marc is recooperating, it might stimulate some discussion. I’d be interested in hearing vets like MB and rlc comment on this.
My Life in the Army
By ROBERT WRIGHT
Published: April 3, 2007
(My father was an army officer.)…Growing up in, or at least amid, the Army helped make me a liberal — not because I reacted against my environment, but because I absorbed its values. If all of America were more like the Army, it would be a better country.
People think of the Army as hierarchical, but compared with the private sector it’s a bastion of egalitarianism.
Yes, the Army’s “blue-collar workers†— privates, corporals, sergeants — defer to its “white-collar workers,†the officers. That happens in corporations, too. But on an Army base you don’t send the white-collar kids to good public schools and the blue-collar kids to bad public schools.
We all went to school together — either on the base or at a public school near it. My claim to fame is having played basketball at the same high school, on Fort Sam Houston, where Shaquille O’Neal, son of a sergeant, later played. (I encountered O’Neal in a hotel lobby a few years ago, and it turns out he’s less fascinated than I am by our intertwined histories. Puzzling.)
I had friends from the Army’s biggest minority constituencies, blacks and Hispanics. Among soldiers, too, exposure to diversity, along with the practical need to live with it, could be benign. My father grew up in Texas in the 1920s, amid common use of the n-word, and I never heard him use it.
Which brings us to social mobility. My father was the son of a sharecropper, and he dropped out of high school after both of his parents and most of his siblings had died of various diseases. He lacked the polish to impress, say, a Morgan Stanley recruiter, but during World War II, the Army gave him a chance.
That meant better health care than his parents had gotten, thanks to socialized medicine. My “blue collar†friends and I went to the same doctors. The doctors weren’t all great, but I’m still alive, and we avoided one creepy thing about inequality in America today: people like me get arthroscopic surgery lest stray cartilage impede our golf swings, while low-income people, in unseen ways, die for lack of good health care.
My father said Army people were as fine a group as you would ever meet, and the evidence was on his side. They were conscientious and unpretentious. And they can be surprisingly soft. Good commanders have a commitment to their troops that borders on love, a feeling that in the corporate world doesn’t generally emanate from the executive suite downward. (I said love, not lust.)
That’s partly because in the Army, the stakes are so high. Sending people into battle isn’t something a good person does with detachment. Before the Iraq war, when the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, testified that the postwar occupation would require hundreds of thousands of troops, he was showing not just prudence but devotion. He didn’t want his soldiers needlessly imperiled.
As a reward for his devotion, General Shinseki was disparaged by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Rumsfeld wanted to show how cheap war can be, and now our soldiers are paying the price. I wish some people on the left had a deeper respect for the military, but lately the left isn’t where the most consequential disrespect has come from.
The crowning indignity was Abu Ghraib, an outrage that was initiated by civilians high in the Bush administration and has stained the U.S. military’s hard-earned honor, strengthening stereotypes that I know are wrong.
My father, Col. Raymond J. Wright, retired…having given three decades to an institution he loved. He died in 1987. There are lots of things I wish he had lived to see, but the way the Army’s been treated recently isn’t one of them.
Robert Wright, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, runs the Web site Bloggingheads.tv. He is a guest columnist this month.
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:58 am
Nice, but I don’t buy it. It stikes me as being fifty to seventy-five percent of the truth. Sorry, but Tommy Franks was not a civilian when he signed on Rumsfeld’s plan, took his medals for the disaster and went home. Civilans are forcing the Military to trample international law? Please. Read “Imperial Life In The Emerald City”, the reactionary and horrific W years could not have happened without the clueless Military/Republican Bush base. There is no doubt the Pentagon’s public relation arm helped keep Americans in the dark about what was happening in Iraq for far too long.
An interesting question is “Why are liberals so frightened to attack, or even critique, the Military?” Why do are progressives feel they can make a viable case against the war based on the safety of our troops? (“I’ve got no moral problem with the invasion”).
Talk a look at O’Reilly cutting the mic on Col Ann Wright
and consider this blog’s basic cluelessness on both Fox News and the Republican’s war on the Geneva conventions ( “I like the quirky Lindsey Graham even more now”) and almost total lock step on the surge (the Republicans will end this war”). Ann Coulter isn’t the only thing that many progessives find easy to ignore.
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:08 am
Robert Wright is one the best essayists around these days.
I once worked on a DoD logistics software project for a guy who was the son of an Air Force general. He passed on to me a saying his father was fond of: “It’s not where you are, it’s how far you’ve come.”
It wasn’t an idle comment, exactly, in that context. One of the people on our project had retired at the rank of colonel. He’d been a Dust Bowl kid. Like many Okies of his generation, he probably hadn’t seen a flush toilet until he was in his teens. Another guy, also a retired colonel, had served on Truman’s commission to desegrate the Air Force. His origins were similar humble (and his upward arc impeded by racism, but less so in the Air Force than in civilian life, both before and afterward.)
It is a sad statement about America that the military probably offers more equality of opportunity than American society as a whole. Death, even the prospect of it, is a great equalizer. It’s no way to run a whole society (and of course Wright is suggesting no such thing), but there are lessons in it. I’m glad I learned those lessons. I didn’t like *how* I learned them — my daily commute from Berkeley to Lawrence Livermore during that time seemed like a descent into a maelstrom of madness, especially during Gulf War I. But I have to admit it was a way to meet certain kinds of people I probably never would have met otherwise, and that I’m the better for it.
April 3rd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
A nice bong hit and some sleep should fix u right up, Marc. Get well soon.
April 3rd, 2007 at 4:35 pm
As best I can tell from the dates that are given, the author and I ought to be approximately the same age. I was never in the military, but grew up near a, now closed, SAC base in upstate NY. The presence of the military had a profound effect on the demographics of the area, and local schools seemed to contain as many children of military as civilian parents. My very first job was in a non-com club. From my exposure to those military kids and their parents, and the enlisted I met and worked with, Mr. Wright’s experience is similar to my own.
Perhaps it was the “times,” K. Nardy. And, maybe much has changed since then. As a civilian family, we developed close relationships with a number of military families of all ranks. It was egalitarian. It was fraternal. It was responsible. It was also humble, and honored to serve. I’m not sure I’d judge the entire military by Tommy Franks. But, again, maybe it was different then.
As for Abu Ghraib, it’s worth taking a look at a recent piece in the NY Times, “A Conversation With Philip G. Zimbardo, Finding Hope in Knowing the Universal Capacity for Evil.” In the right circumstances, we are all capable of Abu Ghraib. Each and everyone of us. The only dividing line might be in our individual abilities to tolerate it.
My apologies. I don’t know how to do ‘tiny url.’
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/science/
03conv.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) You’ll have to cut and paste.
April 3rd, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Yes I know that his very name sends some into a crazed frenzy but I’m posting this excellent three hour discussion C Span hosted with Alexander Cockburn
http://tinyurl.com/2yr5a7
April 3rd, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Oh, shit. I was afraid the punch line on Ahmed’s post was going to be “Christopher Hitchens.”
Dodged that bullet…
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Crazed Frenzy Alert – Cockburn sides with Woody on global warming in that interview. Weird…
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Frenchy? Cockburn is Ulster Irish.
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Reg, can’t remember the fellow who took me to task here for reporting “Counterpunch” had called Global Warming “Junk Science.”
They had seemingly scrubbed their site of such references; nice of Alex to bring us back up to date. Also nice to remember the next time they’re telling us Al Gore is an Axe Murderer, or some such…
Thanks “listener”, I appreciate the response. I’m not sure how we lost sight of the fact that the Military is just another branch of the Goverment, ripe for corruption as the rest; simply because a lot of nice, decent people join up. But as I see it now, mainstream liberals must everything in tidal waves of blather about the finest people in the country ( when it’s a conservative, it’s the greatest instatution in the history of civilization); and progressives seem to hate the liberals for not fighting their battles for them.
So, sickingly, the damage we’ve done to Iraq will be pinned on the Iraqis. Again, force yourself to watch the O’Reilly.
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Also, more shame for this blog: Remember Lindsey Graham hoping the SC would reverse the Bush White’s bagging of habeas corpus?
Opps. This was day’s after this blog wrote about Graham like he was a hero. After he reversed himself; it had only scorn for one of the few Dem’s who crossed over and backed Bush.
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Here’s that tinyurl for the interview with Zimbardo.
http://tinyurl.com/2cnz7m
(Just go to tinyurl.com and follow the instructions — it’s very easy.)
Pretending that “a few bad apples” was all that Abu Ghraib amounted to was sort of the flip side of the propaganda mechanism that also gave us the story of Pat Tillman getting cut down by Afghan insurgents rather than our own, and the Saga of Jessica Lynch. But then, as always, truth is the first casualty of war.
“Cockburn sides with Woody on global warming in that interview. Weird ….”
Yeah, and he also derides Peak Oil, preferring Thomas Gold’s hypothesis (“Deep, hot biosphere”),that petroleum is a renewable resource — a theory with underpinnings in Soviet research, and still popular even now in Russia. Last I checked, however, only a tiny fraction of assessed reserves qualify as abiogenic. Thomas Gold had a lot of interesting theories, but not many of them ever panned out. He was/is a kind of Che Guevara figure to people who can be found near the fringes of science. (Nikola Tesla being another one — but at least Tesla built some stuff that worked.)
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:57 pm
“It is a sad statement about America that the military probably offers more equality of opportunity than American society as a whole”
Did anyone else catch David Graeber’s brilliant essay in Harpers magazine a few months ago. He argued that leftist and liberals generally misunderstand peoples motivation for joining the army in the first place. His arguement is that working class kids sign up in the Army for the same reasons upper middle class kids seel out liberal arts educations–the pursuit of altruism. If I understand him properly Graeber is saying that virtually no children of working class Americans will ever become drama critics or human rights lawyers. This is due to the closing of opportunities for a truly liberal education to those without more economic resources than the working class possesses. On top these economic barriers there is also the crucial role of unpaid internships. Here’s his provocative conclusion
“Why do working-class Bush voters tend to resent intellectuals more than they do the rich? It seems to me that the answer is simple. They can imagine a scenario in which they might become rich but cannot imagine one in which they, or any of their children, would become members of the intelligensia”
So if working class kids wish to pursue some higher calling, something other than mindless money making, what options do they really have? Graeber says two. They can either seek employment with thier local church or join the army.
April 4th, 2007 at 4:27 am
I am just running out the door for a day long trip to San Diego (in the USA all of April) so will only comment briefly that this seems to me an over romanticized view of the Army I knew from 1969-1971. It sounds more like a backdrop for a Scorcese movie. We had the lifers and the grunts; the lifers were over represented by poor Blacks who made good in the Army by being sergeants, and the grunts were draftees. I don’t think altruism had much to do with it, even if that is one of Wright’s big topics, and until Sept 11 it probably had little to do with who joined the military in the present day.
April 4th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Here is the less romantic side of being in the Army today:
The Department of Defense has identified 3,247 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:
BOWLING, William G., 24, Specialist, Army; Beattyville, Ky.; 10th Mountain Division.
KING, Bradley D., 28, Staff Sgt., Army; Marion, Ind.; Second Battalion, 152nd Infantry, 76th Infantry Brigade.
MARCIAL, Miguel A. III, 19, Pfc., Marines; Secaucus, N.J.; Second Marine Division.
MEJIAS, David A., 26, Staff Sgt., Army; San Juan, P.R.; 10th Mountain Division.
McDOWELL, Robert M., 30, Sgt., Army; Deer Park, Tex.; 10th Mountain Division.
POLO, Joe, 24, Sgt., Army; Opa-Locka, Fla.; Second Infantry Division.
SHANK, Neale M., 25, First Lt., Army; Fort Wayne, Ind.; 10th Mountain Division.
VICK, Eric R., 25, Staff Sgt., Army; Spring Hope, N.C.; 10th Mountain Division.
April 4th, 2007 at 7:07 am
Get well soon. Scotch whiskey may not be good for whatever ails you, but you won’t care.
April 4th, 2007 at 10:23 am
JC sais, ‘Cockburn is Ulster Irish’. He is? I had read that he was born in Scotland and raised in County Cork, nowhere near Ulster. Just curious – a bit of an irishman myself.
I liked the Wright essay (as I’m a fan of Robert Wright’s stuff), but it did seem to paint an overly rosy picture. I remember back when I was floating around my local community college and I started to seriously consider the Navy as a route to go. I visited the local recruiter’s office and when they asked me what highschool I went to, I told them and their reply was ‘Oh we’ve had plenty of fine recruits from there, here maybe you know them,’ and they pointed me to a posterboard full of recent recruit’s pictures as I rolled my eyes already knowing what to expect. I did know them, and they were some of the biggest goofoffs and jerks (and plenty rascist to) that I knew of in high school, all products of Chicago’s fine public school system. I thought, ‘jeez, the Navy thinks these guys are ‘fine recruits’?’ This was the Navy to, whose standards are higher than the other branches. I think this kind of recruiting is fairly typical, and even worse in the Army, and especially now, with standards having been lowered even more.
April 4th, 2007 at 11:17 am
I wanted to correct myself but my post was “on moderation” – I was under the genuine impression that all non-Catholic Irish were considered “Ulster Irish” – and I think his mother was a protestant, though I don’t know.
What I said before:
Stan Goff, as I recall, points out in his book Full Spectrum Disorder, that military life was part of what converted him to socialism. Military bases are in many ways, cornucopian socialistcolonies..abundant commons, economic planning, egalitrain housing schemes, etc. Outside of the Boykin crowd, most military members are actually, at least socially, quite progressive. They need to be.
April 4th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Just for the record, I snipped the opening section of Wright’s essay that sets his recollections of his dad’s army in the context of the late ’60s, when there was a serious draft. Also a serious war. At least for a time, Wright’s family was stationed at the Presidio, which was undoubtedly the most beautiful army base in the world.
April 4th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
That’s army post, Reg. The most beautiful naval station may be in Rota, Spain.
April 4th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
First off, Marc, I too, wish you well as you reCOOPERate (sorry, couldn’t resist).
Thanks folks for the great links.
On the one you posted reg, I can testify as a vet, that the army was an ‘affirmative’ experience. I’d mostly agree with Wright’s theme of egalitarianism. Serving in the military really exposes you to a merit based institution. Sargents and squad leaders aren’t leaders for no reason. It becomes self evident rather soon on, that skin color counts for zero as to whom has the mojo to be a leader.
As an 18 year old enlistee, I’m confident that I wasn’t racist or bigoted toward minorities, but at that time, I was no doubt somewhat susceptible to stereotypes. The very act of going through boot camp and AIT forces you into the melting pot and starts dissolving one’s preconceived notions and stereotypes about others. You lose the ‘other’ or ‘me’ and you become more of the ‘us’ and the ‘we’. You’re all the same: same shaved heads, same sweating BDUs, same M16s… And by the time you do ‘live fire’ maneuvers, those stereotypes and prejudices ought to be completely burned out of you because you discover in a very real way, that your own survival is dependent on the competence of the GI next to you. The army, or the military overall, obviously is not the only place where one could come to appreciate the virtues of egalitarianism, but I’d say it sure does speed up the learning curve.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
It looks as if Marc isn’t the only one under the weather: Not Enough Workers?
April 4th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Here is something to consider about the Army. The difference in salary between a recruit (PVT E-1) and the Chief of Staff (A four Star General) is about 13 – 1. Both receive the same medical care and have the same PX and commissary priveleges. Both have the same number of vacation (“Leave”) days. It is true that that NCOs and Officers have their own clubs and when I was in you couldn’t buy liquor at a “Class Six” store if you were under the rank of E-5 but that was about it. Oh, and enlisted got their uniforms while officers had to pay. They also had to pay for their mess, except in the field.
Markos, over at KOS, said it was the army that made him a liberal as well. I know this bursts some bubbles but that’s the way it is.
And one more thing. The army is the only place in american society where it is likely that white man will have a black boss.
Hope you feel better Marc. I’m still fighting off a bout of the flu.
April 4th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Randy – I knew that was an army post about the Presidio base when I posted it.
Oh ? Nevermind!
April 4th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Meanwhile, have you seen over at Little Green Fungusballs that Nancy Pelosi has adopted the headgear of Islamofascism.
(As have Laura Bush and Condi Rice, if the photos are to be believed.)
We’re, like, totally surrounded.
Also – just in case you missed it, here’s the best Pajama’s Media Exclusive Breaking News ever (well, at least since that Khamenei guy “died” ) :
“Was Drudge Right After All? Bob Owens thinks he might have been right, at least partially, in his information on ‘McCain heckled by CNN reporter’. (Confederate Yankee)
UPDATE. Well, it seems not. (Raw Story)
PJM Barcelona 4:22 AM”
It would appear that the intrepid reporter who worked up that Bush National Guard documents debacle for Dan Rather has landed a new gig in, uh, PJM’s “Barcelona Bureau”. And they don’t even have to climb out of bed.
April 4th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
The “Source” for the “Heckling” story was a correspondant from AFP who told others that no such incident occured. Boy the pajamarama crowd must really be getting desperate when they misquote a FRENCH news source!
April 4th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Look, did you really need Michael Ware to tell you that McCain was full of shit? His stroll thru the Baghdad market was so impromtu that he only took 100 soldiers, three armored humvees and three helos along. Why I do that every time I go to Albertsons, don’t you?
And see Juan Cole for what happened in the marketplace the next day.
No wonder McCain is tanking in the polls. He now owns this war and its an anchor arouind his neck.
April 4th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Reg,
It’s just the pedant in me.
April 4th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
It’s actually an interesting, if elusive, set of distinctions.
Presumably it’s a naval station, an army post and an air force base. My next question is how do the verbs work? Can you be stationed at a base or based at a post while posting on your website ?
April 4th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
“Here is something to consider about the Army. The difference in salary between a recruit (PVT E-1) and the Chief of Staff (A four Star General) is about 13 – 1.”
Yeah, and there are no $220 million Golden Parachute deals for generals who screw up. Not to say there aren’t many who pass through the revolving door into the “industrial” part of the military-industrial complex after taking retirement. Still, if you’re possessed of unusual executive talent, getting rich that way is definitely taking the long way around.
April 5th, 2007 at 6:38 am
First: Marc, get well soon, that’s an order, not a request!
Second: Reg, thanks for finding that article and posting it. It offers a solid look at the inside of living in the military. I too was born and raised in the Army and enlisted in ’69 for my own “career” although that didn’t pan out because of a rather significant hearing loss. But, the same things that made Wight a liberal, made me a conservative.
My dad too was a career soldier. Fought in three wars, WWII, Korea and Vietnam (one of the early ones ’61-’62 under Kennedy) and retired after 32 years as a full bird. Everything that wright said is true but his learning experience was somewhat different than mine. I suspect that it was the details (…”The devil is in the details”…) paid attention to that account for the differing positions vis-a-vis political stances. Again, thanks for finding that. Dad died in 2000, and old soldier that he was, his gruffness and his love is missed.
April 5th, 2007 at 8:24 am
test
April 5th, 2007 at 8:24 am
What got wiped out by moderation:
I wanted to correct myself but my post was “on moderation†– I was under the genuine impression that all non-Catholic Irish were considered “Ulster Irish†– and I think his mother was a protestant, though I don’t know.
What I said before:
Stan Goff, as I recall, points out in his book Full Spectrum Disorder, that military life was part of what converted him to socialism. Military bases are in many ways, cornucopian socialistcolonies..abundant commons, economic planning, egalitrain housing schemes, etc. Outside of the Boykin crowd, most military members are actually, at least socially, quite progressive. They need to be.
April 5th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Anything I write over a sentence gets put on moderation.
April 5th, 2007 at 10:02 am
GM old soldiers never die.
Reg your status on post depends on whether you are “Cadre” (Perm. Party) or a member of a “Hosted” Unit. For Example – when I was assigned to NSA I was assigned to the US Army Security Agency Liason Unit at Fort George G. Meade, MD. PP’s there were in HQ First Army – the Host Unit. Hope that clears it up.
Now drop and give me twenty!
April 5th, 2007 at 11:09 am
rlc – apparently my posting status is a member of a “Hosted” Unit, thanks to MC and RP. And the last time some guy told me “Drop and give me twenty!”, he’d snuck up behind me with a gun. Everything’s crystal clear.
And, since Marc is still indisposed, I’m going to suggest that anyone who wants to read a couple of very good posts on current stuff check out richard’s two latest “elsewhere”. One is on the Pelosi “Syrian Visit Scandal” and the other on AttorneyGate – wherein Orrin Hatch is shown to be an incredibly disingenuous guy ( to put it politely and avoid impolite stuff like “lying scumbag”, etc.)
Really good commentary that yields factual info I, for one, didn’t know…and easily available to anyone who clicks on my alleged name, above. (I’ve been tending to cut, paste, link and post cute and/or snarky pics recently – Richard actually writes stuff. Stuff that deserves to be read.)
April 5th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Also, GMR – thanks for the thanks. I’ve noticed that a certain “liberalism” sneaks out of your reactionary crust occasionally (I say “reactionary” because pushing the “Bush 2004″ bandwagon in the face of enormous evidence of supreme incompetence and dishonesty wasn’t a “conservative” position IMHO, it was blind contempt for a perceived liberal “enemy”, no matter what the cost to our country) and I’d attribute those moments of slippage to precisely what Wright discusses in his article.
April 5th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I think McCain is getting a bad rap for taking 100 soldiers and two Apache helicopters along with him for the Baghdad walkabout. After all, he took the great risk that those helicopters would get shot down and land on his head.
April 5th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Reg I just read over at TPM (rapidly becoming indespensible for anyone trying to keep up with events) that Orrin Hatch now says he got confused. He was referring to Alan Bernsin – a classmate of Bill at Yale who was a Law Prof with little prosecutorial experience and did head up the Clinton for President campaign in Southern California. He later resigned as US Attorney in Sad Diego to become Superintendent of Schools for that city.
Well that’s an understandable error. I mean one person is a WASP Male prof while the other is an Asian-American Woman prosecutor.
Hell I make mistakes like that all the time!
April 5th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
“Sad Diego”
I’ve been reading Jack Kerouac’s “Visons of Cody” and I guess it is getting to me!
Given that city’s political power elite I like that bit of spontaneous prose.
April 5th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
What possible reason could Hatch have had for referencing an obscure Clinton appointee’s curriculum vitae in the context of discussing Carol Lam ? Hatch is just plain full of shit. He was blowing smoke into the wingnut balcony. Limbaugh circulated this crap and the lizard brains have ingested it as part of their alternate reality. It’s a trial lawyer’s tactic – when you’ve got nothing, blow smoke. I retract my earlier mis-characterization of Hatch. He’s not incredibly disingenuous. He’s a lying scumbag.
April 5th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Now Reg you’ve simply got to stop being so suspicious! And if you believe that the Angel Moroni gave those golden tablets to Joseph Smith then is this so hard to swallow?
April 6th, 2007 at 4:10 am
“I’ve been reading Jack Kerouac’s “Visons of Cody†”
I think I read that 17 times as a senior in high school; you must be young at heart.
April 6th, 2007 at 7:42 am
When I was a teenager and a budding Deadhead, Kerouac, et. al were my heroes. Rereading Kerouac now, I think he was a major influence on me, but a hell of an overrated writer. Burroughs and Ginsberg – particularly Burroughs – retain their spot in the pantheon though.
April 6th, 2007 at 8:52 am
reg: “I’ve noticed that a certain “liberalism†sneaks out of your reactionary crust occasionally…”
reg, that is because you really have no concept of what a conservative thinks or how he/she goes about arriving at a conclusion. My support of Bush in ’04 had less to do with Bush than it did with the scumbag called Kerry, one of the few, if not the only officers to duck out of duty after three minor wounds (very minor if I might add) leaving his buddies. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that for example, Fox doesn’t get passed on the ambassadorship because of his politics, yet Bushco can’t fire 8 attornies because of theirs? Or if you want to speak to abject stupidity “no matter what the cost to the country” try Pelosi’s visit (and any other idiot republicans that went with her) to Syria, a country that all but fools acknowledge is one of the major state sponsors of terrorists.
And, having said all that, you are welcome, when you post something I agree with, I’ll always say so.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:20 am
GM Roper -
Here I was hoping we could have a nice nostalgic conversation about the Beat Generation when you have to hop on your swift boat for truth and muddy the waters.
Seems like most of Kerry’s army buddies haven’t been informed that he was such a scumbag; they still show a lot of affection and respect for him.
There is a difference between the firing of the attorneys and the opposition to Sam Fox, though in part it depends on viewing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whom Fox so generously supported, as the despicable scumbags which they are.
And by the way, to all former/ current Kerouac/Ginsberg fans I recommend the book ‘When I was Cool’ by Sam Kashner, a very funny memoir of his years studying with Ginsberg, Burroughs and Corso at the ‘Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics’.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Sorry to see you’re still laid up Marc but if want to pass the time you might pick up a copy of Robert Randisi’s book “Everybody kills somebody sometime” a noir set in 1960 Las Vegas during the “Summit” at the Sands. Seems someone is sending threats to Dino and Frank asks Jack Entratter to look into it. He gets one of his pit bosses to investigate and . . .
Since I know you like crime fiction and Vegas I think you’d get a kick out of it.
jcummings I think any examination of the Beats would conclude that Keruoac (and Neal Cassidy) was the glue that held the gang together. Ginsberg didn’t name the writing program he founded at Naropa “The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics” for nothing. The tragedy is that was not who Kerouac was. People kept confusing him with “Dean Moriarity” (Cassidy) when he was just a shy Canuck from Lowell Mass, devoted to his mother and the memories of his dead brother. Rereading him recently made me see just how Roman Catholic an author he really was.
In many ways a very sad life.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Evets, amazing! I just finished reading that. I kept thinking of Joni Mitchell’s song “To aging Children” in the Peter Pan like way Ginsberg and Corso refused to grow up. And is there a sadder guy than Bill Burroughs Jr? I’ve never been a big fan of the old man – he literally did get away with murder – and this portrait only confirmed it.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:27 am
And Corso never did. I was at the memorial service for Ginsberg at the Wadsworth Theatre in W LA and Corso was a guest speaker and it took all of Ann Waldman’s and several others attention to keep him calm.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:39 am
RLC – socially I agree – esp. with “Cowboy Neal” (see the Dead’s song “The Other One”) at the wheel….but I truly think that Jean Louis De Kerouac was an overrated writer, perfect for nascent bohemianism but no Burroughs.
I agree about his (Buddho-)Catholicism…in fact Kerouac was a reactionary. See the old firing line thing with Buckley who assumes he’s a “liberal” and he sputs drunken Bircher stuff. When Timothy Leary gave him and other beats LSD at a gathering soon after the release of Manchurian Candidate, Kerouac thought he was being brainwashed by communists – particularly Ginsberg.
I can’t deny that Kerouac – I’ve read all his stuff – had a profound influencce on me. At the same time, I don’t think that he had anything profound to say in the long run, aside from On the Road.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:04 am
I had a 29 second conversation once with Corso after one of his readings. A fetching damsel happened to walk by and he just melted away, never realizing that I still had several compelling points to make.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Marc, if you don’t get better and die, can I have your GTO?
April 6th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Of course for the Dead Neal was the bus driver for Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. I really wonder how many of those folks actually read “On the Road”? Kerouac was also an alcoholic – a pretty common condition among American writers (see Faulkner, Fitzgerald, O’Hara etc.). As I said a pretty sad life.
No he was not a hippie. Didn’t like them. Remember his crowd was composed on Ivy League dropouts who actually did read.
I assume everyone here has read “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test”. I lost my copy and its next to impossible to find these days. But I know a lot of people who consider it to be a pack of lies from begining to end.
Still – it didn’t hurt Tom Wolfe none
(Speaking of overrated)
April 6th, 2007 at 11:03 am
I assure you, as someone who spent some time with Kesey et. al, that everyone read On the Road.
Wolfe’ sstory is one sided – not a pack of lies but an exoticization and depoliticization to be sure.
April 6th, 2007 at 11:16 am
JCummings -
I think On the Road will last for a long time as a young adult classic. I re-read it a few years back and was surprised that it still resonated in a lot of places and almost never made me wince. As for Burroughs, he may be ghoulishly funny in spots, but I can’t say I’ve ever been moved to re-read him. Are you sure you’re not grading these guys on their politics?
April 6th, 2007 at 11:27 am
rlc -
I used to like Tom Wolfe when he wrote non-fiction, esp the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. He seemed almost human in those days. There was some generosity in his writing and the people in his books seemed almost human too, unlike his fictional characters. They appear to be drawn up to prove some kind of Hobbesian polemical point. And all the wit has turned rancid.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
“the scumbag called Kerry”
Enough said. I read that far and it not only made my point but told me everything I need to know about the way you think.
I also know how many conservatives think, because I grew up among them…and it ain’t all the struff of your remarkably rotten Rovian Republican Party or your Wingnut Webbie friends by a long shot. The notion that you know the first thing about liberalism is belied by the big tag on your website, something to the effect of how easy it is to take down liberal ideas. Coming from you and Woody, that’s just laughable.
You are invested in,literally, a pack of right-wing talking points that are tantamount to lies on both the attorney narrative and Pelosi’s trip. If you can show me any criticism of the GOP congressmen who traveled to Syria – or of Gingrich’s independent overtures to China when he was Speaker, or Denny Hastert traveling to Columbia in ’99 and telling the Generals to ignore Clinton’s appeals regarding human rights, I’ll take your Liberal Derangement Syndrome as regards Pelosi (and Kerry, for that matter) seriously. You live in a far-right cloud cuckooland and I’m afraid you don’t have a clue how baseless and thin most of the crap you spit out for public consumption actually is.
But, like you said, if you get something right, I’ll admit it. Also,if you catch me in a factual error, I’ll be happy stand corrected. I won’t whine and try to bend the discussion like your friend Woody always does when he spouts total nonsense that has no evidentiary basis whatsoever.
If I want to “understand how conservatives think”, I’ll read Michael Oakeshott or Edmund Burke – not the latest childish crap emanating from The Corner, Drudge’s sheet or a totally disingenuos moron like Glenn Reynolds – who serially links things that have absolutely no basis in fact. (Most recently the slander of Michael Ware.) Frankly, I think in many respects post-New Deal liberalism – that tends to emphasize a mix of social and economic stability AND mobility, using limited government for both ballast and leverage in an essentially market-based system – has more in common with Burke and Oakeshott than the radical masterminds of the DeLay-Era GOP, the Neo-Con Cult, Markets Uber Alles Ideologues or the Religion-Racket Right. But that’s another discussion.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
“If you can show me any criticism of the GOP congressmen who traveled to Syria” – I meant to add “among the Webbie Wingnuts and Hate-Radio crowd prior to Pelosi’s well-publicized trip, I’ll take your line on this seriously. I doubt if you can. It was the old “Hate-Liberals Derangement Syndrome” at work in a particularly odious fashion – particularly in the attacks on Pelosi for doing what Laura Bush and Condi Rice have also done in the same circumstance – i.e. respecting a religious tradition. These were just cheap, totally dishonest shots and they came from most of the bastions of “conservative” opinion. Which have become remarkably cheap
April 6th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
…and dishonest.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Speaking of contemporary “conservatism”, I can’t wait for certain Honchos of the Religion-Racket Right to start opportunistically sucking up to Serial Adulterer, BabyKiller, Homo-Hugging, Drag Dressing Rudy Giuliani if, as it appears with McCain tanking and Mitt looking increasingly ridiculous, America’s Mussolini – I mean, America’s Mayor – becomes the most viable GOP package. It will be quite a spectacle. I have Zero sympathy for any among this crowd, and it will serve them right if their well-indoctrinated base revolts in the name of the Lord. Time for a 3rd Party candidate of the Wingnut Right if Rudy manages to wangle the GOP nomination.
Gary Bauer, anyone ?
April 6th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
reg -
“I think in many respects post-New Deal liberalism … has more in common with Burke and Oakeshott than the radical masterminds of the DeLay-Era GOP”
Here’s one conservative eminence who agrees with you:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0610.hart.html
April 6th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Reg -
From what I hear Fred Thompson is gaining on Rudy and may even be a jowl ahead.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
How’d I get pulled into some stupid argument from reg? I’m just trying to get a cheap GTO if Marc doesn’t recover.
In the meantime, Marc, I’ll be glad to make some posts for you on topics on which I am well versed–illegal immigration, global warming fraud, baseball, and the War on Terror, a term that the Democrats have banned. Figure that out.
Tomorrow night: John Smoltz goes against Tom Glavine in a great pitching matchup, as the Braves entertain the Mets at Turner Field. Attending the games will prohibit me from reading the classy books discussed in this thread.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
“Attending the games will prohibit me from reading the classy books discussed in this thread.”
I knew that was coming at some point but since my father was a big Braves fan (Boston), I forgive you.
April 6th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Marc has a GTO?
See ya at “Dead Man’s Curve!”
April 6th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Reg I let GM’s remark sl;ide since he’s an old Army man and I’m sure he treats anything from BUPERS as a tall tale anyway!
April 6th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Not at all on their politics. Burroughs was all over the map – was even a scientologist for a while. On the Road does not make me wince, and I reread it at least every two or three years. But his other stuff does make me wince, at best. Just a matter of taste.
If I am judging them though, its not the politics per se, but I believe that Burroughs was in his own way – check his underrated nonfition – a profound philosopher and social theorist.
April 6th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
“From what I hear Fred Thompson is gaining on Rudy and may even be a jowl ahead.”
Best news yet – Fred Thompson 2008 is a great Twofer. Increases the Dems liklihood of taking the White House and we get someone else on Law and Order who can better fill Steven Hill’s shoes as DA.
April 6th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Also, thanks for that link, evets. I’ll take Jeffrey Hart as an arbiter of serious conservatism over our local denizens any day, any year, any decade…
April 6th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
“Bushco can’t fire 8 attornies because of theirs?”
They can. The question is, how should such blatant, interventionist politicization of U.S. Attorney’s offices be treated ? “If it feels good, do it!” “If we can get away with it, fine!” “Anything illegal about this ? Then it must be okay.” Should this departure from established precedent (no matter how much the rightwing lies – with their phony “Clinton Did It” mantra – about the aberrant nature of these “mid-stream” firings without cause, directly politicizing the offices of federal prosecutors) simply be deemed “business as usual” for future administrations or should it be exposed and protested as a danger to the legal process ? And nobody on the Dem side lied about why they’re going after Fox. He’s a creep and a crony. That’s what this administration apparently admires in its appointees. Screw him.
The only thing Bush has going for him at this late date is scandal fatique. The more crap that turns up, the more diffuse and “normal” it begins to seem. I do have to give him credit though, for destroying the credibility of the Republican Party in just a couple of years. Maybe Ralph Nader was on to something…
April 6th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
reg:
reg, I could care less what Pelosi wore, but there is a big problem with going to Syria, she may be in violation of the Logan Act:
Your cherry picking of my comment about what she did and interpretating that as what she wore is symptomatic of your argument style.
April 6th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
I am no fan of Pelosi, but can’t complain about diplomacy, but if one wants to apply the logic of the Logan Act to Pelosi, then what about the Israel lobby, the Taiwan lobby, Denny Hastert’s personal lobbying for the Turkish government, etc.?
April 6th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
jcummings, I won’t disagree you regarding Hastert he should have been prosecuted as should perhaps Pelosi if the facts are as presented We know for sure that Bush didn’t want Pelosi to go, did he ask Hastert to go? If so, than Hastert would not have been in violation. I don’t know, do you? The Israel lobby and taiwan lobby and any other foreign governments lobby are allowed to lobby us, that is not what logan is about. Now, if you mean American citizens working for those lobbys, that still doesn’t apply because they are registered via act of congress for just that purpose, too, they are not trying to disuade/persuade the foreign govt, they are trying to disuade/persuade our government.
April 6th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
jcummings when Pelosi gets indicted under the Logan maybe she can ask for a joint trial with Denny Hastart and Newt Gingerich.
April 6th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Sorry I meant that for GM.
But Jcummings I’ve got bad news for you. The Washington POST just closed their Toronto Bureau which was the last newsbureau in Canada by a daily US paper. So I’m sorry to announce that, since the US media no longer considers anything going on in the Great White North to be newsworthy, I’m going to have to ignore anything you say. After all its just not newsy!
April 6th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
RLC
Joking aside, I think the fact that the American media is doing that is simply pathetic.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
No, in the case of Hastert and foreign lobbies that American politicians travel to their contries to influence/be influenced by their governmnt, are just as much under your logan act bullshit as what Pelosi did. I mean I think Bush’s anger, as well as his oppoition to the Democrats’ exist strategy is grand theatre. In the first case, Pelosi is probably officially representing America but doesn’t want Syria to officially know that, so they concoct the whole story that she is on the outs with her leadership, hence giving her more personal credibility, in a public diplomacy sense. Second of all, in terms of Bush and the Democrats’ tepid “antiwar” resolution that everyone badmouths – is a big help to Bush, who does need an exit strategy after all. But he needs his base to think that he’s against it. All grand political theatre.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Finally, as per your Logan Act, are Dean and Gore guilty because they badmouthed Bush at our Liberal convention?
April 6th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
The Department of Defense has identified 3,252 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the death of the following American on Wednesday:
BECKER, Shane R., 35, Staff Sgt., Army; Helena, Mont.; 25th Infantry Division.
April 6th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
GM,
Considering the WSJ’s tendentious reading of the Logan Act, don’t hold your breath.
Joe Klein gets it right:
April 6th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
I’m sorry, but this line of argument is really, really ridiculous. The Wall St. Journal (and GM) is suggesting that some enterprising prosecutor ought to indict the Speaker of the House because she doesn’t have the “authority of the United States” when it comes to talking to foreign governments? The second American in history to face prosecution under the law ought to be the Speaker of the House? The law is obviously not intended from preventing elected government officials from communicating with foreign governments. Original intent when convenient. Can’t you just accuse her of undermining the troops or something?
April 6th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
“this line of argument is really, really ridiculous”
Really, what do you expect?
And GM, if you don’t think your friends in the wingnut brigade haven’t been raking Pelosi for wearing a headscarf, you haven’t been on your computer. Kudos for not stooping to that level of stupidity. I mentioned those attacks because they have been a central theme of the anti-Pelosi chorus. And your angle about the Logan act is plain nuts. Look at the source…The WSJ editorial page-a bastion of wingnuttery and falsification. Probably the only major newspaper opinion page that never bothers to acknowledge and correct its numerous errors. And Turner’s a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, one of the neo-con cult groups, ginning up talking points. Total, unadulterated crap. If Nixon wasn’t prosecuted for doing backdoor negotiations with the South Vietnamese in order to undermine Humphrey in ’68, any attempt to use the Logan act against Pelosi for talking with a foreign leader is an absurd proposition. You guys really are getting desperate, aren’t you. I remember the good old days of your triumphalist pronouncements on all things Bush. It must really sting to be consigned to the scrapheap…
April 6th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Any word from Marc ? Is he okay ?
April 6th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Has Joe Klein come back from the dead ? His columns are getting better and he seems to be inclined to engage his critics at the Time blog rather than just display contempt. This can’t last long.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Reg, Mavis, RLC, please not that I said “may be” in violation. I’m not an attorney, nor a prosecutor. I’m merely noting what the WSJ has said in its online Opinion Journal. The guy that wrote the article however is an attorney, and former chair of the American Bar Associations standing committee on law and national security. I would suspect he might know more than the four of us.
Having said that, just because a law is old and unused, doesn’t mean that it can’t be used. What Pelosi and the republicans did was dispicable from the standpoint of honoring our national interest in not dealing with states that have been named as supporting terrorism especially when the state involved is one who is probably involved in the hell in Lebanon as is Syria and their clients/puppets Hezbollah. I don’t give a crap who buys into that argument, it is flat out dispicable in my opinion, those folk we know murdered 200 plus Marines and have been implicated in the killing of numerous pro-democracy elements in Lebanon.
Let’s take jcummings sceneario that Pelosi might have been officially representing the US in which case, implausible as it may seem, might be completely accurate. Pelosi would not have been acting illegally and would then have been an Agent of the US. As I noted Hastert may have been. That would be an interesting ending to this whole story.
Perhaps the Logan act is one more reason to sun-set all federal laws.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
the above should have been unbolded just after the “and” in the secon sentence
April 7th, 2007 at 4:01 am
Don’t you think the issue of how to respond to 240 marines being killed in Lebanon should have been settled in 1983 when Mt. Rushmore Ronald took strong military measures against those responsible ? Or whatever it was he did…
This spiel above as to why Pelosi or any other congressional figure shouldn’t be allowed to visit Syria and question officials about policy is on of the most jumbled, over-simplified expositions on the question of how to deal with the tangled web of the Middle East I’ve ever read. This whole deal raises another burning question: should Cong. Mike Conway (R – TX), Cong. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and others be prosecuted for recent discussions held with Cuban officials about ending sanctions ? These were consultations in which the congressmen (a bipartisan group, for the record) explored a policy option with a foreign government considered an enemy of the U.S. that they actually might be able to effect.
The “Hate Pelosi” subtext of this tendentious bullshit just screams through this “scandal” fabricated by folks who, frankly, have a record of being wrong every time they open their mouths on related issues. Somebody tell me one goddam thing regarding strategy that we’ve heard from GM’s end of the galaxy on the central quagmire facing us in the Middle East these last several years that’s turned out to be worth the pixels it’s printed on. Pelosi’s become “Clinton Lite” for these crackpots – a target of opportunity, even when the “opportunity” is something they make up.
April 7th, 2007 at 5:26 am
The conversation has obviously moved on to where this submission is now off topic, but for those curious about letters to the editor in response to Robert Wright’s My Life in the Army ….
http://tinyurl.com/28auoa
… compliments of Michael Turner’s careful instruction. Thanks, MT!
April 7th, 2007 at 5:35 am
Thanks. Interesting letters.
But right now I’m consumed with the more compelling issue of whether or not Darrell Issa will be sent to the slammer, where he belongs.
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_5602637
April 7th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Just when you thought someone had already been scraping the bottom…
http://tinyurl.com/2h8jw6
April 7th, 2007 at 7:18 am
I kind of wonder about A.C. What happens to a celebrity of her nature? Generally, if female, they implode at some point. What I can’t decide is will she implode as the result of some level of over exposure. Or, will she implode when someday she’s fully ignored. That she keeps upping the ante seems evident; she’s escalating. I kind of wonder what would happen if one were to simply sit and give her their undivided, but wordless, attention. Would she keep ramping up the rhetoric until she catapulted over the edge of sanity. Would she suddenly hear herself and become so frightened of her own internal landscape that she became mute? Or, would she simply back down, and dissemble? I wonder if AC wonders if she’s real. For now, she seems able to defend against the realization that the joke is on her; dissembling as ego defense. She has become, or is rapidly becoming, a caricature of herself. Unless she understands she is a mere character in her celebrity drama, the end of celebrity – which will surely come – won’t be pretty. Rule One: Never read your own press. Failing Rule One, Rule Two: Never believe it. Failing Rule Two, Rule Three: Secure a landing for free fall.
April 7th, 2007 at 7:41 am
The Department of Defense has identified 3,253 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the death of the following American yesterday:
COON, James J., 22, Pfc., Army; Walnut Creek, Calif.; First Cavalry Division.
April 7th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Maybe we could get John Biskupic, the USA in Wisconsin to file Logan Act charges. After all the Court of Appeals there has cited his work in brining cases that are “Way past Thin.”
April 7th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Don’t you think the issue of how to respond to 240 marines being killed in Lebanon should have been settled in 1983 when Mt. Rushmore Ronald took strong military measures against those responsible ? Or whatever it was he did…
He did the right thing: he invaded Grenada.
April 7th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Probably got that advice from Dough Feith. He wanted to hit Argentina after 9/11. Or was that Paraguay?
April 7th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Definitely Paraguay. Queen Margaret had already brought Argentina to heel.
April 7th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
It was Feith who gave creedence to that uberhack Jeffrey Goldberg’s “three borders” area theory….
April 8th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Incidentally – ain’t gonna happen, but I would welcome it if Bush instructed his mighty AG Gonzales to file Logan Act charges against Nancy Pelosi. What’s left of the GOP’s credibility would be effectively reduced in short order to a couple of dark rings around the toilet bowl.
April 8th, 2007 at 4:38 am
Ohio Republicans disagree on mission to Syria
Thursday, April 5, 2007 3:51 AM
By Joe Hallett and Jack Torry
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
House Republican Leader John Boehner of West Chester yesterday accused Speaker Nancy Pelosi of going to Syria solely to embarrass President Bush, a charge rejected by an Ohio GOP lawmaker traveling with Pelosi.
Rep. David L. Hobson of Springfield, who joined Pelosi and other lawmakers in a meeting yesterday with Syrian President Bashar Assad, disagreed with Boehner that Pelosi “came here to embarrass Bush. I think she came here to reinforce certain policies, understand the region better and have the region understand her better.”
In a telephone interview last night from Saudi Arabia, Hobson said Pelosi “did not engage in any bashing of Bush in any meeting I was in and she did not in any meeting I was in bash the policies as it relates to Syria.”
Instead, Hobson said, Pelosi and the congressional delegation urged Assad to curb the number of suicide bombers who cross the Syrian border into Iraq to “murder our troops and the Iraqi people.”
May 9th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
[...] Says: April 3rd, 2007 at 6:50 am This is a no-no, reprinting most of a Times column from behind their “Select†wall, but since [...]
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