Quote from KymarFye:
Geez - what happened to you, Optional? For weeks you've been pleading for centrist, objective approaches, and now you're c&p-ing harsh polemical attacks on the Bush administration - now adding an article translated from Vorwaerts, the party publication of Germany's SPD (Social-Democratic Party of Germany). Now you seem to be operating as chief ET research aid for msfe and Alfonso.
The author has no difficulty stooping to outright lies in pursuit of his attempt to paint the US as a totalitarian or crypto-totalitarian state. He claims, for instance, that there has been no coverage in the US of the "chaos" that has followed the military victory in Iraq, when even the casual observer of American media knows that the opposite is the case, with all major newschannels and newspapers doggedly pursuing the theme while largely neglecting Iraq stories that don't play into it.
On the basis of this ridiculous assertion, the author pushes the claim that the purpose of this (non-existent) news blackout is to allow the evil neocons to move unencumbered onto the next target, supposedly Iran. No serious individual believes that the US is planning major military operations in Iran: Though the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities has been discussed by some as a last resort option, nothing like the "regime change" operations in Afghanistan and Iraq is being contemplated by anyone with a realistic assessment of actual US military capabilities (or interests). Or are we to assume that the author is a staunch supporter of the Iranian mullahs, and that even mere verbal statements in support of the Iranian opposition represent some Hitlerian scheme of conquest?
It's not just lousy propaganda, it's also rather distasteful coming from you or anyone on the 4th of July.
I understand your reaction, as expected, especially on July 4th. Somehow you find it distasteful. That is your reaction, coming from your perspective, I don't share it.
That you would bring that up, on July 4th, is just what the right wingers are trying to do to control free speech and free thinking in this country. It is a new form of "McCarthyism" to attack those who don't agree with the administration....trying to make them out to be "less American" and unpatriotic.
However, on this day that we celebrate our independence from the tyrany of Great Britain, expression of the freedom of speech seems appropriate.
While I don't agree with everything the writer said, I do see a value in thoroughly questioning the current establishment. Why the heck not? We don't have a good track record in our political leadership of them demonstrating trustworthyness.
Is it now unAmerican and/or unpatriotic to question the motives of Bush and company?
Here is the bottom line for me.
I find both the left and right extreme in their thinking. It is natural in the political field for those who are out of power to seek power, and to look for flaws with the current administration.
Lord knows, that is all the right wingers did for 8 years of the Clinton administration. I don't recall the democrats on the whole, however, labeling them as unAmerican to do so.
What I observe for the most part in the current landscape, is the liberals questioning the motives and effectiveness of the "war on terrorism" while the right wing has taken to question the patriotism of those who are not "on board."
I find this untenable, and unproductive.
Why is it necessary to target the credibility of the left or the right?
It is necessary, because the bottom line both the right and left are not absolutely correct in their ideology.
If you cannot prove that the left is wrong in
their positions you must then challenge their sanity, legality, personality, patriotism, etc. as a means to bolster your position that you are on the correct side of policy going forward.
The reality with politics, we often don't know what the right or wrong side is until many years later.
After the fact, Coulter is elevating McCarthy to hero status, when the
tactics were considered, and are considered unAmerican. He was denounced by Eisenhower, and a republican congress at the time.
We saw this in the 50's and 60s', when anyone who questioned authority was accused of being a commie pinko.
The left is just as bad, Carville no better than Coulter in this respect.
The issues should be debated on the merit of the issues, not on the personalities of those presenting them.
Questioning loyalty to our country is a serious charge. I was listening to Alan Comb's talk radio program, who had on Coulter as a guest, and she was calling the democratic party treasonous.
A caller, who had served in the Gulf War, who had risked his life for his country, was a registered democrat. He was clearly angry at being labeled unPatriotic and/or treasonous.
Coulter finally backed off, and said, "I am just trying to show how the democrats are wrong. I am not accusing you of treason or being unpatriotic, just that you are a member of the wrong party."
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when opinion is elevated to the level of certainty, and dismissal of other opinions, when a case can't be made to a degree certainty going forward, there is the seed of totalitarian thought.
I encourage independent thought.
Few people can really reason back to their process of coming to conclusions. Often if you do take them back to peel the onion of their belief systems, it takes them back to some basic beliefs and values, that most often come from some religious beliefs.
We support freedom of religion, yet don't support freedom of thought because it conflicts with some religious belief?
Something wrong with that, and that is what I see that troubles me with the dogmatic right, and dogmatic left.