2005 / 2006 / 2007 / 2009
I Forgot to Mention That Bitchin' Dude, Howard Zinn
Jim Thomas's letter on Monday ("Christmas is a big deal") slams "the anti-Christian editorial board of the Times" and the board's support for "the far left agenda."
And what evidence does he cite for this anti-Christian, far-left bias? An editorial supporting one's choice to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."
I find this evidence unconvincing. The word "holidays" encompasses Christmas, after all. Also, the editorial did not question the need for religion or for religious holidays. Has the board ever trashed Christianity? Has the board ever praised atheism, or called for banning religion altogether?
As for the "far left agenda," has the board ever quoted left-wing publications such as The Nation, In These Times, or Z Magazine? Has the board ever quoted left-wingers such as Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky? Has the board ever had anything nice to say about socialism or Communism? Has the board ever supported same-sex marriage, abortion rights, or labor unions? Has the board ever called for the impeachment of George W. Bush?
This entry appeared as a letter today in the Beaver County Times. Reprinted by permission. Jim Thomas's letter had appeared in that newspaper on December 18.
August 30, 2006
The Constitution's Writers Never Wore Air Jordans, Either
In the August 23 letters to the editor, Dan Reeping and Paul Kahr separately condemn U.S. District Judge Anita Diggs Taylor for finding the Bush administration's warrantless phone surveillance program unconstitutional.
Reeping asserts that in the war against terrorism, "common sense" sometimes requires us to ignore the Constitution, that musty old document "written by men who never flew in a plane or talked on a telephone."
Kahr thinks the judge is "a traitor in time of war", just like "the other liberal traitors who sit in Congress". "I wonder what they are hiding," he insinuates about those unnamed Congressional liberals who oppose warrantless phone surveillance.
Are Reeping and Kahr sure the administration is not conducting any warrantless surveillance upon them? Are they sure the administration will never consider them traitors with something to hide? Are they sure the administration will never show what it considers "common sense" by giving them one-way tickets to Guant�namo, a place the Constitution's writers never envisioned?
This entry appeared in different form as a letter in the August 28, 2006, Beaver County Times. Reprinted by permission.
August 20, 2006
Just the Right Amount of Dead People
The August 16 pro-centrist editorial "Road to Ruin" calls "the Lieberman primary loss" an example of the "polarization" caused by left-wing "hardliners".
Does the Times think supporting the Iraq war, Lieberman-style, is centrist? What does the Times find centrist about an undeclared, preemptive war launched for specious reasons?
According to a recent poll from Fox News (not exactly a network run by left-wing hardliners), 58 percent of Americans want the United States to withdraw all its troops from Iraq within a year or less.
Are 58 percent of Americans left-wing hardliners who will destroy this country unless they embrace centrism, also known as Bushism?
This entry appeared in different form as a letter in today's Beaver County Times. Reprinted by permission.
June 26, 2006
The Senator Probably Does Likes Freedom...Fries
According to the Associated Press, "The White House is nearing an agreement with Congress on legislation that would write President Bush's warrantless surveillance program into law, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said [yesterday]." The chairman is Arlen Specter, who represents my state, Pennsylvania. He loves the rule of law, or rather the law of Bush's rule. Specter usually pays lip service to Constitutional rights before supporting the administration's latest secret unconstitutional antics. And he did vote, after major lip-servicing, to confirm those bleeding-hearts Bush had nominated for the Supreme Court, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
I predict that even if the spineless Democrats (redundant) control at least one house of Congress after the 2006 elections, Congress will make all of Bush's crimes--the warrantless spying, the torture, etc.--retroactively legal only for his administration before it ends on January 20, 2009, assuming he doesn't resign or Congress doesn't impeach him and remove him from office. (I can dream about resignation or impeachment. Either event's not quite as unlikely as U.S. victory in Iraq.) Bipartisanship means doing what right-wing administrations want and thus not disturbing the status quo.
June 12, 2006
No, Not Named after Me, but Thanks for Asking
A headline in today's Beaver County Times: "Bush Brain Trust to Plot Iraq Plans."
"Brain" and "trust" are two words that shouldn't follow "Bush."
Anyway, the (day-old) article in question, by Ron Hutcheson of Knight Ridder Newspapers, says George W. Bush will "spend most of" today at Camp David discussing Iraq "with his wartime Cabinet and outside experts." How that phrase "wartime Cabinet" irritates me. I wouldn't ascribe Churchillian gravitas to Bush's criminal act of invading Iraq (as if Constitutional wars against genuine threats don't kill anyone).
The Times printed only the first three paragraphs of the article, lopping off the remaining twenty. According to Hutcheson's untruncated article, the "symbolic backdrop" of history-rich Camp David conceals the fact that the Iraq meeting will likely accomplish nothing new. "The issue of troop withdrawals isn't even on the agenda." Of course, each new policy shift from this administration has not exactly lessened the war's misery for Iraqis and Americans; and of course Bush will keep as many troops in Iraq as possible as long as the war profits U.S. corporate interests and/or helps bring the Middle East closer to the Armageddon religious loons (a large portion of his constituency) desire.
April 24, 2006
Absence of Clever Headline Re. Exterminating Human Beings
What will probably happen if (or when) Bush orders a preemptive nuclear attack against Iran this year?
--Tens of thousands of Iranians will die from the attack itself. Many more will die from cancer, radiation sickness, starvation, etc. The "liberal media" will offer little if any coverage of these fatalities. Why should the media upset the delicate sensibilities of their audience?
--Most Democrats, not wanting to look weak on murdering Muslims during an election year, will refrain from criticizing Bush. The party leaders will say they want to conserve their political capital for a really big issue.
--The few pundits who oppose this attack will do so for technical reasons. Should we have attacked so soon? Should we have nuked a different area? Should we have used more or fewer nukes?
--No one in the "liberal media" will call the attack illegal, immoral, or genocidal, or call for the impeachment of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc. Nevertheless, conservatives and right-wingers will excoriate the media for not supporting the attack enthusiastically enough.
--Gasoline prices will skyrocket and will remain high for months, maybe for years. The government will help out by telling us not to worry, the free market will correct things eventually.
This entry appeared as a letter today in the Beaver County Times. Reprinted with permission.
April 11, 2006
Sucez ma grande r�forme s�rieuse pour l'economie!
The news media in this country are so liberal that they rarely miss a chance to attack anyone who shows not enough respect toward our capitalist overseers. Latest example: today's New York Times editorial "Everyone Loses" bashes those "[l]abor leaders and students" whose strikes and protests in France helped force French President Jacques Chirac to scrap "the youth-jobs law that the furor was all about." Only ingrates such as "doctrinaire union bosses" will benefit from the death of "serious economic reform"--reform that would have permitted businesses to fire young workers for no reason during the first two years of employment, a fact the editorial fails to mention. (In American mediaspeak, "serious economic reform" means more-serious-than-usual screwing of workers and/or the poor, thus pleasing the business interests whose advertising keeps media profits healthy.) France needs to abandon its silly "social conservatism" (!), turn down the lights, break out the champagne, and treat labor as just another be-yotch.
March 14, 2006
Dowd and Proud! Yeah! Wooooo!
I've just read the recent best-seller Are Men Necessary? by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Did you know MoDo can't attract any guys because she's too witty, intelligent, and powerful? Did you know all guys prefer to marry much younger, much dumber women who look like porn stars? Did you know all upper-class women have embraced regressive, 1950s-style beliefs about sex, beauty, and motherhood? Did you know lower-class women don't exist? Did you know nonwhite women don't exist except for Anita Hill (the humorless Coke-phobe) and Condi Rice (the first female African-American war criminal, quite an accomplishment--end of perverted, un-American editorial intrusion)? Did you know all early feminists hated fun and glamour, unlike MoDo the Fred-and-Ginger fan?
Seriously, though, this book does have enough provocative, intelligent material about sex roles and women's history, and enough of MoDo's bons mots, for me to recommend it. I'd rather read Dowd than read...oh who's the most loathsome female political writer alive?...oh, yes, Ann "Kill Liberals and Arabs" Coulter.
February 23, 2006
Hangin' Around, Nothing to Do but Frown...
"Forget about impeachment, hang Clinton for treason!"
So wrote a right-winger named Kathryn L. Chabala in a letter the Beaver County Times published on December 24, 1998.
She was referring to Bill Clinton's order eight days earlier for the military to bomb alleged WMD sites in Iraq.
She contended that the "massacre of the innocent women and children of Iraq" was, among other things, illegal. "Bombing another country is an act of war", and since Congress had not formally declared war, as the Constitution requires, Clinton had committed "an act of treason!"
Try to imagine any right-winger today demanding we hang George W. Bush for treason. Bush declared war against Iraq without a formal declaration from Congress, after all.
In fact, try to imagine any right-winger today bemoaning Bush's "massacre of the innocent women and children of Iraq".
By the way, I do not want to execute Bush or anyone else for treason.
This entry appeared in slightly different form as a letter today in the Beaver County Times. Reprinted with permission.
February 4, 2006
From the Spanish Word Incomunicado...
Secretary of Oil, uh, Secretary of Death, eh, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said two days ago that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who has "a lot of oil money" (drool, drool), was "a person who was elected legally � just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally". You gringos of draft age had better start learning Spanish muy pronto.
By the way, Rummy, I assume you hate leaders who participate in such Hitlerian activities as torture, illegal surveillance of citizens, and launching illegal and pre-emptive wars. I assume you especially hate leaders who think they have the authority to hold anyone prisoner incommunicado without charges forever, or who think they have the authority to kill anyone in the world for any reason.
January 24, 2006 (updated February 23, 2006)
Homosexuals, Heh Heh
Salon reports today that the following exchange took place at George W. Bush's "otherwise fairly routine (that is, scripted) Q&A session with students at Kansas State University" on January 23:
Question: "You're a rancher; a lot of us here in Kansas are ranchers. I just wanted to get your opinion on Brokeback Mountain, if you had seen it yet...(laughter)...You would love it. You should check it out."
Bush: "I hadn't seen it. I would be glad to talk about ranchin' but I haven't seen the movie...I've heard about it...I hope you go, uh, you know...heh, heh...I hope you go back to the ranch and the farm is what I was going to say...I hadn't seen it (laughter, applause)."
The idea of this movie must have made manly-man Bush nervous. (He should have worn his flight suit with the straps accentuating his package.) Or maybe he valiantly tried to avoid making any blatant homophobic comments; a staffer must have told him that overt bigotry doesn't work for some reason with the majority of voters. Of course who knows, except for right-wingers, what Bush really said? Bush does tend to speak in code, from his 2004 debate shout-out to the Dred Scott decision (anti-abortionists equate Dred Scott with Roe v. Wade) to his now-infamous comment "We do not torture" (because the administration has redefined torture to mean, oh, 24 straight hours of Gigli.)
UPDATE, 2/23/06: "Weeks" before Bush's comments about not seeing Brokeback Mountain, "the White House requested, and received, a copy of the film for screening" (Eric Boehlert, "Cowboy Controversy," Rolling Stone, February 23, 2006). Another of Bush's, shall we say, emotional truths? Or did he actually not see the movie, instead preferring a quiet evening alone vamping in his flight suit, fiddling with its straps to make his crotch more prominent?
January 17, 2006
Bombs, Blondes, and No Bongs
Re. my previous post:
--I find Iran's possible development of nuclear weapons worrisome, just as I find any nation's development of nuclear weapons worrisome.
--Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, has said "Israel must be wiped off the map." Israel probably owns between 100 to 200 nuclear weapons and could wipe Iran off the map several times over during a nuclear exchange. After such an exchange, the dispensationalist dimwits would rejoice that Armageddon has finally arrived, meaning Jesus will return to kick pervert posterior, and that the Jews and other non-Christians had better get with the program or else miss spending an eternity in Heaven with such admirable people as Pat "God wants to wipe out Ariel Sharon, socialists, evolutionists, anyone who hates my nutrition shake, et cetera, ad infinitum" Robertson. (Do dis dims really want peace in the Middle East? Do the right-wing Republicans who rely upon their votes really want peace in the Middle East? Should I even bother asking these questions?)
--I don't want any nation to wipe any other nation off the map. Who needs millions of dead people, fallout, nuclear winter, and--worst of all--the inevitable fundraising album featuring Hilary Duff, Ryan Seacrest, that group with the downloaded rock-rap hit about how one needs money in the bank to blank the hottest skanks, and Hilary Duff's sister Haylie?
January 14, 2006
I Spit on Your "Grave"
George W. Bush, at a joint White House press conference yesterday with the German chancellor Angela Merkel, said Iran would pose "a grave threat to the security of the world" by developing nuclear weapons ("U.S. Presses U.N. on Iran" by Peter Baker, The Washington Post, 1/14/06).
You know the news media will never ask why nuclear nations (and U.S. allies) Britain, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel pose no threat to the security of the world; nor why our country, which owns the most nukes on Earth, and where hard-right warmongers control those nukes, poses no threat to anyone. The news media rarely if ever upset the profitable status quo; war coverage always brings in the loot for them and for their corporate advertisers. Indeed, the article cited above notes (with giddy excitement?) that "[i]n using the phrase 'grave threat,' Bush invoked the same language he had used before launching the invasion of Iraq in 2003". If or when our country incinerates Iran, the media will tell us saps to shut up and support the troops. If or when no evidence of Iran's "grave threat" of a nuclear program turns up, the media will dutifully promote the administration's line about how slaughtering Muslim civilians spreads democracy and freedom, a line the media dutifully promoted when Iraq's WMDs turned up MIA.
Man bites dog, and dog asks him out on a date....Newsbeefs, Home.
� 2006 David V. Matthews