Bob Herbert - "I suppose we’ll never learn. President Obama will go on TV Tuesday night to announce that he plans to send tens of thousands of additional American troops to Afghanistan to fight in a war that has lasted most of the decade and has long since failed."
Michael Moore - "With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true — that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so."
Noam Chomsky (BBC audio) - "It's one of the most immoral acts in modern history."
Norman Solomon - "But 'eventually' [winding the war down] is a long way off. In the meantime, the result of Washington's hollow politics is more carnage."
Robert Perry - "In April, Obama further locked in the escalation by allowing Gates to fire Gen. David McKiernan, as commander in Afghanistan, and replace him with McChrystal, a Petraeus favorite who had led the ruthless 'war on terror' special operations under Bush. McKiernan was regarded as insufficiently aggressive and supposedly lacking the charisma and press savvy of Petraeus and McChrystal. While Obama basked in some praise from neoconservative editorialists for these national security personnel selections – and for dispatching about 20,000 more troops to Afghanistan in the spring – the President was outflanking himself. That is, assuming he really had any serious notion of pursuing a more diplomatic and less militaristic approach to Afghanistan."
Showing posts with label BOB HERBERT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BOB HERBERT. Show all posts
Dec 1, 2009
Aug 8, 2009
To Kill Liberty's Outrage
Suspect we have all read or seen To Kill a Mockingbird.Can great fiction bring intelligence to American society?
Today, when one's innocence and loss of liberty no longer naturally elicits outrage, one looks to fiction to understand the contemporary American political culture of throw 'em in jail and find common ground with the oppressors.
We need to get with the culture. Orwell and Camus don't play well in today's non-confrontational, mass incarceration times.
So Malcolm Gladwell considers Harper Lee, touching on the topic of wishy-washy liberalism vis a vis racism's assault against personal liberty in The New Yorker in his "Atticus Finch and the limits of Southern liberalism."
Gladwell reaches different conclusions than I would on the power of this comedy-drama to inform the political culture.
But if we were to take seriously the contemporary political discussion of taking away a person's liberty, we would be led to say to a Tom Robinson, 'You just need to find common ground and have a beer with the well-intentioned police officers of Alabama and the good citizenry they serve. And you're doing the right thing by not getting too uppity.'
As Bob Herbert reminds us, being innocent is no longer a defence. And that goes double for you: Don Siegelman, Georgia Thompson and Keith Roberts.
And don't be bringing up southern lynchings and Leo Frank. That's sooo last century.
Aug 4, 2009
Innocence Is No Defense
Update: See GOP Returns To "White Voter Strategy" for a look at why profiling and racism plays.
Oh yeah, Henry Louis Gates Jr is an innocent man. An insignificant detail not mentioned by those who cheerlead all the progress we have made in race relations and defend the cop who persecuted an innocent man.
Bob Herbert reminds us this morning of this minor detail of Prof Gates' innocence and the propensity of cops to target people of color.
Oh yeah, Henry Louis Gates Jr is an innocent man. An insignificant detail not mentioned by those who cheerlead all the progress we have made in race relations and defend the cop who persecuted an innocent man.
Bob Herbert reminds us this morning of this minor detail of Prof Gates' innocence and the propensity of cops to target people of color.
No one is immune. Colin Powell told Larry King that he had been profiled many times. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke last week about how humiliated he felt as a college student when a cop made him stop his car and open the trunk so it could be searched for weapons.Well, Gates like Colin Powell and Attorney General Eric Holder is black; so I guess he had it coming. We just need to ignore such distasteful facts like the man's innocence and understand the perpetrator because he wears a uniform and a badge.
Young, old, innocent as the day is long — it doesn’t matter. Your skin color can leave you perpetually vulnerable to a sudden and devastating criminal injustice.
Jul 7, 2009
Vietnam, McNamara and Veterans
Update: From Veterans Today, VA Police Hack Medical Files of Wisconsin Vet, Seek Prison for More PTSD Vets
Bob Herbert writes today in After the War Was Over that "Robert McNamara realized early on that Vietnam was a lost cause, but he kept that crucial information close to his chest. How did he ever look at himself in a mirror? ... The obscenity of war is lost on most Americans, and that drains the death of Robert McNamara of any real significance."
The obscenity continues to this day, destroying the lives of our veterans.
No matter what the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Dr. Sally Satel say from their plush offices, veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) commonly suffer for the rest of their lives.
But the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) needs the AEI if they are going to attack veterans for “tenaciously pursuing a claim for benefits” like what happened to Wisconsin veteran Keith Roberts.
---
Now, we hear that right now VA investigators are going after another veteran, one Robert E. Anthon of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
Anthon's supporters, mostly veterans, are working to head off a prosecution for fraud against Anthon whom the VA is targeting for reasons that only warmakers and chickenhawks can fully comprehend.
First the VA goes after a veteran's benefits, leaving them destitute and still suffering from their ailments, then capriciously the Inspector General's office tries to build a case for fraud.
These VA bureaucrats and their shills are pond scum. Will keep you posted on the Anthon affair. A couple of pissed-off combat Marine veterans are on it that I know of.
Bob Herbert writes today in After the War Was Over that "Robert McNamara realized early on that Vietnam was a lost cause, but he kept that crucial information close to his chest. How did he ever look at himself in a mirror? ... The obscenity of war is lost on most Americans, and that drains the death of Robert McNamara of any real significance."
The obscenity continues to this day, destroying the lives of our veterans.
No matter what the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Dr. Sally Satel say from their plush offices, veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) commonly suffer for the rest of their lives.
But the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) needs the AEI if they are going to attack veterans for “tenaciously pursuing a claim for benefits” like what happened to Wisconsin veteran Keith Roberts.
---
Now, we hear that right now VA investigators are going after another veteran, one Robert E. Anthon of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
Anthon's supporters, mostly veterans, are working to head off a prosecution for fraud against Anthon whom the VA is targeting for reasons that only warmakers and chickenhawks can fully comprehend.
First the VA goes after a veteran's benefits, leaving them destitute and still suffering from their ailments, then capriciously the Inspector General's office tries to build a case for fraud.
These VA bureaucrats and their shills are pond scum. Will keep you posted on the Anthon affair. A couple of pissed-off combat Marine veterans are on it that I know of.
Feb 7, 2009
Herbert on the Republicans
From Herbert in the Times:
Republicans in Washington have behaved like a milling crowd standing in the way of firefighters trying to respond to a devastating blaze. The best that can be said for the party is that a few senators seem to have been able part the crowd enough to let the rescuers begin to inch forward.
President Obama addressed Republican inflexibility on Thursday night when he said at a gathering in Williamsburg, Va., 'Don’t come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis.' He added that without swift action on the stimulus bill, 'an economy that is already in crisis will be faced with catastrophe.'
The report of January’s enormous job losses came roughly a dozen hours later. It was the latest in a long and hideous pattern of employment woes, much of it resulting from the G.O.P.’s obsession with destructive supply-side economic voodoo.
On the front page of The Times on Friday was an article that said the number of women on the nation’s payrolls is poised to pass that of men for the first time in American history. This is not because women have been doing so well, but because men have been doing so poorly.
As I was reading the article, I thought of all the guys who used to listen to Rush Limbaugh while driving to or from work but are now tuning in from their living rooms because the benefits of the G.O.P.’s right-wing, tax-cutting ideology never trickled down to them and they are now jobless.
Republicans in Washington have behaved like a milling crowd standing in the way of firefighters trying to respond to a devastating blaze. The best that can be said for the party is that a few senators seem to have been able part the crowd enough to let the rescuers begin to inch forward.
President Obama addressed Republican inflexibility on Thursday night when he said at a gathering in Williamsburg, Va., 'Don’t come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis.' He added that without swift action on the stimulus bill, 'an economy that is already in crisis will be faced with catastrophe.'
The report of January’s enormous job losses came roughly a dozen hours later. It was the latest in a long and hideous pattern of employment woes, much of it resulting from the G.O.P.’s obsession with destructive supply-side economic voodoo.
On the front page of The Times on Friday was an article that said the number of women on the nation’s payrolls is poised to pass that of men for the first time in American history. This is not because women have been doing so well, but because men have been doing so poorly.
As I was reading the article, I thought of all the guys who used to listen to Rush Limbaugh while driving to or from work but are now tuning in from their living rooms because the benefits of the G.O.P.’s right-wing, tax-cutting ideology never trickled down to them and they are now jobless.
Nov 22, 2008
We Need Obama on Veterans
Here's hoping the new administration will address the plight of veterans and our collective negligence in looking after them through the malfunctioning U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA).
An overhaul of the VA needs to be near the top of the long list of things to fix fast by president-elect Obama.
From Bob Herbert:
An overhaul of the VA needs to be near the top of the long list of things to fix fast by president-elect Obama.
From Bob Herbert:
With so much attention understandably focused on the economy and the incoming administration, the struggles being faced by G.I.’s coming home from combat overseas are receding even further from the public’s consciousness.
If you’re in your late teens or early 20s and your energies have been directed for a year or more toward dodging roadside bombs and ambushes, caring for horribly wounded comrades and, in general, killing before being killed, it can be difficult to readjust to a world of shopping malls, speed limits and polite conversation.
Apr 29, 2008
Rev Wright Isn’t Running for President
via mal contends - The Rev. Wright has offended a lot of people lately—including liberal commentators.
Rev. Wright, who made a series of interviews/addresses the past week, has “devolved into self-pity and self-glorification (Walsh),” has been “inflating his importance in a pride-goeth-before-the-fall kind of way, (Robinson), is ”living a narcissist’s dream” (Herbert),” and so on.
It’s worth noting then that whatever one believes of the ex-Marine’s oratory, Rev. Wright is not running for president and absolutely nothing has been presented to suggest that Obama is/has been/will be carrying on Wright’s views in any policy.
That’s likely because Wright has not made any policy pronouncements.
He just likes to spout off at what makes him angry; maybe some talking heads like to do the same thing at times, maybe we do too. But Marines and black preachers can be a bit heavy-handed, unlike the judicious and thoughtful folks on cable TV.
John McCain and the corporate media love smearing Obama when a smear looks doable; and doubt persists about whether a black man like Obama can ever really love our country like a white man/woman can.
No doubt that McCain has never uttered an intemperate remark or said anything objectionable during his tenure in elected office, and McCain will be held to the same standard and scrutiny as Obama’s retired pastor by the muckraking American corporate media.
The American media do not exactly have a first-rate record when it comes to discussing matters of substance in presidential elections. This sad history ought to be the focus of liberal commentators.
But for now, even Salon is asking: What should Obama do about Rev. Jeremiah Wright? And not: What should Obama do about the inane corporate media and our vapid political culture.
Now is the time for Obama to make a major address on real needs of real people v. corporate media obsession on the inane. Regain control and make the foolish react to message of change and substance.
Rev. Wright, who made a series of interviews/addresses the past week, has “devolved into self-pity and self-glorification (Walsh),” has been “inflating his importance in a pride-goeth-before-the-fall kind of way, (Robinson), is ”living a narcissist’s dream” (Herbert),” and so on.
It’s worth noting then that whatever one believes of the ex-Marine’s oratory, Rev. Wright is not running for president and absolutely nothing has been presented to suggest that Obama is/has been/will be carrying on Wright’s views in any policy.
That’s likely because Wright has not made any policy pronouncements.
He just likes to spout off at what makes him angry; maybe some talking heads like to do the same thing at times, maybe we do too. But Marines and black preachers can be a bit heavy-handed, unlike the judicious and thoughtful folks on cable TV.
John McCain and the corporate media love smearing Obama when a smear looks doable; and doubt persists about whether a black man like Obama can ever really love our country like a white man/woman can.
No doubt that McCain has never uttered an intemperate remark or said anything objectionable during his tenure in elected office, and McCain will be held to the same standard and scrutiny as Obama’s retired pastor by the muckraking American corporate media.
The American media do not exactly have a first-rate record when it comes to discussing matters of substance in presidential elections. This sad history ought to be the focus of liberal commentators.
But for now, even Salon is asking: What should Obama do about Rev. Jeremiah Wright? And not: What should Obama do about the inane corporate media and our vapid political culture.
Now is the time for Obama to make a major address on real needs of real people v. corporate media obsession on the inane. Regain control and make the foolish react to message of change and substance.
Sep 25, 2007
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