Step right up, get your abuse in early…
Sweet - more dueling pundits. Here’s the great James Lileks on the not-his-real-name John Le Carre on Iraq:
If you haven’t read it, trust me: you have. It’s another dispatch from the alternate universe where the FBI puts the screws to newspapers that run too many anti-war letters, where Bush appears on TV to lead us all in Communion, and a stunned and cowed population shuffles off to the Gruel Factories while top-hatted plutocrats lean from their SUVs and spit thick brown wads of sputum at the losers of life’s lottery. Look: reasoned, principled objections to the war are necessary; we need good debate. But it’s time that the newspapers of the world just say no to the latest chunk of recycled fatuity just because it’s penned by a recognizable name. Better a thoughtful disemboweling of the post-Saddam strategy or lack thereof by Herbert Z. Nobody than another bloody gout of half-digested Quiche Cliché by someone whose name we remember from a tired trawl through an airport bookstore.
http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/03/0103/010303.html#011603
88 per cent of Americans want the war
Can someone find this poll? Last I saw, 54% opposed the war, but I guess that wouldn’t really shoot a big hole in this fantasy.
Chet
It doesn’t really matter, polls are shit. This poll might have been at a NRA meeting, the next one might be at a holistic healing store (sp?).
Most of them are taken at midday at malls all over America on weekdays. Just who we need to ask opinions of: unemployed mallrats.
I want the fate of the free world depending on the opinions of someone named ‘Sherri’ who is buying a cute top from ‘Hot Topic’ that says ‘Porn Star’, with her dad’s credit card. (which also says ‘Porn Star’ but I’m not sure why.)
The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded.
Eww, I think I got some of le Carre’s spittle on me.
You know, my quality of life isn’t significantly different from before 9/11. I mean, I’m no big fan of all that USAPATRIOT nonsense, but I don’t think the spy book man is really helping his case by implying that we’ve somehow turned into some kind of Stalinist police state overnight. It’s just too obviously not true.
…I would love to see Saddam’s downfall — just not on Bush’s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.
Everything else le Carre writes is just raving paranoid conspiracist padding for these lines. I think the Left has the same massive hard-on for Bush that the Right had for Clinton, and they’re inclined to disparage everything the man does just because he’s the one doing it. How else do you explain the kindergarten logic that says, “I like what he’s doing, but I don’t like him, so I don’t want him to do it?”
You know, my quality of life isn’t significantly different from before 9/11. I mean, I’m no big fan of all that USAPATRIOT nonsense, but I don’t think the spy book man is really helping his case by implying that we’ve somehow turned into some kind of Stalinist police state overnight. It’s just too obviously not true.
For American citizens, no. If you’re a legal immigrant who’s not a US citizen yet, however, they can legally detain you in prison for as long as they want, and they don’t even have to present evidence to a judge.
They can do that with citizens too. But, like I’ve said, it’s no different than the things Hoover used to do to…shhhhh [size=2]communists[/size]. Or what, I’m sure, has been done for years and years before, and after, his reign. The only difference is that now we know they can do it. The ‘secret’ powers that they’ve had all along are now in the open, Bush was just hoping for a huge approval bonanza when people felt safer.
Also how often are they REALLY gonna use this power? Name ONE news source that isn’t chomping at the bit to be the first to publish ‘America the free? Hostage of the state!’ in 24 point font with exclamations.
Feel free to march down the street with a banner that says ‘America Sucks Ass. Bush=Vampire HAHAHAHAHA!!’, or to keep checking ‘How to make a huge-ass bomb’ out of the library. Just don’t have any shadowy connections to a large organization that wants to kill us all.
Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: “Peace is also Patriotic”. It was gone by the time he’d finished shopping.
The car or the sticker? :?
Peace was gone.
Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: “Peace is also Patriotic”. It was gone by the time he’d finished shopping.
Stating it was in California isn’t specific enough to tell us much about the intent of the sticker remover. If it was in Simi Valley, someone was stomping out Godless Communism and removing a wart from the ass of society. If it was in Berkeley, someone in the collective merely is taking their turn in sharing the dialectic with the unenlightened. If it was in LA, someone took it as a template and had a bunch of copies made to sell in a booth along Venice Beach. Mr. Renault LeCar doesn’t tell us enough to reach a proper conclusion.
Doesn’t matter anyway since taking those stickers off are a complete bitch that can’t be accomplished without 3 hours, 80 gallons of warm water, and five tongue scrapers.
…I would love to see Saddam’s downfall — just not on Bush’s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.
I knew there was something wrong with this statement when I read it, but wasn’t quite sure how to express it. Since my usual thought process when trying to express myself goes something like this - 1) stare at blipping cursor while bulging my eyes out of my sockets, 2) employ yogatic technique to paralyze all ventricles and arteries to redirect every pint of blood in my body directly to my brain, 3) emit shrieking wail, 4) have either a “brain storm” and begin writing or collapse to the floor for a refreshing regime of seizures and clawing strips of skin from my impossibly-hot face - I tend to prefer to regurgitate the prewritten witticisms of my contemporaries when at all possible. Luckily, James Lilek was up to the challenge of explaining my thoughts best.
In other words: when the people of Iraq are liberated, Le Carre will be horribly conflicted. He would have sat in a French cafe in WW2 and spit at the partisans who worked with the Allies, because their armies practiced segregation. Better to be slaves under pure simple evil than free men liberated by hypocrites.
And it turns out Brad Grenz already played the Lilek to Jakub’s limp-wristed LeCarre in This thread.
Ahh, now we get to the heart of the matter. No use arguing with you anymore as it is now clear you have an absolute, irrational hatred and aversion to George W. Thanks for playing an eventually revealing why your arguments were so weak and absurd.
So thanks guys! Also, thanks to Erik - Lilek is great and I’d never heard of him before and I’ve been reading his great blogs all morning. Looks like he’s playing Soldier of Fortune on his iMac.
Make sure to check out his institute of official cheer. Especially the Orphanage of Cast-off Mascots. And especially the rest of it, too.
None of it’s a hair on the ass of Old Man Murray. Ah, OMM, how we miss you so…
Ass, meet lips!
[quote=“Captain_Cookiepants”]
They can do that with citizens too. But, like I’ve said, it’s no different than the things Hoover used to do to…shhhhh [size=2]communists[/size]. Or what, I’m sure, has been done for years and years before, and after, his reign. The only difference is that now we know they can do it. The ‘secret’ powers that they’ve had all along are now in the open, Bush was just hoping for a huge approval bonanza when people felt safer.
Also how often are they REALLY gonna use this power? Name ONE news source that isn’t chomping at the bit to be the first to publish ‘America the free? Hostage of the state!’ in 24 point font with exclamations.
Feel free to march down the street with a banner that says ‘America Sucks Ass. Bush=Vampire HAHAHAHAHA!!’, or to keep checking ‘How to make a huge-ass bomb’ out of the library. Just don’t have any shadowy connections to a large organization that wants to kill us all.[/quote]
In other words: it’s always happened, the press will exercise the equivalent of judicial oversight, and it’s actually a good idea. Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?
Is there a reason neocons like Lileks so much? He’s like, not funny.
Is there a reason neocons like Lileks so much? He’s like, not funny.
Yes he is. So this argument’s a tie.
I’m not about to give out my e-mail yet AGAIN to sign up for the paper so could you tell me what you’re pointing to?
And yes, it’s always happened, you don’t think suspected commie spies were illegally detained? Or English sympathizers? Hell, criminals as low as purse snatchers are illegally detained all the time.
And what I’m saying about the press is that, if something like that ever happened, they would jump ALL over it and give the FBI and whoever else was involved would have plenty to answer for. I’m saying that the DHS will exercise EXTREME caution when using these powers cause they know they’re being watched closely. They’d get in trouble to the point where SOME action has to be taken if they just ran around willy-nilly throwing hippies in detention centers. They’re gonna make damn good and sure that they have plenty of evidence before they act, or risk a clean out.
I never said it was a good idea, I just said that it’s happened many, many times before, and will happen in the future, and there’s really no way to stop it. This thing will NEVER effect 99% of the population, just like most other laws.
“They haven’t arrested me yet, so it can’t be that bad!”