Dumb Letters: The Fascist States of America

There are certain topics to which we continually return. The Bush administration's Culture of Fear isn't going away just because they did. Those left behind are already blaming Obama for the next terrorist attack. Did we expect otherwise?

Here's another gem from today's LA Times.

Obama jump-starts his presidency by announcing the closing of Guantanamo just two days after he warned killers and terrorists, "we will defeat you." He wants to fight a war on terrorism consistent with American ideals and goals. With this rhetoric, he is making the same crucial mistake his predecessor made -- America is not in a war with terrorists, it is in a fight to the death with militant Islam.

Okay, let's stop for a second. I've got two problems here. The first is that the writer uses the term "rhetoric", which is always used disparagingly. But it usually means that the person doesn't mean what they say. It's just talk. "Did you mean it or was that just rhetoric?" The writer's problem seems to be that Obama does mean it. So he gets to call it rhetoric while lamenting its truthfulness. Sorry. No.

My second problem is not about the false use of language (rhetoric?). It's that he conflates Obama's "mistake" with Bush's. This makes it seem as though the writer is purely bipartisan. But it looks like his problem with Bush, if he really had one, was that he wasn't militant enough. I would dispute that. Bush used the "war on terror" line to scare us and sell his wars, but he knew exactly who he was fighting, even as he used that vague term "terror" to assure the widest berth possible.

Okay, actually I have a third problem. "We will defeat you" is portrayed as antithetical to Obama's plans. This fits in very nicely with the right-wing trope that anything less than fascism on our part is tantamount to willful surrender. Bite me.

As for potentially releasing jihadists at Gitmo, so be it. It is clear these detainees are only following the teachings of their prophet that implore Muslims to kill nonbelievers. Guantanamo will be closed, and future jihadists destroying Western civilization will have the right to remain silent if captured. Freedom of religion will thrive. And the overthrow of America will be nearer.

Harry Heath
Claremont

Here we go again. Every single person at Gitmo is not only a proven terrorist, but they are sworn by their religion to kill all of us. Yes, the Qu'ran says infidels should be killed. It also says we should all love each other. You'll find the same contradictions in your precious Holy Bible. Read it sometimes. It's fun. I'll point you to the right parts, if you'd like. They're really nasty. The book of Joshua alone should turn any peace-loving person off from Judeo-Christianity, but there's plenty more.

I love the "It is clear" line and the concept that every last one of them will immediately start attacking us as soon as they are released. I can pretty much guarantee that some of them earned their hatred of us because they were imprisoned at Gitmo, not the other way around.

Once again, we apparently must make a choice between safety and liberty. We must become as bad as our enemies in order to defeat them. I'm so sick of reading this. I'm so sick of writing about this.

America is not a bunch of people who happen to be living in a certain geographical area. It is a bunch of people who live under the ideals and laws in our constitution. If we decide to act as the Bush administration has acted, then America already has been overthrown. All of you fascists can go start your own country. I don't care what you call it. But our constitution stays with us.

PYSBRIoM: Eugene Robinson

Eugene Robinson is a regular columnist at the Washington Post. He's also a regular on MSNBC, where he pals around with Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Me likes him.

I'm bringing him up specifically today because, contrary to this blog's subheading, I'll take an ego stroke where I can get it. Today's column by Robinson echoes my post from yesterday about BO's closing of Gitmo. (Not that I had any real original insights into it.) But what I really like about this one is how he echoes a previous post of mine that referenced "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" at its tail end. Yes yes, Gene, I used that Rumsfeld reference already.

Okay, also probably not a terribly original concept, but still.

Don't read him because he agrees with me. Read him because he's good. And check out Olbermann and Maddow, while you're at it, if you don't already. (And if you read this, you probably do.) He'll show up.

Gitmo to Go

With fries, please.

Okay, so we're off to a good start. There are many things that The Idiot and The Dark Lord did that required immediate repudiation, but even I'm surprised at how quickly BO acted to shut down Gitmo. Well, not shut it down exactly, but to set the process in motion. This is unbelievably important.

It's going to take a while to figure out what to do with all of the prisoners there, and not all of the possible outcomes are exactly great improvements, but this is a great place to begin.

This is not only a great political move (we're already looking better in the global community just by one dude signing a piece of paper) but this is an important personal move for The Prez (still love typing that!). Here's why: As commander-in-chief of the United States military (and nothing else) our president is responsible for what happens under his command. And as of 12 noon Tuesday, Gitmo was under BO's command. If war crimes are being committed, they are his immediate responsibility. If Gitmo itself is illegal, he's responsible for every day it's open.

The swiftness with which he signed the papers made me hopeful that actual war crimes may be investigated. Obviously, if he wants to cover his tush he needs to make sure that his face isn't on any of the things that go on there. I'm sure he doesn't want DOJ to be investigating their own president.

Thanks, Mr. President (yes!) for giving all of us, or at least most of us, real action to be hopeful about after all of the feel-good talky-talk.

Dumb Letters: Legal Evils

This kind of crap makes me crazy. It never ends. This is from today's NY Times.

When something is this loaded with stupid, we have to take it bit by bit, to allow the proper amount of jaw-dropping and snarky refutation for each nugget of poop. Here we go.

When we release the prisoners now at Guantánamo Bay, many will go back to their homelands and carry out attacks similar to what we just saw in India.

And this is to be proven how, exactly? Do we know which ones? If we have their plans for doing so, we've got enough to keep detaining them, don't we? And if we don't, well then, this is just fear-mongering and speculation. And this isn't Minority Report. Or is it?

And despite what many say, I believe that these people would have done this before they came to Gitmo, and not because of it.

Maybe. But if you piss on a hornet's nest, they're a lot more likely to sting you. And once again we're dealing with "these people", as if they're all cut from the same cloth and all have the same motives. This is the essence of xenophobia.

So the question becomes: What do you do with a person so evil that he will never give up the idea of killing Westerners until they are dead?

Well, I'd say you probably wanna lock 'em up. But we'll need some kind of way to determine which ones this applies to. Some kind of, I don't know, legal system.

Again, does this apply to all of them? How do we know? And here we also see the entrance of the dreaded "e" word. They're evil! Not criminals. Not war criminals. Not even deranged. But evil. If this is your view of the world then don't even bother making a legal or logical argument. You don't have one.

I eagerly await Barack Obama’s plan to try these barbarians in United States federal court. Security, both physical and national, will be a nightmare.

Ah, yes, barbarians. Barbarians, of course, are one step above cro-magnons. Naturally, such a being is undeserving of legal protections afforded to the civilized and non-evil (and white).

Obama doesn't need a "plan". We've had one in place for two centuries. It's our basic American legal process. It works fine. If they're guilty, they go to jail. If not, they don't. We've tried a few folks in civilian courts and so far no security nightmare. My guess is that the nightmare would only come from assheads like this causing a fuss at the courthouses.

Teaching about constitutional law and actually having to protect America and enforce the law are two very different things. We’ll see how Professor Obama reacts to his first encounter with reality.

Eric Smith
Stafford, Va.

Um, yeah. Switch out "teaching about constitutional law" for "running a few oil companies into the ground" or "fleecing a city for money for your baseball team" and you've got the problem with the last eight years. I think that teaching about constitutional law is a pretty good training ground for learning how to uphold said constitution. Call me crazy. Hell, just reading the damn thing once should have helped.

I love the word "reality" in this context. It's always used to imply that "reality"="maniacs want to kill us and anyone who says we shouldn't behave just as maniacally in response is a big fat pussy who hates his country and wants to see us all die". Here's reality in my estimation: on Inauguration Day the president swears to uphold our constitution. If he doesn't uphold it, he breaks that oath and disqualifies himself for the office. He does not swear to protect us, although it would be nice if he did that too. But it's not in the basic contract. Our ideals are more important than any individual life or group of lives.

And it's President-elect Obama to you, fucknut.