micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Monday, September 02, 2002
unfocused notes -Do check out "A READER WRITES . . .Norah Vincent: Jackson Browne Fan -- And Plagiarist?" over at The Rittenhouse Review. TRR is of course run by James M. Capozzola, who is the main force behind HorowitzWatch, a site I've contributed to. -Nelson Mandela is critical of U.S. threats against Iraq, reports the AP. -Today's New York Times has a couple of pieces -James Dao's "Powell Charts Low-Key Path in Iraq Debate" and Serge Schmemann's "For Arab Informers, Death; For the Executioners, Justice." -Andrew Sullivan has been a persistent critic of the New York Times as of late he makes his most complete criticism to date in his recent piece entitled "The Opposition: How the New York Times replaced the Democrats." The piece is based upon the assumption that the Democratic Party was at one time a consistent opponent of the war on terror. Sullivan doesn't support this point and so I guess my failure to have ever seen it is purely my fault. Sullivan uses this assumption as the basis for arguing that the Democrats have come around to supporting the war but that the New York Times has picked up the slack and become the premier anti-war voice in the U.S. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms to make of the New York Times, and Sullivan does in fact make some of them, but running throughout the piece is the implicit message that a newspaper is wrong to be critical of the war in its columns and to raise questions about the war in its news stories. What Sullivan appears to want is for every media outlet to have taken up his approach to to the war on terror, that is to see their job as promoting the war on terror and answering its critics. Sullivan by all acounts supports the war on terror and thus it is his duty as a pundit to make the case for the war but it reveals an anti-democratic streak in his writing when he spends so much space critiquing the intentions but not the argument of those he disagrees with. Sullivan, like most proponents of the war, would never say he wants to silence critics of the war but the the outrage he shows whenever such people do speak up shows that he places little value of the right of others to disagree with him. Recently, on Wednesday in fact, Sullivan has said: The good news is that sooner rather than later, the anti-war left will actually have to take a stand - against war with Iraq, against preventing Saddam from getting nukes, against continuing the war against terror to its sources in the terror-sponsoring Islamist states of the Middle East.I think I've made my opposition to all of these things clear so I would like to ask proponents of attacking Iraq two questions.. Do you feel that the U.S. should attack, invade and/or install a new government in every country that is hostile to the U.S. and which has or might soon have the potential to do harm to the U.S.? If the answer is no, what makes Iraq different? (For the record, I don't believe the U.S. is actually threatening Iraq because of the threat that country poses. But all proponents of attacking Iraq that I've come across make this argument so I just want to draw that logic out.) -Douglas Anders has a great entry on patriotism: Patriotism and love of America are not demonstrated by uncritical faith the actions of our leaders or a simple minded belief that for some reason God has made the US his chosen land that can do no wrong. Patriotism and love of America are best expressed by those of us who question, who push our countrymen to be better, who listen quietly while other express stupid, vile or ignorant thoughts because our ideals demand this. The Greek students who died on November 17th, 1973 better exemplified the American spirit than did the vile and reprehensible Henry Kissinger, whose twisted ideas abut America lead him to support the dictatorial Junta who gunned them down...There are many admirable elements of the U.S. I don't like to say that I'm proud to be an American because I feel more lucky to have been born and to live in the U.S. than proud of this fact. Having pride in something -especially something that you are not directly or indirectly responsible for- often leads to vanity and it is American vanity that suggests that because the U.S. is a great country that it can do no wrong. That isn't the case at all, as history shows and, regretably, the future will show. Steve Earle has recently said, "...I'll always be an American. I may not always live in the U.S., but I'll always be an American. The government can't decide whether I'm an American or not." That's far more convincing that anything that ever came from Lee Greenwood. |