Terrible Editorials, Opinion Pieces and Letters to the Editor

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Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Blarghalt posted:

In the past few years I've noticed that contempt for democracy has become more and more common in conservative circles. It was always there, but catchphrases like "republic, not a democracy" and "mob mentality" kind of show how much it's bubbled up.

It definitely hit my radar in a big way when Newt went on the Sunday talk shows during the last election and said that, as President, he would just ignore the Supreme Court as he deemed fit.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 04:02

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 23:07

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

watt par posted:

Name another anti-racist activist without looking any up.

Al Sharpton? Also I could probably think of five dead black activists off the top of my head who are more famous than Wise will ever be. This argument is stupid anyway.

# ¿ May 1, 2013 10:49

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Pththya-lyi posted:

We're not supposed to agree with what they say!

This comes up a lot in Shakespeare.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2013 22:21

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/opinion/sunday/dowd-time-to-hard-delete-carlos-danger.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=OP_DTT_20130729

I knew was in for some hardcore full blinders-on misstatements when the NYTimes Facebook feed excerpt for this article started with:

quote:

Some sex scandals, like Mark Sanford�s, fall into the realm of flawed human nature, and some, like Weiner�s, fall into the realm of �Seriously, what is wrong with you?�� writes Maureen Dowd in the Sunday Review.

Yeah, Mark Sanford, that normal, personable guy he is, loving mistresses in Argentina, repeatedly violating restraining orders while trying to make a political comeback, you know, a real natural dude from the land of Just-Wins-Electionsville.

So let's dig in further!

quote:

WHEN you puzzle over why the elegant Huma Abedin is propping up the eel-like Anthony Weiner, you must remember one thing: Huma was raised in Saudi Arabia, where women are treated worse by men than anywhere else on the planet.

Let's kick off with a blame-the-woman sideways assault that isn't even strictly true on the facts (ever been to Afghanistan, Maureen?)

quote:

Americans keep moving the marker of acceptable behavior, partly as a reflection of the coarsening of society and partly as a public acknowledgment that many pols with complicated personal lives have been good public servants

Being socially liberal: "coarsening," which is about this article's tenth broadside into the English language, or at least tortured metaphor, in eight paragraphs. For example, gently caress this sentence:

quote:

Huma gained renown, movie star suitors and a Vogue spread as the stylish Muslim Garbo silently and efficiently parting the waves for Hillary.

Where do you start there?

Anyway, as can be expected, the article juggles a bunch of malignant centrist narratives--badly--with maybe the only halfway convincing argument being that Weiner is a liberal Michele Bachmann. That's mildly instructive, I guess. Its usefulness is negated, and then some, by Dowd disturbingly patterning her editorial after right wing croaking that Huma is still with Weiner because Muslim women are powerless.

Normally I would just appreciate if Dowd took this article back to the poetry slam where she wrote it, but I'm not sure how many poetry slams out there appreciate such on-the-nose witticisms about Greta Garbo. George Will would probably love it?

# ¿ Jul 29, 2013 21:10

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Nathilus posted:

I have seriously considered this question for several minutes now, since that sentence is impressively tortured. After careful consideration, I've decided that the only winning move is not to play. That sentence might seem like a remarkable if ugly blacksmith's knot of language, but I'm pretty sure that the intricacy is an illusion and that it's actually just a bunch of crap welded together.

An appropriately-placed comma would be a great starting point.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2013 05:56

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

seiferguy posted:

The county I grew up is having their annual fair, and got a relatively well known AD/DC cover band, Hell's Belles (all women group) to perform at the fair. Now AC/DC doesn't have too controversial music, but it didn't stop the crazies from coming out:

http://www.centralkitsapreporter.com/opinion/220733881.html

I realize that the newspaper is a near-dead medium and 80% of small town readership are old kooks who never learned about the Internet, but really, this is what's fit to print in 2013?

# ¿ Aug 24, 2013 05:05

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Alter Ego posted:

Yeah, every article Michael Reagan has ever written should be subtitled "Daddy! Daddy, do you love me yet?"

loving yikes.

I've never paid much attention to the Reagan family, but at this point Ron Jr. gets all the attention because he's a liberal.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2013 16:15

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Entropic posted:

Incognito is his real last name?

Christ I feel like I'm watching the Daily Show episode covering this again, which for its part felt like I was just reading TMZ.

If there were ever a group of people who felt like the rules did not apply to them (only to inevitably discover that they do), it's football players.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2013 07:09

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

I read the NYT all the time and it's honestly fairly rare that I see anything egregious enough to post in here--even if NYT does have its share of neoliberals and terrible writers.

This one got my attention this morning, though:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/opinion/daring-to-complain-about-obamacare.html?smid=pl-share

quote:

LOS ANGELES � THE Anthem Blue Cross representative who answered my call told me that there was a silver lining in the cancellation of my individual P.P.O. policy and the $5,400 annual increase that I would have to pay for the Affordable Care Act-compliant option: now if I have Stage 4 cancer or need a sex-change operation, I�d be covered regardless of pre-existing conditions. Never mind that the new provider network would eliminate coverage for my and my son�s long-term doctors and hospitals.

The Anthem rep cheerily explained that despite the company�s � I paraphrase � draconian rates and limited network, my benefits, which also include maternity coverage (handy for a 46-year-old), would �be actually much richer.�

I, of course, would be actually much poorer. And it was this aspect of the bum deal that, to my surprise, turned out to be a very unpopular thing to gripe about.

�Obamacare or Kafkacare?� I posted on Facebook as soon as I hung up with Anthem. I vented about the call and wrote that the president should be protecting the middle class, not making our lives substantially harder. For extra sympathy, I may have thrown in the fact that I�m a single mom. (O.K., I did.)

Then I sat back and waited for the love to pour in. Or at least the �like.� Lots of likes. After all, I have 1,037 Facebook friends. Surely, they�d commiserate.

Except that they didn�t.

Instead, aside from my friend David, who attempted to cheer me up with, �My dad, who never turns down a bargain, would take the sex change just because it�s free,� my respondents implied � in posts that, to my annoyance, kept getting more �likes� � that it was beyond uncool to be whining about myself when the less fortunate would finally have insurance.

�The nation has been better off,� wrote one friend. �Over 33 million people who did not have insurance are now going to get it.� That�s all fine and good for �the nation,� but what about my $5,400 rate hike (after-tax dollars, I wanted to add, but dared not in this group of previously closeted Mother Teresas)? Another friend wrote, �Yes, I�m paying an extra 200 a month, but I�m okay with doing that so that others who need it can have health care.�

I was shocked. Who knew my friends were such humanitarians? Has Obamacare made it un-P.C. to be concerned by a serious burden on my family�s well-being?

The heated reactions even moved offline. Frustrated, I observed to one friend who was covered through her work that when an issue didn�t affect people directly, they became �theoretically generous.� Ask them to donate several thousand dollars so that the less fortunate can have medical insurance � which is exactly what President Obama is asking me to do � and I�ll bet they�d change their tune about �ending inequality� and �creating fairness� and �doing what�s good for the country.�

Refreshingly, the two people who showed real empathy were my insurance broker and my friend Nicole, who sent daily links to news stories about people who were also stripped of their coverage and mandated to buy expensive exchange or private policies without access to their current doctors, yet just missed the cutoff for subsidies.

There was one story about people suing Anthem for not being grandfathered in after changing their policies post-2010. In fact, it was in 2011 that I altered mine, dumping maternity benefits so that I didn�t have to pay for everyone else�s pregnancies. Little did I know I�d end up losing my insurance and paying for everyone else�s pregnancies.

There was even an article about a cancer patient who had lost access to her doctors. To her credit, Nicole refrained from saying, �But, Lori, this woman has cancer and you are so much more fortunate!�

Like Bridget Jones�s �smug marrieds,� the �smug insureds� � friends who were covered through their own or spouses� employers or who were grandfathered into their plans � asked why I didn�t �just� switch all of our long-term doctors, suck it up and pay an extra $200 a month for a restrictive network on the exchange, or marry the guy I�m dating. How romantic: �I didn�t marry you just to save money, honey. I married you for your provider network.�

Along with the smug insureds, President Obama doesn�t care much about the relatively small percentage of us with canceled coverage and no viable replacement. He keeps apologizing while maintaining that it�s for the good of the country, a vast improvement �over all.�

And the �over all� might agree. But the self-employed middle class is being sacrificed at the altar of politically correct rhetoric, with nobody helping to ensure our health, fiscal or otherwise, because it�s trendy to cheer for the underdog. Embracing the noble cause is all very well � as long as yours isn�t the �fortunate� family that loses its access to comprehensive, affordable health care while the rest of the nation gets it.

The truly noble act here is being performed by my friend Nicole, who keeps posting Obamacare fiasco stories on my Facebook page, despite being conspicuously ignored, except for my single �like.� It�s the lone �like� that falls in the forest, the click nobody wants to hear.

Lori Gottlieb is a contributing editor for The Atlantic and a psychotherapist.

I think this reader response sums it up pretty well:

quote:

My heart bleeds that the writer picked a policy without maternity care so that she "didn�t have to pay for everyone else�s pregnancies" and now she can't have it. I have no children but have to pay property taxes so everyone else's children can go to school. I rent, so if the writer owns a property (and I'm sure she does) I'm paying for her mortgage interest tax deduction. People without cars subsidize roads and highways. I also subsidize people on Medicare and Social Security, even though I'm more than a decade away from collecting.

As a man, I subsidize every woman's healthcare as it is far more expensive. Therefore I pay for the writer's OB-GYN, and I'll never use one.

It seems the writer is very worried about paying for other people's stuff. I guess she doesn't understand insurance. But if she or anyone on her policy gets sick, the amount she will have paid in premiums won't even be close to what she will receive in benefits, and I'm sure she would yell the loudest if she were denied any benefit that she wanted and feels entitled to.

It's telling, though, that she didn't publish a word about what other policies are available to her beyond the one she was pitched by Anthem. I guess she doesn't understand what salespeople do, either.

So, in essence, yes, it is out of vogue to complain about Obamacare when you literally don't understand how it works.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2013 22:44

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

The Moon Monster posted:

Is Danielle Steel really the biggest celebrity in San Francisco

When I looked up Steel to see a picture of her, she looked exactly as I imagined she would look.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2014 04:24

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

How about Friedman up in this bitch?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/o...&pgtype=article

This article is of course Friedman's typical jargon-infused, inane truism-laced hackery, written at the service of the status quo, and I almost don't want to C/P it here, but it's required for context and I wouldn't want to make this one of your ten NYtimes articles if you don't have a subscription. What really warmed my heart were the top comments, which I also included some of the best of below.

quote:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. � LAST June, in an interview with Adam Bryant of The Times, Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google � i.e., the guy in charge of hiring for one of the world�s most successful companies � noted that Google had determined that �G.P.A.�s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. ... We found that they don�t predict anything.� He also noted that the �proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time� � now as high as 14 percent on some teams. At a time when many people are asking, �How�s my kid gonna get a job?� I thought it would be useful to visit Google and hear how Bock would answer.

Don�t get him wrong, Bock begins, �Good grades certainly don�t hurt.� Many jobs at Google require math, computing and coding skills, so if your good grades truly reflect skills in those areas that you can apply, it would be an advantage. But Google has its eyes on much more.

�There are five hiring attributes we have across the company,� explained Bock. �If it�s a technical role, we assess your coding ability, and half the roles in the company are technical roles. For every job, though, the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it�s not I.Q. It�s learning ability. It�s the ability to process on the fly. It�s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information. We assess that using structured behavioral interviews that we validate to make sure they�re predictive.�

The second, he added, �is leadership � in particular emergent leadership as opposed to traditional leadership. Traditional leadership is, were you president of the chess club? Were you vice president of sales? How quickly did you get there? We don�t care. What we care about is, when faced with a problem and you�re a member of a team, do you, at the appropriate time, step in and lead. And just as critically, do you step back and stop leading, do you let someone else? Because what�s critical to be an effective leader in this environment is you have to be willing to relinquish power.�

What else? Humility and ownership. �It�s feeling the sense of responsibility, the sense of ownership, to step in,� he said, to try to solve any problem � and the humility to step back and embrace the better ideas of others. �Your end goal,� explained Bock, �is what can we do together to problem-solve. I�ve contributed my piece, and then I step back.�

And it is not just humility in creating space for others to contribute, says Bock, it�s �intellectual humility. Without humility, you are unable to learn.� It is why research shows that many graduates from hotshot business schools plateau. �Successful bright people rarely experience failure, and so they don�t learn how to learn from that failure,� said Bock.

�They, instead, commit the fundamental attribution error, which is if something good happens, it�s because I�m a genius. If something bad happens, it�s because someone�s an idiot or I didn�t get the resources or the market moved. ... What we�ve seen is that the people who are the most successful here, who we want to hire, will have a fierce position. They�ll argue like hell. They�ll be zealots about their point of view. But then you say, �here�s a new fact,� and they�ll go, �Oh, well, that changes things; you�re right.� � You need a big ego and small ego in the same person at the same time.

The least important attribute they look for is �expertise.� Said Bock: �If you take somebody who has high cognitive ability, is innately curious, willing to learn and has emergent leadership skills, and you hire them as an H.R. person or finance person, and they have no content knowledge, and you compare them with someone who�s been doing just one thing and is a world expert, the expert will go: �I�ve seen this 100 times before; here�s what you do.� � Most of the time the nonexpert will come up with the same answer, added Bock, �because most of the time it�s not that hard.� Sure, once in a while they will mess it up, he said, but once in a while they�ll also come up with an answer that is totally new. And there is huge value in that.

To sum up Bock�s approach to hiring: Talent can come in so many different forms and be built in so many nontraditional ways today, hiring officers have to be alive to every one � besides brand-name colleges. Because �when you look at people who don�t go to school and make their way in the world, those are exceptional human beings. And we should do everything we can to find those people.� Too many colleges, he added, �don�t deliver on what they promise. You generate a ton of debt, you don�t learn the most useful things for your life. It�s [just] an extended adolescence.�

Google attracts so much talent it can afford to look beyond traditional metrics, like G.P.A. For most young people, though, going to college and doing well is still the best way to master the tools needed for many careers. But Bock is saying something important to them, too: Beware. Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about � and pays off on � what you can do with what you know (and it doesn�t care how you learned it). And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills � leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work.

quote:

Reading articles like this makes me happy to be retired. I cannot imagine being a college graduate, or dropout for that matter, trying to makes heads or tails out of this jargon laced column. What does any of it really mean? Grades matter, no they don't. Be a leader, but also a follower. Dig your heals in, but know when to back off. Have an ego, but keep it in check. Be yourself, but no too much. Yada, yada, yada.

It's as if the HR execs and consultants (Bock used to work with the consulting firm McKinsey) conspired to make what they do--hiring people for work--seem mysterious, scientific and incomprehensible. A language all of their own. I feel sorry for prospective employees who have to deal with this type of craziness. For god's sake people--it's only a job.

quote:

Get a job at Google? Can you tell us how to get a job at Goldman Sachs next? Then the New York Yankees?

How about a column about how the average person - including people at or above the median age for the nation - can get a job with some sort of security somewhere that won't suck up their entire lives?

For all the fancy blather from Mr Bock, the underlying requirement for a job at Google and almost any other successful company, or company that wants to be successful, is to be a young (male) person who is willing to devote their lives to their jobs until their employer doesn't need them anymore and they can be tossed aside.

Then, when burnt out at 30, they better hope that the next company doesn't say "Google? We never hire anyone who worked at Google. They're arrogant and start every sentence with 'At Google we would..' instead of just doing what we ask them to do."

quote:

Mr. Friedman I have to say that reading this stuff makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I am trying to figure out how we were able to develop mass communication, mass transportation, send a man to the moon, develop MRI technology, genetic manipulation (the list goes on and on) without having the insight that our modern search and social network companies posses in how to hire talented workers. The scale of what Google and Facebook have developed is dwarfed by the transistor. I am baffled by this continuing moonstruck awe with firms like Google. They are preaching a warmed over "plum pudding" model of the universe.

quote:

As ever, this piece reads like one of those ghastly self-help books that seem to fascinate Americans. Lots of contradictory advice designed to make people hysterical. Lead and be humble. Great. Own and step back. It's just nonsense.

quote:

do you ever get tired of being the spokesperson of this neo-technological fetishism that is slowly sucking every last good vestige out of our society?

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 01:46

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

I mainly get a kick out of Friedman's hackery being so well-known that most of the top comments are roasting him, sometimes with references to his favorite pieces of empty rhetoric, since he's the editorial equivalent of the political cartoonist who re-uses as much of his old artwork as possible.

Google is as ever special, Google has its own hiring standards (wow!), and most importantly, Google will magically pick you out of the haystack because they will recognize what you already know, which is that you're special despite your resume. The thrust of this is eerily similar to how con artists work on people.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 09:29

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

ProperGanderPusher posted:

Why yes, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, I *do* happen to have a bunch of money just sitting around to finance a whole year of loving off in another country. Also, it should indeed be totally mandatory for everyone.

Not one mention of the low number of students travelling abroad possibly having anything to do with not being able to afford it. There's the whole idealist.org thing, but it seems highly unlikely any of those positions are willing to hire some kid right out of high school.

Traveling abroad is fantastic if you want to

A) Spend at least another six months in school afterward because you missed a required course that only comes up once a year for some dumb loving reason

B) Get all your language credits out of the way

# ¿ Mar 18, 2014 01:25

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Eulogistics posted:

She is poor now, she's never been better off than lower-middle class. She takes donations from a local church group or something and works 2 crappy part-time jobs. If my little brother wasn't getting Social Security to cover his disability, she wouldn't have any money at all. She just doesn't have time to follow the news or something and believes what the retards around her tell her, I guess.

EDIT: I do appreciate the assumptions about her character though, that's classy.

Sever, your mom is a capitalist parasite-worm.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2014 00:43

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Given the stunning incompetence of the Secret Service detail at the White House, people have already suggested a plot to kill Obama via "incompetence." There are also many calls to turn the White House lawn into a killzone, including from congressmen, which is quite amazing.

Name Change fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Oct 2, 2014

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 06:44

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Technogeek posted:

I see SOMEONE has never been forced to consult the precedent regarding determinations of competency that was established in Demosthenes v. Baal.

I have suspected we are the butt of some cosmic joke since hearing of "Roe vs. Wade."

# ¿ Nov 18, 2014 22:42

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

rkajdi posted:

But the problem for shooters is that no matter how good the single player is, multi is the thing actually played. And I doubt Spec Ops drags in a better crowd than CoD or Ghost Ops or whatever Oorah game is out this month.

Spec Ops only had a very bad multiplayer component that no one played because the publisher demanded one to improve sales. Multiplayer is the single source of longevity and revenue in these games and it is sort of amazing that Cod et al even bother with a single player game at this point.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2014 22:56

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

PT6A posted:

For most forums, it's deeply unattractive in the same way that playing most games online would be. This one gets a pass because the community is at least somewhat decent, and there are actual rules. I suppose if you just play with your friends, that's similar, but then I'd question why you don't just hang out with them in person.

So, in addition to all the reasons listed, Call of Duty and COD-alikes in particular have a leveling system where you unlock mechanically superior options the more you play. This makes it even easier to dominate newer players than it would already be, which leads to a "rewarding" experience for those people who put the time in because you can combine experience and unlocks to routinely dominate games. Mechanics similar to this are in almost every online shooter now, though often it only grants you harmless aesthetic options.

Mr. Funny Pants posted:

The hot game for Christmas that I got for my Colecovision was the port of Zaxxon. And because it had super duper simulated 3D graphics, the price was... $50. That's in the early 80s. As much as it stings me to pay $60 for a game, there is no doubt that games, relative to inflation and the cost of development, are dirt cheap. Christ, I remember paying $30 for Super Breakout for the 2600.

With the advent of digital gaming, people who pay $60 for a game look like chumps, especially if it turns out the game is bad. Most games can be had for $5 within 3-4 months of release, unless they are console only.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2014 08:24

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

icantfindaname posted:

On the surface it's just the accusation of game journalists trading good reviews for sexual favors

The subtext though, is that the angry bigoted nerds want reviews to be a sort of consumer reports style quality stamp assuring them that they're getting all the tits and violence out of a game that they've come to expect, rather than a review of the game as a work of art. There's a prevailing anti-intellectual/artistic sentiment that 'art games' aren't real games, and reviewers giving art games good scores are therefore bad reviewers / 'unethical'. The sex-for-scores stuff is nominally the reason for the argument, but I'd argue that subtext is very important in terms of why they care so much about it

There is a problem in "games journalism" of almost all gaming journalists being paid shills for established developers who can even be fired for writing negative reviews, but Gamergate has absolutely nothing to do with that problem, it's entirely about the next generation of goony fucks hating women because they don't know how to form normal human relationships.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2014 03:11

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

John Bolton: If we act now, we can simply destroy them. Then we can vigorously support their political opposition, which is definitely on our side and won't disappear when we bomb the gently caress out of them or anything.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/opinion/to-stop-irans-bomb-bomb-iran.html?ref=opinion

Bonus points for "Israel can do what must be done." Not even Bolton has the balls to spell this out.

quote:

FOR years, experts worried that the Middle East would face an uncontrollable nuclear-arms race if Iran ever acquired weapons capability. Given the region�s political, religious and ethnic conflicts, the logic is straightforward.

As in other nuclear proliferation cases like India, Pakistan and North Korea, America and the West were guilty of inattention when they should have been vigilant. But failing to act in the past is no excuse for making the same mistakes now. All presidents enter office facing the cumulative effects of their predecessors� decisions. But each is responsible for what happens on his watch. President Obama�s approach on Iran has brought a bad situation to the brink of catastrophe.

In theory, comprehensive international sanctions, rigorously enforced and universally adhered to, might have broken the back of Iran�s nuclear program. But the sanctions imposed have not met those criteria. Naturally, Tehran wants to be free of them, but the president�s own director of National Intelligence testified in 2014 that they had not stopped Iran�s progressing its nuclear program. There is now widespread acknowledgment that the rosy 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which judged that Iran�s weapons program was halted in 2003, was an embarrassment, little more than wishful thinking.

Even absent palpable proof, like a nuclear test, Iran�s steady progress toward nuclear weapons has long been evident. Now the arms race has begun: Neighboring countries are moving forward, driven by fears that Mr. Obama�s diplomacy is fostering a nuclear Iran. Saudi Arabia, keystone of the oil-producing monarchies, has long been expected to move first. No way would the Sunni Saudis allow the Shiite Persians to outpace them in the quest for dominance within Islam and Middle Eastern geopolitical hegemony. Because of reports of early Saudi funding, analysts have long believed that Saudi Arabia has an option to obtain nuclear weapons from Pakistan, allowing it to become a nuclear-weapons state overnight. Egypt and Turkey, both with imperial legacies and modern aspirations, and similarly distrustful of Tehran, would be right behind.

Ironically perhaps, Israel�s nuclear weapons have not triggered an arms race. Other states in the region understood � even if they couldn�t admit it publicly � that Israel�s nukes were intended as a deterrent, not as an offensive measure.

Iran is a different story. Extensive progress in uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing reveal its ambitions. Saudi, Egyptian and Turkish interests are complex and conflicting, but faced with Iran�s threat, all have concluded that nuclear weapons are essential.

The former Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said recently, �whatever comes out of these talks, we will want the same.� He added, �if Iran has the ability to enrich uranium to whatever level, it�s not just Saudi Arabia that�s going to ask for that.� Obviously, the Saudis, Turkey and Egypt will not be issuing news releases trumpeting their intentions. But the evidence is accumulating that they have quickened their pace toward developing weapons.

Saudi Arabia has signed nuclear cooperation agreements with South Korea, China, France and Argentina, aiming to build a total of 16 reactors by 2030. The Saudis also just hosted meetings with the leaders of Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey; nuclear matters were almost certainly on the agenda. Pakistan could quickly supply nuclear weapons or technology to Egypt, Turkey and others. Or, for the right price, North Korea might sell behind the backs of its Iranian friends.

The Obama administration�s increasingly frantic efforts to reach agreement with Iran have spurred demands for ever-greater concessions from Washington. Successive administrations, Democratic and Republican, worked hard, with varying success, to forestall or terminate efforts to acquire nuclear weapons by states as diverse as South Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa. Even where civilian nuclear reactors were tolerated, access to the rest of the nuclear fuel cycle was typically avoided. Everyone involved understood why.

This gold standard is now everywhere in jeopardy because the president�s policy is empowering Iran. Whether diplomacy and sanctions would ever have worked against the hard-liners running Iran is unlikely. But abandoning the red line on weapons-grade fuel drawn originally by the Europeans in 2003, and by the United Nations Security Council in several resolutions, has alarmed the Middle East and effectively handed a permit to Iran�s nuclear weapons establishment.

The inescapable conclusion is that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear program. Nor will sanctions block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure. The inconvenient truth is that only military action like Israel�s 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein�s Osirak reactor in Iraq or its 2007 destruction of a Syrian reactor, designed and built by North Korea, can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed.

Rendering inoperable the Natanz and Fordow uranium-enrichment installations and the Arak heavy-water production facility and reactor would be priorities. So, too, would be the little-noticed but critical uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan. An attack need not destroy all of Iran�s nuclear infrastructure, but by breaking key links in the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to five years. The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what�s necessary. Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran�s opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran.

Mr. Obama�s fascination with an Iranian nuclear deal always had an air of unreality. But by ignoring the strategic implications of such diplomacy, these talks have triggered a potential wave of nuclear programs. The president�s biggest legacy could be a thoroughly nuclear-weaponized Middle East.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2015 13:57

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

We can do comment sections, right? I think that counts as a letter to the editor at this point.

The New York Times comment section is to the left of pretty much everything but Mao in most cases. However, the whiteness of the NYTimes comments are given away by their deathly fear of minorities of all stripes.

Enter this article, for example.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/opinion/sunday/militant-jihads-softer-side.html?ref=world&_r=0

This is an exploration of the culture of young jihadi radicals. It turns out that they listen to a lot of musical poetry and like a good cry, and the article's overall point is illustrating certain ways in which radical culture indoctrinates new members. These people are in fact humans with feelings (that can be manipulated).

That conclusion sounds a lot like thoughtcrime, though.

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Thanks. I have been longing for an article on the lighter side of beheading.

quote:

The admiring tone of this piece makes me itch.

quote:

I nearly cannot believe what I am reading here, nor can I fathom some of the comments about understanding this culture. Frankly, the notion of "sensitive" murderers is nearly too much to bear, even for a progressive liberal, of which I am one.

While I understand that young people sometimes find the "wrong" path within which to place their alienation, and also get the idea of "know thine enemy," this embrace of an ostensible 'sensitive self' among killers makes me feel sick, as to be sure did Hitler's nationalistic appeal to Germany.

It is simple such a perversion of the humanitarian place of the arts in our lives --- you know, the idea that art, and music and philosophy make us more human.

This story, along with the photo of the doe-eyed "Slaughterer" is both repugnant and terrifying and has no place in an international newspaper, other than to further glamorize the slaughter of innocents by the otherwise artistically engaged.

quote:

I don't often write in response to articles even when I think they are interesting or inane. However, I must express my anger at your editorial staff printing this article. I don't want my subscription to the NYT to sponsor this sort of propagandist dribble whether intended that way or not.
At the very least there should have been an exploration of the IS defectors' stories to see why the "egalitarian camaraderie, poetry, acapela singing, & gourmet meals" where not enough to keep the defectors there.
I suspect that the brutality, rigidity, & hypocrisy of the regime was too much for independent thinkers, who then left before their minds & souls were totally corrupted.
I suspect some of the IS who cry during prayer, do so with regret for the corruption of their faith & their own abhorrent behavior. Attempting to leave means death if caught, so some may cry with despondency at the results of their misguided choice to join at all. I imagine for some recruits it would be nauseating to sing & eat gourmet meals after watching or participating in beheadings, rape, & other repellant cruelty.
Those who have left IS would make a far better topic NYT!
1) what (in detail) attracted them in the first place?
2) what (in detail) caused them to leave?
3) what about them "immunized" them from staying & partaking further in that "meal" of inhumanity?
4) what gave them the courage to leave?
Common sense: Governments may need the info in this article, the public does not!

quote:

How fun! Jihadists as hipsters. Is this some kind of joke? For shame NY Times. I can't believe my eyes. This is the lowest excuse for an editorial I have ever seen.

This is actually fairly tame stuff compared to what happens when a piece on police brutality gets published. You see, police brutality doesn't matter because blacks are thugs who spend all their time killing each other anyway.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2015 05:28

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...461a1b#comments

quote:

It is apparently not enough for some of the liberal-minded to help those on Medicare and Social Security; now people must be guaranteed eligibility for heaven as well. Or at least be protected from those who believe in the other place.

At a contentious confirmation hearing last week for Russell Vought as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget � generally not known as an institution with theological job requirements � Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took vigorous exception to an online post Vought had written claiming that Muslims (and, presumably, others) who �have rejected Jesus Christ� therefore �stand condemned.�

...

In all the complexities of theology and metaphysics that this topic raises, I am utterly confident of one thing: No one has ever asked, �What is Bernie Sanders�s view on this?� But he has offered it. In justifying his opposition to Vought, Sanders said: �This country, since its inception, has struggled, sometimes with great pain, to overcome discrimination of all forms. . . . We must not go backwards.� Thus liberal fairness is applied on a cosmic scale. Ending theological bias is the final civil rights frontier. Equal salvation for all.

"Of the many evils of civil rights and equality, the ultimate is taking offense at a guy who hates all Muslims."

How in the sam-gently caress is this poo poo getting printed in the Post

# ¿ Jun 13, 2017 06:50

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 23:07

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

It's bad enough being lectured on left and right-wing extremism by a right-winger from an apartheid state, but the main problem is that he doesn't even have his facts right.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...m=.056d25fa4501

President Trump, in part, was right. There is blame to go around for the unrest in Charlottesville. There is fear, intolerance, demonization and growing hatred on both the extreme left and the extreme right. But despite what Trump has claimed, repeatedly, in his public statements since the tragic events there, the willingness to employ organized violence to achieve political goals remains a signature quality of only one side. And it�s not the left.

Extremism on the left is real. It can be seen in attempts to stifle the free speech of conservative speakers on university campuses (as at Middlebury and Berkeley); in the belligerent attitudes toward corporations and capitalism expressed, for instance, by some fringes of the Occupy Wall Street crowd and anti-globalization protesters; and among anti-Zionist movements that peddle conspiracy theories (such as the contention that Jews control U.S. foreign policy) to delegitimize Israel. Yet all of this falls well short of the methodical, organized and strategic violence and incitement embraced by right-wing extremists, whose leaders profess faith in the necessity of the fight. Nothing the left can do today even comes close to that � and hasn�t for decades.

Although the American left was never as fully at ease with revolutionary violence as were its European counterparts (who were reared on Robespierre and Marx), it often took up arms. Labor unions battled constantly with railroad barons, industrial tycoons and mining bosses during the Gilded Age. Even while outnumbered and outgunned, usually by private armies that enjoyed the backing of law enforcement and state militias, workers fought in bloody clashes that left dozens dead on battlefields such as Chicago�s Haymarket Square (1886) and West Virginia�s Blair Mountain (1921).

The New Deal helped calm labor-management tensions, but for many younger activists who came of age in the postwar era, violence remained a key strategy � even a way of life. Inspired by the Black Panthers� embrace of violence for self-defense, and enraged by the escalating war in Vietnam, antiwar protesters from New Left organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) sought to �bring the war home� to end the fighting abroad. This concept culminated in the rioting during the 1968 Democratic convention and on university campuses. Radical offshoots including the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army took things even further: The former bombed government buildings, and the latter committed homicide, robbery and, famously, kidnapping.

But since the 1960s, left-wing movements in the United States (and in the West writ large) have gradually turned away from violence. There are three main reasons for this.

The first is practical: It backfired terribly. The Vietnam War protesters initially believed that their country was beyond redemption, so a revolution was imperative. This alienated the general public, helped unify a deeply divided conservative movement and emboldened Richard Nixon�s �silent majority.� Violence proved counterproductive to ending the war; if anything, it helped prolong it. The leaders of the New Left, who consciously distinguished themselves from the �liberal center� through their obstinate allegiance to a romantic revolutionary spirit, eventually admitted this. Tom Hayden, a founder of SDS and a lifelong social justice crusader, later expressed regret over his uncompromising positions. And Mark Rudd, a leader of the Weather Underground, sounded an unequivocal mea culpa. �Much of what the Weathermen did had the opposite effect of what we intended,� he conceded. �. . . We isolated ourselves from our friends and allies as we helped split the larger antiwar movement around the issue of violence. In general, we played into the hands of the FBI. . . . We might as well have been on their payroll.�

The left�s second reason for rejecting violence was even simpler: There were better ways to get things done. The civil rights and feminist movements showed that nonviolent protest could achieve tangible political goals. When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made the case for civil disobedience in his Letter From Birmingham City Jail, it was not based only on ethical principles of Christian brotherly love but also on shrewd political calculations. �The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation,� King wrote. By provoking a crisis of conscience for ordinary Americans, civil rights leaders made the political system work for their cause, leading to the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and other anti-discrimination laws. The lesson: There was no point in challenging the legitimacy of a government that enabled them to accomplish many, albeit not all, of their goals through the democratic process.

The third and most important reason for giving up violence can be found in the new makeup of the American left. Emerging out of the rubble of the 1960s, the modern left, which coalesced around George McGovern�s quixotic 1972 presidential run, effectively represented a gathering of fugitives. African Americans, Hispanics, women, gay men and lesbians, Native Americans, and workers: These long-ostracized groups, which came to replace the New Deal coalition anchored by the white working class, were the very peoples against whom violence had been done for so long. Their painful histories made them instinctively averse to, and intolerant of, political violence. Those who had survived lynchings, beatings, bombings, sexual violence, forced removals and economic exploitation were least disposed to employ them in return. In 1972, those groups were often on the far left, but they eventually became the spine of Barack Obama�s electoral coalition.

Although the American left�s transition away from violence was as much a strategic choice as a moral one, the seeds of violence are still embedded in its historical consciousness. That is why lone-wolf attackers like James T. Hodgkinson , who shot and critically wounded GOP Rep. Steve Scalise during a baseball practice in June, and occasionally violent groups such as antifa, which have clashed with right-wing protesters, are worrisome. But they are not the same as their counterparts on the right. Antifa is mostly anarchist in nature; its members are suspicious and dismissive of the left�s embrace of government institutions. More important, it is loosely banded, disorganized and low scale. Brawling on campuses, throwing rocks or vandalizing property is reprehensible and illegal. But it is incomparable to the scope and breadth of organized violence demonstrated by the extreme right.

While the far left has distanced itself in recent decades from political violence, the far right has headed in the opposite direction: The more activists have failed to preserve their waning political influence and achieve their goals through the democratic process, the more inclined they have become to take up arms and challenge it. The left has successfully integrated into most political, economic and cultural facets of the country, but members of the extreme right say they have been devastated by the economic effects of globalization, disempowered by multiculturalism and disenfranchised by the election of the nation�s first African American president. This sentiment has led to the rise of militia culture and violent resistance on unprecedented scales since the 1990s; it sparked the deadly standoff in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, 25 years ago, climaxed in the Oklahoma City bombing and has persisted, more recently, with the massacre of African American worshipers at a Charleston, S.C., church.

Organized militias that are well armed, well trained and well networked have seen a particular spike since the beginning of the Obama presidency. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported last year that 276 militias operate in the United States, a 37 percent increase from the previous year. Although they are not monolithic � the groups include white supremacists, Christian millenarians, Second Amendment champions and self-appointed border guards � they all revile the federal government. �Sovereign citizens� are armed to the teeth and willing to challenge officials, as they did in last year�s armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Many such militiamen have killed or injured local police. They pose a greater threat than the Islamic State or al-Qaeda, according to a 2016 U.S. government report: �Of the 85 violent extremist incidents that resulted in death since September 12, 2001, far right wing violent extremist groups were responsible for 62 (73 percent) while radical Islamist violent extremists were responsible for 23 (27 percent).�

This doesn�t mean the left is inherently superior. But it has cleansed itself through a painful process of introspection. And if American democracy has any chance of convalescing from the fever of intolerance that has seized it since Trump�s election, people on the right must take a similarly long, hard look in the mirror. If not for their party�s sake, then at least for the country�s.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2017 20:51

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