Jane Hamsher can pucker up her Noam Chomsky lips and blow me
Mon, Jun 8, 2009
Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake has been doing a lot of emailing to bloggers lately, which is fine. It’s a bit galling from someone who has complained to me about emailing her, but hey, we’re all pimps now, right?
Anyway, I just got this one from her, entitled “Tim vs. Rahm”, with this link, which I guess is some fancy email program to put my name in a subject line so I don’t reject it as spam.
Dear Tim,
Rahm Emmanuel is pressuring progressives to change their vote and abandon their principles. You can help fight back.
Your Representative is getting intense pressure from Emmanuel to pass more money for the war in Afghanistan, as well as $100 billion to bail out European banks, not to mention an amendment to block the release of detainee torture photos.
Dear Jane. I support more money for the war in Afghanistan, and pretty much every other thing the Obama administration is doing, including the IMF money, and blocking the release of detainee torture photos. Barack Obama is doing the right thing on all these matters, and I hope you will join me in supporting our president, instead of being a piss ant crybaby knee jerk pacifist isolationist email spamming bitch.
P.S. – Kiss my ass.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
i’ve already contacted betty sutton, dennis kucinich (reinforcement), sherrod brown and even voinovich, to ask them to vote against the war appropriation bill. i wasn’t specific about my reasons, but i’m opposed to the IMF rules and the prohibition against releasing those photos. i’ll let my elected reps choose their own reason(s) for voting against it.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
according to a report at huffington post the lieberdick amendment (photos) has been stripped from the war supplemental and dem leadership is still concerned they don’t have the votes. IMF credit next? hail to the left!
June 9th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Shalom Tim,
President Obama continues to demonstrate political leadership skills like we haven’t seen in my lifetime. He has a lot of people, my self included, second guessing our points of view. Having said that, I can’t yet see the plus of blocking Freedom-Of-Information Act requests for the torture photos.
I can see the political downside, but I continue to perceive Obama as transcending what I understand as politics. I’ll accept that he’s working on a higher plane than I’m used to dealing with, but can you see reasons other than old-school politics for why he wants to block the release of those photos?
B’shalom,
Jeff
June 9th, 2009 at 10:53 am
the reason i agree with keeping the photos classified is the same reason Obama cites – that their release will create backlash in the field abroad against Americans, both soldiers and civilians.
i think about this by putting myself abroad, say, as a democracy trainer, getting up in front of a seminar to talk democracy, and someone throws the latest hideous photo in front of me and makes my job harder. not to mention the atmosphere on the streets facing an american every day after such photos hit. it’s already been proven that such photos are incredibly damaging and create dangerous situations almost immediately.
we know the photos are bad, we’ve seen plenty of their ilk already, and i just don’t see any reason to release more which would outweigh the incredible negative effects on foreign policy. it’s just a bad idea.
June 9th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Shalom Tim,
That’s what I mean about old-school political reasoning. That’s what I would have expected President Bush, or even President Clinton, to say.
That’s the same kind of reasoning President Nixon used in trying to quash the Pentagon Papers.
And that’s why I think President Obama is taking us somewhere else that I’m unable to perceive.
I think releasing the photos in their entirety would be like lancing the political boil they are. It would be ugly for a few days, but people around the world would be more likely to admire our openness and transparency than hate us more once they recognize that the release even more sharply marks the political line between pre- and post-22 January America.
Specially in the wake of Cairo, such a release, with a statement that this is not who America is, would be to our benefit on the World stage.
Would it inflame the crazies. Hell yes. But they don’t need inflaming.
B’shalom,
Jeff
June 9th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
jeff, this has nothing to do with Nixon, or the Pentagon Papers, in any way whatsoever.
we have real evidence that such acts done under America’s name, and the photos of them, create an atmosphere where Americans die. i’m thrilled that Barack has put those practices to an end.
it would be the height of irresponsibility to fail to take into account the likelihood that Americans will die, in quite horrible ways, if those photos come out. that’s before you get to the effect on our policies abroad.
you’re right, barack is taking us to a new place, it isn’t one that is familiar to any of us, which is why i support his decision, in addition to being an American who may one day be abroad again, and subject to that threat.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:38 am
just call me Pope Leo XIII, but i think of “americanism” as a disease that is best contained within the usa’s borders. let’s release those photos!