Hello MSNCB Editorial Staff -
I'm very disappointed by your recent coverage of global politics, especiially concerning this recent video released of bin Laden.
What you put forth as "news" is little more (or perhaps, not better than) propaganda--to be perfectfly honest, in a dialectically critical, straightforaward way, his "punditry" is not half-witted--he is not off the mark in asserting that Democratics have been the particular sort of partisan cowards that any two-party system is likely to produce--he is entirely correct--he is 'wrong' insofar as he hasn't taken into account that degree to which Democrats are under the influence of the pressures of their respective constiuencies.
This is by no means not to say that voters who have traditionally been pro-Republican, pro-U.S. military, pro-US involvement in in international politics are necessarily still in support of US. efforts against al-Quada. Indeed, he is entirely correct insofar as he has asserted that
1) the majority of Americans are questioning if not outright opposed to the situation in Iraq (and Afghanistan, as so many of us have forgotten) and that
2) it has been a significant drain on the US economy.
Anyone who has studied any history should know that warfare is good for economies in the short-term, but always a disaster in the long-term. Is there any real doubt at this point in history that America is not on the brink of economic disaster? Or has not been so for the last six years?
What little capacity for psychology your news reporters and our politicians have...do they not realize the silliness of the predictability of "anniversary attacks?" There is terror in the unknown, and terrorist plots are most easily hatched on the the un-suspecting. What could be the purpose of an anniversary attack? Surely the torturers at Gitmo know that for terrorist techniques to be effective, they must contain an element of surpirse/arbitrariness, otherwise they would allow for a psychological preparedness which would dampen the effect of such efforts. Have we learned nothing about the psychology of terrorism from watching decades of strife between Isreal and Palestine?
To be perfectly honest, according to the rules by which al-Quada is playing, they have already won. The object of terrorism is to coerce the colonialis state into a state of psychlogical disarray by which all decisions are based on fear rather than linear, Cartesian rationality. This is exactly what has been accomplished by placing Democrats in such a position that they so fear "voting against God and Country" that they won'y refuse funding for the war in Iraq, and by the particularly hyper-conservative, if not outright fascistic (not a term I use lightly) coveage which "news" engenders.
Fear is contradictive to Democracy, and your coverage does nothing but to engender fear and sow seeds of confusion. As far as decent, intellectually responsible analysis of new coverage is concerned, you, MSNBC are complicit with the aims of al-Quada. You disgust me, you, anti-Democracy, anti-Humanistic, pro-terroristic pigs.
Go ahead. Prove me wrong. I have no more need for intelllectual debate. History has proved me right when I protested the start of the war years ago, and history will prove me right again. And al-Quada has no more need for terrorist attacks, we're already paranoid enough because of your yellow-journalism that such risk has become unnecesary.
At this point in US History, the idea of a terrorist attack is redundant. The goal of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has been accomplished - "get them so afraid that they become bankrupt and so divided so that China can complete it's mission of conquering the world." Terrorism? Who cares? As Kennedy said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," and so it is--the task of terrorism is done, the seed of fear has been planted, and our own home-produced zenophobia and yellow-journalism have provided ample and abundant sulight, water, and yes, fertilizer for such fear to take root.
America is sliding into a pit, and American will not stop sliding into it until we, collectively, as a nation, decide to start making decisions based on a soliid rationality, rather under the duress of fear. Jimmy Carter warned us of this, and he, perhaps the most intelligent and gifted statesmen of all US presidents is held in disregard, nay, outright contempt for having done so. Shame on us. May God has such mercy on us that we may catch up on our history and act accordingly before our history catches up with us and condemns us to do otherwise.
Christopher,
the anti-ideological, anti-academic critical outsider
PS - and shame on you, MSNCB news for no longer incouding a "comment on this report" link, and forcing me to write so anonomously to the editor,
SHAME ON YOU, YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO DEMOCRACY!
© PROMETHEUS 123/2007
PROMETHEUS, Internet Bulletin - News, Politics, Art and Science. Nr. 123, September 2007