--- Damon Agretto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You know, nothing makes me want to vote Democrat > more than the idea Gautam > just expressed about the "left," or the Republican > campaign commercials > talking about "Kerry and his Liberal friends." Makes > me want to replace > "liberal" with "Communist" and I think I can really > see where this is > going. So Gautam, when you posted your message were > you also thinking about > *me* when you talked about the true motivations of > the "left?"
No, but I don't see any signs that you _are_ a member of the left, Damon. As opposed to a liberal, a very, very, very different thing. Now, if you were to start talking about the greatness of Noam Chomsky's politics...I'd think someone had taken over your e-mail account. This would be unlikely. But if you were to write a post saying, say, the US deserved the attacks on 9/11 - a common sentiment on the European left soon after 9/11 (read the whole text of Le Monde's editorial on 9/11, for example, which implies basically that after the ostensibly sympathetic headline) then I'd start to wonder. But I know you, and I know you don't believe that at all. As for Kerry and his liberal friends...some of Kerry's supporters are, in fact, emblematic members of Jeanne Kirkpatrick's old "blame America first crowd". Michael Moore springs to mind, among others. He is not well-served by some of his supporters at all, and his notable unwillingness to even pretend to condemn them (compare this with President Clinton's highly admirable decision to condemn Sister Souljah during the 1992 campaign, or President George H.W. Bush's resigning his NRA membership after they described Federal Agents as "jack-booted thugs") makes critiquing him for their statements seem entirely legitimate to me. The head of the DNC, for example, has publicly stated his belief that we invaded Afghanistan to build an oil pipeline there. Kerry had the power to do something about that. He did not. This is a striking failure on his part, and it _is_ a problem and a reason not to vote for him. President Clinton showed, when he was running, that he was not captive of the more repugnant members of his party's extreme. This was a strong point in his favor. Senator Kerry has done exactly the opposite - he seems to be trying very hard to suggest, atleast some of the time, that he _is_ captive of the more distasteful members of his party's extreme, and that is a problem. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
