Saturday, September 23, 2006

Devil in the Details:

Chavez, Limbaugh and Hypocrisy over Name-Calling
by Jeff Cohen
Published on Friday, September 22, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0922-35.htm

[…]
Let me be clear: Those of us who use facts instead of rant; reason and argument instead of name-calling and personal attacks; evidence instead of intimidation and accusations of disloyalty -- we have the moral authority to tell Hugo Chavez that his comments were out of line.

But the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Scarboroughs and O’Reillys are in no position to point any fingers. Nor are the executives at Disney, GE and News Corp who have made them the loudest voices in American media.

Nor, for that matter, is Team Bush -- whose strategy has been to demonize and intimidate critics and other members of the “reality-based community.”
[…]

And neither are we. Who are we to decide what someone should think, or say?

Do I need to remind you who the president is? and what he’s been doing?

We have allowed this little man to remain in office for over three years after he invaded Iraq. We have allowed this little man to remain in office for over a year after he displayed his indifference to the hundreds who were dying because of Hurricane Katrina. We have allowed this little man to remain in office, in spite of his public looting of the US Treasury, and his corrupt administration.

And we have allowed him to remain in office even after he has demanded the right to torture people, and to jail them indefinitely on his own, unappealable say so.

No, sir. We have lost “the moral authority” to tell anybody what is “out of line”. And, beside the point, Mr Chavez said what had to be said, and where it had to be said.

Until we have turned bush and his administration out of office, and prosecuted them for their crimes; until we have turned his congressional allies out of office, and prosecuted them for their crimes; and until we demand that our elected representatives repudiate the bush doctrines, the bush signing statements, the bush executive orders, in fact his entire ideology and administration, we have NO moral authority.


2 comments:

Mostly Harmless said...

Bravo! It's so easy to be sanctimonious. Chavez is villified for speaking the truth. The problem is, the truth hurts.

Anonymous said...

Citizens of America, being in the shadow of a "War President and his henchmen, all guilty of mass corruption, against other countries as well as it's own citizens, must outwardly voice our views of Chavez, who, by the way, told truth that Americans have been forbidden to tell....And I will add,,,the Iranian President, also, in his letter to the American people, also told truth, whether the government likes it or not....This Bush administration has imperialistic intentions, that is fact, unending war, which is also fact....In the name of Democracy,,,,massive slaughter and torture of innocent people, is unacceptable....I cannot understand why the Congress has not cleaned the White House, just with it's authority of checks and balances...This congress has acted in collusion with the corruption of this administration and that, too, is a fact....