A Letter from Uncle--Where is Ken Starr when you need him?
So much to write about recently--But, alas, I've been very busy with work and have not had the opportunity to rant about the injustice and corruption. Verily, my cup runneth over.
Instead, I offer you a guest editorial, as it were. An email I got today from my Uncle...who is a real inspiration for me.
Nephew,
Much to my surprise, I have to realize that Kenneth Starr's place in history needs to be re-examined. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the fact he is not in our hearts and minds these days must be examined, which is to say we, the American public, must a look a bit at ourselves. In part this call for examination is simply due to a growing realization of importance of his investigations. Through his efforts we came to learn that semantics, such as "What is, is" word games, plays so large a place in our polite social and political fictions. We learned, as well, that some of us will gladly force all of us to expend endless time, trouble and money to attack gnats, while most of us, whether from cynicisim or optimism, are not
fazed by documents sought for years suddenly appearing on a White House breakfast table without explanation. Starr made us understand that given enough time, every fact in any one's life that is not desired to be bruited about, can be made public, except, of course, those facts most important, such as motivation and causes and whether the person so subjected to scrutiny is, ever so slighty, insane and therefore fit for public office.
However, in a short half-generation, we find ourselves bereft of all this. Can you imagine the exquisite public debates today, if Starr were to force the present incumbent president to explain "What I believe belief may be" in terms of weapons of mass destruction? Do any of us believe it would be less salutory today to discover whether there was a conspiracy afoot to have us attack a country without cause, in the name of anger against an admitted enemy on an entirely different matter? Would it not be more important than ever today to have someone of Starr's zeal and aptitude for detail pore over the public pronouncements and secret announcements of this administration, to find where things were omitted, violations of public trust committed and plain old- fashioned fibs uttered, than it ever was in the past to find out if then private citizens made bad investments worse?
To some degree, our present failure to call back Starr to higher and greater tasks is simply our desire to avoid unpleasantness. This may be stated in high-falutin' terms. "Starr," one might say, "was before dedicated to finding "high crimes and misdeamanors," in a kind of Paul Drake role to the House of Representatives as Perry Mason. However, that formula is upon a moment's reflection recognizably threadbare. If failing to tell the truth (if the contorted questions and answers in question could be so construed) under oath rose to the standard of a high crime and misdeamanor, surely attacking another country without provocation, upon trumped up charges, rises to that same standard. Indeed, I had thought that invading countries
without cause and upon trumped up charges, as when the Nazi regieme invaded Poland after dressing up corpses so as to make it look as though Poland had attacked a few German soldiers, was a crime against humanity, a crime under international law and all the rest. I may be wrong, but I would imagine that the homes of the some 2,500 American dead, the homes of all those wounded, the homes of all those worried that their loved one may die there, would, if polled at length, support some examination of how their loss or pending loss came to be.
There is, however, one way we must change before we are worthy of Kenneth Starr in these times and can call him forth again. Apparently we enjoy self-examination only when it is combined with sexual titillation. I have no quarrel with sex bieng one of the main driving forces of our lives. However, I suspect we had better give a little attention to the drive, previously thought to be even more important, of self-preservation. Absent our champion of Kenneth Starr again taking to the field, our sloth puts us all in danger.
Your loving Uncle
And there you have it. Now, get your bottle of vodka and crawl back into bed. The worst is yet to come.
Instead, I offer you a guest editorial, as it were. An email I got today from my Uncle...who is a real inspiration for me.
Nephew,
Much to my surprise, I have to realize that Kenneth Starr's place in history needs to be re-examined. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the fact he is not in our hearts and minds these days must be examined, which is to say we, the American public, must a look a bit at ourselves. In part this call for examination is simply due to a growing realization of importance of his investigations. Through his efforts we came to learn that semantics, such as "What is, is" word games, plays so large a place in our polite social and political fictions. We learned, as well, that some of us will gladly force all of us to expend endless time, trouble and money to attack gnats, while most of us, whether from cynicisim or optimism, are not
fazed by documents sought for years suddenly appearing on a White House breakfast table without explanation. Starr made us understand that given enough time, every fact in any one's life that is not desired to be bruited about, can be made public, except, of course, those facts most important, such as motivation and causes and whether the person so subjected to scrutiny is, ever so slighty, insane and therefore fit for public office.
However, in a short half-generation, we find ourselves bereft of all this. Can you imagine the exquisite public debates today, if Starr were to force the present incumbent president to explain "What I believe belief may be" in terms of weapons of mass destruction? Do any of us believe it would be less salutory today to discover whether there was a conspiracy afoot to have us attack a country without cause, in the name of anger against an admitted enemy on an entirely different matter? Would it not be more important than ever today to have someone of Starr's zeal and aptitude for detail pore over the public pronouncements and secret announcements of this administration, to find where things were omitted, violations of public trust committed and plain old- fashioned fibs uttered, than it ever was in the past to find out if then private citizens made bad investments worse?
To some degree, our present failure to call back Starr to higher and greater tasks is simply our desire to avoid unpleasantness. This may be stated in high-falutin' terms. "Starr," one might say, "was before dedicated to finding "high crimes and misdeamanors," in a kind of Paul Drake role to the House of Representatives as Perry Mason. However, that formula is upon a moment's reflection recognizably threadbare. If failing to tell the truth (if the contorted questions and answers in question could be so construed) under oath rose to the standard of a high crime and misdeamanor, surely attacking another country without provocation, upon trumped up charges, rises to that same standard. Indeed, I had thought that invading countries
without cause and upon trumped up charges, as when the Nazi regieme invaded Poland after dressing up corpses so as to make it look as though Poland had attacked a few German soldiers, was a crime against humanity, a crime under international law and all the rest. I may be wrong, but I would imagine that the homes of the some 2,500 American dead, the homes of all those wounded, the homes of all those worried that their loved one may die there, would, if polled at length, support some examination of how their loss or pending loss came to be.
There is, however, one way we must change before we are worthy of Kenneth Starr in these times and can call him forth again. Apparently we enjoy self-examination only when it is combined with sexual titillation. I have no quarrel with sex bieng one of the main driving forces of our lives. However, I suspect we had better give a little attention to the drive, previously thought to be even more important, of self-preservation. Absent our champion of Kenneth Starr again taking to the field, our sloth puts us all in danger.
Your loving Uncle
And there you have it. Now, get your bottle of vodka and crawl back into bed. The worst is yet to come.
posted by Archie Levine at 6:17 AM
1 Comments:
There really has been a lot to write about lately, and I apologize for not doing so. Some examples of things I might have addressed (but that you'll just have to look at the news yourselves about) are:
Joe Lieberman getting endorsements from Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity, neither of whom can figure out why he wouldn't get the Democratic nomination in Connecticut. At least Ann said he shouldn't run as an Independent, but ought to go all the way and run as a Republican. The first time I've agreed with that horrible "woman".
The Bush Administration claiming they'll use diplomacy in North Korea and Iran, but all the time knowing that these are the next two steps in the plan laid out so long ago by the Project for a New American Century.
That Tom DeLay is going to have to stay on the ticket in Texas to run for an office he's already resigned from.
Ken Lay's fortuitous death which garners glowing obituaries instead of news story after news story about his 40 year prison term.
The horrors of being a polar bear facing drownings and resorting to cannibalism due to global warming and the rapid melting of polar ice.
The increasing number of reports of heinous criminal acts by some of our troops in Iraq as they try to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people by raping and killing them.
The rising cost in dollars and blood of a war we were supposed to win in a matter of days at a cost of only 1.7 billion dollars.
The bungled foreign policy of an administration who prefers to shoot first and ask questions later.
The dismantling of the CIA bin Laden task force.
The fact that we still haven't made any progress on finding the Anthrax Mailer, which, by the way, was that further attack on American Soil after 9-11 which the administration keeps saying hasn't happened due to their competent stewardship and efforts to fight the terrorists "over there" some place.
The state by state effort to ban monogomy among homosexuals.
The fact that when so many other things are going on in this nation...when we are at war...that Congress (who just voted another pay hike for themselves while strking down an effort to raise the minimum wage for the rest of us) decided the best use of their time was to debate a flag burning amendment.
Wondering what progress is being made to protect us from those dreaded human animal hybrids the President warned us about in the last State of the Union address. wondering if, as the President said, we are addicted to oil whether we should go into rehab or be content with the government's effort to be our only pusher.
So many things to write about.....
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