Schell: Invitation to a Degraded World

Mel Brennan · Oct 23, 2004

Jonathan Schell said:

...Each country that plunges into nightmare -- whether Germany under Hitler, the Soviet Union under the Bolsheviks, Chile under Pinochet, or, for that matter, Iraq under Saddam Hussein -- travels there along its own path. The American political system -- based on free elections, the rights of citizens, and the rule of law -- is, though under the severest pressure, still available for use. If it is lost, and the full American nightmare descends, there will be many causes. They will include the militarization of foreign policy, global imperial ambition, the loss of balance among the branches of government, the erosion of civil liberties, and the overwhelming influence of corporate money and power over political life -- all present before Osama bin Laden made his appearance. But at every step of the way the skids will be greased by the national capacity, conferred by the media and exploited by politicians, to produce and consume illusion, which, though hardly an American monopoly, may be the specific form of corruption most dangerous to American democracy...

...The injection of fantasy into the real offends the aesthetic sense, but the true price is paid in blood -- in the torture of prisoners, in the launch of wars. If a grasp of reality and the constitutional machinery to act upon it remain intact, then every other ill can be addressed. But if these are lost, the capacity to recover is lost with it, and the game is over.
Click to expand...

Schell, for me, frames the argument, the REAL argument, in the most powerful way in the public discourse.

Smiley321 · Oct 23, 2004

The same Jonathan Schell who recently wrote about how important it is that we lose in Iraq?

Since this thread is just for regurgitating somebody else's opinion, here's one critique of the abominable Mr. Schell

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-charen021003.asp

Why not just have a thread titled "the Nation and Mother Jones and Democracy Now!" by Mel Brennan.

Too bad these crackpots aren't prominent enough to warrant Ann Coulter's scorn

FlashMan · Oct 25, 2004

They don't warrant the Great Bitch of all Time Ann Coulter's scorn, but they warrant Smiley's. The irony is rich, don't cha think?

It's funny how little Smiley actually smiles. At least Ann Coulter has a genuine one.

Mel Brennan · Oct 26, 2004

FlashMan said:

They don't warrant the Great Bitch of all Time Ann Coulter's scorn, but they warrant Smiley's. The irony is rich, don't cha think?

It's funny how little Smiley actually smiles. At least Ann Coulter has a genuine one.
Click to expand...

I can't see her/him anymore; s/he's renders her/himself utterly irrelevant in the course of discourse. I can only see when others render her/him relevant, or refute him. I've only ever seen ITN agree with Smiley, and I can no longer see ITN post, so...

But back to the Schell post, if we might.

Karl K · Oct 26, 2004

Mel Brennan said:

Schell, for me, frames the REALLY false argument, assuming you could even deign to term it an "argument," and in the all-too typically blow-hard,, vacuous, high-minded sounding but ultimately meaning-empty knee-jerk leftist rhetoric that pollutes the public discourse.
Click to expand...

Fixed.

Claymore · Oct 26, 2004

Karl Keller said:

NAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAH...I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!! NAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAH!!!!!
Click to expand...

Fixed.

DynamoKiev_USA · Oct 26, 2004

Smiley321 said:

The same Jonathan Schell who recently wrote about how important it is that we lose in Iraq?

Since this thread is just for regurgitating somebody else's opinion, here's one critique of the abominable Mr. Schell

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-charen021003.asp

Why not just have a thread titled "the Nation and Mother Jones and Democracy Now!" by Mel Brennan.

Too bad these crackpots aren't prominent enough to warrant Ann Coulter's scorn
Click to expand...

"No mere political value, not even freedom, seemed to them to be worth risking nuclear war."
Click to expand...

Well yea

TV performer Phil Donahue probably earned the title "useful idiot" as much as anyone during the 1980s, as he credulously accepted the apologetics of his favorite Soviet "journalist," Vladimir Pozner...
Click to expand...

Yea better nuke 'em all :/ Those Donahue-Pozner programs were popular in Gorbachev's USSR, and important in bringing about change and openness to the Soviet society -- an absolute prerequisitive to "regime change" in Moscow. Whoever wrote this article is an absolute moron, and I don't like to throw insults around like this.

What absolute madness.

Smiley321 · Oct 26, 2004

Mel Brennan said:

I can't see her/him anymore; s/he's renders her/himself utterly irrelevant in the course of discourse. I can only see when others render her/him relevant, or refute him. I've only ever seen ITN agree with Smiley, and I can no longer see ITN post, so...
Click to expand...

Three compound sentences to say "He's on my 'ignore' list along with ITN"

Mel is a great example of what happens when you don't learn how to edit yourself