[Some folks have said that the previous message was off-topic for Politech, and in retrospect I agree. Discussion about the future of our freedoms is of course on-topic, but le Carre's essay was focused on war, and there are better fora to discuss that. Previous message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04331.html --Declan] --- From: someoneat_private To: "'declanat_private'" <declanat_private> Subject: RE: Novelist John le Carre: "The U.S. has gone mad!" Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 12:55:57 -0500 Declan, I thought that the Politechnicals who might not agree with Mr. le Carre's assesment might enjoy this reply by James Lileks (a columnist in the Minneapolis Star Tribune). (it's long, so here's the link - http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/03/0103/010303.html#011603) If possible, please delete my name. Thanks --- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 10:30:11 -0800 Subject: Re: FC: Novelist John le Carre: "The U.S. has gone mad!" From: Louis Rossetto <louisat_private> To: declanat_private I'm not sure why this is being disseminated to your list. It is wrong, and wrong headed. The US a junta? Give me a fucking break, this just after Bush sweeps to victory in the midterm elections after pretty full-throated debate on precisely whether Bush deserved a mandate to pursue his agenda. What's going on now is worse than the Bay of Pigs? Only if the attack on the Iraqi despot fails, and we get a few million Iraqi refugees fleeing to Miami -- or is John LeCarre arguing that Castro is a democrat and Cuba the people's paradise? Actually, LeCarre might actually be arguing that. I hope you're not suggesting that being for civil rights in cyberspace means you're also cravenly anti-American. Because people can be for civil rights in cyberspace, and still be for confronting islamic fascism. Indeed, I can't imagine human rights in any society in which islamic fascism triumphed. Maybe you should send out this one by Christopher Hitchens too, just for a little rational perspective. From The Stranger (Seattle): http://www.thestranger.com/current/feature2.html Otherwise, keep up the good work! L --- From: "Thomas Lipscomb" <tomat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: RE: Novelist John le Carre: "The U.S. has gone mad!" Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:38:47 -0500 Declan-- As a publisher of espionage bestsellers as well as a journalist myself... there is some background one needs on writers like John Le Carre before getting too excited about his rather noisy London Times piece "The US has gone mad!" John Le Carre, AKA David Cornwell, became a writer after a short term of service as a low level member of the British Foreign Office more than 40 years ago. He has about as much pertinent experience for understanding the current confrontation with Iraq as Barbra Streisand, although he sure spells a lot better. So far as anyone has been able to determine, he has had one truly innovative concept in his life as a writer. Le Carree ported the noiresque notion of the detective novels of Dashiel Hammett, Ross Macdonald and others that cops may have more in common with robbers than commonly understood over to the world of espionage fiction and moved its center of balance beyond the tiresome good guys vs the bad guys world of Ian Fleming and Eric Ambler. It was perfectly timed for a book reading audience suffering from Cold War battle fatigue. And Le Carre mined the vein of East-West "moral equivalence" with talent and imagination for all it was worth. Finally his foggy ambiguous point of view became as predictable as the trick ending of an O Henry short story and inspiration started to lag along with sales. Now there are two highly effective bilge detectors in pronouncements on politics AND opinions on the arts. Artists and writers who are underemployed seem driven to opine portentously about the dire state of politics and world affairs. And over the hill politicians seem to have no end of comments to make about the dire state of the arts and popular culture. If you simply IGNORE statements made by either kind of party about either subject.... you can't go too far wrong. The good news, it is so easy to recognize them. Thomas H. Lipscomb --- From: "Sarah Stang" <sarahstat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: Re: Novelist John le Carre: "The U.S. has gone mad!" Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:35:18 -0600 This is so scary and John le Carre is so right. The U.S. has gone mad. We are giving up our freedoms and civil rights without a question. It makes me sick at heart. If the President and Congress are so set on war in the Mideast, they should put themselves in the front lines. Then we would see how fast they want to start the fireworks. Sarah Stang, 319 S. 11th St. Osage, IA 50461 --- From: "Wendy Leibowitz" <wleibowitzat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: RE: Novelist John le Carre: "The U.S. has gone mad!" Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:20:08 -0500 Dear Declan, If you're going to circulate anti-American screeds like the crap from John le Carre, please also circulate the (occasional) pro-American pieces, like the one below that also appeared in the Times. Please also note that every letter the Times published in response to le Carre's ill-informed diatribe opposed it. I will send you those letters--I think you have the obligation to circulate them, too. What this has to do with technology is beyond me. A Patriot for Peace, Wendy Leibowitz Hatred of America - the Socialism of Fools By Michael Gove The Times Online (UK) | January 14, 2003 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=5527 Tony Blair appears to have set himself his toughest task yet. Neither reforming public services nor maintaining economic stability compares in difficulty to the mission he took on yesterday. For a Labour politician to confront anti-Americanism is to set himself up in opposition to the dominant ideology of the contemporary Left. Knocking America off its superpower pedestal has long supplanted taking control of the commanding heights of the economy as the idea which holds the Left together. Forget Clause Four. That was a dead red letter. It's opposition to Uncle Sam which is the glue in the Left coalition, the brew which puts fire into bien-pensant bellies, the opium of radical intellectuals. And the crack in Osama bin Laden's pipe. Anti-Americanism provides the drumbeat for the protesters who march at every significant left-wing rally. Whether the protest is nominally against war, global capitalism or environmental degradation, the real enemy is Washington. Every significant Left intellectual, from Harold Pinter through Dario Fo to Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky has made criticism of the American imperium his defining belief. But Yankee-phobia now extends far beyond the protest march and the academy. The German Social Democrats and Greens put opposition to US foreign policy at the heart of their, successful, re-election strategy last autumn. The Liberal Democrats here have made criticism of US policy towards Iraq the single biggest dividing line between themselves and the Blair Government. [...snip --DBM...] --- From: "Wendy Leibowitz" <wleibowitzat_private> To: "Declan@Well. Com" <declanat_private> Subject: responses to le Carre's diatribe Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:26:00 -0500 Dear Declan, Here are letters to the Times of London published in response to John le Carre. I do hope you will circulate them, unless you've decided to circulate just anti-American pieces now. Thank you, Wendy Leibowitz January 17, 2003 Le Carré's criticism of America's proposed action in Iraq >From Mr David Fisher Sir, While I agree with the sentiments expressed in John le Carré's column (Comment, "The United States of America has gone mad", January 15), I don't know where he learnt that 88 per cent of Americans support this war. In fact, most polls show that little more than one third of Americans support this madness without UN support, and even with the UN involved only slightly more than half agree with the President. I also have not seen any poll that suggests half of all Americans believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center, although with a cleverly worded question that result might be achieved. The Bush Administration has made many efforts to link Saddam with past terrorism and so far has failed, so it has concentrated its efforts on linking him to future terrorism. Unfortunately, in a fearful nation, that has resonated. I do not, however, support Mr le Carré's statements concerning Israel. Its use of overwhelming military force is a by-product of its existence under siege for more than half a century. I continue to believe that the day the Palestinians decide there will be peace, there will be peace. Sincerely, DAVID FISHER, 357 West 19th Street, New York 10011. January 15. >From Mr Ed Feuer Sir, John le Carré's criticisms of Israel in his rant against America are unjust. Precisely which United Nations resolutions has Israel disregarded? The only ones that count are Security Council resolutions that are binding. The core of the Arab-Israeli conflict remains the refusal by the Arab side to accept Israel's existence. And that, I believe, is because Arab political and religious leaders fear genuine peace with Israel. A Jewish state in the area just isn't part of the Muslim fundamentalists' triumphalist script. The Jews, who were treated as second or third-class citizens in the Arab world, can't now be regarded as equals with a state of their own. Remember, too, that Israel is a Western society with much of the cultural decadence fundamentalists love to hate. And peace would remove the scapegoat. People would start thinking about the deficiencies and corruption of their regimes. Arab reformers might be encouraged to call for copying the Israeli example. Yours faithfully, ED FEUER, 30 Brooks Cove, Winnipeg MB, Canada R2V 4M9. January 15. >From Mr Alexander C. Ives Sir, I may admire John le Carré's passion and agree with the heart of his criticism, but his depiction of America is wrong. " . . . as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way," he writes. The former may be quite true of the United States, but the latter I know to be false. Plenty of friends, colleagues and fellow Americans have expressed their aversion to the war. It was a constant topic of conversation over the recent holidays. A January 3-5 Gallup poll showed 42 per cent of the American public felt Iraq was not worth going to war over, while a further 76 per cent of the American public were somewhat or very worried about the current situation. Those are tight, thin, divisive margins that show a questioning, skeptical public, not a strong, supportive majority, and they could change very quickly. Do not assume because of our President's policies that the whole "United States of America has gone mad". Yours faithfully, ALEXANDER C. IVES, 237 Jamaica Lane, Palm Beach, Florida 33480-3321. January 15. >From Mr Don Frost Sir, Since John le Carré feels free to lash out at the nation that has provided him a very good living for many years, do you think he'll offer us Americans a refund? I wouldn't want his conscience weighed down by blood money. Yours faithfully, DON FROST, 38158 Lincolndale, Sterling Heights, Michigan 48310. January 15. >From Ms Carole Newton Sir, Since when is John le Carré or any other celebrity an expert in the field of foreign policy? It is amazing to me that a newspaper such as yours should give any credence at all to these people. They are entertainers, for heaven's sakes, not statesmen or government officials. Newspapers who allow these celebrity tirades on their pages lower their credibility. Yours faithfully, CAROLE NEWTON, 5310 Keller Springs, Dallas, Texas 75248. January 16. >From Mr Henry MacLean Sir, If I wish to read an anti-capitalist, anti-American left-wing polemic I will buy The Guardian. If you wish to feature the work of Mr le Carré in future, then I suggest that you restrict yourself to his fictional output. Yours faithfully, HENRY MacLEAN, Dunglass View, Strathblane, Stirlingshire G63 9BQ. January 15. >From Mr Mladen Andrijasevic Sir, What utter nonsense coming from the best spy novelist of all time. George Smiley must be turning in his grave. So probably is Karla. Sincerely, MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC, Meir Grossman 19/10, Be'er Sheva, Israel. January 15. Wendy R. Leibowitz Editor Cybercrime Digital Discovery & Electronic Evidence Pike & Fischer 1010 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1400 Silver Spring, MD 20910 Telephone: 301-562-1530, ext. 234 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q\clan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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