Look, can everyone give it a rest? Kelly was a lowlife as a journalist, a talented man who used in talents to serve the powerful and disparage the weak and the oppressed. He was no doubt sincere in his subservience, but his sincerity is the sort of trait that makes hypocrisy look like a virtue. He apparantly had a modicum of physical courage that the President whose antics he applauded lacks. Kelly's intelligence and (fairly considerable) literary ability was misused and wasted for bad causes. His violent death is extremely regrettable, and could have been avoided if the war he helped cheer on had been stopped. He is easily replaceable. There are lots more where he came from. Those are my obsequies for Kelly, Now can we get on to something interesting, like Hitch's latest grotesquerie, or Pamela Anderson, or the World Bank, or something equally awful but more to the point?
Chuck0 <chuck at mutualaid.org> wrote:Ian Murray wrote:
>Golly, another anarchist giving anarchism a bad name. Go read some
>Shakespeare.
>
>Doug, do you have that Foucault quote on 'the enemy' readily available?
>
>Ian
>
>
Uh, Ian, what the hell does this have to do with me being an anarchist?
Some of you seem to think that this is all some intellectual parlor game where the opposing sides go and get beers after the heated debate. You don't seem to understand that there are consequences when people willingly serve as paid commissars for the American state. Kelly was one of those commissars who manufactured consent among the Washington elites, to make sure that they were on the same page as the American ruling class. He didn't use his column to speak out for the billions of the world who are the victims of American policies. He used his column to attack activists and people who were trying to oppose these American policies, as well as working towards more radical change.
Perhaps you are right--words have no power and they have no consequences.
But Ian, are you an activist in Washington, DC? Do you expect us to be all smiley about whatever the Washington Post prints about us? Should we just ignore the fact that the Post editorial page board consists of Sebastian Mallaby, a columnist who consistently writes articles defending the World Bank, IMF and neoliberalism, while attacking activists in the anti-globalization and anti-capitalist movements?
While I'm not exactly cheering Michael Kelly's death, I do feel relieved that we will have one less anti-radical columnist writing for the Washington Post, at least until they Post can find a suitable replacement.
Chuck0
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