Each week we post a run-down of the best of our reader comments with the hopes of highlighting some of your most valuable insights and encouraging more people to join the fray. Let us know what you think—in the comments!
Spacecatalpha: "Begin your search for the answers with sympathy for those who have not yet found them"…I don’t have any quarrel with the large numbers of apolitical or semi-political women who feel like they are striking a blow for the good by supporting Komen; not everyone is as plugged into The Struggle as regular readers of The Nation, especially the many women I’ve known who have had to work several jobs just to keep themselves above water; there just isn’t a lot of time left in the day for planning the revolution when you have to work double overtime.
It seems to me to be a simple matter of marketing; it’s an easier sell to be against breast cancer than to be for equality. There are far fewer folks in the pro-cancer column than in the anti-equality column. The opportunity, and maybe this controversy is one of those magical "teachable moments," comes when something so stupid and egregious happens that some of the fence sitters get into the fight.
In response to Amy Schiller’s “Why the Planned Parenthood Breakup—While It Lasted—Was Good for Feminism.” February 3, 2012
NotEasyBeingGreen: Oh, how I wish I knew which side to believe! I generally agree with what is written in The Nation, being of a strongly progressive bent myself. However, I do worry that those of us on the Left feel so despondent about US foreign policy that we have a tendency to believe anyone who opposes it. Just as our ideological forebears during the Cold War sided with Stalin and other murderous regimes for far too long in the name of "the proletariat," we progressives today risk allying ourselves with terrorists and dictators who happen to be on the wrong side of the American government. I wish I felt as sure as Robert Dreyfuss sometimes…
In response to Robert Dreyfuss’s “The United States Should Stay Out of Syria.” February 6, 2012
aussieview: I think we need more than just a willingness to be vigilant and to fight back against outrages such as these. We need to put legal measures in place so that organizations, such as those who falsified the evidence against ACORN, must be made to retract, make right, and compensate those damaged by their actions. Otherwise, we are put into a position of always having to "clean up" after someone else makes messes like these.
In response to Katrina vanden Heuvel’s “What We Learned From Planned Parenthood.” February 7, 2012
Nealea: Aside from the important moral considerations the article raises so well—the brutalization of warfare by distancing the combatants—what concerns me is what will happen when many countries acquire or develop drones. At present, sophisticated remote control technology is pretty well in the hands of the US; the US is in the same position with this weaponry as it was with atomic weapons from 1945 till 1949. The US will not have this monopoly that long, I am sure. More frightening, while acquiring nuclear capacity is complex and expensive, drone technology is several orders less so. In time, terrorists groups will undoubtedly be able to acquire it. What’s to stop a "fishing boat" off Washington, D.C., from launching a drone with enough firepower and accuracy to take out the Oval Office? Drones, small and hard to spot, are very difficult to stop. What would be in the public interest of the world right now would be for the US to lead an international effort to outlaw such weapons; instead the US is promoting their use. We are on track to an increasingly dangerous world.
In response to John Sifton’s “A Brief History of Drones.” February 7, 2012
Newenglandah: The story that no one seems to note is that that other candidate, "anyone but Romney" won in Florida: 53.6 percent voted for clowns with no chance of beating President Obama. In New Hampshire, Romney took only 39.3 percent of the vote in his own backyard. That leaves heavily Mormon Nevada where Romney barely edged out "anyone but Romney" with 50.1 percent. Those three lackluster performances were labeled "smashing victories" by the mainstream press and are supposed to guarantee Mittens the nomination. This is not a good time to be a Republican.
In response John Nichols’s “’Anybody But Romney’ Wins Everywhere, as GOP Turnout Tanks.” February 8, 2012
Charley James: Not limiting future liability to come out of federal and state investigations is a major improvement, and we can thank the Attorneys General of New York and California for insisting on this before signing on to the deal. And we’ve already seen one executive of a robo-signing outfit indicted this week for his alleged crimes; I suspect there will be many more, including law firms and lawyers such as the now-defunct Buffalo firm that engaged in wholesale violations and then joked about it.
The mere fact that the banks aren’t happy about having to sign gives me some comfort that Mr. Schneiderman and his task force—as well as his office in Albany—will continue to be aggressive in going after the latter day Romney saints in the financial sector who were responsible for damn near destroying the universe they claim to be masters of.
In response to George Zornick’s “Mortgage Settlement Reached: A Beginning, Not an End.” February 9, 2012
