{"id":1163,"date":"2001-10-05T09:28:50","date_gmt":"2001-10-05T14:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=1163"},"modified":"2001-10-05T09:28:50","modified_gmt":"2001-10-05T14:28:50","slug":"to_yammer_or_no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/05\/to_yammer_or_no.html","title":{"rendered":"To yammer, or not to yammer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victory Blog<\/a> cites a Slate <\/i>article on <\/a>“War and Commentary.” The article touches on what responsibilities a commentator, editorialist, or writer in general has during a time of crisis, both to speak out and to refrain therefrom.<\/p>\n

A few quotes of note (good article, btw — go read it):<\/p>\n

\n

  • What we say potentially has a significant effect on public morale, on national cohesion, and ultimately on political support for any military action. Does war–or this crisis in particular–impose any special limitations on public criticism? I think this question applies not only to journalists but also to intellectuals, academics, artists, and others with strong political views and access to a public forum.\n

    <\/p>\n

  • But can I argue that present circumstances compel writers to hold back on saying what they really think? The issue, it seems to me, is one of harm. What is the case that such comments do more than discomfit those who disagree with them? The traditional argument is that such expressions have the power to undermine our national solidarity, our collective will or our ability to fight. But when you think about it, they might just as easily have the opposite effect. Insults to the flag like Pollitt’s tend to inspire bellicosity, not pacifism. And questioning the loyalty of Democrats as Sullivan does may prompt them to try to demonstrate that they are just as patriotic as the folks in the “red” zone.\n

    <\/p>\n

  • Vigorous, sometimes painful disagreement is inherent in democratic decision-making, even when it comes to war and national security. Moreover, criticism from any corner can help as well as hinder our wartime leaders. Imagine that no one had dared to make any public criticism of Bush’s initial performance. How would the president and his advisers have known that his leadership was lacking? Wartime opinion polls surely wouldn’t tell them. In this way, even criticism meant unconstructively may prove helpful.\n

    <\/p>\n

  • All that said, I would still argue that those of us who speak in public should refrain from what is ordinarily the sound journalistic instinct to say the strongest and most incendiary thing possible–to throw bombs, as one might say in ordinary times. Six thousand civilians were just slaughtered in the worst act of butchery our nation has ever known. Whatever else we think about the war that has yet to start, it is only fitting that we lower our voices. To be nasty, to be petty, to turn what happened into an opportunity for a Crossfire shouting match seems to me tasteless and disrespectful. Our words should not demean this horror. … The time for barbed comments will return. At the moment, though, we can all do without them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Victory Blog cites a Slate article on “War and Commentary.” The article touches on what responsibilities a commentator, editorialist, or writer in general has during a time of crisis, both…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-estate","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1098,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/17\/foreign_concept.html","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":0},"title":"Foreign concepts","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Oct-01 1:16am","format":false,"excerpt":"Cast your mind back to the 2000 Election. Lots of yammer-yammer about Social Security. Abortion. Gun Control. The Clinton Economy. The Clinton Scandals. What didn't you hear about? Foreign Policy....","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12928,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/09\/04\/just_to_show_i_can_apprec.html","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":1},"title":"Just to show I can appreciate non-partisan humor","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 4-Sep-08 9:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It may seem I've been on a Holy Warpath re the GOP, etc., the last few days. Well, I sort of have been. But I can appreciate humorous criticism of...","rel":"","context":"In "Jokes"","block_context":{"text":"Jokes","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/jokes"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49531,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/10\/kevin-mccullough-is-a-dolt-whose-horse-is-higher-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":2},"title":"Kevin McCullough Is a Dolt (Whose Horse is Higher Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 10-Feb-15 11:10am","format":false,"excerpt":"Kevin McCullough is outraged, outraged, that Pres. Obama would note that Christianity, too, has been used as a justification for the same sorts of violence and atrocities that Islam has. http:\/\/onenewsnow.com\/perspectives\/kevin-mccullough\/2015\/02\/09\/the-view-from-the-high-horseSo lets look at some extracts from his latest guest column at OneNewsNow, \"Your Latest News from a Christian Perspective\":\"While\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/crusades115B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/crusades115B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/crusades115B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":48854,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/10\/on-institutionalizing-torture.html","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":3},"title":"On institutionalizing torture","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Dec-14 9:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A little history less from across the Pond. Originally shared by +Andreas Schou: Torture: A Historical ParableAfter a long history of adventurism in the Islamic world, a major world power turned to torture to fight terrorism. Initially justified by exigency, used only in response to imminent threats, it rapidly became\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7951,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/07\/13\/a_hawks_son_goe.html","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":4},"title":"A Hawk’s Son Goes to War","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 13-Jul-05 7:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"There's been a dearth of political posting here of late, and even less about Iraq -- for a variety of reasons. But after Randy forwarded this article on, I thought...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133940,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/22\/are-we-in-a-constitutional-crisis.html","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":5},"title":"Are we in a Constitutional Crisis?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 22-Jul-17 2:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm far less pessimistic than the article's author, but he has a lot of good points to make about how the erosion of political norms and congressional power -- he points to Newt Gingrich and the substitution of partisan loyalty for effective governance by the Congress in the 1990s --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}