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powerclown · 05-23-2005, 03:37 PM

roachboy,

Thanks for the response. Although this board by and large lends itself over to a visual, short attention span audience, what's a few lines of text between board members? Continuing with the current format:

1) You bring up an interesting point, which helps lead me to this. While you suggest that Bush reacted to 9/11 in a simple minded manner, I would suggest one take additional time to reflect upon just how complex are the actions (and reactions) of any civilized, modern day society. In this day and age of short-attention span theater, it is all too easy to rush to questionable judgement on major and far-reaching decisions taken by a huge and cumbersome entity such as the american government. All should not be what it appears at first, second or even third glance in such a system, anymore than there should be quick and simple answers to complex mathematical equations, for example. One can feel free to call Bush's decisions anything one might want; but I don't believe it is accurate to characterize them as 'simple'. As i mentioned above, I do think there is some amount of 'truth' to the saying going around: 'clash of civilizations'. I think the problem is semantic in nature in this particular case of labeling certain activities in the world, where provocative phrases are tossed around for political gain. One thing 9/11 did to this artificial conversation was to blow a hole right through it; a hole blown so violently as to get everybody's attention - in a proper, prudent and evolving way - and in doing so, alerting law-abiding people (everywhere) to a (potentially) very real danger.

2) germany, 2b.: I hadn't heard of brosazt in particular, but there's always room for more on the subject as far as I'm concerned. The nice thing about Hitler is that he was so unique, such an unambiguous example of a given pathos, that it makes him a relatively easy subject to examine and understand. Read from the top down starting with him - and allowing room for the entire spectrum of activities within the Third Reich and immediate environs - it is definitely one of the few examples in modern history (due to accurate and minute recordkeeping) unclouded by extraneous (read: partisan) public opinion. Precisely because Hitler made no secret of his ambitions of world domination, was he therefore relatively easy to deal with by force. While the security concerns of the world are in one sense the same today as then, insofar as religion is being channelled as a devisive lever, the methods of warfare, heretofore straightforward generally speaking, have strayed into the unconventional. A side-effect of the Information Age? In the end (whenever that is), and as it has always been, the greater intelligence, logic, reason, cunning, ruthlessness etc. - will have the day until the next crisis forms itself.

3) the press: god love em. If they can't make history, they might as well simply talk or write about it, to whomever will listen or read. Perched forever under their miraculous First Amendment, they are like pigs at the trough, enjoying (in the West anyway) unprecedented creative license and editorial recreation. I think that journalists - the truly, deeply, spiritually committed ones - must enjoy the highest job satisfaction of any profession anywhere. Narrowing the focus to this thread for the moment, I would offer this: for every conservative voice in the (again, western) media there is a liberal counterpart on the other side of the aisle. Fox has cnn, limbaugh has franken, moore has coulter, soros has trump, stewart has letterman, newsweek has the national review, rove has reid (senate), dailykos has powerline etc, etc.. Without their ideological counterparts, each side is by definition voiceless. Each side builds the other up to the fever pitch banshee wail we see around us today. Nobody would have a job if their ideological opposites were silenced. Would limbaugh have his radio show if he had nobody to bitch about? And on, down the line. For all my looking, I can't make out a central processing unit controlled exclusively by one side or the other.

4) the description here was simply meant to question an impression I had - admittedly one dimensional by definition due to the restrictions of internet discussion boards - of the curiously persistent and hostile commentary towards the present american administration, at the expense of similarly focused and vitriolic commentary on, say, saudi arabia, north korea, russia, turkey, egypt, iran, etc. But then again, if your viewpoint wasn't documented here, no one else's would be either, and further, no one would be motivated to think either in a similar or opposite fashion so nothing personal.

Pardon the length...

05-23-2005, 03:37 PM	#48 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	roachboy, Thanks for the response. Although this board by and large lends itself over to a visual, short attention span audience, what's a few lines of text between board members? Continuing with the current format: 1) You bring up an interesting point, which helps lead me to this. While you suggest that Bush reacted to 9/11 in a simple minded manner, I would suggest one take additional time to reflect upon just how complex are the actions (and reactions) of any civilized, modern day society. In this day and age of short-attention span theater, it is all too easy to rush to questionable judgement on major and far-reaching decisions taken by a huge and cumbersome entity such as the american government. All should not be what it appears at first, second or even third glance in such a system, anymore than there should be quick and simple answers to complex mathematical equations, for example. One can feel free to call Bush's decisions anything one might want; but I don't believe it is accurate to characterize them as 'simple'. As i mentioned above, I do think there is some amount of 'truth' to the saying going around: 'clash of civilizations'. I think the problem is semantic in nature in this particular case of labeling certain activities in the world, where provocative phrases are tossed around for political gain. One thing 9/11 did to this artificial conversation was to blow a hole right through it; a hole blown so violently as to get everybody's attention - in a proper, prudent and evolving way - and in doing so, alerting law-abiding people (everywhere) to a (potentially) very real danger. 2) germany, 2b.: I hadn't heard of brosazt in particular, but there's always room for more on the subject as far as I'm concerned. The nice thing about Hitler is that he was so unique, such an unambiguous example of a given pathos, that it makes him a relatively easy subject to examine and understand. Read from the top down starting with him - and allowing room for the entire spectrum of activities within the Third Reich and immediate environs - it is definitely one of the few examples in modern history (due to accurate and minute recordkeeping) unclouded by extraneous (read: partisan) public opinion. Precisely because Hitler made no secret of his ambitions of world domination, was he therefore relatively easy to deal with by force. While the security concerns of the world are in one sense the same today as then, insofar as religion is being channelled as a devisive lever, the methods of warfare, heretofore straightforward generally speaking, have strayed into the unconventional. A side-effect of the Information Age? In the end (whenever that is), and as it has always been, the greater intelligence, logic, reason, cunning, ruthlessness etc. - will have the day until the next crisis forms itself. 3) the press: god love em. If they can't make history, they might as well simply talk or write about it, to whomever will listen or read. Perched forever under their miraculous First Amendment, they are like pigs at the trough, enjoying (in the West anyway) unprecedented creative license and editorial recreation. I think that journalists - the truly, deeply, spiritually committed ones - must enjoy the highest job satisfaction of any profession anywhere. Narrowing the focus to this thread for the moment, I would offer this: for every conservative voice in the (again, western) media there is a liberal counterpart on the other side of the aisle. Fox has cnn, limbaugh has franken, moore has coulter, soros has trump, stewart has letterman, newsweek has the national review, rove has reid (senate), dailykos has powerline etc, etc.. Without their ideological counterparts, each side is by definition voiceless. Each side builds the other up to the fever pitch banshee wail we see around us today. Nobody would have a job if their ideological opposites were silenced. Would limbaugh have his radio show if he had nobody to bitch about? And on, down the line. For all my looking, I can't make out a central processing unit controlled exclusively by one side or the other. 4) the description here was simply meant to question an impression I had - admittedly one dimensional by definition due to the restrictions of internet discussion boards - of the curiously persistent and hostile commentary towards the present american administration, at the expense of similarly focused and vitriolic commentary on, say, saudi arabia, north korea, russia, turkey, egypt, iran, etc. But then again, if your viewpoint wasn't documented here, no one else's would be either, and further, no one would be motivated to think either in a similar or opposite fashion so nothing personal. Pardon the length...