I am glad that I do not have any young children to tell it to. marta
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The real point was an experiment to see how to cast the current US, and its war on Iraq in mythological terms as a if it were the opening to a greek tragedy. I re-read the ending to Agamemnon for its suggestive mood. It doesn't apply except by indirect implication: that worse is yet to come. And I don't know enough about greek drama and mythology to know which works better suit the occasion.
In any event, Bush is an almost classic tyrant. So, we have an arrogant, cruel, egotistical, corrupt, and foolish man who usurped power through subterfuge and rules his illicit office as if it were his god given right. Hubris in the extreme. His public demeanor is a fear laden mix of contempt and discomfort. Most of his political acts simply hand over the public treasury as a reward to the thoroughly corrupt elite who occasioned his ascension to power. His manipulative presumption upon foreign allies with evident ingratitude for favors extracted by bribery and threat is only matched by the boundlessness of his vanity and complete dismissal of concern for the people. In short his entire personae seems lifted from the histories of ancient emperors and tyrants.
In these classical political terms, he has dishonored, violated, and perverted the entire mythos of state with its pillars of religious tolerance, political fair play, and equality of rich and poor before the law. These may not be realities, but they are ideals and in that sense they are the foundations of our mythology. They are our gods, so to speak. Furthermore, he has profoundly dishonored the guardians and protectors of this pantheon; that is, the military, first by his defiling the temple of state, then by sending its armies against the wrong foe who is not just weak but irrelevant. Iraqis are to be killed and conquered for nothing, in the name of soiled justice at home. What more bitter fate for a solder to face?
One can imagine this tyrant praying to the morally vacuous god of the Christians, a god who forgives anything from a sufficiently obsequious kiss ass. But could you imagine Bush facing Athena? Forgiveness of fools and trading mercy for arrogance were not her strong points.
What I found amazing was the more I thought in these overwrought dramatic terms, the closer they came to match the atrocious current events and their potential consequences.
And I just watched a Bill Moyer's interview with John Brady Kiesling, the US ambassador to Greece who just resigned. He said on his last day in office he took a group of friends to the temple of Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, protector of divine order and gave a toast to the United States, may we not offend the divine order as the Persians did.
Chuck Grimes