That's I was just saying. But the interesting part is to figure out why? I think its the wave after wave of war talk over and over and over, plus the extraordinary frustration of never hearing any, and I mean any, rational voice in a position of public office----none, zero, nada.
So, I have to wonder what the effects are on the rest of the country, since LBO is a microcosm of some sort?
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The discussion of Iran - both here and beyond these pixelated shores - is, as you say, a symptom of a virulent strain of infectious craziness.
Because, it's all false: there is no threat; there's nothing there. It's fundamentally insane for a nation with thousands of nuclear warheads, a planet spanning fleet and an air force that would give extraterrestrials pause to shout about the mortal danger it faces from small groups of terrorists and their real or imagined "state sponsors".
Of course, it begins, cynically enough, as a propaganda campaign - a bullshit diversion tactic. But cognitive dissonance sets in, the bullshit center cannot hold, disbelief falls apart. The fear and uncertainty program runs amok, even its designers are no longer sure of what they're after. By many accounts, Cheney still wants to attack Tehran - even after all that's happened, the many setbacks, the stark, negative examples of Iraq and Afghanistan.
What is this except a kind of madness? This isn't imperialism - at least, not the sort of imperialism an Augustus or a Victoria would easily recognize. This is something else, a flailing about for meaning, an attempt to not look straight into the void.
But what's the void to these people, these supremacists, these failures, these pathetic men in dull suits? Not being feared, not being taken seriously, sidelining...even settling into the quiet normality of trade and travel and solving down-to-Earth problems such as the carbon cycle terrorizes them.
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But there's more; there's another reason for the agitated ennui - a contradiction, but so is this age. We look around at the flare-up of over-the-top religious expression, of empty speechifying, of people retreating into simplicity at the very moment we've achieved a global information grid...we rub our eyes and wonder where the hell the future went.
We have the machines of the future - the spacecraft, the gene splicers, the surveillance droids, etc - but we don't have the mindset. Perhaps the ancient Egyptians, with their odd sense of time and wonder, would do better with our tools than we modern primitives.
How can we help but be driven, at least from time to time, to poorly considered speech, to odd ideas, to spinning round and round?
.d.