Komraden, Taheri-- in his article listed by JJ below-- spends much time painting a scenario of the "Bush is an Aberration" thesis. It seems to be such a convincing scenario that many of the players in this struggle are acting as if they are so convinced. Taheri then throws out what purports to be a "they are so wrong" line at the end, but it is so slight an effort that one has to wonder if it is more sheer hope than belief for his part. Given the devolvement of the american political scene, and we have all lived through it, I see little reason to judge the thesis as wrong. So, am curious as to your take. Please vote Yes, if you think the thesis is substantially right. And No, if you think it is substantially wrong.
Since , these days, I have been mired in pitch black despair, it should not shock you that my vote is a firm "Yes".
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This is a tough question -- I can't give you a form yes or no right now, need to think about it. Of course, we're dealing with probabilities and imponderables here, no absolute certainty, so you're really asking for odds, yes?
Yes, but then for you to make a judgement call as to how you would vote if this was a straight Y or N. In the end, I suppose, this depends on your measure of how much this country's leadership actually took 911 [and the attacks leading up to it] to heart.
Well, I'm trying to hedge -- despite the pic, I'm not as decisive as William Tecumseh was. Note also that the judgement call is time-dependent -- who is to say the call will not be different (even dramatically different), one way or the other, with proper historical distance?
Also, why translate, say, a 60%-40% ambiguity into a yes? Sure -- when the chips are down, one needs to make a choice, and vote Y or N, but just right now, I don't quite see the urgency. Let's let the fog clear some more, and then hopefully we'll see things better. Unless you would argue this is a matter of more immediacy than I perceive it to be?
Not a matter of immediate urgency. It is just that the Bush years are passing, and attention turns to the character of the next administration and the next group of defense, congressional, and politically minded leaders. Are the players out there, in the middle east and otherwise, correct in surmising that the will to fight against Islam Militant will fade fast with the going of Bush? That the indifference that characterized us before 911 will return? It is a very important question for us, and one whose consequences we will face soon enough. I was just curious what wager the contributors to this site would place on this.
I also felt that Taheri's last bit sounded more like a desperate grasp at hope. I must say I feel the same. There is a parent's desire to say "Don't worry. It'll all turn out all right. We've been in worse straits before."
That said, I live in Cambridge, so the prevailing tenor here is, of course, "Bush=Hitler!" being screamed out of Saab windows sporting bumper stickers saying "Intellectual Elite and proud of it."
There are some dumb guys around too.
I can only hope the more backward parts of the country will stay that way and ignore the elites.
I don't know if there's a Romanian saying covering this one, but in Italian one goes,"The fish rots from the head down."
The head here stinks, Robert Lowell or not.
Hmmm... I dunno, guys, why of all people did Taheri make you feel so down. I am also basically a pessimist by nature, don't normally go for the "don't worry, we'll be all right" pap. But I'm not ready to throw in the towel, not by a long shot -- especially not because of some random limousine liberal in a Saab (is the Saab a limousine?) playing at being obnoxious. So how about we have a shot of ouzo, and we'll see la vie en rose? (Hey, JJ, is this a role reversal, or what?)
As to JJ's question, of course that fish proverb was imported into Italian, albeit in a truncated form. The original version has a codicil: "... but gets cleaned from the tail up."
Don't quite know how to read the entrails on this one, but maybe the codicil offers a glimmer of hope?
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