How's That?
What happens when you can't talk at a party without anyone misunderstanding you? When you say something hilarious and people go, 'huh?' When there's a world out there that only you can see. When maybe you re-up just to talk to someone. Is it you that's going crazy? Or have you just woken up? Roger Simon reviews Pat Dollard's film from Iraq, shot in large part by men who were there while they were.
Try Pat Dollard - direct from Iraq. Pat explains what he's doing:
Welcome to the only thing sleazier than overbilling lawyers, overprescribing doctors shilling for pharamaceutical companies, greedy coporate executives, and used car salesmen: the American Journalist. Flawed and crooked and self-centered as the rest of us, but riding around on a high horse, pointing out everyone else's sins, but ignoring their own. This is the last great industry-wide scandal left uncovered in America. Because of course, they'd have to cover it themselves. And none of them have the bravery to take their own inventory, to list their own pathologically self-centered faults. They'd rather just go after yours. mine and those who disagree with them politically.Do not miss this. (Warning: high raunch factor) (ht: Andrew Breitbart)
Commentary
The last several posts have been about the possibility that the modern intellectual world now lives in several realities, some of which only a few can "see". We can see Haditha, but can't see the UN messing up Timor. Or maybe we can see the UN futzing around in Timor but we can't see Haditha. Kosovo, good; Iraq, bad. Or was that Iraq, good; Kosovo, bad? Whatever.
My own guess is that the perceptions started going out of sync on September 11 and went downhill from there. Until then one basically understood the world through the news magazines at the dentist's office or from listening to the news while fixing dinner. But the debris that started raining down on Manhattan was something that wasn't supposed to happen. It didn't square with the accepted version of reality. It was like the sky was cracking open and we haven't -- to this day -- really gotten a good glimpse at what lies beyond. And though I'm not sure that Pat Dollard will tell us, neither am I sure -- and maybe this is the tragedy -- that I will ever know from those brightly colored mags at the dentist's office any more.
posted by wretchardthecat at 6/06/2006 12:02:00 PM
10 Comments:
" It was like the sky was cracking open and we haven't -- to this day -- really gotten a good glimpse at what lies beyond."
Indeed, and what we're facing beyond is simply this: The world is far more complicated than most Americans are ready to face.
I'm almost sure that's what it is. It explains so much. Half this country seems to be of the mindset that we need to take positive action, deal with these complex issues head-on (even if we make a mistake or two along the way). The other half seems to think the opposite, that we should bury our heads in the sand in the hopes that when we pull them out again, the world will be back to some simple, easy-to-understand state of affairs. This second group seems paralyzed by the notion that any action we take as a nation might make things MORE complicated, and even harder to understand.
Wretchard,
I think the new format of multiple posts sucks, not the multiple posts but the navigation required if one wants to read all the comments.
Somehow the format at R. Simons allows frequent posts by him w/o as much waste time in navigation.
...but maybe that's because I like to read the BELMONT CLUB Comments!
Hope something that allows us to read comments w/o spending the morning on it can be arranged.
Thanks
There's a good representation of the good sense of the American People right here at BC that think the downhill steepened when we started re-defining long held notions so they might comport with this Admin's approach to things.
Definitions like:
"Enemy"
"War"
"Citizen"
"Illegal Combatant"
"Supporting the Troops"
"Detention of Enemy Combatants"
"Straight Talk"
"Serious"
and etc.
Doug,
I'll try and address some of the navigation problems but it may take a few days.
yashmak:
It's like trying to figure out socialists. Think game theory. If there is an advantage for some set of the population to be against action, which there is at a personal level, then people will emulate them. Even if it isn't good for society on the whole.
"From him with the greatest ability, to him with the greatest need" eventually creates more needy, incapable people than a society can support. Howard Dean and Cindy Sheehan have made out well by their rabid opposition. People will follow their example to try to get a piece of that reward.
Doesn't make it right, but just about everyone plays a status game. For those who draw status externally, this is a viable avenue of maximization. So is rabid support. Most people aren't really concerned outside of their own personal status bubbles, no matter what they claim. It's true on both sides. It's probably true of me. I might be in the leave 'em alone camp if half my family didn't live on Long Island. Or I didn't live in the same town as the President's brother.
Trish,
I didn't get that pdf when you posted the address, and don't want to spend the time to find your comment again.
If you still have address, I would appreciate it.
Thanks
Found it by accident:
www.csis.org/media/csis/
pubs/0605_iraqquarterlyreport.pdf
Right Click to download:
Quarterly Report Link
Most dont see the vine that trips them
Nor the Foot that tramples them
Or the Eye Glaring from the Green
When the Elephant was not seen
--
In his "Patterns of Conflict" Boyd identified the essence of Moral conflict - which the battle we are in today with Islamofascism - to win it we must fight back on a Moral level.
http://www.d-n-i.net/boyd/patterns.ppt
The battle cannot be won by governments because the battle is ideological and of a guerella nature aiming at the logical foundations of the West.
The Islamists have a plan to infiltrate and destroy the West - the plan's goals are held by many individuals who work within a "soup" of ideas and funding emerging out of the Middle East.
Where is the plan in the West to destroy Islamofascism? Where are the operators living in the "soup" of support for Liberty?
What are the ideas and the elements which carried into Islamic lands and ideas which will destroy them?
They have an ideological and monetary sanctuary that must be destroyed.
What are the ideological forces that are diametrically opposed to Islamofascim and which will destroy it if its ideas are admitted into Islamic society?
How do you find and support and strengthen those opponents who hold these ideas?
And when there are hundreds of Mr Pollards filming, distributed outside the Channels required by current infrastructure.
Death of the Networks
Googgle doth provide.
The Market will find a way to get what it wants, really. It already is happening
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