William Gibson Books www.williamgibsonboard.com www.williamgibsonboard.com News of the day & Current Issues Iraq again, still, always
www.williamgibsonboard.com www.williamgibsonboard.com News of the day & Current Issues Iraq again, still, always Topic Closed|
Go
|
New
|
Find
|
Notify
|
Tools
|
Member |
No, that's what shadenfreude and whining guarantee. Those are The Secret Amendments you know... --- "I knew their tastes were very different and because the french like Dick a lot." -W.G. |
|||
|
|
Member |
Facts are silly little things that have nothing to do with TRUTHS. And let's not forget how fickle the public is when their wars drag on. People being pissed about Iraq is less about the stupidity of the invasion than it is about them being unhappy they aren't getting cheap gas out of it. Listen to people, they are rarely consistent. Instead they bitch and moan about whomever is in office, they rail against what they see as popular targets for reverse-idolatry. Bush didn't lead the American public down the Well of Souls, the American public did that just fine on their lonesome. Bush is just the manifestation of a zeitgeist of poor skills coping with he end of empire and jingoism. --- "I knew their tastes were very different and because the french like Dick a lot." -W.G. |
|||
|
Member |
But they are not as consistently inconsistent as one might claim. Just because they tend to be fickle, ill-informed a la don't know/don't care, and deeply capable of deluding themselves, doesn't mean they are consistently clueless or delusional. This is a democracy: the people lead the leaders lead the people lead the leaders. They can still notice, after two terms, that the fool they picked to lead them is even more foolish than themselves. |
|||
|
|
Member |
Don't take my word for it. |
|||
|
Member |
I couldn't agree more UberDog. Especially the manifestation of a zeitgeist thing. However, where he took them, I believe, was a construct all of GWB's doing. Iraq I doubt was the place the American public would've ended up all on their own. Lonesome or otherwise. On 9-11 America was hit by hijacked jets manned, led, financed and religiously inspired by fanatics deeply embedded within Saudi Arabia and Afhganistan. Iraq nor ANY Iraqis had ANYTHING to do with 9-11. So, intel was cherry-picked, s@#t made up, a story fabricated. George then convinced a willing and a gullible American public to take his dumbass u-turn into stupidity. He led them to Iraq. They freakin followed. Why? Well that's where the manifestation of their incredibly dysfunctional zeitgeist thing comes in. However, the fairy tale trip to Iraq was a misadventure of George's and Dick's (sounds like a rock band) chosing... and incompetent leadership. Best supporting actors in all this, well, that goes to all those out there who supported them. This message has been edited. Last edited by: oddmanrush, If evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve. |
|||
|
|
Member |
That refutes my point. You are still saying that "the great men of history' cause it. I'm saying they don't. You're saying he steered the boat but the boat was there without him, I'm saying there is no prow to point.
Let me ask you this, what do you hope to gain by changing presidents? What is it you want from politics? I think that politics is a very elaborate way in which we convince ourselves we have influence of the course of human events. I am beginning to suspect we are merely an ecosystem like any other and have little to no control over where this ball heads. I suppose that's one of the reasons that while I might join in the bitching and moaning about president whomever, I really don't care who wins which election at any given time. --- "I knew their tastes were very different and because the french like Dick a lot." -W.G. |
|||
|
|
Member |
I was looking at your sig there, the Franklin quote and it strikes me that man has quite the capacity to memorialize, mythologize and feign to refute that which we inevitably do as part of the process of being human.
There never was a good war or bad peace... War isn't somehting people decide to do, that's my point. I think it's a kind of hysteron prtoeron in which we convince ourselves after the fact that it was something we decided on. But we didn't, I don't think we ever do. We do it, like fucking and eating. We go to war. Don't ever see that changing unless we rewrite ourselves. And when we do that we won't be humans making the next evolution and so who knows what those critters will do? That's the singularity, obsolescence of humanity as we define it. --- "I knew their tastes were very different and because the french like Dick a lot." -W.G. |
|||
|
Member |
Nah, too easy. You're saying there's a qualitative difference between my personal decision not to punch in the face the asshat who cuts in front of me in line at the post office and a nation's personal decision to go to war? I don't see it. And I don't see me as being predestined to punch or not punch. We have the ability to choose to behave better, and to pretend we don't is to excuse our behaving worse.
________________________ differently mediated |
|||
|
|
Member |
No, he's saying that some leaders ride the tiger one way, some the other. The whole concept of leader is that they do have reins by which they can steer the beast somewhat. Bush decidedly took the tiger for a frivolously destructive joyride. Did Bush even have a clue as to why he drove it the way he did? Who knows. He too is just a single point of consciousness. But some folks DO get to sit in the jockey seat and push the missile buttons and all that. And that stuff does tend to have its impact on history, and in turn provide compost till for new zeitgeist seedlings. Weren't you the one who joked about "a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll" awhile back? That's the spirit. The flaw I see in your logic in "War isn't somehting people decide to do, that's my point. I think it's a kind of hysteron prtoeron in which we convince ourselves after the fact that it was something we decided on." is your monolithic use of the words "people" and "we". Sometimes groups of people DO decide to start a war. It happened in this decade. And they deliberately sized up the passing zeitgeist and accommodated it into a salable package that enough of the people would but (for enough of a variety of reasons) that the mediating body (Congress) between The People and the small group wanting war granted war aproval. You *were* arguing for causality on another thread, yes? Chaos and causality work very well together. rarely see them apart. |
|||
|
Member |
Are we not "seriously black" already in the eyes of the world? Why don't we just up and do it again? And, maybe again...before he exits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nurturing my inner clown. |
|||
|
Member |
Despite my dissapointment not to be the centre of your attention and despite the consternation the view causes me... I am inclined to agree. Further, if push came to shove I have little doubt that Australia would follow like the battered wife so desperate for protection from the big, bad world at her doorstep that she won't leave her domineering partner for fear of something worse. The zeitgeist isn't pretty from where I'm sitting, and takes strong leaders to try and calm such a feeling and point it in a less destructive direction. Lithos made me do it |
|||
|
|
Member |
I personally don't think the boat got to Iraq without him pointing the way. I may be missing your point Uberdog and I apologise, but decisions are made by individuals that have their hands on the controls of the ships of state during war. Yes, we go to war. It's the human condition. Probably always will. Yes, it's a given. However, the tactics and strategies of how and where we go to war are made by individuals pointing the way. Sucesses and failures are directly determined by decisions individuals made in the prosecutions of war. Blame or praise has and will always be placed on the leaders during war. Deservedly so. Whether it's Napoleon, Churchill, Lincoln, or George W. Bush. If evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve. |
|||
|
|
Member |
I was arguing for the search for causality not it's veracity. And what I am saying is that leaders do not in fact make decisions that lead nations places. I'm saying that they embody a will of the zeitgeist, I'm saying that they don't "decide" so much as "flow." I'm saying the notion that men motivate history is totally wrong. If one wants to get all mundane and banal about it: the GOP had high level plans to do this for years, Bush was the monkey who was asked to throw the lever. But if another conservative had gotten in, do you think they would have changed thier plans to invade Iraq? --- "I knew their tastes were very different and because the french like Dick a lot." -W.G. |
|||
|
|
Member |
And I';m saying I do not think individual leaders actually make decisions in such a way that is independent of the forces that brought them there. I am saying that Napoleon was a radical rejection of the Reign of Terror, I'm saying that Lincoln was what history demanded, not the other way around. I'm saying that systems motivate the world, not people. --- "I knew their tastes were very different and because the french like Dick a lot." -W.G. |
|||
|
|
Member |
I'm saying Napoleon's decision to march into Russia in the middle of the winter led to his defeat. I'm saying Lincoln's decisions (among many) to replace generals led to the North's victory. You plug in other people into these positions you get different decisions and different results. You don't get the same results. Are you saying no matter who was president we'd have exactly the same results as we have under Bush? Bush did it his freakin way. Nobody's going to do anything exactly like him.
Thank God. We didn't get into Iraq because the American public pointed the way and demanded it. We got into Iraq because Bush as commander in chief led us there. There's no way a different president would've done it the exact same way, with the exact same incompetence and ignorance. Maybe worse, maybe better, but not the same. If evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve. |
|||
|
Member |
Your example here still presupposes a group of individuals making a plan (GOP leadership). Arguably, we've seen similar episodes: Kennedy (and later LBJ) saddled with Vietnam by inheriting it from Eisenhower (who inherited it from the French and adopted it in the name of anti-Communism). I don't think the GOP plan for Iraq would have been postponed unless you had a GOP leader who had more of a backbone (arguably McCain in 2000, if that's our past ideal GOP leader). »» "Forget infinity. I've got books waiting for me to read them." — colin »»"Speculative novels of last Tuesday." — William Gibson |
|||
|
|
Member |
Quite possibly. Remember: a leader, someone in the Orval Orifice, is one highly powerful chaotic attractor. Someone with backbone configured along different lines might well, after 911, have said: fuck Iraq. We got real problems now. And taken over NW Pakistan. Or something. I'm saying it's not either/or, B&W. The zeitgeist is not concrete. At most, it's a jet stream altering prevailing weather patterns. |
|||
|
|
Member |
The difference between mere darkness and a true black hole is profound. |
|||
|
Member |
You $23billion tax dollars. Where did they go, and why you can't find out.
No mention of shipping containers 
|
|||
|
|
Member |
Thar. Now ye've said it, simply and precisely, not B&W, not either/or. And even then, the system IS made up of people, and some of those people are obsessed with controlling the system, and therefore have considerably more influence -- at times -- on the turbulent flow than the turbulent flow has on them. I think Borges' The Lottery of Babylon expressed this (along with so many other things) very well. |
|||
|
| Previous Topic | Next Topic | powered by eve community | Page 1 ... 20 21 22 23 24 25 |
 | Please Wait. Your request is being processed... |
|
|||
| Site | www.williamgibsonboard.com | ||
| Servlet | eve1da019 | ||
| Version | 1.3.0 build 9383 | ||
| Module | Forums 4.0.3 | ||
| Stylesheet | "Default Style" | ||
| Wordlet Set | "Default Wordlet Set" | ||
Topic Closed
William Gibson Books www.williamgibsonboard.com www.williamgibsonboard.com News of the day & Current Issues Iraq again, still, always
www.williamgibsonboard.com www.williamgibsonboard.com News of the day & Current Issues Iraq again, still, always© Copyright 2005, AuthorsOnTheWeb.com