Mq and Geode, on another topic...
I think the diminishing support among the herd thinkers for the vapid Bush foreign policies is readily apparent. Many of them have evidently become disillusioned with bad policies and achieved some degree of enlightenment. Their only hangover is trying to find some rationale to try to explain why they weren't totally wrong from the beginning. That typically means rationalizing the unnuanced positions they initially took combined with blaming the Bush Administration for its utter incompetence. That's amusing but I can live with that since they are, at least, finally rejecting those fatally flawed policies.
We're left with dealing with the remnants like Klp who, once having committed, are too stubborn, too dense or too proud to change their views, or those like Hawk whose nightmarish fears are so great that no matter what is done, or how foolishly it's done, they'll support any policy that uses force against anyone, anyone, who might someday present any threat. (The "nits make lice" kind of thinking?)
The posts of the KLPs typically attack the poster as being Bush-hating or anti-American and dishonest. Of course the "you're a Bush-hater" posters fail to address the fact that many of those they attack have been right in predicting the disasters that the Bush policies led to. That unwillingness to address real issues makes them a lot less interesting than the rare Hawkmoon types who stubbornly persist in articulating support for a policy that they are prepared to admit has not produced the results they anticipated.
The posts of the Hawkmoons usually warn that in the face of something they claim is an "end-of-civilization threat" we have to do something, even if it's wrong. In their minds those good intentions in the face of what they view as apocalyptic threats justify continued support for an Administration that has been incompetent and has executed damaging, counter productive strategies because, "WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING OR WE'LL BE ... (your choice of awful things here)."
The "these are good policies" voices of the KLPs are losing their passion and they'll eventually disappear in lost echoes that dissipate in the thin air of empty thinking.
I think, however, that the voices of the Hawkmoons of the world will persist as whispers like a virus waiting for the immune system of society to weaken so that they can once again attack civilized, logical and courageous thinking and re-create the sickness of fear-anger-cowardly induced aggression, hatred and violence.
Will another attack on America create another virulent "kill someone, anyone" virus? Maybe not; once the sickness passes maybe we'll have immunity based resistance for a least a couple of decades. Or maybe it will. Ed
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