Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (225514)	3/29/2007 10:17:35 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The conflicts in the ME are NOT the new cold war- the small ME powers do not have the power to destroy us, or to force us to "bow to Mecca" as some folks so ardently believe. Who in the world thinks that the small countries in the ME have the power to destroy us or force us to bow to Mecca? That reads stupid. They can't even educate their own population, how in the world could they make us bow to anything? The countries of the ME are little, small countries that have minimal power over anything affecting the US other than the price of oil. It's a huge leap from oil at $10 per gallon (Americans drive less) and anything important. In other words, I think the democrats have been challenging the narrative. Huh? How does that follow from your first paragraph? Of course Bush and Cheney will tell you that that's unpatriotic, but I agree with this essay- especially since I have been saying essentially the same thing as this essay since 2001

To: epicure who wrote (225514)	3/29/2007 10:19:28 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

That is one long article. Can you perhaps summarize it in one or two sentences?

To: epicure who wrote (225514)	3/29/2007 11:55:55 AM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Excellent, excellent article-- very well-conceived and superbly written. Yes, it's long, but worth the 10 or 15 minutes. The author steps back and views the conflict in sweeping terms, using the universal concepts of narrative and mythology to talk about the consequences of this admin's actions on our country, and the results of this changed narrative on other countries' own myths. Anyone who has read Campbell and Jung grasps our need for myths in our lives- both individually and nationally. Bush used terms that elevated 9-11 to a mythological status, the Good v. Evil cosmic battle, and took our nation in a direction which has limited our country's ability to survive as our sacred narrative had defined us. Vlahos doesn't see this as something that will be easily undone with a change of leadership. A narrative disrupted and altered, like the course of a river, now has its own new direction. Some of us feared this early on, when we believed that the terms being employed were exaggerated and wrongly applied, and that our actions (such as pre-emptive war) violated how we define ourselves. It makes withdrawal a defeat on a much deeper and darker level for those who accepted the new myth. It is now a confrontation of Biblical proportions. And it's not just America, but those whom we defined as the dark side who see it that way now.