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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (200957)	3/30/2007 9:45:39 AM
From: Rambi	Respond to of 793725

People seem to be objecting to a couple of things in that essay( C2- which I will go on record as saying was excellent): first, the academic tone, and second, the perhaps unfamiliar use of narrative and myth to examine current events. (it is hard to use the term myth, because so many perceive it as a falsehood, rather than the symbolic representation of how we see ourselves and the world). I thought the article was so packed with ideas that you can't just dismiss it based on not liking one of them. He wasn't Anti-American at all, but he did seem to believe that this war was a questionable idea for a lot of reasons. His explanations offered some really interesting and unique points of view as to why it was. In addition to the assault on modernity, he pointed out that the creation of the Great War narrative in response to 9-11 pushed our country away from our own national perception in many ways. He sees it as legitimizing the opposition unintentionally, strengthening them. The war happened because we felt threatened in our position. Whether we needed the Great War that was created is unanswerable at this point, imo. The author seems to believe it is unwinnable and has done damage to us in ways we can't really measure. While he says that our unwillingness to kill many and mercilessly places us in a weaker position starting out in this "Great War"-unlike the Romans who were vicious- do you really see that as a weakness other than militarily? I think to do that would truly move us away from the sacred myth that is America. America doesn't go around blowing up everyone willynilly to win. Especially since we weren't under direct attack from Iraq. Anyway, I thank you for posting it. It is excellent, and I am only sorry more people won't take the time to read it (it IS long!) as an interesting pov rather than as a political statement.