haters
Both sides of the war on terror debate would be a lot better off if we'd drop as much silly rhetoric as possible.
Just because the Bush administration has thrown around this idea of "freedom haters" for five years doesn't mean that any of us has to cling to it any longer, either to mock the opposition or to extol our country's comparative virtues.
We're in a fucked up situation and all the name-calling, tattle-telling, and case-building in the world is not going to solve the problem. Neither is all the bomb-throwing, collateral-damaging, and racial-profiling. Even history-reciting, blame-laying, and spell-checking won't cut it.
(I know, I called Tony Snow an asshole the other day. I take it back ... sort of)
Stop arguing about who did what, when, how, where, and why. Stop trying to figure out who is really to blame, who is the worst of the lot. Stop thinking about the solution in terms of punishment or retribution.
It doesn't help.
However, thinking about it in the terms Bryan suggests might actually do some good.
posted by zen imbecile at 4:45 PM
4 Comments:
a) I thought Bryan's comments were stellar.
b) You cannot solve a problem without knowing it's source: thus the history lesson. As long as we ignore and revise history, we will have Middle Eastern terrorism. Period.
c) Tony Snow is without question or debate, an asshole. If you attempt to defend him, you are an asshole. If you even say, "I kinda like his name because it has 'Snow' in it" you are kinda a asshole.
8:38 AM
History is most useful when it shows us how to avoid and/or fix problems in the present.
In this case, however, alot of the problems in the region seem to boil down to a version of "Mom, he hit me." "But, Maw-am, he hit me first." "I hit him because he touched my side of the car."
If we follow the history lesson back far enough, we see that Sara kicked Ishmael out of the tent. What do we about that?
I agree that we can't ignore or revise history, but if we just use it as an exercise in finger-pointing rather than as a point of reference for learning from mistakes, then it does us very little good.
9:35 AM
i think if that if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that tony snow is a prick.
more than being a mere prick, though, he seems to be overplaying to the right wing. i'm thinking specifically of the recent stem cell bill. on one day, he confidently declares to the press corps that the president considers destroying embryonic stem cells "murder" (while also telling the corps anyone who doesn't agree is an asshole).
a day later (presumably after being chewed out by someone) he clarified things: the president doesn't actually think it's murder.
hey, does anyone want to talk about stem cell research?
bryan
1:53 PM
p.s.
thanks, chadwick.
2:38 PM
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