Alchemy
Lets see if we can make sense from "facts" using "critical thinking". ( i am cruelly mocking neo-neo-con as I am sure she is doing me) Today we have the price of oil up around seventy dollars a barrel, gold prices soaring, house prices dipping, stock market nervous. We have oil/war man Dick Cheney's approval rating hovering around 18%, some shakeups in whitehouse staff. Montana's own Senator Conrad (love those Indians) Burns is listed in Top Ten Worst by Time magazine. I'm beginning to get an impression, a nebulous forming of gasses, still hazy?
Still no government in Iraq, incredible early heat wave in Texas, pipeline through Azerbaijan, Georgia, elections in July in Mexico where Manuel Obrador(in the lead) threatens an alliance with South American Petro states. The gasses , under extreme pressure seem to be taking a solid form, another hurricane season fast approaches as Michael Skilling takes the stand, Saadam takes the stand , Moussaui gets the hot seat. Dying stars, scientists found, pulse at an audible frequency equivalent to the F note above middle C just before they explode into supernovae. "All options are on the table" concerning Iran.The DOW just shot up a hundred points.The galaxy hardens into gold, diamonds, pearls.
Ira Glass and This American Life ,on NPR tonight, will make sense of it all.
posted by troutsky @ 8:19 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Question: Will we go to Iran? If yes, before or after the '06 elections?
I may need to spend less time with my nose in the books and more time on ymy knees in prayer.
God help us all if we try to fight another war.
I can't make sense of it. have written two long posts on the subject and deleted them both.Is that why the retired generals are rsing up against Rumsfeld? they sense disaster? I was ten years old when Kennedy and Krushchev stood on the precipice, daring each other to blink.We practiced ducking under our desks and walking to our homes in groups, presumably to be incinerated with our moms.Of course Iran doesnt have nuclear retaliation capabilities but others just as horrifying.
this would be a great time for people of all faith traditions to stand together in calling for a cooling off of rhetoric.
When Oppenhiemer and others let the genie out of the bottle, it truly changed the nature of existance.History has few moments of such consequence.
You have to remember that many Christians have more faith in Bush than in Christ, and certainly don't want to associate with secular democrats. They forget that there is a third option. Pope John Paul II condemned the War in Iraq, and Benedict wants us to give diplomacy a shot. It's hard for people to take them seriously when we still have a priest scandal to clean up.
I think the generals are sick of the bloodshed and see nothing in site but disaster. Ousting Rumsfeld might help, but my guess is that this is already too late. Then we get to play spin games about why people had to do for such a stupid thing as democracy.
It's hard to stay angry or even focused on the atrocities in Iraq. It's not as if people are even open-minded about the issue any more; I'm sure as heck not. The whole thing is like an awful black metal cd. There's no way you're going to listen to the whole thing without turning it off in disgust at some point.
And there my analogy fails; I don't know how to stop the war.
I wish Benedict would make a visible, strong statement.
Because we can walk and chew gum we need to think not only of stopping this war but the next war and all war. Che was making the point that this period, horrible as it is, provides a "teachable moment".Also part of Marx's theory of class conflict.Thats what my work against capitalism is all about.
It may seem like Friedmans theory (alluded to in todays post) that grim circumstances force us to react in positive ways, but with important differences.Friedman proposes that we never learn, only react to the Invisible Hand, Marx believed we have the capacity to develop and create our own reality willfully, proactively.
I'm not a big fan of Marx. His labor theory is wrong, in my opinion, and I've never been a fan of Hegel, much less inevitable progress.
In any event, I too wish the Pope would be stronger, but despite the anger that accompanied his arrival, the man seems to be a fairly gentle and only mildly divisive figure. I'd be quite surprised if Benedict does anything too drastic during his papacy.
So long as we can avoid a war with Iran, it is possible that we can have a dialogue about when a nation should go to war. I'm not optimistic about ending all war, though that would be desirable. This is what comes with not believing in progress.
Still, as Chesterton succinctly puts it, "The only defensible war is a war of defense." Perhaps the War in Iraq has helped us remember this.
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