The Legacy
If a legacy refers in some way to the dominant historical narrative, then it's manufacture can be instructive to those who are nervous about "the total colonization of the lifeworld" or other such measures of "full-spectrum dominance" ( cultural hegemony, the Spectacle in general) Thus,Peter Baker's piece from the Washington Post.com is interesting on a couple of levels.
"Bush's attention (to global warming) comes at a time when he and his top advisors feel better about his Presidency, confident they have turned a corner after two years of political setbacks ,and can now focus on RE-FORMULATING his legacy."
A couple of questions arise. Bush's ATTENTION to global warming? Even if you could say that without laughing, could the legacy of seven years of neglect, obfuscation, blockage (measured in deaths?) be somehow mitigated with one year of "attention"? Then there is this bit about "he and his top advisors" feeling better. This Peter Baker, a droid sitting at a cubicle in some office building in some Metropolis is privy to the feelings of "the cabal"? Seriously? Now what about this bit on "re-formulating" Bush's legacy? Are we saying A legacy has already been formulated (formula?) , prior even to the finish of a term, which requires adjustment? We already know Petes role in this process. We are tangentially being treated to discussions about Condi Rice's legacy, (Elisabeth Bumiller of the NYT has an "unauthorized" biography which just hit the store shelves) and about whether Annapolis could salvage something from the debacle. I suppose one could make analogies to the Petraeus "surge" or football's fourth quarter, (By the way, Petraeus for President on 2012) but again, this bizarre effort to salvage something for the history books has a tremendous effect on the use of US power. Unfortunately for this Presidency , the die has been cast. A couple of band aids, some spackle and paint, a little duct tape or volumes of blatant spin will not slow our descent into the vortex of blowback and reprisal. Neglect breeds contempt.
posted by troutsky @ 6:51 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
This is from an article in www.Marxist.com: On January 31, the State of California, USA, announced its plans to ban incandescent lights by 2012. A few weeks later, Australia followed suit and now the UK government has promised that by 2011 there will be no incandescent bulbs on British territory.
The attention attracted by these timid measures greatly contrasts with the media's silence about how in just one year Cuba has successfully replaced its incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, thus reducing the island's energy consumption spent on lighting by 2/3.
measured in deaths?
Serious? We're not talking about the War on Terror here, we're discussing the inane attempt to restore the planet to "normalcy"--though, of course we haven't defined normalcy.
Deaths? Serious?
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