Daily Blague

Hey --- I'll be with you on Bastille Day (funny, you didn't mention it) for the peaceful manifestation (also, another French reference...). Thanks, summer hours for enabling my social activism!

We live in a world where the fog of war begins to gather at first in the language used to describe the situation. Here is the DoD guide to each droplet. You will find TPFDL under the Acronyms & Abbreviations button under "T". Hersh has written a frightening article in next week's New Yorker to be sure but this is not the first notice of this idea as a simple search on "bomb Iran" or "Iran preemptive strike" will quickly reveal. Particularly interesting in these search results are some of the dismissals of Hersh's work. Mr Hersh wrote in January 2005 in "The Coming Wars" about the beginnings of some of these ideas. There is and has been plenty of discussion in the blogosphere and the legacy media about these topics but what disturbs me is the lack of interest in everyday conversation. Perhaps it's me or my social setting but I find it hard to strike up a conversation about Iran and preemptive strikes that goes beyond knee jerk responses or puzzled looks.

I suppose Bastille Day is as good a day as any other day for a public consciousness raising. American Independence would seem more appropriate to me, but I don't hold out much hope for any meaningful or broad response from either demonstrators or observers. I find the current situation very similar to events in the early 60's that led up to the crisis during the last two weeks of October 1962. Hersh has also covered some of this material in The Dark Side of Camelot where he shows how another "macho" president made some serious errors based more on ideology and personal style than sound judgment and intelligence data. We dodged the bullet in '62, perhaps we will do it again but it will be very scary once again it would seem. And, all the more scary since the general public seems distinctly uninterested at this point. Surely, someone somewhere has a better answer than all this suicidal saber rattling. Go to The Met on Bastille Day, it's a start but only a start. Taking the Congress back is a where we really need to start this year. And, if we live long enough, taking the presidency back in 2008 is really necessary. Strange to me that we have thousands in the streets over immigration but only handfuls over the more important issues of war and peace. What do illegal aliens know that most Americans don't?