A Respite from Evil. Too much to ask?

[troublemaker]

To whatever degree evil exists as an abstract category the people we ostensibly oppose in the ‘Global War on Terror’ are evil. They are unusually evil. Al Qeada’s methods are evil and their aims are worse. And many of the insurgents in Iraq are even more evil than al Qeada! For every simple Iraqi nationalist who picks up a rifle there’s someone else systematically trying to make Iraq a far worse place, but a place in which they might plausibly someday gain power. The largely unreported targeting of doctors and engineers is Stalinism at its very worst—targeting health professionals combines the murderous elimination of the middle classes (always a bulwark against instability) and the tactic of seeking to radicalize the poor by making their lives hellish.

That George W. Bush considers himself these people’s worst enemy is a great irony, since to whatever degree evil exists as an abstract category George W. Bush et al are evil… unusually evil. Simply to retain power and settle neurotic scores with their betters they will degrade American thought and life in any way they can.

We are bombarded daily with multi-layered propaganda claiming that the Bush administration exists in perfect opposition to these Islamic foes they so resemble. This leads to either acceptance or cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is painful… it promotes an anxiety that can only be relieved by accepting Bush’s magnificence or by making excuses for the bad guys. Some of us refuse to do either and remain committed to truth, not matter how painful. It sucks. It makes any enjoyment of life difficult. It’s a mental state with no prospect of ecstasy or exultation. The most dramatic repudiation of Bush would still be no more a triumph than pulling a needle out of one’s eye… But, as bad as it feels sometimes, I encourage everyone to remain devoted to the twin truths of the extraordinary evil of both modern American conservatism(sic) and modern Islamic fundamentalism (and other dictatorially minded movements within the Islamic world.)

I do want our current GWOT enemies (narrowly defined) destroyed, not because they pose some unique threat to our existence—they quite obviously do not—but because they hurt people and lessen the reasonable expectations of many poor people around the world.

And I want them destroyed by American liberal Democracy. I want them to be destroyed by people with something other than contempt for American civilization. Is that too much to ask?

[thebigidea]

1. I want a world where Wolfowitz is consigned to being a guidance counselor

after a prison term, of course.

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. I want one of those old WWF Ice Cream bars

with the cookie and the chocolate and the vanella ice cream.

Mmmmm, those were good.

Oh, and world peace too. :)