Truth and Ugliness
May 15, 2004
A friend forwarded an article in the London Times written by Matthew Parris. He worked in Thatcher's administration back in the day. The article, for which I can't find an accessible URL, has the title Why I will be rooting for a George Bush election victory. It begins: (4RB)
GEORGE W. BUSH needs a second term at the White House. This US presidency is halfway through an experiment whose importance is almost literally earth-shattering. Its success or failure could be a beacon for the future. I want to see that experiment properly concluded. (4RC)
What the President and his advisers are trying to do will be a colossal failure. But failure takes time to show itself beyond contradiction. The theory that liberal values and a capitalist economic system can be spread across the world by force of arms, and that the United States of America is competent to undertake this task, is the first big idea of the 21st Century. It should be tested to destruction. (4RD)
It's becoming trendy for folk on both the right and the left to put forth this idea: let's make sure this situation plays out so that truth is clear. (4RE)
How many people will be dead? How many environments ruined? How many countries collapsed into civil war? How many mom and pop business turned into fast food restaurants and wal-marts? (4RF)
There are limits to the purist pursuit of principle. No one's vision of truth and honor, not the neocon's, not Matthew's, not ours, can stand in the face of the sort of ignorance and suffering that will rise from Bush's friends trying to run the world. (4RG)
Comments
That's the thing about NeoCon? economic theory - even if it works, it takes _forever_ to come to fruition. If your economic policy doesn't work, it isn't because you made a mistake - it's because nobody gave it enough time to work. (78T)
In the mean time, how many people are losing their lives, families, jobs, etc.? (78U)
Besides, given the miniscule amount of information we have about what our government is doing, and our profound ability (as a people) to ignore stuff we don't like, I think the expectation that Americans will react to a colossal failure such as this one is a little naive. (78V)