that lovely lilt from a bygone era of real musical compositions with actual people-played instruments, none of them transistorized - nor accompanied by SHOUTING (or smashed faux-instruments either, cometothinkofit..)

OK meretricious spawn of gang-bangs by herds of syphilitic dung beetles {leave The Beatles outta this!} Why my Father's insurance policy is so Much Better than -


But Seriously, Dan .. WTF - good practice for when the Shit really hits The Fan.
I shall endeavour to omit as much shorthand as my internal-aMuse can forego.
That'll make it longer. Tough. Manifestos are such good exercise. But dumb.

And No.. I don't surmise {either} that your smart-neurons have been irreversibly deranged, via proximity to one of the world's longest-running Floating Crap Games.. with its own cult of the Virgin and other ephemera.. Really I Don't! (if I said this less obliquely we'd have to move it to Religion.)
..But you may have become self-seduced by a need for comforting What-If-We-Could.. thoughts (?)

Obv it's Hardly! about the mere fecklessness of a Shrub; it's about what lies (entendre inescapable) behind a Shrub. And I too may dabble in that higher Scale: re the end-with-a mere-Whimper of the relatively short-running Cold War -- that Con Game of Leaders Bent on Remaining in Power via the Murdered Language which created the Dead People.

This has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with Shrub or Clitoris or whatever fucking political bend you want to assign. The boys behind the martyrs were trained by our own CIA. They (the CIA) have been trying to figure out how to "deal with them" since the late 80's. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT ABOUT BUSH... Myopia seems to be consuming thee lately.

NOTHING TO DO with.. Daddy's Boyz / members-All of the dread KGBPNAC !? and its early-on Let's Get Saddam no-matter-What mindset? ..As we move towards that Global hegemony "Which Everyone Wants From US" cha cha cha -->

(..sorry about the cha cha - but, I seem to hear it everywhere. Lately.)

Illustrated to a T by the daily innuendo
{but so far as I've read: no direct actual declarative statement}
to the effect that: Iraq aided and abetted
{surely Must Have helped plan ?!} 9/11.

You'd dismiss all refs to the machinations of this group, on from the Goon Squad sent to disrupt the recounts in Miami .. through today: as mostly IRRELEVANT? Wouldst see the playing-out of the '80s antics whereby our passing out of RPGs (Stingers, actually IIRC) to rub the Russki's noses in a morass -
- and now coming back to bite Our Asses

- is the Prime Map of events! including all Shrub's selection as Mortimer Snerd for his coterie of Edgar Bergens ??
[for the radio-deprived: a famous ventriloquist and his er Dummy; note that Charlie McCarthy was the more famous smarter-Dummy in his performances.]

Sorry But: you overlook all of the lower-scale stuff.. as multiplies exponentially to overtake that simpler theme. The game you suggest is also the game the PNAC planned to Win. That game also required the simple bi-polarization of that artificial 'World' now gone; especially did it demand that the US be seen as ~incorruptible Nemesis. I submit: That Game was called on account of unscheduled Darkness.

Obv. examples as cancel that milieu:
1) Le Monde September 12, 2001, We Are All Americans. More examples unnecessary, I think. Largely through the {Texas-style words put into the} mouth of aforementioned Great Leader: Not 'We' - but
"the US Government, as Instrument of that Coterie, in full control of all its vast array of WMDs":
- within days of those almost Universal messages of GoodWill:

W managed to first, disdain the offers of Help. [Texan speak was instantaneous and predictable - isn't that called 'science' - when you Can Predict?] First W said ~ Thanks. But. We Can Do It Alone. And We Will. The State of the Union message was as bellicose and Unilateral a 'message' - as no one with the IQ of a tick could Miss. And: no one did (miss).

2) and 3) Then, as matters hotted-up for the PNAC scheduled Target #1 - Iraq.

(after "2)" - the obv. auto-retaliation of Afgh. natch -- a mere bagtelle -- as predictable as a John Wayne response to a snarled dare. Equally wobbly place today as is the later invasion. Women back in sacks, etc. As if we 'cared' now or before.) We called it A War, and NOT a Criminal Action - which it WAS ergo: we Needed a State to Hit. {But not Yet.. the Saudi state that provided 100% of the Criminals - run that up your flagpole and see who salutes}

- we again -disdainfully- relegated such offers to {let you help} to relatively few and unappealing chores, sharply and sometimes overtly Insultingly! -- and with no slightest 'involvement' with the decision-making, even Under the table, let alone On it. This-all amidst a barrage of Anti-UN rhetoric right out of My Gramma's ancient issues of Human Events (John Birch Society Bible, for the newcomers). Irrelevant to the present pair of Tar Babies? and the response of the rest of the world? The French-bashing was pure 11 yo schoolyard class. Shameful! We Have No Statesmen! left..

4) Today: would anyone argue that there remains more than a vestige of this GoodWill? anything resembling so large a measure as.. a soup\ufffdon of Trust! in the words or expected Deeds? Next -- of such mouthers of nastiness as Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz and the lesser bulbs -- Rumsfeld having usurped Presidential Authority (!) to speak disparagingly about (sometimes to) other world Statesmen ??

I just Don't See That Model working, Dan. But for amusement and amazement then,

Here's [link|http://www.thismodernworld.com/| Tom T's] external review of a book about The Soul of Capitalism and his latest cartoon about the folks who would prolly hugely share your view that [link|http://www.thismodernworld.com/pages/new/new_fr.html|It Isn't *OUR* Fault!]
[Can wait til Tues for Working Assets; OR read some ads or pay-up! to read Salon's now]

See, I believe that we are seeing much More than some cold-war dance among folks with only The Radio and local Authority Figures to 'interpret' for 'clarification'. That's *new* - the added communication worldwide: factoids AND spin. Instantly

Finally, and clearly implicit within

. . .
Do you think Bin Laden is an "intelligent" man? Logically? What could be accomplished other than what has happened. Even I predicted it to a tee the day after 9-11 on this forum - we're going to use it as an excuse to clean up the messes we created in the third world starting with Afghanistan and then Iraq, next Iran, next Syria, next North Korea.

I repeat, unless he hates his own kind and wishes to see them destroyed, what intelligent thing was accomplished?

Here lies the Heart of our differing views of the matter and IMhO larger Matter? of the sort, "how it might be that the stage-play of Life demonstrates the State of Being of the actors, singly and en masse" - yeah, stuff like That; words are so flimsy sometimes..

Taking the bold first -
I think you actually Imagine That: for all that has passed since 9/11 re the US's relationship to the other 6 Billion inhabitants and multi-various flag-waving assemblages of All Those People:

We're next gonna just Go Clean Things Up\ufffd \ufffd [!!]
I Think: that's what you Just Said. Right ?? Think About That a tad longer, OK?

But before we dissect the probabilities of That Aim - what egregious fun! {must we?}
I will agree at outset: you have lots of Murican company for this view of God+US = Nemesis of All Evil (as we define All Meanings) via our Righteousness (and Nukes). And when we can't buy much more Toys abroad.. what was that Domino Theory again? Did you fold that one in?

NEVER! forget that Ultimate Saber we rattle so incessantly .. but usually, quietly enough for it to escape the newsfotainment for the True Believers' amusement and the soothing of their Allegiance to all proposals made with a proper throb in the Leadership Voice.. (He's not getting any better at that - but before.. it never had to be particularly Good a throb)

Because THAT Sword: is all we have in The End,
as and when the 'economy' falters further under the multiple burdens of [unrecoverable!] Corporate over-raiding of all Stuff worth Stealing, the understandably wary consuming-sheep portion of the unfathomable $-equations and.. the expectable de facto / or unofficial / boycott of investments in our Debt
(Our Largest Product these days: getting buyers for our notes).
We're spending your kids' kid's stuff now. But.. No New Taxes by Sonny, either.

As Middle-Class becomes a arcane-word in Econ texts of the future and we race towards a Two-Class society with Gated ""Communities"" and.. all the Others Outside:
Well, are we sure we want to debate the Pax Americana thing?

As to the underlined bit -
Right you must be: this Dumb Fuck squandered $100K or so, and all he got for a day's work was:

A pattern of US | World alienation not 1:1000000 might have imagined possible - in virtual milliseconds, as History is writ.

An intensified malaise, bizness floundering and flagellation: panic shedding of mere drone-worker commodities (ever carried in the 'Expense' column of the Econ ledgers, in the CIEIO minds. Only now: they've SHOUTED this view for all to remember.) No prospects as we speak - in the foreseeable, except bogus numbers disassociating JOBS from 'an Up Market' cha. cha. cha.

Thus far {just?} Two Tar Babies par excellance - money, reputation and Competence! -sumps as there are no numerical values to plot. Military running to Over-time in-field. Nobody rushing to install their own cannon-fodder, unless I'm missing a lot of volunteers. Conscription next? How long to train? - unless it's to be that new Thiry Years War.

WORST: the trade of a marginally-functioning Republic with at least democratic pretensions, as could have been reformed - for a sleazy Ashcroftian statue-draping Vision of surveillance 24/7, girded by such notions as:
If you Question our Wisdom - You Are a Terrorist

{which flies in the hearts/minds of a certain sort of dunce - one unAware of Just How we came to steal this land from its inhabitants; and what we Said we meant to do for the Winners.. in atonement for How we did-in the Losers}

ie Well, are we sure we want to debate the Pax Americana thing?
(What sort of 'America' would be producing What sort of 'pax'?)
And When?


Cheers,

I Who Watch
can't Do a fucking thing - Either. Like you.
We have No StatesPersons left. Either assassinated back-when.. or converted in the gene pool to - consumer-grade fodder. Soylent-$$$$

The death of the Titanic was pure & simple - a Captain thoroughly immersed in the blind-Certainty [an Awful word, that one - kills so Many People] of the ships Invulnerability - demonstrating his also fatal ignorance Of The Ship's design == those unfinished bulkheads; an Achilles' Heel as big as a well.. Titanic-length.

But it took more that just that: it took the bean-counter + Mine's Bigger! mentality - to insanely charge through the North Atlantic
{where everyone Knew that icebergs Could-Well Be Found}..
So the final random link needed-be only -- the misplaced WARNING! with exact location: amidst a pile of self-congratulatory, unnecessary 'telegrams' to/about the pampered clients
[and not involving the miserable Steerage masses, of course]..
- all blissfully unaware of the miniscule 'size' of the Titanic VS The Ocean.

Similarly, as the towers collapsed: we heard that metronomic
whomp .. whomp .. whomp .. whomp ..
as a very Elementary physics Law was enacted horrifyingly:

That of Impulse [Force X Time] a trip-hammer which perfectly illustrated how it can appear, when:

All the Potential Energy 'stored' in that building during the years of construction, Kilogram X Height.. added each day - - -

Was turned into Kinetic Energy .. the total Energy State restored to er 'equilibrium' in those few seconds of progressive collapse -- such as no feasible "floor hangers" could ever have withstood. Towers came down precisely as would have a demolition team designed them to fall: straight down. {Ugly} yet also

The Beauty of Physics! simultaneously - the horror of unintended consequences..

(I too had no particular appreciation for the square boxes as 'art', though the erection qualified as YAN successful completion of millions of details. I did however always 'See Them' as the very Symbol -- about which this thread is arguing.)

But then.. I have perhaps the least 'Respect' hereabouts, for that definition of Murican Success which -- derives from cannily milking the Suckers as sneakily -and extensively- as you can get away-with - so that Yours Becomes Bigger.. by the odious mechanical process of:

stealing a share from each of the poorest -- of whom there are So Many, that pretty soon: You're Rich!
[and always: Want More\ufffd - don't we call that insatiable?]
(As to the marks that supply the labor and make the toys?
Fuck Them. They aren't as Smart as I!)

So no, I don't 'miss' The Towers, nor did I miss noting the suffering that random people endured - that seed-group of 9/11

- for an inexorable stimulus/response exchange of many more deaths

which can easily be in the millions next, if Shrub's new nukes come on line soon enough? (before the Sucker + Men of Hench are impeached or, he chokes on a pretzel: correctly, next time?)


Ashton
just gettin in the Spirit o' the Times . . .
Vengeance is Mine! saith the humanoid whose ox was gored.
I see dead oxen. Lots of dead oxen. And Flags.. waved Furiously.
LET'S GET EVEN !!!