It's odd to me that there's so much emphasis on the evil of Cheney. Yet he hardly ever appears in the news. Apparently he's the ultimate eminence gris, the shadowy power behind the throne.
I was hugely struck by one of the comments to Juan Cole's article, most of which I'm reproducing below:
If you examine US foriegn policy over the years, what we see during Bush's reign is more or less an exaggerated, over-the-top version of what previous administrations have been doing. This administration is much less inhibited in its demonstration of the "narcissism" that has infiltrated many aspects of American culture.
Yes, that seems right. All my life the U.S. has been engaged in one war or another, only a few of which became large enough to appear in the daily news, but all of which were examples of bullying from a sense of entitlement.
Narcissism, in its subtle but pervasive essence, has become a virtue in America. The American identity depends on the core belief that America is the best country in the World. It never failes to amuse me how Americans find it surprising that people in other countries may surpass them in one aspect of life or the other.
Hell, it surprises me sometimes how Americans don't believe anyone can equal them, let alone surpass them. Surely no one else has a Constitution or a Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of speech, for instance.
What this leads to is a tendency for the masses to actually elect the more narcissistic candidates. It is, in a way, a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Yes, I can believe that. And it does seem that it has to reach its extreme before it can fall -- essentially the only way such a powerful system can be destroyed is by undermining itself through its own hubris. Which is what seems to be happening now.
no subject
I was hugely struck by one of the comments to Juan Cole's article, most of which I'm reproducing below:
If you examine US foriegn policy over the years, what we see during Bush's reign is more or less an exaggerated, over-the-top version of what previous administrations have been doing. This administration is much less inhibited in its demonstration of the "narcissism" that has infiltrated many aspects of American culture.
Yes, that seems right. All my life the U.S. has been engaged in one war or another, only a few of which became large enough to appear in the daily news, but all of which were examples of bullying from a sense of entitlement.
Narcissism, in its subtle but pervasive essence, has become a virtue in America. The American identity depends on the core belief that America is the best country in the World.
It never failes to amuse me how Americans find it surprising that people in other countries may surpass them in one aspect of life or the other.
Hell, it surprises me sometimes how Americans don't believe anyone can equal them, let alone surpass them. Surely no one else has a Constitution or a Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of speech, for instance.
What this leads to is a tendency for the masses to actually elect the more narcissistic candidates. It is, in a way, a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Yes, I can believe that. And it does seem that it has to reach its extreme before it can fall -- essentially the only way such a powerful system can be destroyed is by undermining itself through its own hubris. Which is what seems to be happening now.