And most of those people menioned - and they're still here - were Reaganites.
And if we look at history in terms of cycles, the Reaganites may be leaving, giving way to new kinds of thinking.
I'm taking a new look at the Iraqi mess, and it's beginning to look like a last gasp to me. Not immediately, but coming. So it may not only have been the terrible lack of pre-planning on the part of the Bush administration, but a lack of perception of changes in time and place. The Reagan people mostly live in the glory of the cold war days, and that is what they put forth. A lot of the rhetoric speaks to that. Bringing democracy to the mid-east - as meaningless as the tax cuts will provide jobs. But that is what that generation grew up with - us against the terrible Russians. And all the language that went with it. And the Russians, while eastern, were not representative of this whole, other, ancient and new eastern culture we now face. That is what there is in Iraq - and it is not something we will win, because it's not there to win.
There is also a changing face in America - just now coming into being. A lot of people don't think or react the same way they did thirty years ago.
I think the neocons are having their day, but it's turning twilight, and they're trying to make it stay. I wonder how many of them are familiar with or at all active on the internet? This is part of the new face. And, Hobit, tell me...somewhere I've read that many of the younger Arabs - militant and otherwise - are using the internet as well. Not that this makes a whole story, but it certainly means a different way of looking at and doing things.
I know that the net lets me read the news (in both English and Arabic) from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Morrocco, Tunisia, and many other places. In addition, I recall reading that blogs have become the number one souce of news for the Arab ex-pat community.
One should recall , howver, that only a small portion, usually the elite, have access to the net in most of the Mid East and North Africa. This may be changing, apparently internet cafes are the rage in Turkey, according to an old friend from High School who lives there now.
Are Reganites those who die their hair (afraid to show their age), indulge in parsing words with lame humor and can't remember they were in a meeting?
LW - if only Think Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rice, libbey.....all were with Reagan. Can't think of anybody's hair, and they have very convenient memories.
Hobit - my daughter has managed to get me from cybercafes in Syria, Jordan, Egypt, a little village on the Zambesi river - she says it's a rare place now where she can't find one. I've had to learn a lot out of self defense.
Possibly, Mamaj, they confuse themselves with the god of the Old Testament. God said Let there be light and there was light. Perle says Let us have oil and we shall have oil. Wolfowitz says Let us have capitalistic democracy under the influence of the US and we shall have, etc. etc. Look at Bush's campaign utterances: he said one thing and did another. But it's possible he remembers (a la Reagan) the spoken version, not the real life version.
hobit said it best with; "Our evil Archon is now "terror," which is impossible to define,and therefore impossible to defeat. The perfect enemy for a group that considers war to be humanity's natural state." How better to keep the ball off the real problems facing Americans? It's working like a charm, and 'they' know it.
Hobit wrote:
ndeed, many of the current crop of evil genii flirted with Trotsky style marxism in the 1960s. Wolfy, Perle, (she truned me into a) Newt, Rove, Rice, etc....
I've read your interesting link on the Trotskyite influence on the Neo-cons. I can buy the link to Wolfowitz and Perle but where's your evidence on Newt, Rove and Rice?
Gee, percy, it took me about a minute doing a simple google search to find the one atricle (out of may pages worth) that I posted. Perhaps you might like to try one? I would be very glad to see you post something from a valid source. Considering the quality of the material you have posted recently, the burden is on you this time. Smoochies!
I also once, spending a night or two up looking into American old-left life-tales, came across the curiosity of erstwhile Trotskyites turning into Regan-era Contra-supporters respectively current-day neoconservatives - found out about the whole Shachtman saga - but, try as I did the hour or so, I cant find back the lengthy e-mail that I wrote my father about it ...
