Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Posted here Tuesday, May 18, 2004 at 4:52:24 PM     How can children grow up to be organized entities, growing little persons, in an entropic age? ********

Posted here Tuesday, May 18, 2004 at 12:40:08 PM     If the war in Iraq had had world support and been going well, the prison problems would not have happened. Undertaking very controversial actions usually releases people at the crunch points to act unconscionably, because there is no consensual guidance. And I am not just talking about the few at the bottom. The reason the public anguish over the prisons is so high, my clinical sense tells me is because people were already deeply disgusted and or distraught. The prison pictures gave an opportunity for the expression of feeling which predated the pictures, a year and a half's worth of buildup of anguish. The deeper question is, the nature of American culture and why we have a greedy elite, a mild mannered middle and an angry uneducated and scared bottom.  And why at all levels there are some really decent people.. A reservist getting on a place for Iraq was overheard talking to his buddy "where is this place anyway?" "How the hell should I know, I think its near Mexico." Last night I talked with two families, the kind that spend retirement traveling the country in RVs,  who each had a nephew wounded in Iraq. Their view was that these young men were soured on what they saw long before they were injured, and reported how ugly the war was, the ugly behavior of fellow soldiers, the destruction, the poverty, and the lack of meaningful leadership. We are out of our depth. the country has dumbed down, hollowed out, gone shallow, or maybe just hasn't kept up with the changes other populations are going through. Our ignorance makes us bad soldiers, bad leaders, bad strategists. Last night I also attended our local school board meting, as they are trying to cut ten percent from an unbalanced budget. ********