Sunday, September 29, 2002

Let’s stop talking about the Irrational   I hate the word Irrational, especially as applied to either George Bush or Saddam Hussein.  Both are widely accused of being irrational.  Bush is thought to be so by much of Europe and Canada,  based on my brief travels this week.  Saddam is called irrational ad nauseum by Rumsfeld and others who need to manufacture an excuse for war.  No one would shoot a regular dog without questions, only a rabid dog.  If Saddam is not “rabid”, (read “irrational”) the case for immediate war collapses.   The problem with irrational is that it somehow implies that human social organizations are rational.  This is nonsense.  Most of us readily act on our emotions, for good or ill, and denying the reality of emotional, non-rational action is futile.  One of the worst problems of Marxism is its 19th century belief in the ultimate rationality and perfectibility of “man”.    When this is echoed by liberal democrats it usually leads to failure.    Instead of irrational, I would use the word self-interest.  Bush has an overriding self-interest in creating a war fever, to hide failures in his approach to terrorism, and to deflect Americans from anger at the corporate CEO culture that has proved to be so fraudulent.  See Frank Rich’s excellent piece in the NYT on Saturday.   Saddam is brutal, a tyrant, more ruthless than George Bush, but that does not make him irrational.  His interest is in carving out an independent space for Iraq so he can continue his rule, after he lost his American support.  We forget that Saddam, America’s ally against Iran, asked American permission or acquiescence to invade Kuwait, and got mixed messages.  In the days after the original invasion, it was Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain who first said this cannot stand.  She then convinced George Bush Sr.   The second problem with irrational as an epithet is that it implies that emotional responses to political events are not proper.  In fact, everyone agrees they are proper, so long as they support the self-interest described above.  Bush’s interests are greatly bolstered by channeling an emotional patriotism to his own interest.   [Note to former German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin—this is another point of parallel between Bush and events in Nazi Germany—using emotional appeals to patriotism for sectarian political gain. ]   The left has powerful emotional arguments against the war.   Spilling American blood to gain hegemony over oil resources will only make our society and environment worse.  Many people are passionately committed to living a simpler, more egalitarian life.  The push to war in Iraq flies in the face of this choice, and will eventually be opposed by a mass movement. 10:23:56 PM   comment []    Will American Troops Still be in Iraq While We Drive Hydrogen Fueled Cars I heard a report on Marketplace tonight that suggested that hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles will be widely available for sale by 2010. It struck me as quite likely that American troops will still be pinned down in Iraq pumping oil at the same time the rest of the world is moving beyond oil-based combustion engines. The truly backward nature of Bush’s radical thinking is breathtaking. He commits us to war over obsolescence. 4:43:21 PM   comment []    Why Do Our Friends Fear Us?  On a trip to Newfoundland this week, I found two things worth observing. One is that life in most of the world goes on without reference to the coming war with Iraq. Once you get outside the U.S., there is little day to day anxiety that this war may start a process of global unraveling. Most people I talked to in Canada looked on the war from afar, with a keen sense of puzzlement. The puzzlement comes from the near universal feeling, at least among those I spoke to, that U.S. Policy has been taken over by irrational people. The opinion is that Bush is on a personal vendetta, and no one can understand how the Americans are allowing him to take the country over a cliff. The cliff is likely to be a worsening of economic conditions around the world, and years of war and instability in the Middle East. 4:43:20 PM   comment []    Remote Updates Just a quick note to thank those who sent suggestions about remotely updating this blog using radio. I have tried the email update function, and it works. 4:43:14 PM   comment []

© Copyright 2002 Toby Sackton. Last update: 12/26/2002; 9:30:20 PM.