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Month: November 2003

No deal

Ordinarily, I’d be pretty dubious about this report, but one of the sources is Richard Perle. If it’s true, Iraq was trying pretty hard to negotiate a peace — including allowing thousands of US scientists into the country to look for WMDs and UN-sponsored free elections.

One could argue that Saddam would have gone back on his deal. But it would have been a lot easier getting international support for an invasion at that point.

Gwen tipped me to the story. Josh Marshall has more wary commentary. If Marshall is right, mind you, it says interesting things about Perle’s willingness to screw the Pentagon and CIA for political gain.

There can be only three

So, about Matrix: Revolutions

It was worth ten bucks for me to watch the Wachowskis do cool visual sequences, and I don’t just mean the SFX. They do astounding visual stuff better than just about anyone. Check out Bound sometime, which is an utterly beautifully filmed movie with no special effects at all. Revolutions does not disappoint there.

Plot? Yeah, there’s plot. It’s less unwieldly than Reloaded, and not as complex as one might suspect or expect. But don’t see it for the screenplay.

There wasn’t ever going to be more than one Matrix experience. How could there be? Revolutions is good, even if it isn’t shockingly new.

Future transmissions

I dropped by Tom Kratman’s web board the other day to find out what my favorite Baen author had been up to lately, and found this excerpt from an upcoming novel:

Thomas felt unwelcome tears. He forced them back only with difficulty. So gallant, so brave they were, those boys over there fighting and dying against such odds, and with so little hope.

Gribeauvil, seeing the boy’s emotions written upon his twisted face, said, “Yes, son; give them their due. They are a great people, a magnificent people. And we are damned lucky to have them, now.”

Thomas agreed. And more; he thought of himself, alone, trying to save his mother and little brother from the alien menace. He wished to be a man, was becoming one, he knew. But alone he could never have made the slightest difference for his family’s survival. That took an army, an army of brave men and boys, willing to give their all for the cause of their people.

Perhaps for the first time, Thomas began to feel a deep pride, not so much in himself, but in the men he served with, in the army they served, and even in the black-clad, lightning bolt-signified, corps that was a part of that army.

Thomas was learning.

“Those boys” would be SS soldiers. The black-clad lightning bolt-signified corps is the SS. And don’t forget the depersonalization — Thomas is nothing by himself. He can only matter as part of an army. In this case, he only matters because he’s part of the SS.

Someone asked Kratman why he chose the SS. He gave three reasons:

a) Good troops taking, in many cases, a bum rap. b) a way to further annoy the left, literarily. c) Moreover, though you doubtless have not been following the snippets, in the context of John Ringo’s Posverse ALL mankind are going to become something very like them…the few who survive anyway.

Yeah. The SS weren’t so bad, it’s fun using shock tactics to piss people off, and everyone’s going to wind up like the SS in that universe anyhow.

Successful roots

I’ve mentioned before that the key to Dean’s success is redirecting the blog energy out into the real world. Here’s an example. The Internet is just a tool for communication. Using it as such works. No mystic special nature, no slogans needed, no marketing fluff. It’s just a way for people to talk more easily.

I get value out of asking my friends about movies they’ve seen and reading newspaper reviews; thus, I get value out of using movie review aggregators. Presidential candidates get value out of recruiting get out the vote workers; thus, they get value out of doing the same damned thing online.

It’s just that communication which previously had to be local can now be global.

Monday Mashup #16: Stairway to Heaven

I’m feeling musical again today, but this time we’ll go for a specific song rather than an entire musical oeuvre. Our mashup of the week is "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin.

Now, I’m no Led Zeppelin expert, but I read that song as describing some significantly transformative events. I’m pretty sure the lady in question is making bad, materialistic choices. And I think we have a few Tolkien references. Seems like that ought to be enough to work with.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Speechifying

Your reading material for the morning: Zbigniew Brzezinski’s New American Strategies for Security and Peace speech.

The second condition, troubling condition, which contributes in my view to the crisis of credibility and to the state of isolation in which the United States finds itself today is due in part because that skewed view of the world is intensified by a fear that periodically verges on panic that is in itself blind.

I find his practicality particularly compelling. His comments on Russia make it crystal-clear that he is not a dictator-loving leftist stereotype. His comments on intelligence and the requirement for a competent intelligence service are spot on.

What is democracy

Saith noted pacifist and anti-war activist E. E. “Doc” Smith:

Why was all this necessary? This organization, this haste, this split-second timing, this city-wide exhibition of insane hippodrome riding? Why were not all these motorcycle-racers not stationed at their posts, so as to be ready for any emergency? Because America, being a democracy, could not strike first, but had to wait—wait in instant readiness—until she was actually attacked.

Triplanetary, 1948, page 90 of the Old Earth Books edition

Holy war

First, read this post.

OK. So, yeah, blogfight. I don’t really want to get into the question of who’s a Democrat and who’s not, since I’m not a Democrat — y’all can have your own arguments. I will say, tangentially, that I do not think Kevin’s comment regarding liberal qualifications is any more divisive or damaging than the belief that criticizing Bush is traitorous. And that’s all I wanna say about that.

What I really wanna talk about is the whole “war of civilizations” thing. Bluntly, it’s hyperaggressive mouthbreathing. There is a relatively small Muslim population that would like to see the West wiped out. This does not constitute a war of civilizations any more than the existence of the Patriot movement constitutes a war of civilizations. It’s terrorism driven by ideological motivations. That’s all.

By calling this a war of civilizations, you imply that the entire Islamic civilization is at war with us. That’s not true. It is, in fact, a lie.

The flip side of that question — whether or not we’re at war with Islamic civilization — is murkier. To rephrase: who’s the aggressor? More on this later.