First, one hates to do this (or, to be more precise, I hate to do this) but once in a while David Brooks is right, as in correct, as opposed to Right as in Wrong (though I suspect that it’s no coincidence that this occurred one day after a Blue Moon.). He points out that in any complex human system, failure is inevitable, and we oughta suck it up, remain calm and carry on instead of freaking out and demanding heads on platters. Money quote:
During the middle third of the 20th century, Americans had impressive faith in their own institutions. It was not because these institutions always worked well. The Congress and the Federal Reserve exacerbated the Great Depression. The military made horrific mistakes during World War II, which led to American planes bombing American troops and American torpedoes sinking ships with American prisoners of war.
But there was a realistic sense that human institutions are necessarily flawed. History is not knowable or controllable.
Whole thing is worth reading.
Now for something completely different: What do John Cleese and the Fundie-Undie Bomber have in common? Hint: Upper-Class Twits.
No need for anything messy like heads on a platter-
not with a Democratic Administration in office….
I’d like to differ. First, we knew after 9/11 that the institutions specifically designed for collecting intelligence on our enemies were not communicating with each other and that this failure directly lead to allowing known terrorists on airplanes. This apparently was not a lesson learned. Secondly, I don’t think this has anything to do with spoiled rich kid as much as it does colliding cultures and the west’s invasion of muslim lands.
Meh. He’s right in a general sense that in any sustem failure is inevitable. And he’s right in that in the effort to not have suicidal people come attack us anytime and place they want…um…of course they are going to succeed from time to time no matter what we do. (Actually, they’re sort of on a roll. that insertion of a CIA wannabe into the CIA who blew up the CIA center guiding the drones was pretty smart. Gotta hand it to ’em, they sure know how to leverage their assets and penetrate our weaknesses).
But in the main Brooks is wrong wrong wrong because IN THIS CASE all we hadda do was have CIA Yemen give a jingle to CIA Lagos. “Hi we’re the guys over in the Cia in Yemen, you know, we have intell about some Nigerian being involved in a plot. Then we had this FANTASTIC GENIUS IDEA that INSTEAD OF FILING THIS INFORMATION IN THE MEGADATABASE, WE’D GIVE YOU GUYS OVER THERE ****IN NIGERIA*** A CALL TO SEE IF YOU’VE HEARD ANYTHING LATELY.”
“Why, you’re in luck, in fact, just recently this big banker dude demanded to be let in the embassy and he told us his kid was over there in Yemen and we should watch him.”
“Hey, wait a minute, we’re in Yemen over here”
“Wow,,….what if…you don’t suppose…..gee maybe the intell in Yemen referring to a Nigerian is ABOUT THE SAME DUDE as the warning in Nigeria referring to some guy going to Yemen???”
“Wow, that would sure be a conincidence, wouldn’t it. MAYBE WE SHOULD FUCKING CHECK IT OUT”
Oops, out of character there, the last yelling was me.
After all, humans and human institutions are flawed.
Carter was flawed.
God, Carter was flawed…
Clinton was flawed.
Bless his heart.
Obama?
Flawed.
(just so say it out loud around him- one of his flaws is that he doesn’t realize how flawed he is….)
The doctor who amputated the wrong foot on my grandfather?
Flawed.
oops…
The prosecutor who wrongly convicted my cousin of murder and put him on death row?
Flawed.
sorry!
The local factory dumping mercury into the river?
You guessed it.
Flawed.
But, Hey!
We’re humans!
It no biggie.
Really.
Our Laws?
Flawed.
Imperfect.
The voters?
ditto.
For example-
Some folks can’t get married.
(I know- UNBELIEVABLE!)
Can’t marry the person they LOVE…
. . . *sob!*
(for example, Cindy Crawford won’t even return my calls….)
What to do?
easy…
People oughta suck it up, remain calm and carry on instead of freaking out.
Suck.It.Up.
Remain Calm.
Do Not Freak Out.
Seconding Chicago Fan. I don’t often agree with David Brooks, but he really nailed it.
This speaks to a larger thread of stupidity and childishness running through the American psyche. We have this God complex about the president, and not just Obama but especially Obama. We expect this one man to singlehandedly reform health care and change Washington and free the gays and stop Iran while we all just sit back passively like spectators and, Mr. Obama, while we’re expecting you to singledhandedly fix all our nation’s and the world’s problems, don’t expect any of us to make any sacrifices or commitments or compromises to help you do what we want you to do.
It’s like we demand presidents to be this combination of Jesus Christ and Josef Stalin and Santa Claus all rolled up into one, and then we’re all supposed to get disappointed and disillusioned with him when he proves to be a mere mortal. Well, democracy is not a spectator sport and we have only ourselves to be disappointed in.
Yes, OK.
But during the middle third of the Twentieth Century, how were dissenters treated? I seem to remember something about those who questioned time-honored social and government institutions in America getting crosses burned on their lawns or getting blacklisted or called before Congress if they didn’t shut up and keep waving the flag.
It’s kind of like saying there were no gays in the 1930-50s or there was no domestic violence in the int he 30s to 50s or race relations were great during WWII. It wasn’t like the stuff didn’t happen; but you had to be Emma Freaking Goldman to have the balls to complain.
By the way, it’s so hard to separate the response of the American public from the response of the media to this pathetic, little, tinfoil-hat foiled attempted terrorist attack. If you only watched CNN, you’d get the impression that we were a nation in crisis because of one spoiled, little loser from Nigeria.
There’s a fundamental misconception that both the terrorists and the Dick Cheneys of the world try to exploit. It’s that we somehow can and must make our country perfectly safe from terror attacks. But in this hopeless quest to do the practical equivalent of “proving a negative,” we end up just making ourselves even more vulnerable.
What’s so great about the Iraqis lately is that the suicide bombers there have tried to kill as many innocents as they can to incite a Sunni vs. Shi’ite holy war, and the people have listened to their leaders and refused to take the bait. And unlikely the crotch bomber, those suicide bombers have actually killed people
Elenchos is right. (I never thought I’d say that). You dumbasses who think life was a bed of roses during the period of 1933-1966 never lived through any of it. Google “McCarthyism” for starters.
On the topic of terrorism, we need to understand first and foremost that Islam is not a “religion of peace.” Anybody who says it is really doesn’t know what they’re talking about. How you go about cracking down on people because of a religion, though – well, that’s a good one. I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe we could start by coming up with a genetically engineered virus that will kill everybody, and putting the antidote in pork. Hey, it’s a better idea than what you can come up with.
Obviously, it’s only terror if we’re scared. And it only works as a tactic if we overreact, like scared people do.
Just what do we buy with the 50 billion a year that goes into the CIA ? (50 more or less, who knows??)
Shit, you are really a bunch of stupid sheep. NO it is not OK to have total system failure… this time or in the future. Get real.
Next time it is a suitcase nuke that works.
God help us if in any one of hundreds of safety moments someone says – “oh, just a little fucking around is OK”.
It ain’t.
Stupid sheep wanting to ignore reality. Very American in this era.No expectations of anything or anyone.
David Brooks is a tool and a fool.
“We thought that had been remedied,” said Senator Kit Bond, as if omniscience could be accomplished with legislation.
In my opinion the above quote is the money quote. When you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail. When all you can do is legislate you believe that legislation can solve all problems. Unfortunately this logical trap has caught the people in charge of our country and we need to remain calm.
Wow, these comments boards can really be a magnet for idiots.
Fifty-Two-Eighty @10:
Wow, an Islam expert within our midst. I’m sooo honored.
Hey moron, by your same standards Christianity and Judaism are not “religions of peace” either. Anybody can go into any of these ancient major religion’s holy books and cherrypick nuggets advocating genocide, violent revenge, treating women as property, on and on.
#14
Well, since you didn’t get your genitals mutilated, don’t wear a sack, share your male with three other women or more, are not allowed to drive or do advanced anything – well – I bet you are not throwback Muslim.
Backward Muslims are way, way backward. Sorry to break the news.
Someone mentioned suitcase nukes, if they could they would. Whomever those people are, they are the enemy.
It is not illusion.
I have little fear of the bible belt, even as I dislike home grown fundies. Middle eastern funded terrorists, from throwback pieces of the Muslim religion, I fear them to the max.
Dream states, oh don’t be silly-they are nice people we just don’t understand, will not keep our cities intact.
14/cressona: ‘Hey moron, by your same standards Christianity and Judaism are not “religions of peace” either. Anybody can go into any of these ancient major religion’s holy books and cherrypick nuggets advocating genocide, violent revenge, treating women as property, on and on.’
Most Muslims are peaceful but there is an intolerant and violent streak in present-day Islam that that is more rabid than any such streak in present-day Christianity or Judaism. You don’t find Christians rioting, attacking embassies and killing people over cartoons featuring Jesus.
If you were given two drawings, one of Jesus fucking a goat and the other of Muhammed doing the same thing, and you had to enter a room full of 10 Christian fundamentalists with the Jesus drawing or a room full of 10 Islamic fundamentalists with the Muhammed drawing, I can guarantee you that you’d choose the room with the Christians because you’d rather be beaten up than have your head sliced off.
Roma @16:
Actually, this is very much my point. The problem is not in Islam itself (however violent many of its original teachings may be). The problem is that it is interpreted that way. By this same standard, the Spanish Inquisition would have been reason enough to forever condemn Christianity as hopeless and evil.
There’s one thing I’ll give George W. Bush credit for. He went out of his way to distinguish between the terrorists and Islam. It’s a distinction that might not make morons like 5280 above feel good, but I’d like to think our leaders can reach for higher goals sometimes.
Most laughable is the very idea that some sort of *report* filed at our Nigerian embassy about this kid should have been shared as intelligence. What world do these people live on? It was all insignificant African crap until he set his balls on fire in. Our embassy could have faxed the CIA hourly with pages on this boy, and it wouldn’t have registered.
17/cressona: “Actually, this is very much my point. The problem is not in Islam itself (however violent many of its original teachings may be). The problem is that it is interpreted that way.”
Thanks. Yes, the problem is in the interpretation of the “holy” works of both Christianity and Islam. However, I happen to agree with critics of Islam that a literalist intepretation is much more prevalent in Islam than in Christianity and I believe that largely accounts for the violent streak that is more rabid. Liberal and moderate Muslims exist but I believe they are a smaller percentage of believers within their faith compared with Christians and that that lack of numbers hinders them in their ability to counter the fundamentalists.
Christians have been guilty of many horrific things in the past, the Spanish Inquisition being one. But, for the most part, those things are in the past. The violent streak in Islam is very much in the present (and Islam was very violent in the past too; Muslims didn’t make it to the Pyrenees and the gates of Vienna by handing out free coffee and figs.)
Bush’s “War on Terror” was never a “War on Muslims.” Only fundamentalist Muslims and Bush-hating lefties saw, or painted, it that way. His decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam actually allowed a more religious group of Iraqi Muslims, the Shiites, to gain power. That’s hardly a “War on Muslims.”
Brooks is just trying to pass the blame for GWB/Cheney issuing visas to terrorists, setting up an unworkable and non-functional privacy-invading TSA that never could stop a well-trained terrorist (and still can’t, no matter what they tell you), and the cold hard fact that the neocon GOP has helped the Saudis – who attacked us on 9-11 and still to this very day provide 100 percent of the Wahhabi extremist ideology, and almost all (more than 90 percent) of the volunteers and money that fuels al-Qaeda.
But, hey, bygones. It’s not like David and the rest of the neocons got us into two wars that have zilch to do with America’s real enemy …
In Maureen Dowd’s NYT column today, where she’s talking with Janet Napolitano…
I did my best to not read most of the comments, because I saw something about Islam and Bush and I have work I actually need to do today. As opposed to spending the next hour commenting.
BUT I will say this, which is what I came into the comments to say: John Cleese is so cool. I have liked him since I can remember. I am not even in my mid-20s yet, and he is getting pretty darn old, but I would still date and/or fuck him, for sure. God that’s so wrong, but GOD he is so charming and just… incomparable.