Posted by lil' jimi on December 11, 2005, at 1:35:30
In reply to War, posted by Toph on December 8, 2005, at 9:23:35
hi Toph,
you writes us:
> Of course it is not possible, but it seems that Einstein was thinking of the current administration's handling of the invasion of Iraq when he said:
>
> We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
> -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)while not seeking to ignore the misogyny and plagiarisms of the quoted physicist, we may still take his words’ point as your observation on the war in Iraq.
may i offer these insights into the thinking that has been and is still being used in the war in Iraq?
please see:
http://www.alternet.org/story/15860
“From "creative destruction" to "total war," the guiding beliefs of the most aggressive foreign policymakers in the Bush administration may originate in the works of an influential yet rarely seen neoconservative. ... (snip) ... Most Americans have never heard of Michael Ledeen, but if the United States ends up in an extended shooting war throughout the Middle East, it will be largely due to his inspiration.”personally i find professor ledeen’s approach just short of all out hegemonic imperialism.
well maybe not that much short.alternatively, notwithstanding Einstein’s personal crimes, his quotation would seem to seek a rectification that would not succumb to the problems to be rectified.
And that is a contrast to the approach the administration has seemed to be using in Iraq.but Einstein also knew that we used military might to defeat the military might of Nazi germany.
we use speeding police to catch speeders.
and they say fight fire with fire, you know.perhaps there is more to the ironic inconsistencies of Einstein’s advice than his sins as a husband, tragic as they were. There is still that moral consistency in not executing killers. But we justify homicide in self defense.
an alternative quotation might to be “Do unto to others as you would have them do unto you.”
somebody said that.
i don’t know if they beat their wife.then we could argue whether we really would want Iraq to invade us if Saddam was our president ...
but let’s not.
i really like special relativity. and general relativity.
more seriously, i would suggest that we should be alarmed that Ledeen’s thinking has any part in U.S. policy making and i am willing to entertain any arguments that emphasize the folly of such nationalistic hubris.
for instance, see:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Michael_Ledeen
http://www.amconmag.com/06_30_03/feature.html
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/25/214643/42still, i endorse the gist of your proposal: we need different thinking about Iraq.
my suggestion is we replace the thinking by having the policy makers replaced.
they are proven failures.take care,
~ jim
poster:lil' jimi
thread:586858
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20051121/msgs/587969.html