re: #40 iceweasel

One thing, looking back, is that 9/11 sort of re-oriented the entire country for awhile. During the Clinton Presidency I remember the weird growing… indeed, Bedell himself apparently bought into the Clinton Body-count conspiracy given his fixation with Col. Sabow.

Now that the first effects of 9/11 are wearing off, the older, more fundamental trends may be re-emerging.

One thought I’ve had lately, and this will not endear me to some, is that the sociopathy of large sections of our nation arise out of a dramatic, irreconcilable clash between the psyche’s need of a particular world view with a different reality, a reality some of us think is indeed the real world.

I’m speaking here of religion, but not necessarily castigating Christianity per se, but the National Religion that dresses up as Christianity (but fails on a closer theological evaluation.)

Revanchism has to have as its heart fear. Humans have basic emotions - fear, happiness, sadness, etc. These higher concepts (nationality, religion, etc.) must be related to the deeper seated emotions.

Fear of the future is the driving force behind all of this, I propose. In Europe they have gone through their Post-Christian catharsis - or at least most of it, we seem to be seeing the end of it now in the Serbia/Kosovo mess and the continued unwinding in Post Soviet Russia.

We in the US have not gone through this emotional/intellectual purge of the old thoughts, the old ways, completely. Maybe, looking back, the 1960’s was a start to the process, but the 1979 Iran Hostage crisis and the rise of Ronald Reagan sort of stopped it. Then in the Clinton years the process started again… and then 9/11 really pulled the breaks.

Perhaps once again we are now starting to engage in this purge of the old-thought, at least until the next external military threat pulls us outward again.

Introspection is difficult because we have to look at what is ugly about ourselves.