10.10.06

Apocalypse Now ?

Chris Hedge on the coming Iran war and Bush's nuclear apocalypse. (Thanks L.M.)

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chatastrophizing ... but if true, it will indeed be chatastrophic. I picked up the phone and called my husband: "Will they attack?", I asked. "The math doesn't work", he replied!

I can still not fathom Americans will dare to go to war with Iran. But precisely this over-confidence of the mathematical proportion might intrigue them to prove the unbelievers wrong! After all, as you said, these people are not after world-peace; but after world-chaos! Will they acheive the apocalyptic preconditions of the return of the Messaih? I nervously grin!

Sophia, you suggested that we should work tirelessly. But how can we take on CNN? And the bigger friend of ignorance is not the corporate media, but the corporate "time zone!" Who can find the time to follow the news and seek the truth? I sent a link to this blog to a friend; his response was "I wonder how people find time to make these soap-boxes." he said, "I don't even have time to read one article through."

At times of depression, truth never sells easily; people become apathetic. (Have you noticed the return of the superheros to cinema screens?) I wish to work tirelessly, but if truth was to acheive something, the Iraq war and the Afghan war were there to take lessons from. Did anyone learn enough to not vote these people into office? (And now a new lost election on the horizon, how to hang on to power? Creat foriegn crisis! Nothing new there: to divert attention from internal scandals by creating external chaos, and creating the fear conditions that prevent people from envisioning change!)

That we are in the same position that we were when Bush branded the Axis of Evil, makes me highly skeptical that my activism, unless makes a big buzz in some big media, will go far. Perhaps we didn't work hard enough the first time around?

Anonymous said...

Sophia... I did a minor bit of checking around on this; Hedges (whom I respect and admire) is right, the carrier group left Norfolk for the waters off the coasts of Iran, but only to relieve the Enterprize carrier group that has been there for the past year; that group is scheduled to leave and return to the United States, its crews having been overspent by a good number of "sorties" over Afghanistan and Iraq. If that's the case, we have less to worry about, though one never knows with this administration of course.

From the Associated Press: "The Eisenhower, nearly 29 years old, entered Northrop Grumman's Newport News shipyard in May 2001 for a $1.5 billion mid-life refueling of two nuclear reactors and an overhaul. That was completed in March 2005.

The ship conducted sea trials until October 2005, and its crew and air wing have been training for the deployment ever since.

The Enterprise deployed in May and is to return home next month.

During June and July, the Enterprise launched 781 aircraft sorties, bombing enemy positions as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and 237 aircraft sorties in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the release said."

Sophia said...

Naj,

Sorry for answering late this comment. People are apathetic because they think that they should act only if their actions produce results. This is not my idea of action. We should do whatever we can to work for peace so we cannot blame ourselves for not having acted before when tragedy falls upon us.

Sophia said...

Pierre,

Thanks for the fresh and first hand news. I am not capable to judge if they are reassuring or if we should be worried by these facts. Lets just hope that there will not be another ugly war in the middle east...

Wolfie said...

The BBC are onto this one too :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/5409816.stm

Though if they went for it they would find themselves very alone.

Anonymous said...

Hi Sophia,

You are right about action. I think these days I am just pondering about how to maximize the effectiveness of the action.

Cheers
Naj

I wonder why I cannot post messages unless I choose "anonymous"!

Sophia said...

Naj,
It is because you don't have a blogger account I guess. Did you try choosing 'Other' ? Because sometimes it works, sometimes you are posting under 'Naj' and others under 'Anonymous'.
But please Naj, prepare for your exam before...

Anonymous said...

Yes my exam of course; which is giving me the existentialist creeps nowadays! I am going to prove that there are two types of people on the earth; those who are stressable, and those who are not! I will then conclude that people who are not stressable have bigger better brains! Oh of course the society that funds my research also is doing ample number of studies to show people who have low SES, or are living in trauma zones will end up with lower, lowlier, tinier brains and cognitive abilities! This keeps making me think of all these trauma zones that the American zones are creating! All the stress conditions they are perfecting! Oh dear; where would my faith be if I didn't believe human resilience leaves behind our petty experiments in these merry-go lucky laboratoires where our grand idea of making people remember associations is to show them pictures of people who are evil, and people who are good! ( No this is not a joke, we were given an example of evil too: Osama!--I added to it George for the fun of it!... and yes this suggestion was made by an icons of stress research ... well no I didn't canonize her, the academia did!)

Speaking of resilience, did you know what's the common line of resistance in Iran in response to threat of sanctions? "Go ahead impose your sanctions, we have lived it once, what else is new?" Perhaps this will teach people something about how radicalism, fatalism, suicide-bombing mentalities come to exist. Some pseudo-scientist type, when 911 happened, turned to me and said "what's wrong with you people? You are crazy, someone should lock you up in jails." I asked "what do you mean by 'you people'? She then clarified how she means "all these crazy Palestinians who are disrupting the Israelie's peace".

Which reminds me to suggest Dariush Shayegan's Cultural Schizophrenia

Sorry Sophia I shall be quiet now.

Sophia said...

Naj,

I have never seen Neurosicence so close to Politics or at least the human motivations behind politics and the effects of politics on our Mind. Unfortunately freud,s project for social psychology turned out to be a project for couch psychology and social psychology of our time is turned toward quantitative assessements of phenomena. May be Neuroscience can take over this field, you know, what it means to be an immoral leader, a nation of cretins, a power freeak, an agressive head of state, a violent Politician, a warmongerer....
I think a Neuroscience Project for the New Century can be a good antidote to the American project for the New Century (APNC) which is dictating the actual US's policies in the middle east...

Sophia said...

Wolfie,

I didn't find the page but if you are talking about the docu 'Will israel bomb Iran?" It seems to me that the US and Israel will be going hand in hand to achieve this. Pretty gloomy picture, two unpopular regimes lightning with a nuclear row their last days in power...I think someone has get to stop this madness.

Wolfie said...

This very subject came up last night over dinner with friends, a British Jew and his Israeli wife.

I was adamant that Iran was no, or at least little threat to Israel in spite of the Theocratic nature of the Iranian regime. Interestingly he was convinced that Iran harboured designs of war, particularly of a nuclear offensive whereas his wife agreed that the threat was overstated or even bogus.

One thing is for sure; should the US or Israel decide that they do have the resources to attack Iran it will be the last gasp for the American century. Lets hope not shall we?

Anonymous said...

I just want to give a glimpse of what is happening in Iranian news.

Last week, Iranians had suggested that if the US abandons its threatening tone of sanctions and war and etc, they are willing to sign business contracts with three American aeronautic companies!

Well, today's reports say that Americans are going to sell spare parts for Iranian airplanes; this is apparently out of the goodness of their hearts because they don't want Iranians die in airplane crashes--well some 28 years too late to realize that; but good timing heh?!

Anonymous said...

will the nuclear powers stand up please?

Sophia said...

Anonymous,
Thanks for the links.

 
Since March 29th 2006