or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
•
"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
May 16, 2008
New At Tomdispatch
Kiss American Security Goodbye
15 Numbers That Add Up to an Age of Insecurity
By Tom EngelhardtOnce upon a time, I studied the Chinese martial art of Tai Chi -- until, that is, I realized I would never locate my "chi." At that point, I threw in the towel and took up Western exercise. Still, the principle behind Tai Chi stayed with me -- that you could multiply the force of an act by giving way before the force of others; that a smaller person could use the strength of a bigger one against him.
Now, jump to September 11, 2001 and its aftermath -- and you know the Tai Chi version of history from there. Think of it as a grim cosmic joke -- that the 9/11 attacks, as apocalyptic as they looked, were anything but. The true disasters followed and the wounds were largely self-inflicted, as the most militarily powerful nation on the planet used its own force to disable itself...
When the history of this era is finally written, based on the Tai Chi Principle, Osama bin Laden and his scattering of followers may be credited for goading the fundamentalist leaders of the United States into using the power in their grasp so -- not to put a fine point on it -- stupidly and profligately as to send the planet's "sole superpower" into decline. Above all, bin Laden and his crew of fanatics will have ensured one thing: that the real security problems of our age were ignored in Washington until far too late in favor of mad dreams and dark phantoms. In this lies a bleak but epic tale of folly worthy of a great American novelist (wherever she is).
In the meantime, consider the following little list -- 15 numbers that offer an indication of just what the Tai Chi Principle meant in action these last years; just where American energies did and did not flow; and, in the end, just how much less safe we are now than we were in January 2001, when George W. Bush entered the Oval Office:
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at May 16, 2008 10:10 AMImagine a government pondering requiring collision avoidance systems in airplanes, adding
Posted by: cavjam at May 16, 2008 11:19 AMApparently, the "less than" sign followed by zero cuts off the rest of the post. Too bad. It was brilliant. I'll try to remember the unbrilliant parts.
Imagine a government pondering requiring separated cockpits and collision avoidance systems in airplanes, adding less than 0.1% to the cost of a plane; imagine the subsequent election of an actual corporate shill (real live spokesman for GE and AT&T); imagine that election facilitated by right-wing religious (Muslim) theocrats; imagine the agency charged with airline oversight then becoming a de facto subsidiary of the airlines with the requisite disappearance of air marshals, separated cockpits and collision avoidance (mustn't remind the little people that air travel might be dangerous); imagine twenty years later right-wing religious nuts with $29 in hardware store goods bringing the most powerful nation, completely in thrall to corporate power and right-wing religious (Xian) nuts, in world history to its knees by taking advantage of the corporate-written laughable airline security. Sophocles woulda howled at the strata of irony and the fitting comeuppance wrought by hubris; Shakespeare woulda been speechless.
Posted by: cavjam at May 16, 2008 11:49 AMAs I heard the story, the fundamentalist leaders wanted to invade Iraq anyway (plans for this action being made way back when) and the 9/11 was more of an excuse, than a goad.
Posted by: Monkay at May 16, 2008 03:03 PMTom forgets to mention that, before Osama did his Tai Chi moves on the U.S., he helped do the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
Two superpowers taken down in one lifetime? If it weren't for all the repressed Afghanis that resulted after the Soviets pulled out, I might be tempted to conclude that the fundamentalist Muslim thing is just an act, and he's really some kind of Eastern spiritual master (particularly since all of this just hastens the day that the Chinese rule the world).
Posted by: Whistler Blue at May 16, 2008 05:02 PM
