On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, The Fool wrote:
> It's like a meme. If the people see this guy try and resist and although
> he gets gunned down he was still willing to try...
>
> To simplify: it's a choice between a slow death, and a fast death.
>
> Granted I don't see free Iraqis happening anytime soon.
And my point is: Saddam Hussein is perfectly conscious of the power of
this particular meme, and has crafted a security-state calculated to
combat it by inflitrating society sufficiently with informers that you
never know if you can trust your neighbor, on the one hand, and on the
other hand by providing a morality play--with a mythical warrior-hero
persona fighting a mythical enemy on the other--to occupy people's minds.
I think that the odds of a spontaneous revolution happening under these
circumstances are about as remote as the odds that tomorrow all Americans
will cut up their credit cards and burn their TVs even though most
Americans know that it sucks to be in debt and that nearly everything on
TV is cerebral novacaine. It'll take a reinvention of the universe as it
exists in public consciousness, not just a series of momentum-building
acts of valor.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
"If you will not grant me victory, then grant me vengeance!"
Conan the Barbarian
"Blessed are the peacemakers."
Jesus Christ
