Reading Material
Friday, January 9th, 2004 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flwydI think there's an impression that the armed forces is a male-dominated, hierarchical, authoritarian institution. -- Wes Clark (NY Times free registration required)
Linked from Slashdot today: How to Deconstruct Almost Anything, a short introduction to postmodernism from a computer programmer which both explains and makes fun of the subject (which I think is an admirable pairing for almost any discourse).
The best opinion piece on Iraq and the War on Terror I've seen in quite some time is currently on Salon: Ferry Biedermannn's Winning the battle against terror, losing the war of ideas. (You may need to view an ad to read it, but it's worth it.) He distributes criticism liberally to those that deserve it (which is most of the players) and doesn't seem to do so with any particular political motive beyond cessation of world terror and improvements of lives the world over.
You should really read the whole thing, because it lays out an argument with several prongs, but I like the following quotes out of context as well:
Linked from Slashdot today: How to Deconstruct Almost Anything, a short introduction to postmodernism from a computer programmer which both explains and makes fun of the subject (which I think is an admirable pairing for almost any discourse).
The best opinion piece on Iraq and the War on Terror I've seen in quite some time is currently on Salon: Ferry Biedermannn's Winning the battle against terror, losing the war of ideas. (You may need to view an ad to read it, but it's worth it.) He distributes criticism liberally to those that deserve it (which is most of the players) and doesn't seem to do so with any particular political motive beyond cessation of world terror and improvements of lives the world over.
You should really read the whole thing, because it lays out an argument with several prongs, but I like the following quotes out of context as well:
My experience of U.S. senators is limited, but it seems to me that the United States needs leaders who are not quite so unfamiliar with the rest of the world and not quite so smug.
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The problem is that in the Bush administration, the U.S. does not have the great defender of liberal values that the West needs at this crucial point in history. An ideologically extreme group that is mean-spirited about a whole range of liberal, civil-liberties and personal-choice issues, from abortion to the environment, from tax-breaks for the rich and crony capitalism to gnawing away at benefits for the poor, does not a good defender of the West make.
