October 14, 2004

Ideology, cupidity, stupidity, and a certain tragically crass cunning...

William Gibson was persuaded, by a knowledgeable friend, that the US military and intelligence community understood the problem, but...

In the days after 9-11 I often took comfort in thinking of this man and the ideas he represented. When asked what I thought the United States would or could do in response to the attacks, I surprised friends by saying that I believed the US military's intelligentsia already understood the true nature of the conflict better than the enemy did.

And I still imagine that I was right in that. But the creative intelligence of my friend from the DoD, and so many others like him, prevailed not at all -- in the face of ideology, cupidity, stupidity, and a certain tragically crass cunning with regard to the mass pyschology of the American people.

One actually has to be something of a specialist, today, to even begin to grasp quite how fantastically, how baroquely and at once brutally fucked the situation of the United States has since been made to be.

Posted by jackhodgson at October 14, 2004 10:11 PM