[Peace-discuss] The National Hystoria

["E. Wayne Johnson 朱稳森"]

Chomsky, clever linguist that he is, no doubt is referring to the 
in-general-use connotation of hysteria
rather than the fallen-into-disuse etymologic denotation... but he 
definitely provides an excellent summary
of the American majority opinion.

    It might be instructive to ask ourselves how we would be reacting if
    Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated
    him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic (after proper burial rites,
    of course). Uncontroversially, he is not a “suspect” but the
    “decider” who gave the orders to invade Iraq -- that is, to commit
    the “supreme international crime differing only from other war
    crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the
    whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals
    were hanged: in Iraq, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions
    of refugees, destruction of much of the country and the national
    heritage, and the murderous sectarian conflict that has now spread
    to the rest of the region. Equally uncontroversially, these crimes
    vastly exceed anything attributed to bin Laden.

    To say that all of this is uncontroversial, as it is, is not to
    imply that it is not denied. The existence of flat earthers does not
    change the fact that, uncontroversially, the earth is not flat.
    Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Stalin and Hitler were
    responsible for horrendous crimes, though loyalists deny it. All of
    this should, again, be too obvious for comment, and would be, except
    in */an atmosphere of hysteria so extreme that it blocks rational
    thought. /*

    http://www.zcommunications.org/there-is-much-more-to-say-by-noam-chomsky


Despite his brilliant diagnosis, Chomsky does not suggest a treatment 
for the condition.

The Victorian remedy seems to have some merit and
the analogous prescription is what I suggest to the Powers-that-Be.

On the other hand, the equivalent, self-supplied, seems to typify the 
American attitude.

"...oh, well...where was I...?" - Flakey Foont.

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