jottings

Ok - I'm not really a blogger, am I?

Gap is postings is just far too regular and huge. So I'm probably giving up.

But some thoughts that are bouncing round my head...

#1 It's not so easy anymore to be anti-war.

Stop the war are still going you know. God knows why. I mean what are they protesting about, & why? There's this thing about troops out, but surely anyone can see it's got to be more complex than that. Not that I don't think those who point to the resentment and anger that occupying forces cause have a point (they do). But... look this is my point. Iraq is here. It's real. It's messy.

Frankly the time for simplistic rallying cries are long gone. If the stop the war people came up with a tidy, and politically and practically feasible, way of resolving the situation Bush would steal it like a shot. The time for campaigning is over. It's got to be sustained, deep thinking, hard work that will get everyone out of it now.

#2 Things have changed

Not so much to this one - just noticing though that it's practically a done deal that Russia and VietNam are joining the WTO. Take a second to roll that round your head. Latter day communist bete noires (apologies to those offended by the lack of accents - can't be bothered to work out how to do & would get it wrong anyway) are now the newest members of a club reviled for being the apogee of the western capitalist way. (Whether it is or not is another question, it's reviled.)

Actually this exemplifies something I thought about #1 above. These are both stupidly obvious observations. But they didn't used to be. We need to mark this, we need to be aware of it. People are both good and bad at adapting. We're so good we barely remember that things did, not so long ago, used to be different. We're so bad that unless we get poked with a sharp stick, or lured with sweeties, we don't change our behaviour. We're incredibly bad at doing what we think seperates us from the animals - i.e. not just thinking but acting on that thinking.

Ok. Enough for now.