Intelligence Wars

[Mutualcode at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/22/03 3:45:13 AM, davidmmonroe at yahoo.com writes:

<< Equally powerful is Powers's commentary on why the
Kennedy assassination remains a seminal event in
American politics. It changed the United States from a
profoundly optimistic country, he says, to one where
"we stopped thinking about what we might become as a
nation, and started looking for whom to blame." The
conspiracy thinking that had largely been restricted
to the extreme ends of the political spectrum in the
McCarthy period became a national phenomenon after
November 1963. 
 >>

Much the same has been said about the destruction of the
twin towers on September 11, 2001. Lakoff implicitly
refers to the Kennedy assassination in his article on
September 11th:

http://www.metaphorik.de/aufsaetze/lakoff-september11.htm

And goes on to analyze the use and mis-use of metaphor by the
government inorder to get the public behind the war (in this case
on terrorism). 

<< This idea that at times American intelligence has
exhibited insufficient courage assumes even more
importance in the three thoughtful essays about Sept.
11.... As in 1941, the difficulty has been not so much
an unwillingness to take risks as a failure of
imagination.... >>

War seems to fall into the category of "a failure of
imagination."

respectfully