I think they’re just hyperactive from watching the endless loops of “Saddam statues come crashing down” on Fox News. Must be too much sugar. 
not sugar, rjung…dopamine. Its euphoria. a natural high produced when expectations are met in a dramatic way. A mental orgasm so to speak. Let them have their spasm. Hopefully it’ll die down in a couple of days. Think of it as intellectual looting.
Really good analysis, Mandelstam!
Personally, I don’t want to go back in time any paltry couple of months. I want to go back to the summer of 2000. I’d bring with me (a) every bit of money I could come up with, and (b) a sample of the West Palm Beach ballot. First, I’d go to a Kinkos and run off a big batch of copies of the ballot. Next, I’d hire a bunch of people to go all over West Palm Beach, showing the ballot to people and explaining it.
Also, I’d alert the African-American citizens of Florida that they all need, in advance of the election, to check to see that they are still on the voting rolls.
Either action would be enough to insure a Gore victory in Florida, but I’m a belt-and-suspenders kinda person, so I’d do both.
Gore would probably not have been one of history’s great Presidents – but he would not have started this ghastly war. Nor would he have instituted the global gag rule. Nor would he have inflicted “abstinence only” on the nation’s youth. Nor would he have pulled us out of the Kyoto Treaty.
And then there’s 9/11. Would it have happened under any other President then Bush? Wouldn’t just about any other possible President have heeded the warning signs? Under any President other then Bush, couldn’t the whole thing have been averted?
And, as icing on the cake, the economy would be in way better shape today.
Exactly. Every antiwar person I know expected a short war with relatively few casualties on the US side. After Afghanistan, it was clear that conventional ground forces were something from, well, the last century.
But having the ability to overwhelm the Iraqi military as if we were invading from the 24th century, doesn’t necessarily mean this will ultimately play out the way its proponents hope it will.
What are you talking about? People don’t protest just because the right to protest is one of life’s priorities.
I’ll tell you something I’ve honestly been thinking over the last few weeks, newcrasher. If I could go back two months in time, I would protest more. I would try to do more to stop the war, and encourage others to do the same. I feel ashamed that my opposition to this war was so passive. I should have done more to stop it.