Undermining Small Miracles

Conditions: Warm, Muggy.


Requiem For (A) Neocon.



Well, that just about wraps it up for Bush. And his legacy lies behind him, reduced to rubble, wreathed in smoke. But what of his beliefs, that particular brand of conservatism he embodied that became so dominant in his term, the neoconservatives? They had such high ideas, and such high opinions of themselves, but with pretty much every adventure they embarked upon ending in ruin, the end of Bush should really also mark the end of his ideals, no?

Of course, neocons were thought extinct after the Reagan years, only to come roaring back after 9/11. That overriding spirit of fear and anger brought the ultra-hardline reactionary neocon mindset bubbling to the surface once more, like a movie bad guy who's been knocked off a pier, only to coming leaping out of the water to clutch at the hero yet again. Sadly, instead of calmly evaluating the options, the American people embraced the "new" neocon spirit of Can-kickass, who wanted some foreign ass kicked, and kicked hard. So now, with Bush nearly behind us, and even with the policies of intimidation and warfare revealed as the obvious stupid and wasteful tactics they always have been, are we really stupid enough to think that old fearful mindset is gone for good this time?

In many ways, the 2008 election represented a direct repudiation of the neo-con style of foreign policy based on military-centred, unilateralist overreaching.

At first sight, the incoming Obama administration appears to be the polar opposite of neo-conservatism.

Its instincts are multilateralist, being committed, for example, to adhering to the Kyoto Protocol and to international agreements like the Geneva Convention.

It places a high priority on diplomacy, with President-elect Obama being open to direct talks with long-ignored countries like Iran and Cuba. Defense Secretary Gates, who is remaining in office, has made it clear that he regards military intervention as the genuinely last option.

Furthermore, the financial meltdown and the drains of the Iraq and Afghan wars have chipped away at the pre-eminence of US power. It is difficult to argue today that the US enjoys a unipolar advantage.

The safest bet, therefore, is that we can bid adieu to the neo-cons and leave their role to be adjudicated by history.

They themselves argue that they form part of the mainstream of American history. It seems more likely that they will come to be seen as an aberration.

Oh, come now. Yes Obama being elected in the first place is a sign the American people are putting down their security blankets. But we're not really that gullible any more, right?

Two things may change this. First, the flipside of neo-conservatism is what might be called neo-humanitarianism. This is the idea that US military power should be used to intervene on the ground in crises like the Rwandan genocide or in Darfur.

Some Obama officials, for example Susan Rice at the UN, will be making this case. All indications are that the Obama administration will be cautious but, if not, US unilateral military deployment may be back on the global agenda.

Secondly, the Obama administration faces unsettled business on Iran.

The neo-cons are arguing that Iran is the defining issue for US foreign policy and that, short of an abandonment by Tehran of its apparent nuclear weapons program, the US must use force.

- bbc.co.uk/

And while so far Obama's made all the right noises about being diplomatic and engaging towards Iran, and at the moment everyone thinks the neocons are jerks, and they've slunk back into the darkness, let's not forget how good they are at lying deep in the murky water, out of immediate view, watching, waiting, and carrying a big stick. As long as America continues to fear everything, the neocons will always have a home, deep in the cold dark places Americans don't like to think about, ready to spring forth again the next time America is endangered by Johnny Foreigner.



Theories Sought For Universe FM.

The boffins at the Goddard Space Flight Center discovered an all-pervading radio static that seems to emanate from each corner of the universe back in 2006. New theories for what caused and is causing this signal are still being sought. Is it feedback from the big bang? A signal from another dimension? God's clock radio? Or something more mysterious?

The signal manifests itself as a puzzling excess at certain frequencies of a fog of microwaves that permeates the cosmos and is probably left over from the Big Bang itself. It suggests that something is pumping large amounts of extra energy — about six times more than can be accounted for by all the galaxies known and unknown — into the universe.
[...]

In an interview, four papers submitted to the Astrophysical Journal and a press conference Wednesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif., Dr. Kogut and his colleagues stressed that they do not really know where the signal comes from and they hope that theorists will take up the quest. They have been careful mainly to explain what the signal is not, namely distant galaxies or decaying particles of exotic dark matter.

- www.nytimes.com/

It could be ancient black holes, or something to do with Dark Matter, but isn't it really the not-knowing that makes it all so much fun? Do we really want this particular mystery solved? Can't the universe have a few secrets left to itself? Must we strip every last shred of allure from everything?



Film Review: The Spirit

Comic Book legend Frank Miller got a taste for direction on Sin City, and with The Spirit he's thrown off the training wheels but stayed in the same playground. With a similar visual technique, The Spirit tells the rather odd tale of a cop killed in the line of duty who is brought back to life and made practically invulnerable thanks to a mad coroner played by none other than Sam Jackson, who has invented a immortality formula that's in need of a guinea pig. Finding it works on the dead cop, he takes it himself, and so you have two opposing forces. The cop, calling himself The Spirit, and the coroner, who calls himself Octopus.

Of course it takes a while to explain all that, and the film comes across as distinctly odd as it goes about it. The Spirit is kind of Dick Tracy meets Superman, and the specter of invulnerable characters wailing on each other is as boring as ever. But The Octopus is after an artifact that will make him a God, somehow, and so he has to find a way to kill Spirit first. For his part, The Spirit is for some reason a total cad when it comes to women, who can't keep their hands off him, while pining after his long lost love, who's back in town and after an artifact of her own.

It's an odd film. It's got the stylish violence that Sin City had in spades, but the tone is very different. It's light hearted, sort of casual, hard-boiled cliche. I'm not sure if it was meant to be, but the Nazi scene in particular was absolutely hilarious. The cast is pretty impressive, the performances are pretty good (albeit with there not really being much for the women to actually do), and while there's not really a lot happening here under the surface, guy wants thing in order to do X, other guy wants to stop him, you can see that everyone is trying really hard. You're just never sure if the film is meant to be like this, or if it's all gotten mixed up somehow. Perhaps some comic book knowledge would've helped. Three Ooofs out of Five.


And Finally.




- Peace out