On Dec 2, 2004, at 8:37 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Trying to recognize
opinions around the globe is like recognizing feelings in a family- bury them,
ignore them, etc and it doesn't help keep the family "functional".
This is an excellent point. To the extent that "family secrets" are treated as shameful, and to the extent that "keep it in the family" is used as a control measure, there's a long history of abuse and misery found in closed, secretive families.
Looking at this from a national perspective, then, we have some arguments against being secretive or acting as though we're isolated. For one thing, liberty and secrecy cannot co-reside. The more emphasis that is placed on secrecy, the less liberty is available. I'm not interested in watching this society tumble into that abyss.
More importantly, secrets fester. (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo.) Terrible things happen quickly behind walls of isolation.
What happens, for instance, when a person, an individual, withdraws from the world, isolates himself from outside views, separates himself from everyone around him? We tend to mistrust such people, and rightly so; Ted Kaczynski was such a person. So was Jeff Dahmer.
What happens when leaders do the same? Only surround themselves with people who support their views, who offer them filtered news accounts? They end up nuts, like Hitler was, like Saddam was. (And yes, I am aware that GWB spends an inordinate amount of time on his ranch, that he admits to not reading the newspapers, that he has deliberately surrounded himself with cronies and yes-men, and it should scare the hell out of everyone to consider that.)
Going beyond the fact that is is IMPOSSIBLE for problems in the US to be solved "in the family" -- since everything we do does tend to affect the rest of the world -- there is plenty of precedent to argue that anything but an open society, anything that involves secrecy to an obsessive degree -- is toxic or contributes to a toxic atmosphere.
How toxic? It even seems reasonable, for some, to argue that the act of caring about international opinion is unpatriotic. John's opinion seems to be a product of an unhealthy obsession with isolation, secrecy and nationalistic hubris. His point of view alone is really sufficient argument against itself, to anyone who considers it for a few minutes.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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