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poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2004-12-19 10:34 am
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The Present Age

I was watching the BBC's end of year arts review and Mark Lawson pointed out that all the art he and his team were looking at- books, films, plays, exhibitions- was in some way, directly or tangentially, about Bush.

We are living in the Era of Bush. The Age of Bush. The Bush Era. That is what the historians will call it.

Oh....

[identity profile] jackiejj.livejournal.com 2004-12-19 12:08 pm (UTC)(link)
all the art he and his team were looking at- books, films, plays, exhibitions- was in some way, directly or tangentially, about Bush.


A heart-stopping thought for sure: Bush as the Zeitgeist.

He can't even pronounce "nuclear."

Here's a meandering thought, and Jung said something like this:

Hitler was no one much--a psychotic painter.

But he was deeply psychic: in a real way, he was possessed by the will of the people.

Hitler was empty, a little painter. But he turned this way and that, articulating like an Oracle what the people wanted.

Bush is no Hitler. He is a well-meaning man, and I think he's a little guileless and not completely aware of how much under others' control he is.

I don't think Bush is capable of hearing the babble of the collective and acting on it. But his henchmen are, and they are using him.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2004-12-19 12:30 pm (UTC)(link)

I think of Hitler as a magician. He called up demons and, out of nothing- well, out of floating psychic flotsam and jetsam- created the extraordinarily glamourous and wicked and fatally stupid entity that was the Third Reich.

Bush's regime isn't the Third Reich- far from it- but I think it's equally stupid.

It's an intellectual construct- and the ideas bear little relationship to the on-the-ground reality it is colliding with in Iraq and elsewhere.

I think there is going to be an almighty smash.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...


[identity profile] jackiejj.livejournal.com 2004-12-19 12:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I think there is going to be an almighty smash.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...


It may begin with the loss of oil. Ben Lauden has just called for his people to find ways to cut off our oil supply.

I think we haven't a clue about how awful things will be in the coming months.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2004-12-19 12:49 pm (UTC)(link)
One of the supreme follies of the West is that we have allowed ourselves to become dependent on oil when so many alternatives are out there waiting to be developed.

[identity profile] arielstarshadow.livejournal.com 2004-12-19 12:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, and there will be shudders, and weeping and wailing by future generations when they say it.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2004-12-19 12:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Or perhaps contemptuous laughter. It rather depends on the extent of the long-term damage

[identity profile] karenkay.livejournal.com 2004-12-19 03:23 pm (UTC)(link)
I think our reaction will be like our reaction to McCarthyism: "What were they thinking?"

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2004-12-19 03:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes indeed; it's a very similar mistake that's being made.

[identity profile] kaysho.livejournal.com 2004-12-24 02:47 am (UTC)(link)
I think it only feels like the Age of Bush because we're living in it. How much of what is being created about Bush will be remembered even two years after his second term is up?

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2004-12-24 10:27 am (UTC)(link)
A good question- but I have a feeling that this administration is going to cast a looong shadow.