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DOUBLE_THINK

                                                           July 7, 2009

It strikes me that people like John Pilger
have trouble grasping that it's entirely
possible for two things to be true:

  Obama's speech in Egypt...

  1.  was a historicially significant,
      ground-breaking event, a remarkable
      breakthrough.

  2.  didn't go as far as we would like,
      and left too much unsaid.


Similarly, listening to Howard Zin talking
about Robert McNamara, it seems to me that
one might agree that:

  McNamara's change-of-mind concerning Vietnam...

  1.  was a remarkable show of intelligent
      insight for a US official of that era.

  2.  was wimpy to the point of being immoral,
      keeping silent when speaking out might       (Unlike, for example,
      have mattered.                               Daniel Elsberg).


And there's an article by Chomsky
published in Z Magazine where he seems               "The Torture Memos"
incapable of seeing that the glowing                 June 1, 2009
opinion the United States holds of                   _Z Magazine_
itself as the font of freedom and
democracy is...                                      [link]

   1.  a delusional exaggeration that we hold
       on to by falsifying history.

   2.  and *also*: an extremely important
       ideal to hold on to, one of the few
       hopes for the future.





                                               DOUBLET




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