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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 it might have            (Unlike, for example,
      *mattered* to speak out                      Daniel Elsberg).


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

   (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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