Mamet Mugged By Reality

David Mamet, liberal author, playwright and director, has seen the light of the free marketplace and taken a political turn toward the right. Very good reading.

And it seems he loves Galaxy Quest too!  One of the drop dead funniest movies ever. 

Comments

[Ymarsakar]

I was wondering if you had a RSS feed for your comments? I found the one for your posts.

[Ymarsakar]

The right is mooing about faith, the left is mooing about change, and many are incensed about the fools on the other side—but, at the end of the day, they are the same folks we meet at the water cooler. Happy election season.

That's also true of warfare. Which means that in war, there is a breakdown of law and thus the only law that people obey is what they or their military makes. In America, there already is rule of law, so people try to work the system, corrupt it, or otherwise change it.

Those are differences. What connects the behavior is that insurgencies and counter-insurgencies in warfare also must recognize human nature and what will get a human being to support to fight against one side or another.

Because people are people, they are vulnerable to violence and death. Because people are people, they are vulnerable to propaganda by allies and enemies. What they were brainwashed into thinking, they can be brainwashed out of thinking. That is the hope represented by the AL Anbar Awakening.

[Gail]

After reading your comment, I went to check, and yes, there is an RSS feed for comments on Typepad. It is now enabled. Thanks for mentioning it.

"That's also true of warfare. Which means that in war, there is a breakdown of law and thus the only law that people obey is what they or their military makes."

As it happens, I was just writing about adolescent residential treatment for troubled teens. A treatment center I know of gives the best advice I've ever seen or heard about changing behavior in other people:

Close every door but the one you want them to walk through.

Very simple, but very true. It requires controlling the environment completely. We Westerners feel uncomfortable "taking over" in this way. But sometimes it's necessary for survival - of ourselves in wartime, or of the teen we are trying to raise to adulthood.

[Ymarsakar]

I wrote a reply here.

Link

[Ymarsakar]

After reading your comment, I went to check, and yes, there is an RSS feed for comments on Typepad. It is now enabled. Thanks for mentioning it.

Is there a rss feed that typepad offers for all new comments on your blog?

[Gail]

No, unfortunately not.

I've noticed that Blogger has a nice new feature that allows you to check a box and then be automatically alerted by email when a new comment is posted. Hoping that Typepad will do that too. As of now, they only alert the blog owner.