October in the Garden of Good and Evil (Rove, OBL, philosohpical musings)

[Plaid Adder]

OK, you all can take your best shot at me, but I'm just going to say it:

Now that we have Osama Bin Laden popping up again with his very own October surprise, it's time to reconsider the whole idea of the Rove/Bush team as a gang of superpowerful criminal masterminds. Criminal, sure. Evil, absolutely. Masterminds, oh my goodness no. And superpowerful...don't make me laugh.

Why should we assume Rove orchestrated this? Since when has this team *ever* been able to control what Osama Bin Laden does? They couldn't get him in Afghanistan, they couldn't get him through Pakistan, they couldn't get him in a box, they couldn't get him shown on Fox. They have been trying for years to get people to stop thinking about him entirely. They were probably hoping he was dead. I certainly was. The only way Osama Bin Laden would be any good to them would be if he was either a) in U.S. custody or b) demonstrably dead. To have him roaming around out there basically giving the U.S. the finger is not doing them any good. If they bring him in in chains or in a body bag on Monday, then I will tip my hat and apologize for calling Rove and company the biggest bunch of no-talent hacks that ever seized power and clung to it. But I would not put money on that right now.

The way we talk about this just shows you that on some subconscious level we have adopted one of the basic premises underlying the Iraq war and the Bush approach to foreign policy--which is that America should, can, and in fact under normal circumstances does control everything that happens in the world. Folks, I know it's scary to admit this, but _nobody in America controls Osama Bin Laden._ He's pulling this stunt now, with the help of whoever's dropping these videotapes in the Al Jazeera suggestion box, because that's what he wants to do. And he doesn't want to help Bush any more than he wants to help Kerry.

If the Bush team had any control over what Bin Laden does, they would have hauled him home and had a ginormous show trial blasted from TVs across the coutnry and around the world on every network imaginable. It would have lasted three months, built to a climax, and concluded wtih a televised execution on November 1. That's what Rove would have done with Osama *if they could get him.* But they can't, because although these guys are geniuses at manipulating the media and American public opinion, they are fucking MORONS when it comes to interacting with the rest of the world.

That's why the Iraq war is going to hell, that's why 368 tons of explosives are missing from Al Qaqaa, that's why images of the torture at Abu Ghraib are on websites around the Arabic-speaking world, and that is why Osama Bin Laden is still making tapes. Not because Rove has planned all of this out to the last detail and then craftily brought it to pass, but because this administration was so fucked up in every way imaginable that they could not accomplish what you would have thought woudl be their number one priority after 9/11: bringing the perpetrators to justice.

I know it's easy to start feeling like Rove controls the entire universe, but you know what, he doesn't. He does to some extent control the media, and he apparently does command a nice little network of thugs working on voter intimidation and election fraud...but THAT'S IT. Those are his specialties, and that's all he's really good at. He is playing way out of his depth here, and this tape is just more proof of that.

I have been doing a lot of pondering about evil in the past few years and I have one thing I want to say before I'm done with the OBL tape drama. Evil is powerful, because human beings are weak. But most of the time, evil is not that smart. Why? Because being evil is easy.

Think about it. Doing the right thing is usually difficult and often costs the person who does it. That's because doing the right thing involves putting yourself out for the good of other people, and it is our natural human tendency to be selfish and put our own needs first. Anyone who has been fighting on the side of the angels for any length of time knows that it's hard work, and you are constantly fighting the sense that it's pointless and futile and you should just give it up. You keep going because you believe that there are things out there that are more important than your own comfort, and so you keep going back to the battle, and that gives you strength, and resolve, and--with experience--intelligence.

To be evil all you have to do is feed your natural tendencies toward selfishness, greed, and cowardice. Motivated by a desire to gorge on pleasures and suffer no privations, people can get pretty cunning and crafty about manipulating the people around them to make that happen. But it doesn't involve the same kind of self-discipline or the same desire to learn that doing good has to involve. And because they're all about making themselves feel good, people for whom evil is a matter of selfishness are more likely to delude themselves into believing that they are more powerful than they really are, and to ignore any evidence that might suggest that they need to get off their asses and do some HARD WORK.

Now I'm not saying that all evil people are lazy, venal, and easily outwitted. There are exceptions. Osama Bin Laden is clearly one of them. That's why he managed to pull off the scariest, nastiest, highest-impact evil deed in recent memory. Rove, alas, is not an exception. He's just a run-of-the-mill evil bastard with a lot of ambition, a lot of ruthlessness, and a zest for blood sport and mudwrestling that makes the work of stealing American elections interesting and fun for him. Anything else, he sucks at, because that's hard work and no fun, and as with the average run of the mill evil bastard, it's always all about him.

What does that have to do with the election? Well, we've tried fighting evil with evil, and this tape is just more evidence that our evil is going to get beat every time. Not because it's insufficiently evil, but because it is insufficiently smart.

So how about we do this the old fashioned way, and try and fight evil with good? That is the traditional method. And it's so crazy, it just might work.

Sigh,

The Plaid Adder

[phantom power]

1. Evil is selfish, and therefore vulnerable to cooperation

Evil is traditionally portrayed as monolithic, and good is usually portrayed as a team. The Fellowship, versus Sauron.

[MichiganVote]

2. Or....

You write,

"If they bring him in in chains or in a body bag on Monday, then I will tip my hat and apologize for calling Rove and company the biggest bunch of no-talent hacks that ever seized power and clung to it. "

You think Rove and Co. are going to bring him in? What fantasy land are you living in? Either another country (probably Arabic) will bring him in or assist to bring him in or some lowly soldier will find him. Just like Saddam. George Bush couldn't find his way out of a box.

Voters want and should have more than a President who somehow brings this criminal to justice. We have more issues than this one to confront. Homeless kids have more to worry about than Bin Laden. A single parent making less than $7.00 an hour has more fears than the specter of 9/11. Health care, deficits, parents and other loved ones with sons and daughters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

edited for spelling error

[Plaid Adder]

4. Dude, did I say I think they can bring OBL in?

No, I didn't. The whole post is making the opposite argument.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Thank you for your common sense.

Too many people are getting their panties in a wad over this tape. I don't think it's such a big deal. Though the spin is entirely predictable (the media would interpret any conceivable "October Surprise" as benefiting Bush; just look at how some of them are trying to get him off the hook over the explosives), we give Karl Rove far too much credit as an invulnerable puppetmaster and manipulator. But sometimes events are beyond anyone's control. Osama has his own evil agenda, and it's not to benefit either Bush or Kerry. The tape changes nothing. Let the media whores continue their pandering; this election will be won on the ground, by us, doing what wwe've been doing all along. The evil bastard Rove can be defeated; then we worry about Osama.

[July]

8. I think we should be emailing the whores to say that this changes nothing.

I'm sure not changing my vote on the basis of what bin Laden says, and we have more immediate concerns to deal with, like WTF happened to the explosives in Iraq and are they being used to kill our young servicemen and women?

[clydefrand]

5. I like your thoughts very much.

How do we fight evil with good? I certainly would love for that to work because I despise war. Where do we start? Education, feeding the hungry, providing for the poor? What do we do?

[Plaid Adder]

9. Well, all those things would help

but I think the main thing that would help with the terrorism would be to stop using the military to try to dominate the entire world.

Course, the day we see that happen...sigh.

The Plaid Adder

[InvisibleTouch]

6. Great post....

Great title, great read. It doesn't entirely allay my worries about this damn tape, but it's a very insightful analysis.

[July]

7. Thanks, I needed that.

And I appreciate your perspective.

Sign me up to fight evil with good. I try to live by that idea.

You are the best, Plaid Adder. Really. Thanks for a little inspiration when I needed it.

[Tansy_Gold]

10. We know Rove doesn't control the universe and

approximately half the electorate believes boosh does. Logic, however, is likely not to work on the portion of the electorate who votes with their emotions instead of their brains.

Will they see bin Laden on their tv screens and instantly shift to voting for boosh because they are afraid and they believe boosh can keep them safe? They might, and there isn't a thing we can do about it. We can't reach these people with reason, because their emotional reaction in the first place isn't rational.

We don't know what percentage of the electorate falls into this category. Might be 5%, might be 10%, might be 1%. We just don't know.

All we can do is get out the vote, get it out everywhere.

Some points to keep in mind:

1. Friday isn't a good day to break important news, not even a tape by bin Laden. If the booshies really believed this would help them -- and were in any kind of control -- they'd have had this out earlier in the week, when it would have reached more people and put an quick end to the explosives story.

2. A lot of people are fed up with electioneering and aren't going to be paying much attention to the news this week-end, plus the fact that it's Halloween and people will have other things to do. A lot of people have already voted, so it's too late to influence their vote.

3. That bin Laden is still free and still able to drop off tapes at the local al-Jazeera office means he's also still free to drop off bombs or Mason jars of anthrax at the local 7-11. His continued existence is proof of boosh's failure. his continued existence is proof of the continuing threat that boosh has not diminished.

I don't believe in "evil" per se. I do think there are people who do evil things, and stopping them from doing more evil things is not a matter of meeting "evil" with "good," since I don't believe in "good" either. But I do believe stopping people who want to do evil things requires intelligence, rather than blind emotional response.

There's been too much blind emotional response on DU today. I fear it can become contagious.

[despairing optimist]

11. Let's get away from labeling things "evil"

What's evil for one side is heroic for the other. It's better to see how we can defuse the tension, anger, and hatred that lead to destructive acts like demolishing buildings in the first place, whether they are in NYC or Baghdad or Tehran or Gaza. This talk about evil gets us nowhere. It reminds me of that nutty general who went on the lecture circuit in full uniform and claimed that "our God is better than their God." Talk about self-defeating. No wonder our "evil" will get beat every time. We don't even want to face what it is, an attempt to impose ourselves on the rest of the world regardless of the consequences to others or even to ourselves.

[Tatiana]

12. Damn straight. Excellent thoughts, as usual Plaid A.

I don't think Rove planned this either. I think this was all Osama and his cohorts' doing.

You know what I don't get? We try to act all tough. We say we want Osama "dead or alive" and that we're gonna "smoke 'im out." We say that we hunt down the terrorists and kill them.

This is great for a short-term solution, but this is not a long-term solution to the problem of terrorism. We've got to get into the mindset of these people and determine what steps we can take as a nation (with international support) to change the thinking of these terrorist individuals. They are more than willing to sacrifice themselves to murder others. These people weren't born thinking this way. They were taught and indoctrinated in this viewpoint. There will be no military solution alone to this problem. It requires diplomacy as well. I don't care about whatever tough talk either candidate puts forth, the terrorists are in over 60 nations and we can't invade each one of them.