From equilibrium to chaos Book

This was a challenging read, and although it dealt primarily with 9/11 and Abu Ghraib, the analysis still rang true. It seems that human nature changes little, so does politics.

Here are some quotes to give you an idea:

"In chapter 3 I analyze the rhetoric of freedom as it has been used by the Bush administration to justify war. In examining presidential speeches, we discover an essential link between freedom and property, between freedom and ownership. We are fighting to protect our property and our right to ownership. Again, freedom is reduced to the free market. In these speeches, the rhetoric of freedom works in tandem with the rhetoric of good and evil. Once more, protecting the Good is reduced to protecting our goods."

"But, as we will see, the fear of losing our wealth, and the determination to protect it at all costs, leads to a paranoid patriotism wherein we feel our wealth threatened on all sides. The flip side of paranoia is delusion of grandeur, which is also evidenced in talk of "the entire free world" and "bringing democracy to the globe." "

"Our sense of ourselves as a nation is strengthened by finding a common enemy, by seeing ourselves fighting the good fight against the forces of evil all around us. Our sense of ourselves as free is emboldened by comparing ourselves to people, especially women, elsewhere whom we imagine as enslaved. The inflated rhetoric of good versus evil, of us versus them, feeds a paranoid patriotism that acts without thinking."

"If we are fighting for eternity, then we are fighting a war without end, perpetual war without the possibility of peace. Another dangerous aspect of this rhetoric of eternity is that it takes the war out of its sociohistorical context. The war is therefore not about oil, or nuclear weapons, or dictators, or maintaining America's position as a superpower, or rebuilding Iraq, or even free elections in Iraq, but about eternal goodness and our faith in God."

"The danger of removing events from their sociohistorical context is that we are not given the information needed to interpret and understand these events. We are given hyperbolic images that stir feeling, often violent feelings of hatred and revenge, but we are discouraged from thinking introspectively about those feelings. We are encouraged to feel violent, to want violence, without thinking about our own investments in that violence or about its consequences."