It's my signature line and I suspect the intent of its meaning to Kossacks probably ranges from `what the hell does that mean' to others thinking `who cares'. It's been my intent to write a diary explaining what those words mean to me, because there's a context to them that applies to the `events' of today. House's diary
Signatures, Quotes and other Random-naliawas one factor that got me off the dime.
I came to understand the Emerson quote during my first college go round when I had the great fortune to be the student participant in a panel discussion that included visiting guest author David Halberstam.
Halberstam was invited to discuss his recent book The Best and The Brightest (TB&TB). It's the best book I've read on the Viet Nam War. In person I found Halberstam to have a towering intellect, he is a brilliant writer, and is one of the greatest journalists of the last half of the Twentieth Century.
Halberstam's observations below the fold:
The Best and The Brightest is about American hubris because it's a story of how the geniuses and great men Kennedy assembled in his government and Johnson (for the most part) inherited went so wrong in Viet Nam.
During the panel discussion Halberstam told an antidotal story about one of the architects of the war, McGeorge Bundy when Bundy was just a boy in elite prep school. Bundy was assigned to do a report, and when the professor called on Bundy to deliver the report, young Bundy stood up with his papers and delivered an A+ report. The kids around him were laughing, and when the perturbed professor asked what was so funny they told him that Bundy was holding up nothing but blank pages - he had written nothing down.
These were the kind of men in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations at the height of America's military power, they were supremely confident American could do no wrong, and they were supremely confident in themselves.
The arrogance of TB&TB was their downfall when it came to Viet Nam because they were men of great intellectual power and reason and they did not realize that the Viet Nam War was not about the application of reason to reach a victory.
This is where Halberstam observed Emerson's quote, `Events are in the Saddle and Ride Mankind.' Halberstam emphasized TB&TB were highly rational people, McNamara in particular converted much of the war to statistics and spreadsheets. The war would be fought and could be won using rational analysis of the `events' occurring in Viet Nam.
To TB&TB reason (mostly in the form of more bombs and more troops) was to be applied against the Viet Nam Communists by gradually ratcheting up the war. Through the rational application of power TB&TB could control the `events', and win the Viet Nam War. How wrong they were, because while TB&TB were rational the Viet Namese were operating on another level - perhaps a primordial level. Their territory had been invaded, and the Viet Namese `tribe' would counter every rational application of American power with whatever was required whether it made sense to TB&TB or not.
It was obvious to Halberstam that the events of the Viet Nam War came to control TB&TB and tragically those `events' rode mankind. The words of the Nineteenth Century American Transcendentalist applied to Viet Nam then and they apply to Iraq now - even more so.
The Bush administration is infected with people who are The Worst & The Dumbest (TW&TD). Most of them probably never read Emerson or Halberstam - well maybe Bush once did a Cliff Notes skim of Emerson when he was drunk.
The quagmire of Viet Nam has become the worse quagmire of Iraq. Instead of the great rationality of TB&TB we now have the dubious action hero culture of the TW&TD, which was perhaps best revealed in the October 17, 2004 article by Ron Suskind titled Without a Doubt.
Suskind wrote:
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
These are not the great men of the Kennedy, Johnson era. TW&TD insanely believed they could control `events' through action. How tragically and criminally wrong they have been. Once again Halberstam's observations and Emerson's words have proved to be correct.
I believe ignoring the reality of `Events are in the Saddle' also applies to many Democratic alternatives to the current Bush Iraq fiasco. It was prominent in Kerry's campaign, with his vague idea that he could do better in Iraq. Trying to work through the Iraq Quagmire is still prominent in the position of many other Democrats. Jeffery Feldman's Frameshop: It's Time To Bring On Clark was an excellent diary that framed Clark's strategy to gain control of the `events' in Iraq and the Middle East. I respect Jeffery Feldman's diaries, and while he's framing Clark's position, this is a position I don't agree with. That is the more important reason for my writing this diary. In Iraq Events are now in the Saddle.
Bush has taken us over a cliff in Iraq. Iraq is now in the Humpty Dumpty phase - all of Mad King George's horses and all of Mad King George's men can't put Iraq back together again. Neither can any Democratic plan. Iraq is a quagmire, and the sober reality in escaping a quagmire is that the best one can do is choose the least worst alternative.
If the U.S. left Viet Nam in 65 the outcome would have been the same - the North would have taken over the South. The same except 50,000+ young Americans would have had a chance to live long lives, tens of thousands more Americans would not have been physically or mentally wounded for life, hundreds of thousands perhaps a million Viet Namese would not have died, the Khmer Rouge would not have taken over Cambodia and murdered several million people, and Nixon would not have been elected in 1968. How different would America be today if we did not have the deep twin psychic scars of Viet Nam and Watergate on our souls?
Unfortunately, in 65 TB&TB believed they could control the `events' of Viet Nam. Not that they hadn't been warned by Halberstam. In the early 60's Halberstam was the New York Times reporter in Saigon. His reporting was so accurate as to the `events' happening on the ground, and so prescient as to where those `events' were leading, that President Kenned called to New York Times to have him fired. In 63 Halberstam authored The Making of a Quagmire, which warned America about what was going to happen in Viet Nam .
Days before the Iraq invasion Halberstam was on a talk show - I believe it was Charlie Rose. He was asked what he thought was going to happen with the Iraq invasion. I knew what he would say. With crystal clarity Halberstam said, "I think we are about to poke our hand into the biggest hornet's nest in the history of the world."
Links to the diaries I cited:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...