On the "Arab Revolt," here's David Ignatius, with whom I share a profound wariness, based on a few hundred years of a seemingly inescapable pattern:
It's an easy revolution to like.... [However] History teaches that revolutions are always attractive in their infancy, when freedom is in the air and the rebellion seems spontaneous. But from the French and Russian revolutions to the Iranian uprising of 1979, the idealistic but disorganized street protesters usually give way to a manipulative revolutionary elite.
In this case, Islamic fundamentalists, perhaps. And as Christopher Hitchens peppers God Is Not Great throughout, with agonized despair: Religion poisons everything.
ya exactly .i like ur thoughts
Posted by: Second-hand Timber Flooring | January 28, 2011 at 01:36 PM
Sad, but true, PM. Although I do take what Hitchens says with a grain of salt--it isn't "religion that poisons everything" but rather "extreme religious fundamentalism" that poisons.
Posted by: Marc McKenzie | January 28, 2011 at 02:47 PM
I am a Hitchens fan, so I am a bit biased, however...there would be no Religious Fundamentalism without Religion.
I'll stick with Hitchens' original thought.
Posted by: William Caulfield | January 28, 2011 at 09:48 PM