Posted on 10/15/2001 9:01:32 PM PDT by anymouse
All enthusiasts think they are helping to build a new world.
I recall that Seldon's Foundation was a benevolent organization, which did not attempt to rule, but only to gently make an influential nudge here and there in a way that would cause the inevitable Dark Ages after the collapse of the Empire to be as short and mild as possible before the next civilization arose. They looked only to safeguard humanity, not run it or dictate to it.
That doesn't sound at all like bin Laden's goals *or* methods.
Er... so?
Yup. :-)
Great old movie. For those who have never seen it, rush out and rent a copy.
Without giving away too much, Robert Redford works for the CIA, but only as a researcher. His job is to read everything he can get his hands on, scouring books almost at random in search of any tidbits that might be somehow useful or relevant to the work of the CIA.
One day he steps out for coffee, and the CIA office where he works explodes, killing everyone there. Then he finds that he is being hunted by people who wish to make it a clean sweep. He has no "field" experience as a spy, but his decades of reading books gives him a lot of practical knowledge of all sorts of things, and he uses this to 1) evade being killed, 2) investigate who is after him and why, and 3) attempt to win out over them.
Lots of fun. Sample quote: Higgins: "Oh, you... you poor dumb son of a bitch. You've done more harm than you'll ever know." Turner: "I hope so..."
Another couple of fun "spooks on the loose" movies are "Sneakers" (again with Robert Redford) and "Hopscotch" (with the wonderful Walter Matthau).
"Sneakers" is the story of a bunch of talented misfits (including Redford as a retired government agent) working as a freelance security company. They are hired to obtain something from a hotel room, which they do, only to find that it is something so valuable that, as one line in the movie puts it, "there's not a government on the planet that wouldn't kill everyone in this room for this box..." Sample quote: "You know I could have been in the NSA, but they found out my parents were married."
"Hopscotch" is the delightful tale of an elderly CIA agent (Walter Matthau) who is insultingly demoted to a desk job by a snotty new manager (Ned Beatty). Disgusted, Matthau decides to retire and write a "tell-all" book about the agency's screwups. He disappears, and Beatty and Matthau's former co-workers go looking for him to try to stop him. The old fox (Matthau) proves too slippery for them and makes fools of them at every turn. Glenda Jackson is also great as his old girlfriend. Fun quote: Kendig: "Yours was gin and ginger ale, right?" Isobel von Schonenberg: "Mine was NEVER gin and ginger ale. Montrochet '69, right next to the beer."
In his first Foundation novel, the Foundationeers created a bogus religion to subjugate the Anacreons, a gulliable and warlike people. The purpose was to incite a revolt and overthrow the government. The viewpoint was completely cynical, where the religion was used simply a means to a political end.
Humm, on second thought...
I actually think this is very interesting idea. It takes a little getting used to, because we are so used to thinking of the Arabs as a bunch of ignorant, jabbering savages. But, remember, from their point of view it's they who are the "keepers of the flame," not us.
Two quotes from that film seem relevant:
Spock: He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates 2 dimensional thinking.And:
Kirk [transmitting to Khan]: Stand by to receive our transmission. [covers the microphone and whispers] Mr. Sulu, lock phasers on target.
He was an atheist but I never saw anything from him in either his two-volume autobiography, nor his Treasury of Humor (in which he discussed a great number of topics and a lot about his own philosophies) that would indicate "nothing but contempt" for religion.
He even wrote the two-volume "Asimov's Guide to the Bible", in which I didn't see any "contempt" for religion either.
Asimov was a humanist, (no religion but a value system that displayed the best of mankind's aspirations.) As he evolved the Trilogy in his final days he wrapped the Robot Series into the Foundations Series to complete his "take" on mankind's future history. It was the "prescient Robot who was introduced in his novel, "Caves of Steel" that was the underlying force for good in mankind's universe. The Robot operating under the Three Robotic Laws plus one that he derived as a higher priority then the First Law. This higher law was enunciated ".. to insure that man did not come to harm or create harm for another human. I believe that this Robot would be on our side and would "nudge" O Sama and his ilk out of existence. (you see Asimov didn't believe in a God but could instill such goodness and mercy into a technological being that had been created by man, in man's shape, and contained man's best traits.
Now this starts to make since bin Laden was rich kid, quite westernize, educated and well read.
Not the type to become a throw back Islamic fundamentalist.
He in fact be a lot like Sadam, real not religious just power hungry and using Islamic fundamentalist as a tool.
But he didn't need to created a religion to subjugate the people, he already had one in place to hijack
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