Correspondence
Correspondence CASTLES ON A CLOUD I AM JOEY TABULA-RASA from David Brooks's "The Collapse of the Dream Palaces" (April 28). Well, not exactly. I am, however, a young man who had been in search of...
...I have new heroes, including some that Brooks mentioned: Dennis Miller, Paul Wolfowitz, Charles Krauthammer, George Bush, and many more...
...I too see myself as an Independent...
...I turned to the man I admire most: my father, a Cold Warrior, and the most intelligent man I have ever had the privilege of knowing...
...Perhaps his dream character, "Joey Tabula-Rasa," does now see the world as Brooks describes it, but I'm not so sure about the average "Joe College...
...Sure he thinks Bush is cool, but only because he kicked ass...
...Now I, like your child of 1983, hear the bombast and have little use for it...
...He never forced me into any ideology, allowing me instead to find the voices that spoke to me...
...I wonder if there are not many more like me out there who were shaped a little differently over the years and who have much more in common with this new rising generation than anyone might suspect...
...I am reminded of a quote from one of Hollywood's toughest S.O.B.s—Harvey Keitel: "You cannot be I-Am-Somebody.com, stay home, and let someone else fight your war for you...
...I heard Johnson decide to fight a "limited war...
...I also set out to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of 20th-century history (which my public education failed to provide...
...He's the guy who is doing Tequila shooters and beer-bongs before heading out to see The Real Cancun...
...But never did I subscribe to the reactionary politics of my friends, choosing, rather, to ignore politics altogether...
...Personality...
...Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), who coined it in the opening pages of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom...
...I even find myself to be considering joining the reserves...
...In it, however, he credits Fouad Ajami with the phrase "dream palaces...
...JASON DOCTOR Seattle, WA...
...If the Iraq war protesters had a well-developed sense of humor they might say today, "The Iraq war, it's not a bad war, but it's the only war we have to protest...
...JOHN HELLERMAN Washington, DC I AM A KID FROM THE VIETNAM ERA...
...But it became very apparent, as the years passed, that the people like the senator from Arizona who I had once mocked had been the only sound voice—fight the war for real or get out...
...SAUL ROSENBERG Merrick, NY A MARINE OFFICER during the Vietnam war used to say in jest, "Vietnam, it's not a good war, but it's the only war we've got...
...And as the years went by, I saw that things never really got much better, but that certain of those people who championed these efforts got rich, became high-profile apologists, and showed up mostly to speak using emotionally motivating words, very few actual arguments, and very little actual fact...
...I knew who Henry Cabot Lodge was...
...He's not watching the news so much as he is Girls Gone Wild...
...And as for this war, I see the entire experience much as you described this child of the future would see it, despite all the history and political knowledge I might have gleaned over the years...
...I have a tremendous admiration for the men and women who see the United States, however flawed it may be, as the greatest force for good on this planet...
...He showed me a world of politics on the Internet I had never imagined...
...Since then, I have become a daily reader of many sites, including The Daily Standard...
...MATTHEW BERINATO New York, NY DAVID BROOKS'S "The Collapse of the Dream Palaces" was an extremely interesting read, but I think Brooks has spent a little too much time away from school...
...Funny how far I've come from the day an FBI agent asked for my name and information as I held a placard protesting Dow Chemical and the Vietnam war...
...I don't see how a young man can have an identity that he can respect without being aware that it's necessary for him to stand up and defend the liberties that he cherishes...
...After witnessing September 11 firsthand in the streets of Manhattan, I became magnetically drawn to world events and history...
...I knew what we had promised the French after the Second World War...
...Sadly, though, to Joe College, Clinton is cool too because he got some from that chubby brunette on Mr...
...I saw Brooks's "dream palaces...
...I found myself completely repulsed by the sentiments of my friends (blame America first) and the spineless reaction by many Americans against the post-9/11 policies of the Bush administration...
...In fact, Ajami's very good book, The Dream Palace of the Arabs, credits the original phrasemaker, T.E...
...I saw my friends come home with big pupils and blank eyes from drugs and the horror of killing children and old ladies...
...I am, however, a young man who had been in search of clarity in these times...
...I stood in those protests...
...Wishing to arm myself against the bloody verbal war I was expecting in my circles (in which I would certainly be outnumbered), I decided to search for more meaningful news coverage than cable provided...
...As an artist, I have been surrounded by artists and other members of America's counterculture for as long as I can remember...
...KATE CUNNINGHAM Hollywood, CA I VERY MUCH ENJOYED David Brooks's "The Collapse of the Dream Palaces...
...I heard the promises of programs for a better life and a good education for the poorest of our people from the same groups...
Vol. 8 • May 2003 • No. 34
