Alexis Zorba (Anthony Quinn), when asked if he was married, said: "Am I not a man? And is a man not stupid? I'm a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe."- His reaction was to fully embrace life and live it to its fullest and therein lies the greatest danger of the Bush Era for the Conservative Christians, if they are not very careful, their kids will embrace the Zorba response and take to wine, women, and dancing.
Isn't there a WWI cliché about gulping down a drink and saying: "Eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we may die!"-? Well, my friends, young Republicans may be gullible, but that doesn't mean that they are stupid and when they figure out that in the Muslim culture, revenge is a duty, then it won't be long before they realize that the carnage in Iraq has built up a debt that will insure that an entire generation of Iraqis will be intent on extracting their revenge on Americans, then those young Republicans will be likely to be ready to embrace Zorba's philosophy and learn to dance.
The Bush team has always talked about victory and completely ignored the facet of Muslim culture that values revenge. When the conservative Christians contemplate a victory in Iraq, they do so thinking that the losers will keep the "turn the other cheek"- philosophy in mind.
Ignoring bad debts has gotten the Bush men into "another fine mess"- on Wall Street. Shrugging off bad investment debts hasn't worked out very well and they have taken the same attitude regarding Muslim revenge. They shrug it off thinking "no one will be the wiser."-
Kids who lose a bet like to worm out of it by saying: "You didn't say we were playing for "-keepsies'!"- Well, the boys who were so enthusiastic about invading Iraq (and providing eternal work and profits for Halliburton?) were so intent on having their way, that they didn't notice that there was a difference between Sunnis and Shi-ites. So, their naïveté also caused them to be unaware of the blood debts that would accrue from the Invasion.
Some bleeding heart liberal Cassandras tried to warn about the house of cards being built in the real estate world, but their dire warnings fell on deaf ears. No one mentions the fact that all the deaths and lost limbs being racked up in Iraq also have a price that is being ignored. Any choice to ignore the inevitable doesn't mean that it won't happen, it just means that it will be yet another opportunity to use the "no one could foresee"- song and dance.
Dance? That brings us back to the toast and the flamboyant fliers who would then hurl their glasses into the fireplace with a cavalier attitude that indicated their Christian morals were temporarily on hold.
The Red Barron used a red aeroplane to taunt the enemy and challenge them. Painting the aircraft red was an early version of delivering sports trash talk to a rival. Eventually, the Red Barron was hit, but he was able to land his airplane before he died.
President Bush may try to emulate the Red Barron's bravado, but there comes a time when bravado morphs into hubris and that brings us back to the Greeks and that brings us back to dancing and retched excess.
Are the Sons of Iraq any different from the Sons of the Dessert? They probably seem like the same group to George W. Bush.
Screw the consequences! Ignore Wall Street. Go to YouTube and watch the sequence where Zorba teaches a staid young British man to dance. Then remember that ironically the Bush legacy may ultimately be that staid conservative Christians learned the Zorba attitude and embraced the wine, women and dancing that their elders warned them not to sample let alone practice to excess.
When a stock owner resorts to panic selling, it also means some shrewd bargain hunter is doing some (panic?) buying.
Today, Wall Street may be crashing, so odds are you won't want to think about other bad aspects of the Bush legacy. That's just the way the Bush team likes it.
Your 401K may be depleted. Your collectables may be worth nada. You may have your home foreclosed tomorrow, but if you want to express your rejection of the Bush legacy, go dancing tonight and forget about the other bad debt that Bush has acquired in your name.
Zorba also said: "God has a very big heart but there is one sin he will not forgive; if a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go."-
Now, the disk jockey will play the theme song from the movie "Zorba the Greek,"- and we will dance out of here. Have a "have we hit bottom, yet?"- type week.
