[Wikipedia-l] Collaborative, up-to-the-minute construction of

[Vicki Rosenzweig]

At 12:54 AM 8/13/02 +0200, Lars wrote:
>lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > things, that never happened and never will.  The year pages should
> > report on what actually did happen.
>
>Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, "1. The world is all
>that is the case."  Did the worry "happen" or not?  Do Americans
>suddenly drive with US flags sticking out of their car windows, like
>some nationalist fanatics?  Is that an event or just a sentiment?

That's an event, reflecting sentiment and an earlier event. It has nothing
to do with a possible attack on Iraq: it's a response to the attack on the
World Trade Center.

>Does it in fact help the US govt to launch a war on Iraq?  Maybe we
>shouldn't get too deep into this.  "7. What we cannot speak about we
>must pass over in silence."  But seeing this with my own eyes on a
>recent visit to NYC sure helps me understand what's going on.  Wish I
>could have been in Berlin in 1936, when that people were waving their
>flags like crazy.  Wittgenstein could have, but I think he stayed in
>England.  How many toes did I step on now?  Ouch.
>
>Media reporting does have an effect on the real world, which is why I
>think media reporting _is_ an event.

The problem is, we're still in the middle of this, which makes it hard to know
whether the "event" is going to be "after months of leaks and propaganda,
the US attacks Iraq" or "Bush administration fails to gain support for an
attack on Iraq, and does nothing." The latter might be worth a mention in an
article on George W. Bush, but isn't an event of 2002.
-- 
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org