February 26, 2003
Barlow, Cheney, Mexican Bus Drivers

One of my favorite writers and thinkers, on Dick Cheney. I've been doing a lot of driving here in Chiapas, and I appreciate his analogy when discussing Reagan-era policy. It may apply now as well.

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL by John Perry Barlow

"What I was not thinking about, however, was the technique I once used to avoid being run off the road by Mexican bus drivers, back when their roads were narrower and their bus drivers even more macho. Whenever I saw a bus barrelling down the centerline at me, I would start driving unpredictably, weaving from shoulder to shoulder as though muy borracho. As soon as I started to radiate dangerously low regard for my own preservation, the bus would slow down and move over. As it turned out, this is more or less what Cheney and his phalanx of Big Stategic Thinkers were doing, if one imagined the Soviet Union as a speeding Mexican bus."

Posted by Dave at February 26, 2003 12:21 AM