The Developing and Deepening Conflict
Host: Farhad Saba

Closing

(Participant) Soon we will be bringing this conference to a close, and opening a new one, dealing with the same subject and led again by Fred Saba. We wanted to recognize that the conflict has entered a new phase, hence the new title, The Deepening Conflict, and to provide an opportunity for other Fellows to enter the discussion without feeling that they must read 114 comments. The issues we are addressing are so important that history will doubtless record these events as fundamentally reshaping international relations, possibly the nature of warfare. To discuss anything else during this month seems inappropriate. In any case, we will segue directly into that new conference without a break. Please stay with us

(Farhad Saba) Dear Colleagues:
I believe this week brings our discussion to an end. It has been a real pleasure serving you as the moderator. We started with Iraq, but our discussion developed a web of interrelated issues that ranged from reorganizing the United Nations to reorganizing how elections are financed in the US, and the behavior of the press during the Iraq crisis…

I am very impressed with the range of issues that we discussed and the breadth of unorthodox thinking about how our global civilization is taking shape and how the American society is responding to it.

A few years ago, my students at San Diego State University were lucky to have Richard Farson as a guest speaker. I had asked Richard to discuss the sense of community in the digital age with my students. First, he depicted a picture of La Jolla, California as a small and intimate village, and then he explained how it has evolved over the years with its small and independent drug stores, hardware stores and bookstores being replaced with large chain stores.

In the current discussion, Richard brought to our attention the replacement of independent thinking with cliché journalism and how this has marginalized the ability of our society to think creatively about current issues.

I hope in future discussion we continue to discuss contemporary issues from a fresh and novel view point as we have here.

(Participant) I just returned from a two day visit to San Francisco to find this conference more active and interesting than ever. Fred, you have been a sensitive guide and a fount of knowledge for us. Thanks to you, we have been the beneficiaries of a perspective simply not present in our other media. Your two interrelated conferences covered an entire war, from its preparation to its conclusion of combat, and all along we were able to get a view of the events that others did not have. We are deeply indebted to you, and look forward to your continued presence in our next discussions. I think we all realize now that we can't get along without you! Many, many thanks.

There is still time for any terminal comments the group might want to make before we start our new conference in the next few hours. It will be led by Doug Carmichael, and it's subject matter will lend itself to a good transition from this most interesting and valuable conference that Fred has been leading.

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