No, Really?!
I’ve been reading the book “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10,2001″
It’s a captivating read and I am just amazed why this story hasn’t been discussed more. I would assume, since the goal of involvement in Afghanistan was to bankrupt the Soviet Union, that we haven’t learned from that bit of history.
My favorite part in the book so far is on page 149. on the bottom of the page the writer tells us that President Reagan was not much of a reader. He preferred movies to those long, boring briefing memos used to keep the President up to date. This turned the worker bees at the CIA into movie editors, often producing “distilled bits of intelligence” for President Reagan to watch. Key word: Distilled.
When I read this, I nearly shit my pants. Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me? I couldn’t help but envision this man that has been elevated to some kind of patriotic god status giddy over a new movie he gets to watch. It begs the question: Does our current C average leader warrant the same kind of briefings? We all know he can’t be arsed with actually reading,either. It vailidated what I had already suspected. Americans can aspire to be…….MEDIOCRE!
It’s quite obvious that mediocrity is celebrated . Just surfing through the right wing blogosphere and you can bet that you’ll find “reporters” who post vicious half truths about women bloggers who accepted work on a politcal campaign, without even calling the subjects of their attacks for comment on their “Investigative findings”. Screw it, we can just make the shit up and they will listen! These attacks were coming from people who call themselves “professional journalist”? Frightening.
Even more frightening is the memo distributed by a member of the Texas State House of Representatives touting that the earth doesn’t revolve around the sun because God said so. Warning,though: if you visit this website your brains cells might actually die. However, if you really want a brain vacation, please—go right ahead. I’m still baffled.
Americans embrace mediocrity and it leads all the way to our congress. Since when does quoting a really dumb comedian’s tagline in a seemingly important debate against a troop surge? Trashy Pop culture references are now in the congressional record. I cringed when I heard that.
Amazing. I’m just glad that I am teaching my child to use reason and critical thinking….
February 18th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Great post. Yep, good thing you’re teaching your kid those skills, because most people aren’t bothering. They don’t want to be bothered with teaching them how to read, much less how to think about what they read. Hell in a handbasket…
February 19th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Just wait until Obama starts talking about making health care crunk.
February 19th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
You know whats even funnier- Reagan’s administration supported the communist government of Romania because it was in opposition to the Soviet Union. Of course Ceauşescu was far nutter than anything the Soviets produced outside of Stalin. Not to mention Yugoslavia, still communist at the time, received American support from 1948 onward. And finally, Poland, which received US aid after its confrontation with the USSR in 1956, though I am not sure when the aid ceased, if it ever ceased at all.
February 20th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Someone recently argued that the anti communist rhetoric was nothing more then stopping another “superpower” from becoming more economicly powerful then us. I believe that is a vaild argument. I’m always wondering why we aren’t enagaged in the same pissing contest with China. I believe it is because they will not hesitate to obliterate us if we happen to piss them off.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I feel obligated to say one word to the inhabitants of USA: “Duh!!”
The rest of the planet has been telling you this information for decades. However your government had you so thouroughly brainwashed that at the mere mention of these things, you have collectively averted your heads and with eyes firmly shut started screaching about your way of life. That was usually followed with a stampede to the nearest garbage food outlet in order to devour piles of charred meat with fried starch which was, offcourse, accompanied with cancerogenous sugar laden drink. In the name of “our way of life”.
What can we conclude about the intelligence of the said population?
By the way, the rest of the planet has also known for decades that communists were new witches. Now terrorists are new communists.
Oh, and your country is supporting independance of Kosovo, in order to destabilize Europe and to get its grubby hands on the biggest silver, aluminium and zinc mine in Europe (the fifth in the world).