October 12, 2009
Sounds familiar
Bill Kraus's latest GuestBlog post is titled, "Taking care of Business." As usual, he is right on target. Stripped of all the ornaments we must fight the propaganda of the insurance industry if we are going to gain an efficient health care system that will help all of us but also help business compete in world markets. But, alas, the insurance thieves will today begin fighting the Baucus bill as too radical. Whoa Nelly.
Speaking of propaganda, I was proud to read Colman McCarthy's review of UW-Stevens Point history professor Susan Brewer's book Why America Fights.
Many will recall McCarthy's Washington Post columns advocating peace during the Vietnam war. Today he directs the Center for Teaching Peace. (Could anything be more suspicious than teaching peace?) You will want to read Professor Brewer's book. McCarthy says it places her in "the company of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and James Loewen." Heady company. A fact that will start you thinking: She points out that in 2008 the U.S. had bases in 132 countries. Yikes!
George Orwell said, "One of the most horrible features of war is that the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting."
We saw Michael Moore's movie, Capitalism: A love story. Go see it and take two friends. Scary, yet humorous. Go! He is an amazing talent.
If you think that we are making progress in Afghanistan, the "good war," the NYT opens today with this: "Civilian Goals Largely Unmet." And that is the good news. The article goes on to say, "Many civil institutions are deteriorating as much as the country's security...Afghanistan is so dangerous many aid workers cannot travel outside Kabul...the judiciary is so weak that Afghans increasingly turn to a shadow Taliban court ststem...at least it is something."
The propaganda machine always tells us, "Send your troops into harm's way until the (fill in the blank____) troops have been trained" to take on the enemy without us. The lie is that there are hundreds of thousands of untrained but willing Afghans, Iraqis, Vietnamese eager to join the American war. Nonsense! It is falling apart in Afghanistan--too bad, but we can't stop it. Get out now!
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