October 24, 2004

The Power of Nightmares made a powerful and interesting start. I knew from a while ago that the likes of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, etc were all ranking officials back in the 1970s, but I didn't know that they were all connected back to a single ideology right from the beginning. Scary!

*Picture taken from NeoCon Watch

The one observation that my wife made was that all these guys are getting old - if they were in Ford's administration battling against the Soviet Union, they must be all into their 60s already... Are they fit for office?

Moreover, these guys are from a time when things were very different from now: The Soviet Union was right there, you could aim as many bombs and missles at them as you liked, they weren't going to run to a different part of the world. However, terrorists, by their very own nature, depend on their ability to hide until the very last moment, so all those all those tactics they used so 'successfully' against the good ole Soviet Union are not going to be effective against terrorists.

This led me back to something a read in Richard Clarke's book:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Later in [September 12th], Secretary Rumsfeld complained that there were no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider bombing Iraq, which, he said, had better targets. At first I thought Rumsfeld was joking. But he was serious and the President did not reject out of hand the idea of attacking Iraq. Instead, he noted that what we needed to do with Iraq was to change the government, not just hit it with some cruise missiles, as Rumsfeld had implied. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clarke, Richard A., Against All Enemies (Inside America's War on Terror), 2004

Very scary!!

---

November 6, 2004

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What constantly irritates me is when when we see the evidence for various concerns presented (global warming etc) clearly and then some 'expert' or talking head pops us and tells us it all wrong but giving no proof.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a problem that is in evidence in almost every single subject you can think of. For those who really care about a particular subject and want to know more about it, they go and do their own research. In every given situation, you're going to be bombarded with conflicting views and interpretations. You, as an intelligent being, are suppose to take on all the available information and advise and then come up with your decision - base on what you think you know.

Now, if you are an absolute 'no-body' (read: nearly everyone on the planet), you are now 'well informed' and you have a view that you have 'evidence' to support. However, if you're a 'powerful individual', when you make a decision and want people to listen to you reasoning, you've better get it pretty watertight.

Anyway, I digressed. The point is: the series is suppose to be informative in the sense that together, the programs provide a balanced view of what is and what is not. It is up to you, as an intelligent human being, to make you your mind.

I understand what you're saying about global warming and other issues. The difficulties is that, by and large, humans are lazy and they want to live for the moment (just look at our saving habits, or the lack of). Oil is another good example. Everybody knows that it will run out eventually, but it's not running out imminently, so people just keep burning more and more of it.

Fear is a very powerful weapon in 'focusing' the mass conscience. Moreover, fear for the self is the most powerful form of all. Nearly no-one cares about what's going to happen in 25, 50 or 75 years down the line. That's the time line of our children and our grandchildren. What people care about is now. And what they care about now is their own 'happiness'. Pure selfish human behavior, and completely true to form.

So by playing with our fears and your search for 'happiness', those in power are able to manipulate our views towards what they'd consider as 'dangers' and turn danger into a source of their own power.

Link to Hexus.net Forum