So, with the 2000 and 2004 elections - the "old-money" elites were seeing the changing picture emerging and they supported the aggressiveness of the Neo-conservative ideology in actively intervening around the world to protect US interests - just see the PNAC principles to see how they sought control and prosperity of the world, it is blatantly plastered there and signed by a lot of influential people - business, military and politics alike. Research institutions like the RAND Corporation have for years now been researching into projects of more effective social control and understanding - a quick look at the research projects and grants is quite telling. Of course, a lot of important knowledge also comes out of this - just like the Nazi medical experiments are extremely valuable to medical science today. It is however not so nefarious to research on sociology, politics, military science and the intersection of all of this. It all is just valid information and knowledge about current society and imminent trends. The scary thing is how the conclusions are being formed and what active measures, policies are being set in motion from this information. It seems the development is into regaining social control in the advent of freedom of democracy, information and thought - and one needs to sum up all of the policies and trends to get "the big picture" and how the system is being changed into a stronger bias again. Other institutions like the American Enterprise Institute cater to the managers and elites - providing ideological guidelines and analysis --- to bolster their apologetic "logics" of performing their actions, and recruiting like-minded to continue supporting the system bias. It is all about being self-righteous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingsoc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101 The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm http://www.aei.org/ http://www.anglospherechallenge.com/ Probably like many of you, I played with WWII games on the computer and tabletop a lot when growing up - and read all the comics and was greatly interested in all kind of war machinery, strategy and tactics. It came in handy during my military training - maps, communications, strategic routes, defence positioning and intelligence. Mostly I was involved in NATO communications of various intelligence and cryptography. Nowadays I appreciate that background and apply to computer security. Also, just like after WWI where the German population was in shock - as was largely the whole of Europe - that is when new policies and bias is most easily implemented. It is just like boot-camp, you break them down - then you bring the light forward to build them up into your image - i.e to your advantage. That also happened with the Bush administration - repeatedly, with 9/11, several internal threats and the financial meltdown. Now the US has new departments for social control and security --- and a population scared to wits about what has happened, thereby supporting almost anything the political leaders are proposing. As we all know - the CIA and other power politics players most often play both sides in geopolitical important strategies - to make things happen. I don't really think anyone wanted the 9/11 stuff to happen - but that terrorists attacking the US would be extremely advantageous to the "old-money" elite when they just had gotten the aggressive Neo-conservatives into office --- that is beyond any doubt. This is not any conspiracy theory - it is just looking at the big picture and big trends - the "world system" with it's components and those interacting - who stands to gain, and what events occur in history. It is not about trying to find evidence, it is just about understanding the system itself as it stands and evolves. This includes the benefits, interests and fears of the participants. That is why systems science is so interdisciplinary -- it wakes a complete view, not just a singe aspect of a separate science and the closed rigid environment of a scientific area with it's logics, models and formulas. Rumsfeld made a speech in 2006 about the "global war of ideas" and the battle around the emerging Internet, that they hadn't completely figured out yet. http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2006/tr20060327-12710.html Well, just to convey the "big picture" of history, geopolitics, evolution and society to those who are interested --- of course you should all be, but then again you have a lot invested in being dependent on the success of the elites, which again feed your bellies and bank accounts. It "pays" to stay on the "winning team", and that is the inherent elitist social Darwinism that infers the back-stabbing rat-race towards the top of the pyramid. But like I've explained in innumerate posts, this is not sustainable - it always goes through the cycle of greatness into destruction - like any empire etc. What is ingenious is when every time that shock of destruction happens - at whatever scale and aspect of society, business etc - if you are in control at the moment of destruction, shock and chaos - then you always have the possibility to shape the chaos into what benefits you, since fortunes are nullified and people are in disarray or bewilderment. Now, remember that your brains are limited and that skull and bones real-estate is scarce... so when you fill your brain with worthless edutainment of celebrities, comedy shows and political bickering - then your brain gets swamped with minute details that is in no way important to your function as a democratic voter, but is purely emotional and contributes to your feeling well-being, self-image and hopes for success. That also goes for religion, philosophy, ideology, beliefs etc. Of course the kind of knowledge that strengthens you personally is useful in any system - but when it strengthens you in the view of "the big picture" then you start interacting with "the big boys." Ultimately, when you fill your brain with nonsense that is irrelevant to your understanding of freedom and democracy, and your role in it ... then you are just turned into a drooling zombie at the bidding of those big players who benefit from society being aligned towards them. Again, this is a very large macro-view of the world and society - a high-level systems view - and underneath is a very complex and intertwined network effects, interests and causes etc. That doesn't mean that it is chaos or that it can't be understood. You just need to keep an open mind, and not be so weak that you automatically align yourself with others in the system. Having personal integrity and a strong internal information structure that you truly trust - means that you need to keep an open mind and NOT censor or discriminate ANY information - just evaluate it and place in the right periphery of the information system that you have. Of course the dynamics of the system changes all the time, and so you need to be aware of this - just like an overhead map, chessboard or other tabletop game if you like... Happy learning - it is well worth your while to understand more of reasoning, systems, history, technology, society, politics and how you fit in between all of this. It does not mean that you can change anything on your own - but it sure makes it nice to know what is the big picture and how the changes affect you personally - so that you don't get totally screwed by "market forces". Be a trader and player who understands what is going on - not just a piece getting tossed around by the "incomprehensible volatility".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_basic_World_War_II_topics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-American_loan The Anglo-American loan was a post-Second World War loan made to the United Kingdom by the United States in 1946. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4757181.stm What's a little debt between friends? On 31 December, 2006, the UK will make a payment of about $83m (£45.5m) to the US and so discharge the last of its loans from World War II from its transatlantic ally. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6215847.stm UK settles WWII debts to allies http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/supercycle/ A picture of the post-WWII debt supercycle, 26 September 2008 For many months we were told this was a subprime crisis. Then the realization slowly dawned that Alt-A loans were also defaulting. OK, they were really just another form of subprime loans. Then prime mortgages started defaulting, so it became a mortgage crisis. Now auto loans are going, followed by credit card loans and real estate construction loans. http://www.google.com/search?q=december+2006+WWII+debt+UK more comments - Google Search Now, if you look at the history of civilization from it's inception with the history of agriculture, and the formation of city states... as well as reading about Mackinder's "Heartland"... and understanding the history of Neo-conservatism from it's radical roots of Trotskyism and Shachtmanism into a just as radical return to cultural conservatism in line with their orthodox religious backgrounds, with outright hatred towards counter-cultures, as well as their anti-communism after the founders and influential "thinkers" saw how the Soviet treated Jews -- then you start understanding the "reasoning" and strategy behind a lot of the world geopolitics. Couple that with the elite theories and "old-money" hegemonies - through Freemasonry, Skull and Bones, Rhodes Scholarship --- and the ideological screams from loonies like James Burnham, whose correspondence with Irving Kristol resulted in the 1964 book "Suicide of the West", a bible for right-wing conservatives in the US ... then you really start understanding the development of power politics, power projection and elite theory set into motion. Burnham said the US had to destroy it's enemies using every means available - economic, cultural and military - and not simply settle for containing the enemies. This has led to the "logics" behind the Democratic Peace theory - implemented by Bush. Well, you guys are now into the commencing aftermath of this "global war of ideas" - and Bush has the lowest approval rating of any president... just like the Germans renounced Hitler after his fall, you are now renouncing your failed leader. What about the ideology, belief system and fundamental world view, though? STILL TODAY MANY OF YOU INSIST ON FOLLOWING IN THE HISTORICAL FOOTSTEPS OF HIS POLICIES. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burnham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Kristol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_Dei http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_family http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_Scholarship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managerial_state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-realism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_fear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Federal_Reserve_System Please, wake up... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_mundialization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_thought http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_democracy
Just to get things out in the open, Pabst is on record as describing U.S. efforts in WWII as 'interventionist', stating that the U.S. would have been much better off keeping out of the whole thing, and that Hitler has been given a bit of a hard ride by revisionist historians. Pabst, I trust that's not an inaccurate interpretation of your position? I do recall you saying something about Hitler which got a lot of people here riled up - is this an accurate summary of those statements?
Famous quote: "What good fortune for those in power that people do not think." -Adolf Hitler In the case of Bush it was more like "lets put a moronic monkey at the top who gives a smile and two thumbs up at everything -- then no one will suspect anything... and they will certainly not be prone to thinking."
I almost didn't make it through your post, as it appeared to be the same mindless Obama bashing found in dozens upon dozens of other posts. And then you said this. You hit a nerve with me. Big time. The major failing of our system is that there is no voice of the people. Mistrust of politics and politicians pervades the American populace - who have a constant nagging feeling they are left out in the cold. We desperately need a viable third party to stand up and be counted. A third party that doesn't bullshit the American people - a party to provide an unwavering reference which the American people can use to reflect upon the current state of affairs - and educate themselves enough to pull themselves out of the cesspool. True populist politics - Not some puppet that the Republicans trot out to appeal to 'Joe Sixpack'.