On the other hand, you might want to note that SCANDAL spelled backwards is . . . LADNACS. LADNACS? LADNACS, of course, does not make sense, but then, neither does Thomas Friedman's latest Times op-ed entitled "ISIS and SISI" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/opinion/thomas-friedman-isis-and-sisi.html?ref=opinion&_r=0), in which this would-be Middle East expert explains how the Arabs can escape the tyranny of ISIS (also known as ISIL) in Iraq and of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt. Friedman concludes his erudite opinion piece by observing:
"We tend to make every story about us. But this is not all about us. To be sure, we’ve done plenty of ignorant things in Iraq and Egypt. But we also helped open their doors to a different future, which their leaders have slammed shut for now. Going forward, where we see people truly committed to pluralism, we should help support them. And where we see islands of decency threatened, we should help protect them. But this is primarily about them, about their need to learn to live together without an iron fist from the top, and it will happen only when and if they want it to happen."
"It will happen only when and if they want it to happen"? Or something akin to Dorothy just having to click the heels of her ruby slipper three times. Or Ray Kinsella building a baseball field in his cornfield, knowing that if you build it, they will come.
Or, if you wish it long enough and hard enough, it will happen. You know, the profound philosophy underlying that 2006 self-help masterpiece entitled "The Secret."
However, there is a fly in Friedman's ointment. More than 10 million Egyptian women are illiterate. More than 90 percent of Egyptian women have undergone genital mutilation. And this is not because of Sisi. This is because more than 80 million Jew-hating Egyptians do this to themselves.
Unless Egyptians choose to free their women from tyranny, this country is headed for the dustbin of history.
Iraq? An incohesive entity whose borders resulted from the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France. Sykes-Picot was intended to carve up the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, but failed to take into account centuries-long enmity between Shiites and Sunnis. Iraq today? Pure pandemonium, and there is no chance of this chaos abating until Shiites and Sunnis learn to live together, which is not in the cards anytime soon.
But never mind: Listen to Friedman! After all, Obama read Friedman, and look where it took his foreign policy . . .
Well, Obama reads Friedman, then consults with Valerie, Susan and Michelle (she finds time in spite of her heavy schedule of promoting un-healthy food to children) and here we are - total destabilization of the world. Success, success, success.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Michele. It's true that little knowledge is dangerous. Planting a garden on a poisonous site, and forcing children to eat grains, more grains, and even more grains isn't wise, but Michele doesn't know this yet. After all advising on foreign policy is time consuming even if it's limited to talking only and doesn't include a single hour of learning.
ReplyDeleteHere's the comment I made to the NYT (which is unlikely to pass their censors):
"Interesting (and typically 'cute') analysis and column by one of the best in the media/propaganda-sector the DGE.
However, Friedman, while rightly dismissing ISIS and SISI as flawed fundamentalist religion and authoritarian systems of government respectively, does not discredit the far more pervasive and real threat of SSII, which is the extant system of anti-democratic rule in the world today.
SSII, you may ask?
Oh, that's my cute retort to Tom's cuteness and stands for Super Secret International Imperialism --- which amounts to the same as a the more serious term I've been using for a decade (DGE) to define and 'expose' the Disguised Global Empire which has 'captured' and now fully "Occupies" our former country as its HQ.
Yes, the Disguised Global Empire, this highly integrated (but hidden) six-sectored; corporate, financial, militarist, media/propaganda, extra-legal, and dual-party Vichy-political Global Empire, which only 'poses' as the US is a far more advanced and effective deceit of normal government than was its earlier and less effective model: the crude and merely single-party Vichy facade of government that the earlier and mere European Nazi Empire installed as an attempted 'cute' disguise of that earlier Empire which had 'captured' and "Occupied" France during the Second World War (of Empire).
So, Tom, 'not to put too fine a point' on your cuteness, where is your opinion column on the SSII Super Secret International Imperialism that is HQed in our former country?"
Best to the 3-5% of the truly informed vanguard of Americans
(within the 99%) in this fast expanding 'Pro-democracy Anti-Empire'
educational and non-violent revolutionary movement (in the Green
Party) against this deceitful and Disguised Global EMPIRE, which
is "Occupying" our country and yet can't so easily
be identified, by the deluded and propagandized majority, as
wearing Red Coats, Red Stars, nor funny looking Nazi helmets ----
quite YET!
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality
Over
Violent ('Vichy' disguised)
Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
We don't merely have a "Big Money"/Citizens United problem, or a domestic tyranny and NSA SPYING problem, or an NDAA Secret Detention problem, or a corrupt unSupreme Court problem, or a gun/fear problem, or an MIC problem, or an 'Austerity' problem, or an EXPANDING WARS problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem, or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or the world's largest political prisoner problem, or a crappy un-healthy insurance problem, or shitty over-priced and exclusive educational access problem, or, or, or ... ad nauseam --- but what we REALLY have is a hidden VEMPIRE cancerous tumor of GLOBAL EMPIRE which is the prime CAUSE of all these underlying, related, and mere 'symptom problems' ---- but not even the most progressive voices in the alternative media agree or dare raise a United Voice against this dangerous EMPIRE ---- and which is why Kerry, Obama and the DGE they 'front-for' is scared shitless that RT TV's message of pointing the finger at the real Disguised Global Empire is so dangerous to their global facade of supposed US freedom, democracy, equality, and justice, all of which is such an obvious bullshit disguise of the real DGE.