Group Think Leads to Disaster

A couple of days ago I was outside doing some snow shoveling.  One of my neighbors came over to talk and he told me he was very confused.  "I grew up after WW II and used to believe that our country was the good guy," he told me.  "Now I don't know who to believe anymore."

He went on to say that when Obama was first elected that the new president and Hillary Clinton (as Secretary of State) talked about how they were going to 'reset' relations with Russia.  "When Trump tries to do the same thing he is trashed," the neighbor exclaimed.

This was a very moving and revealing conversation.  I told the neighbor that he was a wise man to be in such a quandary - I said we've all got to develop independent thinking skills these days.  This party loyalty stuff leads to a suspension of independent thinking and requires people to follow the leaders like lemmings over the cliff.  Group think leads to disaster.

It is quite evident to me that the Republicans and Democrats are playing 'good cop - bad cop' as they have recently switched roles once Trump moved into the White House.  Now the Democrats have become the major league war hawks calling for increased military pressure on Russia and Iran.  The similarities between professional wrestling on TV and the US Congress are striking.

I read a great article this morning by CJ Hopkins (award-winning American playwright and satirist based in Berlin) entitled Goose-stepping Our Way Toward Pink Revolution. He writes:

I’m going to repeat and italicize that to hopefully avoid any misunderstanding. The system the deep state primarily serves is not the United States of America, i.e., the country most Americans believe they live in; the system it serves is globalized Capitalism. The United States, the nation state itself, while obviously a crucial element of the system, is not the deep state’s primary concern. If it were, Americans would all have healthcare, affordable education, and a right to basic housing, like more or less every other developed nation.

My heart is breaking as I watch mindless liberals on Fazebook throwing their support behind the likes of Sen. John McCain for 'standing up against Trump'.  Many people are plum lazy and don't much bother to find out for themselves what is really going on.  Instead they turn on the boob tube, listen to a Rachel Maddow rant on MSNBC about Putin, and figure they know the score.  They don't!

Many of these same people were lulled to sleep during the 2003 manipulations that led to 'shock and awe' in Iraq - or they fell for the 2011 lies to cover up the US-NATO take down of Libya that created a refugee mess - or they were under the Obama spell in recent years as the US-NATO created the mess in Syria (where the Pentagon used depleted uranium ammunition) that also resulted in a massive refugee crisis.

Many of those same well meaning people recently ran to their nearest airport to hold signs opposing Trump's immigration ban but it never seemed to dawn on them that their beloved Obama's bombing of these very same countries during the past eight years had much to do with these poor refugees wanting to come to the US!  Might they ever have considered going out to the streets with a sign saying to Obama - STOP THE DRONE STRIKES - STOP KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE!

No, they didn't bother.  Instead the Washington Post reported during the height of the Obama reign that 70% of self-identified liberals supported his drone bombing campaign in the Middle East and Central Asia.  Why did they support him?  Because he was a Democrat - their president - and he was a nice family man - and was articulate and not stupid like Trump!

How much can my heart take of this mindlessness?

Why do people persist in buying the fake goods from the traveling snake oil salesmen?

Bruce