In the land of the ignorant. The dictionary defines ignorant as ‘Lacking knowledge, information or awareness of a particular thing’. It seems, regardless of the level of education obtained by many of my fellow citizens, we have always been a nation of ignorance. How far do you wish to go back? Let’s just go back to what myself and other baby boomers can perhaps recall, and start there. As a young boy who found himself under my desk in grade school during the semi-regular Atomic bomb drills, I was taught by my parents, the television news and my teachers that ‘The Russians may be coming!’ Yet, history reveals that the Eisenhower administration, led by the diabolical Dulles brothers, John Foster and Allen ( Secretary of State and CIA director respectively ) knew from the U-2 surveillance flights that the Soviet Union was much weaker than us militarily. Perhaps if the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Ike’s successor, JFK, had gotten their way, the Russkies would need those ‘under the desk drills.’ To the ignorance of the general public, that cabal, led by the Dulles boys, was pushing Kennedy for a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. One surmises that Khrushchev may have been justified in throwing his shoe during a UN meeting in 1960.
Then we had the ‘ Lone gunman’ assassination of JFK, with Arlen Specter’s Empire saving ‘ Magic bullet’ theory to consolidate that one man, Oswald, did the dirty deed alone. After all the research and hidden facts uncovering this hogwash, anyone who still believes that Lee Harvey did it, and alone, I have this wonderful bridge in Brooklyn for sale… cheap! Check out Oliver Stone’s new documentary ‘ JFK Revisited- Through the Looking Glass’ on the Showtime channel. The screenplay was by author and researcher James DiEugenio, with a sequel to follow in February. {You can hear the interview with Mr. DiEugenio on the ‘ It’s the Empire Stupid’ website ( www.itstheempirestupid.com)}. The majority of Americans at that time, and even now, never dared to question what our government and embedded media shoveled at them. As the late peace activist Walt DeYoung would say: Nuff Said!
The 1960s moved right along, especially with millions witnessing JFK being taken out, as we marched into the Vietnam debacle. I refuse to say ‘War’ because the only war going on there in the 1960s, up until 1975, was the Vietnam Civil War. Our nation had no damn reason or excuse to send millions of young men and women there to kill and be killed… along with destroying their countryside and way of life! The American public was once again ignorant of the facts behind the famous ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ incident. We were not informed that our Navy was conducting commando attacks and intelligence gathering along the North Vietnamese coast from international waters. Imagine if, before we were at war with Germany in 1940-41, that German U boats were doing such missions on our Atlantic coast .You know our Navy would do exactly what the North Vietnamese Navy did. The North Vietnamese sent out torpedo boats to engage our destroyers and basically ‘Shoo them off.’ Once shots were fired, the lies and misinformation of the event gave LBJ the impetus to issue his ‘ Gulf of Tonkin Resolution’ and get us into The Shit, as our GIs later on called it. Just watch the Marx Brothers satirical film Duck Soup and see how phony wars begin.
The ignorant among us bought hook, line and sinker anything our political leaders offered. Richard Nixon’s promises of a secret plan to end the Vietnam horror, which then took 6 years of more and increased carpet bombing with no end in sight. Whether it was Ford or Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton , Bush Jr, Obama, Trump and now Biden, the War Cabal made sure to keep spending too much of our tax dollars for what they call defense. How many of the ignorant among us know that over 50% of our federal money goes down that rabbit hole? Do they care? They should care, when there is little money for proper Medicaid dollars so millions of seniors can afford placement into a nursing home. Millions of ignorant parents are unaware that other industrialized nations have better child care, so working Moms can be employed without having ‘latchkey kids’ or being forced to remain at home. As the infrastructure crumbles each and every day, as water pipes and clean drinking water continue to be sabotaged, as mega millionaires and billionaires reap the benefits of right wing ‘Corporate Welfare’… Rome burns, our Rome USA.
All of my ignorant friends and neighbors should go to the library and take out books on the period in our American history called The Gilded Age (the years between the Civil War and the turn of the 20th Century). What they will find out is how much in common our current times have with that era. The super rich then and the super rich now were clones. As far as the power of religion, well, let me leave you with this tidbit from the man that a large population of this planet consider to be ‘ The Son of God:’
Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven.
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