America’s Break With Reality
When the US military attacked Iraq five years ago, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld all believed and preached that American troops would be showered with garlands and welcomed as ‘liberators’ by the Iraqi people. That did not occur. Nothing even remotely similar to their prediction occurred. Years on, Iraq has degenerated into butchery and the Republican government continues to spout idiotic interpretations of what is happening in that fractured nation.
How could the American government get it so wrong? Do they not pour millions into military intelligence? Doesn't the Central Intelligence Agency have analysts who study the minutia of foreign circumstances and situations?
In his article, ‘Losing the War for Reality’, author Robert Parry writes:”When future historians look back at the sharp decline of the United States in the early 21st Century, they might identify the Achilles heel of this seemingly omnipotent nation as its lost ability to recognize reality and to fashion policies to face the real world.”
Looking back to the Reagan administration as well as those of Bush senior and Bush junior, Parry identifies how right wing ideology began to snuff out pragmatic intelligence in the United States. “One of the target institutions was the national press corps, which came under sustained assault from the Right – with reporters facing accusations of disloyalty and “liberal bias” from both inside the Reagan administration and from well-financed right-wing attack groups.” [...] “Another key institution on the Right’s radar scope was the CIA’s analytical division, which was responsible for supplying objective information about the world’s dangers to senior government officials.”
Right wing political ideology began to trump Reality. It continues to this day.
The rise of the Moral Majority and overt Christianity caused the downward spiral that started with Reagan.
But, notice please, that during the Clinton years, everything went better for the nation.
Then Bush 2 got in and it's been downhill from there on in.
A lot of evangelists are running for higher ground and many more people are hiding their Christianity or tempering it with reason instead of blind obedience.
Posted by Anonymous | 9:57 am, April 09, 2008
I remain amazed that in the most affluent nation on the planet, blessed with knowledge and technology the world has never seen before, that fully 1/4 of the population is certifiably insane!
Posted by leftdog | 10:22 am, April 09, 2008
Some places even worse odds.
I stopped talking to people here in town several years ago, the things that fly out of their mouths are unbelievable.
Posted by Not Your Mama | 9:28 am, April 10, 2008
NYM. I lived in a small town for a few years (a fairly right wing community) and like you, I just stopped talking to people around me. The fact that most of them get out of bed each day looking to the sky to see if Jesus is coming on a cloud to start mass butchery left me with the knowledge that they should be confined to mental hospitals. That fact that your President and my Prime Minister BOTH believe that insane crap is enough to leave sane citizens a bit nervous.
Posted by leftdog | 9:49 am, April 10, 2008