I often wonder why young Americans did nothing to protest the outrageous criminal regime that had taken control of the United States in 2004. Where was the resistance? Two illegal wars, a growing police state, and several trillion dollars stolen by criminal bankers from the American people -- why didn't you protest, resist- burn tires in the streets?
Having grown up during the Vietnam War, I was immersed in the protest movement and vibrant anti-war music and culture of the 1960s. "Lucky Man" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer is a good example of the anti-war music of the time. I find it odd that there is no similar anti-war movement or music today. Faced with never-ending wars in the Middle East, today's youth seem completely apathetic and apolitical.
The photo of a summary execution by a South Vietnamese police chief showed the lawlessness of the war.
During those years, the United States was engaged in an undeclared war of aggression in Southeast Asia that nobody really understood. Every week, the American people saw actual photos from the war in LIFE magazine and could easily see through the deception that we were fighting "communism". After 8 years of war in Afghanistan and 18 years in Iraq, however, there is no similar photo-journalism of comparable quality coming from the "embedded" journalists covering these wars. Likewise, there is virtually no anti-war music or protest movement against the criminal wars being fought in our name.
WHY?
The famous photo of Vietnamese children burned with napalm changed U.S. public opinion about the war.
An x-KGB agent said "Ideological subversion is the process which is legitimate and open. You can see it with your own eyes.... It has nothing to do with espionage... in reality the main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85 percent is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is to change the perception of reality of every American [so] that despite the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country."
So when Fox news or any of their Far right pundits spread one of the hate stories, they change the very soul of American reality to the point that is easily manipulated.
If you announce a big enough lie and will repeat it, then people at the end will believe it" Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler.
I will point out one of many stories for you.
The constant rant that Obama is not from America. Proof can not dissuade them. and now, thanks to people like the Fox News, birther's, etc. 1 out of 5 Americans believe that he is Muslim. Twice as many people believe this now than did a year ago. See how it works now?
If you are one that believe he is a Muslim. You will fight hard for what you "know to be true"
If you know he is not a Muslim. These people have two choices. Most likely, you will just sit there with your thumb up your butt.
Us older people, we have seen this dance and we know the tune, We have stood up against the hysterical crowd before you were born and too long afterwords.
"He can not be president because he will run the government by and for his church!"
"He is controlled by foreign interests."
"A person of that religion can not and should not be president."
Sound familiar?
No, I am not talking about Barrack Obama. These are the reasons given for why John F. Kennedy should not be president because he was Catholic.
Your choice now! sit there and do nothing, we all lose to the rabble. Your freedoms will be taken away one by one as they have been but you have not been concerned to notice. This is how the Nazis took over Germany.
The controlled media today censors and sanitizes the images and information about the wars and the human suffering the aggression has caused to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The public is kept in the dark about the true costs of the illegal wars, both human and financial. Most importantly, the U.S. media keeps powerful images like these from the Vietnam and Iraq wars off the pages of our newspapers.
After nearly 19 years of fighting and bombing Iraqis, very few images of the human cost of the war have been published. The ones that have been seen are horrible beyond belief and reveal the criminal nature of the war of aggression.
A U.S. Marine killing injured Iraqis in a mosque in Fallujah, November 13, 2004 (NBC/AP)
Cristopher Bollyn's blog pushed me to write this though I do not represent his views.
Steve
I think that you're post is intellignet and wel thought out. Within it, in fact, lies the very answer to your question of why American youth doesn't protest more.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned Fox News. Fox is part of the bigger picture of the now prevalent news cycle. During the Viet Nam War, news came on twice a day, at 6 and 11. And when the news broke into regularly scheduled programming, it was a BIG deal.
Today? The 24 hour news cycle coupled with computers and smart phones that deliver news instantly via the internet have all but desensitized people to daily events that 40 years ago would have been major news stories.
As to the Republicans, the sad fact is that they have, plain and simple, better P.R. than the Democrats and they have a better understanding of the modern political arena. It astonishes me that the Democrats have not yet learned that you really need to be ready to fight the right "Chicago" style.
The one exception is the Clintons. They understand the way modern politica and media manipulation work better than just about anyone in the Democratic Party. And that's why I knew Barack Obama was an American citizen: if he wasn't the Clintons would have destroyed him in the primaries and Hillary would be in the Oval Office as opposed to Foggy Bottom (U.S. State Department Headquarters).