Fear & the Selling of an American Empire (No CT crab)

[Fish]

http://www.updebate.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11815

[Skybird]

Short hint on what it's about, please, before we download a 1+ hour video...? ;)

[Chock]

That's an interesting film and well worth a look (warning, it's an hour long).

Of course it doesn't really tell anyone outside the US anything we don't already know about how the US is perceived around the world, but it may well serve to open a few US eyes which look out, rather than in. These days, with attacks on US soil and US citizens dying in foreign lands in two wars, Americans have a better understanding of what it means to have explosions going off in your homeland of course, which for many other countries has been a fact of life for more years than they can remember.

I'm actually a real fan of the founding principles of the United States, and frankly I think what they did to my own country (UK) 200-odd years ago was totally righteous; the words of Jefferson and Payne et al are something other countries would do well in striving to follow, so understand that I am not having a pop at the US here, merely the people in power who steer it for their own ends. But the current US is so far removed from upholding those concepts these days that it is easy to see why so many peoples around the world view the US as an enemy, and the repercussions of what seeds are sewn were of course writ large on 9/11, and it will happen again if policy stays the same, of that you can be sure.

:D Chock

[Fish]

Short hint on what it's about, please, before we download a 1+ hour video...? ;)

Well, Chock did it for me. :up:

[Skybird]

I'm actually a real fan of the founding principles of the United States, and frankly I think what they did to my own country (UK) 200-odd years ago was totally righteous; the words of Jefferson and Payne et al are something other countries would do well in striving to follow, so understand that I am not having a pop at the US here, merely the people in power who steer it for their own ends. But the current US is so far removed from upholding those concepts these days that it is easy to see why so many peoples around the world view the US as an enemy, and the repercussions of what seeds are sewn were of course writ large on 9/11, and it will happen again if policy stays the same, of that you can be sure.

Ha! I'm saying that for years! In different words, of course. some people still think that the last 70 years since WWII did not take place and the US is still the same actor and is still perceived in the same way like back then, after the liberation of europe and winning in the Pacific. That america of back then i would fully support today. but the old ideals as expressed in the principles the foundation of the US was taking place upon, has been corrupted, abandoned to some major degree, and a caste of selfish politicians and business lobbies haveabused them to blind Americans over the fact that they were hijacked. The last major figure of major format warning of this was probably Eisenhower, and his famous farewell-speech where he warned in scaring plain words of what we know today as the military-industrial complex. Eisenhower as president is also quoted with something like this: "God help this country if ever somebody gets into my position but does not have my insight into the military and the attached industry." With Bush, his worst nightmare became true, but Bush was not the first moving in that direction away from the original American ideals. so, on paper and by historic intention, america could be a great example (which does not mean it would have the right to enforce it's own example onto others), but the modern present's reality, I fear, is far more disillusionizing. America's rise was extremely fast, maybe that is the reason why it's climb over the climax and entering the phase of moral decline again wasn't much slower: input energy=output energy. Don't they say evolution causes more stable and longer lasting results than revolution? It would be great to have back the US with the moral respectability of the 30s and 40s, but that time is gone, dead, and over. All we know is that we could need it back.

[Fish]

Gives a good idea of what the video is about.

by Karen Kwiatkowski (Lt. Col. USAF retired)
Better than anyone to date, the Media Education Foundation has quietly and accurately documented the most important history of 21st century thus far in their recent video and DVD release, Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear, and the Selling of American Empire (http://www.hijackingcatastrophe.org/).
Hijacking Catastrophe is powerful, understated, straightforward and educational. In a single meticulously organized hour of evidence and analysis, viewers are treated to a thoughtful explanation of modern American empire, neo-conservatism as a driving force for the current Bush administration, and something I have not seen before, a real economic analysis of what is driving some of our current "global war on terror."
The film examines the Bush Administration’s investment in neo-conservatism, and the early, and already horrific, results. While past performance is no guarantee of future earnings, Hijacking Catastrophe shows exactly why America’s "new conservatism" is a pyramid scheme of inhumane proportions.
The film examines eight aspects of the current situation of American foreign policy. The film provides an explanation for the obvious continuity between Cold War policies and those of the present. It examines long-term neoconservative thinking and how this peculiar version of Jacobin utopianism ascended from its rather inauspicious political roots. The film explores the dangerous territory of how the post 9-11 national shock was carefully cultivated by neoconservatives in Washington to support their own long-held objectives in the Middle East.
Hijacking Catastrophe then documents the Pentagon and White House process of disinformation, exaggeration, and media-supported propaganda between 9-11 and America’s March 2003 invasion of Iraq. It describes the neoconservative vision of military dominance over a supine, energy-rich Middle East, not only for its own sake, but as a warning to other potential international rivals.

Hijacking Catastrophe describes the cost of empire in a way so comprehensive that it becomes clear that neo-conservatism, as a foreign policy guide, comes with a very real moral, political and financial garnishment of every American, and of American children yet unborn. The cost is shown not only as a current financial outlay or in lives unlived on the part of soldiers and marines, but in terms of an alarming debt burden, loss of domestic freedom, the growing and invasive state, a permanent tattering of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

[The Avon Lady]

Ah yes, Karen Kwiatkowski:

The Pentagon Insider Who Spread Rumors that Sounded Anti-Semitic (http://hnn.us/articles/printfriendly/7582.html)

A "Good Soldier" for the Left (http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={7F7565B2-E267-4B57-9E30-3E7D89543C9A}).

Mentioned herein, too:

You Must be Likud! - Anti-Jewish rhetoric infects the West. (http://www.nationalreview.com/rubin/rubin200405190844.asp)

You are what you eat.

[Skybird]

Watched it yesterday, I think there was a german two-part version of this some time ago, it sounded and looked so familiar.

The script could have been by me... :lol:

It is not important if Kwiatkowski is this or that. The only important question is if she is right or wrong. However, she has not been the first insightful mind painting the picture of that film. And certainly, not only does this different view offer a lot of material and witness reports from insiders, but in it's explanation all the mayn questions and contradicting details about the reasons of the Iraq war fall into place.

Also, the strategic benefit from the Iraq war, if it would have brought the results that were hoped for, are so very telltale and obvious.

Well, we had these discusions back then, and in depth and hot and hostile, we must not launch it all again, I think.

[The Avon Lady]

It is not important if Kwiatkowski is this or that. The only important question is if she is right or wrong.
So how do you cherry pick the truth from a serial liar and conspirationist? Or do you simply praise what you already believe?

[Skybird]

As I said, she is by far not the first voice arguing like in that film. It really is nbothing new. But history shows that hacking away at a critical author's person is a proven method to silence unwanted criticism.

Nobody believes America anything anymore, and if information is given from american sources, for some the source itself is the reason why they immediately increase the level of confirmation practices, or even sort that american info out at once. America simply is not trusted anymore, and the film's arguments, that had been raised in essay and book form so many times by now, explains excellently, why this is so. What has become obvious for the vast majority of the global public and even the ameircna people themselves is - thata ll the reasons for the war were no reasons, but stinking lies, and the prupose has been a very difefrent one than what they officially told the public. Well, I had taken bitter fire on this board for having said essentially the same about Bush and the reasons for the Iraq war like what the film says. And it is still the same people, I assume, who back then were against my opinion, and now refuse this film as well, that is only consistent, at least.

Of course you attack it, AL. We all knew that you would do it. For you can live with the neocon strategy for an american century most comfortably, it offers you the maximum support possible. It is in your (and your nation's) interest to battle any other interpretations of the neocon policies, and the Iraq war. But this does not make some your arguments that you had given in the past necessarily true. Much of them were at least as manipulative and false like you accuse the opposing view to be.

As you know, there are many things you and me do agree upon. But there are also very many things were we could not be more different in views. Let's both accept that it is like this - without any attempts to sneak in a cheap stab from behind. None of us will change our minds over Iraq.

[Chock]

I think you'll have to do better than slam Karen Kwiatkowski to completely discredit the film when respected commentators such as MIT's Noam Chomsky and Pulitzer winning Norman Mailer also appear in it and offer similar views AL. It's not surprising that you disaprove of it of course (I daresay i would in your position), as it postulates ideas that may see wider support for Israel curtailed, and it's only natural that you would not want to see that, but it doesn't make the general message any less true.

:D Chock

[The Avon Lady]

respected commentators
Noam Chomsky
:ping: :ping: :ping: OXYMORON ALERT!!! :ping: :ping: :ping:

This continues proving the point that without so many master cranks, this nonsense would never have been possible.

[Fish]

respected commentators
Noam Chomsky
:ping: :ping: :ping: OXYMORON ALERT!!! :ping: :ping: :ping:

This continues proving the point that without so many master cranks, this nonsense would never have been possible.

Your only mud slinging, not an in depth reaction. :hmm: