andersdl is right about the collective "us" being pretty dumb about policy and elections, and about abortion being the final decision point for far too many people.

THIS IS WHY it is imperative for every evangelical in the country to be fully informed about the size and scope of John and Cindy McCain's beer business.

SOME (not all), but SOME evangelicals can make the mental leap that billions (yes, with a b) of McCain beers have caused at least thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of unnecessary abortions to be needed in the first place.

If ever there was a pair of people running for The White House that are walking duplicity on moral issues, it is the McCains. Because of the BEER. The BEER! The BEER!
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF INTENTIONALLY MARKETING DRUNKENNESS!

Don't just stand there. Defeat them. You can and you should.

DANIEL DAVID: You must have been an ANT in one lifetime. I have never seen anyone stay so on their own linear track!

ANDERSDL: Do you believe the electorate would be THAT stupid IF the news really delivered the Truth and kept the nation's less intellectually curious folks in the know?

Some will resent that Beinhart buys the official 911 story. Apart from that he also seems to buy the reasons Bush stated for going to war. I wonder if he read Tom ENGELHARDT on the PERMANENT bases being built over the course of the past few years? Certainly this type of investment, possibly the only infrastructure that US tax payers have paid for that's actually somewhat functional over there is hardly indicative of any win and get OUT strategy. Far from it.

The baseball metaphor for unregulated commerce & industry (not to mention trade deals) was an apt one, quite understanding to the American sports-crazed fans.

My God! After reading Daniel David's post, I need a beer. And it's not even noon yet.

Thanks for the article! Now if we can only have this placed on all the coffee/latte cups (beer cans), along with billboards, bumper stickers, t-shirts, etc.

Or perhaps a pamphlet that is passed out every time you visit a gas station...

Pretty good, as far as it goes, until Larry got to Iraq:

"Old Myth: The War in Iraq was Not a War of Choice.
New Truth: The War in Iraq was a War of Choice."

No, the "new truth" or just "The Truth" is that under the UN charter and Nuremburg Protocols, the war in Iraq was a war of agression and a crime againse humanity of a scale that anything "Al Qeida" has done is small-time street crime by comaprison.

Threfore, the next truth is utter nonsense - a high crime cannot be "won" or lost". If bank robbers kill everyone in the lobby, but fail to get the money, versus killing everyone and getting away clean, is utterly immaterial should the murderers/thieves go to trial.

And, Mr Benhart is strangely silent about the truths of US imperialist foreign policy - and the poisonous status of Israel in that policy - going way back through both republican and Democrat administrations.

So I would add this:

"Old Myth" - The USA is a shining city on a hill and therefore spreads nothing but good around the world with it's guns, it's CIA daggers, and it's corrupt puppet leaders.

New Truth: The USA can be a good planetary neighbor by minding it's fucking business and respecting the sovereignty and desires of other people.

This is low brow stuff (nothing elitist or anything resembling intelligent dialogue here). Just an endless barage of binaries (language play for imbeciles..I particularly like the analysis of the hippies ending the Cold War!)

Old Myth: Being Intelligent is Elitist. And That's Bad.
New Truth: Lord, oh Lord, We're Tired of Stupid Leaders Who Can't Do Anything Right.

**lol

Too many US voters will find this article way too complex.

They want leaders with simple answers to complex questions, leaders who will impose no gun control, leaders who will lower taxes, and if they still can't make up their mind who to vote for...just vote for whoever is against abortion.

Thats the reality that I walk through every day that I leave my house.

One key point Beinhart makes is that the Republican Party as such is bankrupt.
This is 100% true by a number of hard measures: debt, military overextension, value of the dollar, trade deficits, dismal state of our infrastructure, lost ground in R&D outside of military research, banking speculation going mostly unregulated,
And on an on. Most importantly, these outcomes are all directly linked to neocon and neoliberal policies. They're not flukes or bad luck.

Excellent! I hope Obama uses these truths in his campaign!

Good juxtapositions.
We certainly have mythed the point of mature leadership.
Please, pass the exit strategy!

"Old Myth: 9/11 was an Act of War.
New Truth: 9/11 was a Criminal Act.

Osama bin Laden was not a head of state or an agent of a state. He was a religion crazed gangster with a relatively small gang. His acts were crimes."

Wow! What a spin this is! 9/11 was a pre-planned NATO offensive (false-flag act of terrorism, GLADIO writ large) to precipitate a world-wide 'war on terror' (massive citizen surveillance and police state controls) including several localized genocides (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, etc.)

Bin Laden was hired by the CIA and paid by them. The entire Taliban operation was a project of the international secret services that not only included the CIA and ISI but also MI6.

Even the idea to create an extremist Islamic cult in Afghanistan was decided by Brezinski and bolstered by false histories generated in the US!

Bin Laden and the role he played in the NATO scripted attacks of 9/11 was a Euro/US run operation to extend, consolidate and protect the elite NAZI World Order.

GLADIO: http://www.truthmove.org/content/operation-gladio/

It's all right folks. From here, DD may get himself a high paying job as a Dim Flack. His resume will be all the posts he's done here for how long?, two years? That reflects programmed consistency, discipline through time, and a TOTAl UNWILLINGNESS to consider anything but the Dim talking points and party line. They like that. They call it "flair".

Everybody needs a well-paying job and on a Slave Plantation that means working as an Overseer. How many of you are doing six figures a year? That is where it is at. BEST OF LUCK DD. They may be adding on a whole covey of flacks to cover their shit in the next few years. You may get you face on the tv.

"Even the idea to create an extremist Islamic cult in Afghanistan was decided by Brezinski and bolstered by false histories generated in the US!"

Brezinski, eh? And to whom is this name linked?
We need some REAL CHANGE in order to believe...

"Old Myth: The War On Terror
New Truth: The War on Terror is Bogus

There is no War on Terror. It was a PR ploy to invade a country that annoyed George Bush and Dick Cheney..."

The Invasion of Iraq was a planned event long before it was decided that Bush should be president. It had and has NOTHING to do with the current administration. Anyone who was working on military, CIA or NSA contracts in the mid-nineties knows that the projects they were involved in had Iraq as a very likely focus of their efforts...

Furthermore, anyone hoping to work on NSA, NASA, etc. projects who was not in favor of the planned war/genocide with Saddam never got a chance…

Entrance into the club of elite war-makers is controlled…

The sign on the door says:

Buy our deception scripts, or go elsewhere!

I really like the first point about 911 being a criminal act, but find it funny that the author assumes to know who the perps were without any investigation or the slightest shred of proof or even evidence. So where is your proof that Osama Bin Laden was behind 911? Where did you get that, Fox or CNN? How did he rig all those explosives in the buildings? Where did he get a cruise missile to shoot into the pentagon, was it just laying around in his garage? Did he bring down Building 7 with only the power of his mind or did he just pray real hard. Maybe he got an early release version of The Secret!

Please, don't try to wake me up halfway, and if the house is on fire don't ask me for a glass of water.

The above article is a disgrace! Common Dreams, I wish you had the ability to feel some shame.

But, here's the OLD Myth: Humans are omnivores (killers by nature).
Here's the truth: Humans are herbivores (not designed to kill anything).

And, its companion empire MYTH: Humans are natural war-makers.
The TRUTH: Humans are peaceful by ecological nature and only capable of killing after intense cultural indoctrination and training (the 'nature estrangement program').

http://allinharmony.org

This entire corporate/military society is shored up everyday by lavish outpourings of half-truths and outright deceptions. Of which the article above is a good example.

Old Myth: was once a truth.
New Truth: will become a myth.

merwan,

Go ahead and have a beer. It's okay. Really. But please don't sell billions of them largely to people in John Edwards' "other America" in order to get rich enough to run for office in George Bush's America on a platform of so-called family values. It's not nice.

luckylefty,

The Dims so far don't seem to be energized about the BEER.
I don't speak for them, as I've stated here dozens of times in response to you and others.

But I do know that McCain is trying to make abortion a big issue again, and I do know that the BEER can neutralize him in the minds of many of the same ones who were previously single-issue voters. This is why the word must be sent forth. At least half of church people now have NO IDEA what Hensley & Company of Phoenix is and who owns it.

old truths.

for every myth there are greedy people getting richer, watching the two party tug-o-war and hiding behind corporations. truth is in the money and not simply with the democrats.

'Yes. Hope means Obama.' ...agreed.

Old Myth: You can spend your tax money better than the gummint.
New Myth: Even the gummint can spend money better than the parasitic rich.

Myth and Truth are an ancient couple. They love to dance very close, cheek to cheek, in an eternal embrace. With the right music they are quite fun to watch, but at times can get fairly raucus. Either way I try to enjoy them from a healthy distance.

Larry Beinhart

Good rough draft. Now go back and dig deeper on each one of your new/old myths. As it is now, it's too superficial.

Publishing weak material will not help your credibility on Common Dreams.

Sorry, but he lost me with the "Obama speaks of reality" line.

Oh, really? Then why is Obama pontificating against the non-existent Iran atomic weapon program?

And, yes, it's downhill from there, continuing with the 9-11 BinLaden did it myth. The truth is that you can get away with mass murder, because Cheney and the other members of the 9-11 plot have gotten away with it.

The War on Terror is a myth, he's got that right. But the Bush junta didn't invade Iraq because it "annoyed" them. And they haven't lost. They are about to "legalize" permanent occupation and bases, and they are working on the oil. In the meantime, the oil companies are raking in record profits. How is that losing?

Who won the Cold War? Not the people of the former East bloc, who, when surveyed, miss the old days of full employment and guaranteed benefits, if not the political oppression. The USSR was turned over to bandits and millions died. (Called in the corporate media "dropping of life expectancy". No shit. When life expectancy drops 9 years in a year, a lot of people have died!)

America's generals lost the war in Vietnam? No, the people of Vietnam won the war, although they lost millions of citizens and had their environment damaged.

CanadatoImperium sez: "This is low brow stuff (nothing elitist or anything resembling intelligent dialogue here). Just an endless barage of binaries (language play for imbeciles...)"

That's the point. Beinhart is responding in kind to propagandist talking points. Presumably, he's addressing the audience most susceptible to same.

OLD MYTH__If we just get the right leader and party elected, they will fix everything.

NEW TRUTH__ Ain`t gonna happen no matter who is in. We are in such deep muck now we will never get out.

Old Myth: 9/11 was an Act of War.
New Truth: 9/11 was a Criminal Act.
Plane Truth: 9/11 was a forseen riposte for for Gaza/Sabra etc.

Old Myth: The creation of a Jewish homeland in the "Holy Land" has made the desert bloom.
New Truth: The US cannot support "separate but equal" Palestines, but only a unified, secular, democratic Palestine with protections for all believers.

The old myths are not dead yet.

since there is some talk about beer on these posts
and repubs are strong family oriented, prolife and no child left behind people:
10% of all pregnent women drink
4.1% are binge drinkers
for any woman who drinks more than 7 drinks/wk or 3/ occasion, there is a risk to fetus of fetal alcohol syndrome disorder (posing severe neurodevelopment risk )of 0.5% - 4.5% (incidence varies by location/ ability to identify)
no amount of alcohol in pregnancy is considered safe to fetus
(above data from am coll of ob and gyn and us surgeon general)
why then should anyone distribute berr? and thereby facilitate consumption.
should the alcohol industry be treated as tobacco is?

ClassAct,

"The old myths are not dead yet"

Beg to differ with you there:

Old Myth: The enemy is Saddam Hussein (linked to Al-Quieda) and responsible for 9/11

re kara.korum 3:19pm

"should the alcohol industry be treated as tobacco is?"

not sure what you're asking, but here goes:

alcohol and tobacco are "regulated" under the same agency, the BATFE (bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives). these classes of items, all of which cause death and destruction when used as intended, don't fit easily under any other agency's mission statement, so this GMO of an agency was cobbled together to accomodate them.

would you please pass the turducken and the flaming rum punch?

"Brezinski, eh? And to whom is this name linked?
We need some REAL CHANGE in order to believe…"

Good point. Obama is just another representative of the military/corporate elite.

The only difference I can see between the programs advanced in 'Repub' times and those advanced in 'Dem' times (same military elite controls both), is that the Repubs commit atrocities by blaming some group (e.g. axis of evil) and then hammering them.

The 'dems' commit atrocities by 'feeling sorry for' some group and then using their infiltration/'welfare'/ take-total-control/IMF programs to hammer them more completely.

It's really just a matter of what type of lie one (Dem or Repub) is most capable of telling (and selling) before the poor lose (or are genocided) again.

_____________ excerpt below from http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message487849/pg1

"Obama's foreign policy advisor and vocal supporter is Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, who says that Obama offers 'a new definition of America's role in the world'.

This is the same Brzezinski who created the Illuminati's Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973. The Trilateral Commission is dedicated to a world government dictatorship and closely connects with other strands in the web like the Council on Foreign Relations (member: Barack Obama) and the Bilderberg Group.

Brzezinski's foreign 'policy' during the Carter administration, as he has since admitted without regret, was to entice the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan in December, 1979. The idea, he said, was to weaken their rival superpower and the result was a ten-year occupation that cost the lives of an estimated 1.3 million Afghans and spawned the Mujahedin, Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

Deep breath: he's now advising Barack Obama on foreign policy ..."

Beinhart's Myth Busters aren't half bad for starters, altho List #1 should've included a more direct zinger at deregulated/corporate news media --since it's the presently arranged MSM that makes present myths so easily believed by millions.

Another erratum. The Age of Idiocy isn't a time bracket in human affairs: It's basically the entire human story thus far.

Hippies won the cold war? Does anyone remember the name LECH WALESA? He and his union members deserve a lot of credit for that too.

As for the Age of Idiocy being "basically the entire human story" (see Dave A. above) - geez - doesn't anyone say anything good about humans anymore? I've been one for almost 57 yrs and I believe I've done a good and responsible job. And so have 80% of everyone I've ever known.

Some of the posters on CD need more fiber in their diets.

Anybody else get really, seriously tired of people who just have to nitpick? Like "oh, this is an OK article, but you FORGOT to mention this thing that I really care about, so it's just not good enough" kind of crap?

Yes, Beinhart also neglected to mention that our education system is crumbling, there's a very bad class war going on, our media is owned by a few entities that have a definite agenda, the whole world holds us in contempt, and an entire host of other issues. Hey! The article wasn't meant to be blanket coverage of every problem our country faces! These were EXAMPLES, not every single possible item on a definitive list! For some readers, it's just impossible to get it right.

So, yeah. Oops, there were missing parts. Might as well throw the whole thing away according to some people. Sheesh. Especially since he pointedly left out all the references to BEER BEER BEER. ROTFLMAO

I thought it was a great article - definitely not too intellectually challenging for the average American, not too light or too subjectively depressing. It was meant to make us think, not give us the history of the world.

old myth: marijuana is a dangerous and addictive Schedule I narcotic.

old truth: marijuana not only allows cancer patients to endure chemo, it prevents and even cures some forms of cancer, including the brain glioma that threatens Kennedy's life. Anyone who cannot quit cigarettes should smoke pot too.

http://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=glioma+brain

The government has known the old truth since 1974:

The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain cancer tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis....

The ominous part is that this isn't the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice -- lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes."

http://cannabisnews.com/news/5/thread5972.shtml

Larry Beinhart and Ghawar,

Exactly. This is the kind of writing that's needed to help reframe the debate. Thanks CD for finally giving something better for a change.

Link to nice picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/wilsnod/68772847/ of Obama's foreign polciy advisor.

Just think what places we will go (to war) and the fun there will be in setting up new states (stages)

"President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski visiting 'his boy', Osama Bin Laden, in training with the Pakistan Army, 1981.

Photo originally published in Stern magazine. Photo credited to the Sygma/Corbis agency, Paris."

Old Myth: The Cold War is Over

New Truth: May 2008 Russian ICBM Missile Military Parade in Red Square, US Missile Defense in Czech, Poland, and Britian, Bush Lobbying for NATO Membership of Georgia and Latvia, Putin Resuming Intercontinental TU-95 bomber Flights, China shooting down satellites, US invading Afghanistan and Iraq- one country which borders China and Russia and the other because Saddam was going to sell oil to the Chinese, continued super weapon development, and brainwashing/indoctrination of american youth with sophisticated virtual reality war training video games.

Dave A.--yup, I heard that! If history is any indication of the future, we're still in trouble. Great article, though--bam, bam, bam!

" Old Myth: Reagan won the Cold War.
New Truth: The hippies won the Cold War."

Thanks for finally giving credit where credit is due.

Juliann June 5th, 2008 4:00 pm

Classic.

Old myth: the dominator story

New Truth: caring makes sense...

www.realwealtheconomy.com
www.partnershipway.org

"No matter how powerful a myth is, if it is essentially false, reality has certain methods fighting back. It uses Failure, If failure fails, it moves on, through Fiasco, to Disaster".

This to me is the salient observation. It transcends the binaries and is the stuff of conversion of soldiers, priests, politicians and the 'silent majority'. Point of view or perspective - the ways in which one is of the 'undead' is our challenge. Each of us harbors 'memes' from the infectiousness of violence and reaction. The real game is to transform that meme.

Evil is cloaked in the misperception that there is a dastardly evil that we have avoided and can hope to avoid. We cannot 'avoid' it, we can only change it by changing perspectives, lives and priorities.
What evil regards as failure is reality poking through its slick cloak made to be worn like a second skin from the days of the cradle. Think on it.

Hi,

i realize it is completely pointless to try to engage Its a Nazi World Order in any kind of actual conversation, BUT...

The historical truth that the CIA helped fund and train fundamentalist Islamic resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, does not translate into "Bin Laden was hired by the CIA and paid by them. The entire Taliban operation was a project of the international secret services that not only included the CIA and ISI but also MI6."

Obviously, "the entire Taliban operation" includes a whole lot of people who were born in and live in Afghanistan... who believe what they believe for lots of their own reasons, and who take actions that they take for lots of their own reasons, not simply because they are all tools of the CIA.

"Even the idea to create an extremist Islamic cult in Afghanistan was decided by Brezinski and bolstered by false histories generated in the US!"

Are you seriously asserting that there would be no Islamist movement, and no Islamist resistance to Western culture and colonialism and imperialism, not to mention to corrupt Arab and Islamic governments, except that the US National Security Adviser dreamed up the whole concept? Gosh, what would they be doing if we hadn't scripted their lives for them? How far in advance and in what degree of individual detail are these scripts written?

Again, i'm not expecting to engage in an actual conversation with IANWO. i'm really just calling some attention to the obvious absurdity of some of his/her statements.

If 'hope means Obama' then God help us all.

His speech to AIPAC and his pathetic, unbalanced groveling to Israel signal that there will be no change in America's warped foreign policy.

America is caught in an ugly time warp, one based upon greed, militarism, religious fundamentalism and a deranged belief in its 'manifest destiny'.

The American Dream is the world's nightmare!

www.dangerouscreation.com

"Gosh, what would they be doing if we hadn't scripted their lives for them? How far in advance and in what degree of individual detail are these scripts written?"

150 years ago +/- 25 years. Every generation makes a major revision, every 30 years or so. Minor to medium revisions are made periodically to take into account failures or changing circumstances. The conspiracy is led by dynastic families whom have known each other for centuries. New blood is accepted if they prove themselves worthy.

Albert Pike in the late 19th century predicted 3 great wars would be required to facilitate the NWO and One World Government, and that the last one would be a war between Islam and Christianity-Jews.

The last 35 years followed the Brzezinski and the TLC script. Most people do not know it but in fact, we were behind the Ayatollahs coming to power. The Shah was getting too nationalistic and powerful, Khomeini was exiled in France and helped back to Iran, and we told the military that any effort to keep the Shah in power would lead to our withdrawing support and we would not provide them with new weapons or parts. Saddam was also a nationalistic threat getting too powerful for our liking, and Israels. Once the Ayatollahs took over, we got Saddam to invade them, and we funded both sides of the war, so both sides got weaker, and we got to drive up oil which was useful as a tool to bankrupt 3rd world nations by loaning them money and then driving up interest rates to contain inflation. Israels occupation of Lebanon at the time, led to the Ayatollahs funding Hezzbollah in Lebanon. Afghanistan was about getting an Islamic government in power there. It was recognized Political Islam was the best tool to keep these countries weak and undeveloped, and we would be able to use the Sunni-Shia, Persian-Arabic divisions to divide and rule them.

Back to the article.

Not just Republicans are the problem, there is only 1 party today, call them the Globalists. They serve the planets elite, and not America.

Vietnam was all about the oil. During the war, we were simultaneously doing oil exploration with US Navy assistance, and it turned out they did not have as much oil as the experts predicted. So we aborted the war. Otherwise, we would still be there. And you thought it was to contain communism. As JP Morgan once said, anything you do musyt have 2 reasons, a good reason (for the little people, even if it is stupid, since they are stupid), and the real reason (greed, power)

Stupid leaders. They want you to believe they are stupid. They are far from stupid. They are very smart. IQ's are 3 - 6 SD above average. Normal people can not get away with conspiracies, we are too stupid. We might get away with a small lie, but can never imagine getting away with a Big Lie. Our leaders, especially those in the shadows, are rich, smart, powerful. Nobody is better positioned to conspire and get away with a Big Lie. They control government, media, law enforcement, it's really a piece of cake. They hire all kinds of think tanks to collect data and think about the best ways to accomplish pieces of the plan. Few people are allowed to see the big picture. Those who see it meet annually in meetings like the Bilderberg and TLC, and their are likely other meeting we do not even know about.

DANIEL DAVID: You must have been an ANT in one lifetime. I have never seen anyone stay so on their own linear track!
____________________________________

Siouxrose, you are far too kind. I have to ask, "What do you mean 'You must have been an ant in ONE lifetime'?"

It seems Mr. BaneOfHearts is about as in tune to reality as God conversating Bush.

"Osama bin Laden was not a head of state or an agent of a state. He was a religion crazed gangster with a relatively small gang. His acts were crimes."

Reality Osama bin Laden was long an agent of the CIA, paid through the head of the Pakistani Intelligence Agency, recruited to kill Soviet soldiers when their politicos ordered an invasion of Afghanistan; Osama was funneled hundreds of millions of US taxpayer money throughout the 1980s, from the CIA to the Pakistani ISI to Osama the route of the enormous cash flow; Osama is NOT a religious fanatic unless you consider capitalism a religion; His main drive is capitalizing financially by facilitating the dominants murderous agenda; Osama is no rogue, rather a man under control by the financial elite, betrothed to financial interest, corrupted by his opulent lifestyle (27 wives, world traveler, numerous large plush homes in Afghanistan and elsewhere...); 9-11 was a crime ordered at the highest levels of political and financial dominance, the orders descended from the MOST wealthy of multiple identity holding crazed murderous dominant, whom I'm guessing one of the surviving identities of, is David Rockefeller.