Old Myths From the Age of Idiocy (the One We're in Now) to Be Replaced by: New Truths for the Age of Reality (the One We Hope to Enter)

One area where we lost: we helped the right-wing hijack the public discussion about social/economic justice, letting them take an ax to the New Deal. No question, we tend to be ignorant of our own history, so it has been easy to rewrite history for us. But the fact remains that New Deal programs dramatically reduced our economic disparities while playing a vital role in turning the US into an economic power. And welfare saved lives while serving to strengthen the rights and protections of all workers.

Today, we don't mention "welfare" without adding "failed", nor do we accept that not everyone can work, and there aren't jobs for everyone. We don't grasp the insanity of giving massive welfare to the rich (i.e., using public funds to cover the costs of annual "tax relief" for the rich) while refusing to help our poor. How many of us even know that, as a direct result of welfare "reform", the life expectancy of America's poor has actually fallen below that of some Third World nations?

Since the Reagan admin., the central issues of poverty and social justice have even been written out of discussions about Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, even by much of the progressive media. We don't see the impact of social policies that instantly created a massive pool of no choice/bottom wage labor that can (and is) used as replacement labor (at a fraction of the wages), eroding the labor gains of the 20th century, suppressing wages. Today, discussion ends at the "working poor", no longer recognizing the unemployed as human beings. We accepted the myths about a massive "culture of lifelong dependency" (over 80% of welfare recipients voluntarily quit aid in under 5 years), and Reagan gave us the rich "welfare queen" myth (aid levels reached the poverty line briefly in the 1970's, remaining well below that mark at all other times.) Welfare aid provided the stability that enabled people to return to work. Indeed, a number of our own legislators relied on welfare at some point in their lives.

We could dramatically reduce poverty simply by reversing the policies that took public dollars out of aid for the poor, putting it into the bank accounts of the rich. We seem unable to connect the dots to understand how these policies work together to the the harm of all of us. (Imagine if the employable poor were hired to begin repairing our crumbling infrastructure, for example, as was done by FDR!)

We advocate for human rights elsewhere without seeing how our own welfare policies directly violate the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Remember the anniversary of that agreement, back in the '90's? No matter, the US refused to ratify this agreement, as it has refused to agree to virtually all international human rights measures.

As long as we continue to allow the public discussion to be controlled by the rich and powerful, we have lost.

Larry, you wrote: "Worse, it created the wrong response. So wrong that he's still out there." According to a video comment made by Benazir Bhutto on David Frost's show of 02 Nov 2007 (Frost Over the World - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIO8B6fpFSQ), Osama bin Laden has been murdered by a man named Omar Sheikh. If that's correct, and no one's publicly proven otherwise, Osama is no longer a threat.

Pardon my going off-topic on you, if you would, but I'd really welcome exhaustive efforts made by credible people who can, for once, determine how true his present-day existence remains a fact.

-marc

atheist June 6th, 2008 6:45 pm

> Is it just me, or do all of the articles on CD do a good job of summarizing the problems but none of them have any practical suggestions for how to actually FIX the problems ?

It's not just you. You've hit the nail on the head. It's much easier to summarize, and comment on the problems than it is to think about and suggest solutions to them. And CD is not alone in this; practically all other progressive sites and mags do the same. I've yet to encounter one
that deals in solutions. If you know of one, please let us know. If not, maybe CD will consider providing space for proposed solutions, or it might even be done right in the existing blogspots. A lesson learned long ago: never complain about a problem unless you're prepared to offer a
solution, even if it's not so hot.

atheist June 6th, 2008 6:45 pm

> Is it just me, or do all of the articles on CD do a good job of
summarizing the problems but none of them have any practical suggestions
for how to actually FIX the problems ?

It's not just you. You've hit the nail on the head. It's much easier to
summarize, and comment on the problems than it is to think about and
suggest solutions to them. And CD is not alone in this; practically all
other progressive sites and mags do the same. I've yet to encounter one
that deals in solutions. If you know of one, please let us know. If not,
maybe CD will consider providing space for proposed solutions, or it might
even be done right in the existing blogspots. A lesson learned long ago:
never complain about a problem unless you're prepared to propose a
solution, even if it's not so hot.

atheist - the problem with 'solutions' is that most liberals and progressives won't admit that eliminating sociopaths from the gene pool is a good idea. So a small group of deranged people with severely damaged anti-social ideology continue to prey on the rest of us. Everything about eugenics wasn't wrong - evolutionary psychology is now an acceptable field of study, and it shows us they way - if we are brave enough to accept some very hard truths.

Correction - Bin Laden didn't perpetrate 9/11, our own government did. Bin Laden merely acted as ordered by his CIA handlers, as supported by the evidence and peer reviewed science.

Correction - The hippies did not win the cold war the metal heads did. In Russia they were called the metalisti (not sure on the spelling) and were as much a political movement as they were a musical/social movement. Hippies would have just dressed up in turtle costumes and held signs in front of the wall until it buckled under it's own weight after a few hundred years.

Is it just me, or do all of the articles on CD do a good job of summarizing the problems but none of them have any practical suggestions for how to actually FIX the problems ?

Also, and I assure you it's not just because I dislike Obama, I'm getting REALLY tired of "hope" and "change" ! Honestly, when I see Obama's podium and it says "hope" or "change" on it, I feel like I'm watching a scary sci-fi movie, like Soylent Green. Empty words meant to placate the masses. What next, trucks with sound systems driving up and down the streets blaring "HOPE!" "CHANGE!" ?????????? What does this even mean ???????

What a food fight. Can't you guys get serious? CD is devolving right before my eyes.

the Time of the Unreal is always with us, it is by no means unique to The Great Republican Disaster

the Australian aborigines call it the Dreamtime (or is that their Real Time ?)

an Inuit chant, to be voiced while kayaking, goes (in rough English translation)

Is this real, this life i am living ?
Ye gods who are everywhere, please tell me, is this real ?

Old myth -- the Earth is our mother
New truth -- the Earth is our beloved spouse whom we abuse because we are acting out on Earth the issues we are afraid to face concerning our mother the Moon

"You belong to a family called Earth whether you like it or not—it's where you came from, where you are and where you're going. So now that you've tried being a selfish asshole, try something else, and everybody will live a whole lot more happily…."

Wow! Somebody really gets it!!
Are there anymore like you?

This is the best thing I've ever read on CD!

DD as an ANT in a past life (Siouxrose) is priceless. He must have wandered into a pool of beer as an ant, sipped copiously and fallen over dead drunk. That's why he resents McCain so deeply for his beer connection. What a sputtering Puritan DD is, for Crissake. This is his whole objection to McCain, that he's married to a beer scion? Settle down, DD, have a Rob Roy and stop getting apoplectic about BEER. You're an embarrassment even to your sacred Democratic Party loyalists.

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

Yes, but you still refuse to look at the Criminal Act. Refusal to look cannot produce truth, so this "new truth" sounds like the old story, e.g. that of the evil villain bin Laden and those magical mystery explosions. A miss is as good as a mile. Believing you can erect a new truth upon lies is just another Old Myth.

old goat June 5th, 2008 7:29 pm
"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."

You've got it right Old Goat. Change begins with us, it does not come from politicians or in Washington. The question is, can we change enough people fast enough to head off collapse?
I always retain hope but reality does not seem in our favor.

Beer, Wine, Truth. " In vino, veritas"

Beer has a long history. Evidence of beer consumption appears on Egyptian heiroglyphs. Brewing was a means of preserving food in the days before refrigeration. Same with wine. Other ways of storing food were drying, smoking, pickling. Some people drink beer and wine for enjoyment, some to participate in social activities. Not all consumers of alcohol are decadent drunks.

This is just sad.

I can't decide which is worse, the lame Obama myth insert, or the lame Corporate TV "liberal" "truths" that Mr. Bienhart suggests (the "the Wrong tax cuts" one is a good example), or the fact that they seem to honestly be the best he can come up with.

They're all pretty pathetic.

While I'm deliberating on this, maybe the Author could take a little time and actually find out what the words "Truth", and "Myth", mean, then write something that utilizes that new understanding.

Sheesh.

-matti.

Old Myth: The God of The Bible wants you to circumcise your heart so that you have no feeling for anybody/anything outside your social bonding group, and to kill anybody in the way of your getting obscenely rich. New Myth: You belong to a family called Earth whether you like it or not---it's where you came from, where you are and where you're going. So now that you've tried being a selfish asshole, try something else, and everybody will live a whole lot more happily....

New Truth - there is a new book that talks about the new world that is going to happen when people start understanding all these new truths and others. For a positive vision of where we should be going after we throw off these capitalist berserkers, try Green Island http://www.rudemacedon.ca/greenisland.html

I tried again to post a quote regarding Osama being hired by the CIA. It won't display. I am not sure why this particular fact is so sensitive. But let's see if this will post:

"In 1978, the per capita income in Afghanistan was $168 a year. In other words, $1,000 a year was a fortune. For $300 million, "bin Laden" (that is, the CIA) could recruit 30,000 guerrilla soldiers to serve for 10 years for $1,000 a year per recruit."

http://www.rense.com/general19/whoiz.htm

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

Well, if only certain comments are allowed to display, it does make conversation a bit difficult and one sided.

I think the best way to approach this discussion regarding the undercover games being played throughout the Middle East and areas adjacent is to look at some of the tactics employed in this country by the FBI's COINTELPRO operations.

The basic principles were the same: Co-opt the aspirations of the people/progressives, sow dissension, suspicion, fear... create fake groups with the means to grow (money, weaponry in some cases, etc.) and take control of the direction of any 'people's' movement.

Geopolitical strategies including opportunities to create regional and/or localized factions are not a minor focus of the DoD or NATO. If anyone thinks so, they are naive indeed.

Weakening societies is BTW an ancient tactic of war. And most (if not all) guerrilla war supports general weakening of society... and thus it is a well studied (and consistently promoted) and often used tactic by imperial interests, including the Euro/American empire.

"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."

Yes. This is true.

I am still trying to get some more substantive posts to display without any luck... censorship?

webwalk,

After four attempts to post a reply to you and provide you with some links, I have to give up. But, the CIA DID hire Osama and fund the operation to hire and train 'Islamic' guerrillas.

Myth: Obama is something different

Reality: Same old tried time for change politcal lies..The status-quo will not change. The money elite run this country and will continue to pick your candidates for and tell that you have choice.

The constitutional system was originally designed "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority," in the words of the leading framer, James Madison. Political power, he explained, must be in the hands of "the wealth of the nation," men who can be trusted to "secure the permanent interests of the country"—the rights of the propertied—and to defend these interests against the "leveling spirit" of the general public. If the public were allowed to participate freely in elections, Madison warned his colleagues, their "leveling spirit" might lead to measures to improve the conditions of those who "labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings."

Another words "those that own the country should run it" and that is the way it is until something happens to change the "status-quo".

LITTLE BROTHER: The Buddhists believe in a form of species migration, which honestly I do not. I do, however, believe in reincarnation.

The ANT analogy was a shameless plug (unconscious, perhaps) of my new book: Cassandra's Tale: Invitation to the Circle. Written for "children of all ages" it introduces the 12 archetypes of the Zodiac by suggesting Creator poured the milky way into molds to test the plan on INSECTS first.

When Phil Hartman did those wonderfully funny "anal retentive chef" and "anal retentive fisherman" sketches, he was actually parodying Virgo when it gets compulsive. I linked the black ant, most efficient if linear of creatures, with Virgo. Dr. Phil by the way is Virgo, and so is the gymnastics coach whose sense of perfection was so acute that he drew the first 10.0 score on EVERY apparatus in gymanstic's history.

Daniel may in fact NOT be a Virgo, but the way he clings to a specific orthodoxy, repeats the same lines (occasionally makes sensible points on related topics), strikes me of the ant... they are, one must admit, profoundly efficient creatures.

Every one of the 12 paths of spiritual discipleship, and/or taking on a human body, involves gifts and debits... the sum of which (we are much more than our sun-signs) I believe constitutes a celestial blueprint carried over from actions (even thoughts!) from prior lifetimes.

This explains my free use of poetic license. I hope!

Actually ants are very adaptable and quick to respond to changes. Now donkeys on the other hand, ever try to get one to go where it just doesn't want to go?

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.

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'?"

"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.

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

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.

"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.

Old myth: the dominator story

New Truth: caring makes sense...

www.realwealtheconomy.com
www.partnershipway.org

Juliann June 5th, 2008 4:00 pm

Classic.

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

Thanks for finally giving credit where credit is due.

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: 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.

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."

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

"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 ..."

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?

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

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?

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.

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__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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

"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!

"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...

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.

"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/

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!)

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.

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.

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...

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

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.

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.