Yes, under the guise of a flavor of er 'conservatism' and the demonization of 'liberalism' (once meaning: possession of a reasonably open mind to new ideas) we have spawned the current usage in which neither of these words bears any resemblance to common usage over centuries!

We Muricans have fucked with language all along - spin / marketing is our daily noise background and.. the measure of how little respect we (actually) have for, that proper use of language which alone permits honest communication of any kind. Make certain key words fuzzy, all-inclusive thus meaningless:

You have thus killed one more possibility of being understood, evoking reasonable and fruitful discussion: and instead produced cant, as in most all pseudo-'political' discussions today. Here at IWE, too - too often.

I haven't read this book yet, of course - but I will. And I recall those days and the hysteria, so reminiscent of the just-ended [??] decade of McCarthyism; fucking with words / dehumanizing of those with different ideas. I am neither shocked nor surprised at the possibility that this book is genuine, documented and reflects actual plans of our omnipresent nut-cases in positions of Authority. We so love to lie to ourselves about our proclivities!

Seven Days in May (later a movie with Burt Lancaster magnificently portraying the heavy) captures perfectly the mindset alluded to in this review of, Body of Secrets. It describes a planned military coup against a 'not Tough-enough\ufffd for Us' president, and features many incisive vignettes of "how, often we do things here".

Murica is in no way immune to the tawdry dealings of the hypocritical - which we produce in similar proportions to other societies. Pity we dare not teach our school children about the flip-side of the many glowing attributes we ascribe to "US". This leaves them unprepared to deal *today* with the growing hegemony of Corporate droids whose only allegiance is to themselves - worldwide. Or to next deal sanely with this present situation: in many ways larger a threat to personal freedom than any events since Hitler, Stalin et al.

9/11 may as well bring out the worst in Murican culture as the best, we already see in such utterances from that Admin lackey who advised (already!)

..better Watch what you Say, next.. [!!!]

As Edward R. Murrow said to his cohorts on the eve of his broadcast shaming McCarthy, the proximate final cause of McC's downfall into deserved oblivion - this as they each tried to dredge up from memory.. any past act any had done? which might be used against Murrow = ad hominem when you have no real argument:

Gentlemen, the terror is right here in this room..

Let us not forget Our History -- this time around. I've lived through more of it than most here - and I see quite uncomfortable symptoms already. We have yet to heed Gandhi's remark about Western Civilization..



Ashton

But let's not make the same massive error as Pols everywhere here, cannot avoid making hourly:

The Murican Peepul think ____

I have *no idea* what The Indian Peepul think, but they are smart enough not to use that phrase (I think - no telling what modernization has produced)

Gandhi was.. Gandhi - his most powerful 'weapon of influence' (when all other suasion wasn't enough) was simply: to fast towards death. It worked at least twice - both (all) sides with whatever axes to grind, realized that he was an actually indispensable! person if Any side was to exercise influence in a semi-stable and new 'country'.

A nuke wouldn't have been an option for G. IMhO. Are you chiding the present country / rulers - for not having a / acting like a -- Gandhi?

If so - which Great One are We emulating, these days, locally.. ?

(Personally I'd prefer to live amongst relatively sane and peaceful shanties than - in a Titanium office tower with PHBs stalking hallways and arbitrarily screwing with peoples lives hourly - for (just their) fun & profit. If those were the only two choices)

We're fucking well the Biggest and the Baddest kid on the block, but 'wisdom' we're in short supply of - as is India sans Gandhi - and lots of other places run by slogans and spin, chasing more toys than the neighbor has.



A.