by cameron | Mar 23, 2008 | capitalism, CIA, US politics
If you’ve seen the recent Hollywood blockbuster “Charlie Wilson’s War”, you probably think you know why the CIA decided to lend support to the mujahadeen in Afghanistan in 1980. It was to help defeat the evil invading Soviet army – right?
Wrong.
According to former CIA director Robert Gates and President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezinski, the CIA were involved in Afghanistan at least six months before the Soviet’s invaded. Okay, I know this isn’t new news, but I’m just catching up.
The CIA, with Presidential approval, were illegally supporting terrorist forces within the country to help them attack and overthrow the pro-Soviet government run by Nur Muhammed Taraki. Taraki, who had taken power via a coup from Mohammed Daoud Khan, a member of the Royal Family, was upsetting Muslims by trying to modernize the country – including the establishment of full women’s rights and the implementation of land reform. These are things you’d think the USA would support, right?
Wrong.
The USA was doing everything they could to prevent the spread of Communism. But why?
I’ve often wondered where this American fear of communism comes from. I know we’ve all been programmed from birth to believe “communism = evil, capitalism = good”, but why? If communism is just another political idea, like being a Democrat versus being a Republican, why not just let “the people” decide what they want? Why the massive scare campaign about the ‘red terror’?
I finally figured it out. Okay, I know, I must be dumb. It’s because the powers than run the USA are wealthy white men, otherwise known as the bourgeoisie. They are, by definition, anti-Communist. They have money and power and communism would take that power away from them and disperse it amongst the people. The success of socialism or communism around the world would encourage the people inside the USA to think about the benefits of Marxism and this would run contrary to the self-interest of the American upper classes. In fact, it is probably the last thing they want the people to think about. Think about football, celebrities, game shows, Saddam Hussein, New York Governors and their expensive hookers, ANYTHING – just don’t think about a different political system which would stop protecting the position of the privileged and the wealthy.
So anyway, back to Afghanistan. When the civil war, funded and supported by the CIA, was getting out of control, President Taraki asked the Soviets to help. They told him that sending troops in would be a VERY BAD IDEA. They knew what would happen. They knew the USA would use it as a pretext for further support.
After Taraki was assassinated, allegedly by a member of his own Government, then the Soviets invaded. And the rest is history.
Why is all this important? Because it goes to show, yet again, how you can’t just believe the official version of events.
If you believe the official version of events, the CIA stopped meddling in the affairs of other countries after the Church Committee Report came out in 1975. Yeah, right.
by cameron | Mar 23, 2008 | capitalism, Uncategorized
I’ve been reading a lot about Socialism and Communism lately but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the best things about Capitalism. This story I read this morning about how Hugh Hefner started PLAYBOY is terrific. I haven’t fact checked it but who cares – it’s the myth that counts (for once):
In the early 1950s, Hefner worked as a promotion copywriter for Esquire. When the magazine turned down his request for a $5 raise, he quit his job and decided to launch another publication geared to young men.
(…)
Playboy magazine hit newsstands in December 1953, shrewdly featuring Marilyn Monroe on its first cover. That issue sold more than 50,000 copies.
Within a few years, Playboy’s circulation topped 700,000 and then surpassed the 1 million mark, eclipsing rival Esquire along the way. Its circulation is now about 2.6 million, according to a spokeswoman. When Playboy celebrated its 25th anniversary at Tavern on the Green in New York City, Esquire’s former editor Clay Felker presented Hefner with a replica of a $5 bill.
“My face was on it,†Hefner said with a smile. “Felker told me, ‘All is forgiven. Please come home.’â€
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by cameron | Mar 22, 2008 | Australian media, Iraq
The title of this post is from a proposal I received for one of my outsourcing projects at the moment. I’m using elance.com to get a few things done and the process is intriguing. I have my new coach Tom to thank for pushing me to consider outsourcing. I’m finding it interesting on a number of levels. When you get proposals from people all over the world wanting your business, it can make you feel important and powerful – but it also challenges your own biases. Things like language. Should it bother me if someone bidding for build a brochure for me writes poor English in their proposal? I’ll be providing all of the text for the brochure anyway, so logically – no. But yet I still find myself gravitating to the bids with the better command of English.
The project I am awarding this morning is for the creation of the development of a two-page promotional brochure for TPN’s corporate consulting business. In 24 hours, I received 13 bids on the project, from places like Buenos Aires, Sverdlovskaja, West Bengal, Maharashtra… and New York. Some of the proposals are written in excellent English and some struggled.
The bidder from Sverdlovskaja (Russia) actually included some examples of his previous work, including one brochure which used a golden spiral (which I’m quite fond of) in the design, and it’s amazing how much that impacted on my decision to go with the firm. What impacted most, though, was his list of positive feedback from people who have worked with him in the past and his price, which was in the median of the bids I received.
Now I’m working on a project to build a marketing database to send the brochures to. The plan is to have 4 – 5 outsourced projects being worked on while I’m moving over the next week. Today is D-Day minus 5.
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My other thought for today is how biased THE AUSTRALIAN continues to be towards the Right. Over brekky at a local Yarraville cafe this morning I glanced through the first couple of sections of the paper and it AMAZED me how many of the stories had a pro-Right bias. They were all about how bad Saddam was, what a good decision invading Iraq was, how dodgy the recommendations in Prof. Garnaut’s draft report on carbon trading are, how dodgy the new ALP government is, etc. These weren’t all “opinion” pieces, btw. Even the selection of stories the paper covers and gives prominence to shows a strong Right bias. Why am I surprised? I guess that with the current trend away from the Right in Australia, the USA and the UK, I kind of expected Murdoch to tell his minions to move with the times. It seems he has other plans.
by cameron | Mar 21, 2008 | Podcast
Jamais Cascio is a San Francisco Bay Area-based writer and ethical futurist. He joins me today to talk about our growing reliance on online social networks and the net in general as forms of identity management. What are some of the consequences of putting your personal information online or – perhaps scarier – taking them off?
Links:
Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner Today’s Track:
Barry Adamson
“Who Killed Big Bird?” (mp3)
from “Stranger On The Sofa”
(Central Control)
Buy at Official Barry Adamson website
Buy at iTunes Music Store
by cameron | Mar 19, 2008 | Uncategorized
$200,000 is a lot of compensation for a shampoo. Perhaps she is a hair model or something and this prevented her ability to earn money?
| A woman has filed a $200,000 lawsuit against American Airlines alleging the flight crew failed to protect her from a passenger who moved into the seat next to hers while she was sleeping, then “masturbated to her” and—well, you’ve seen “There’s Something About Mary”? Yeah, that. |
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