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 | Feb 4, 2008 | capitalism, Iraq, Uncategorized
The world’s largest arms dealer, the USA, which is also the country with the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons (it maintains a current arsenal of around 9,960 intact warheads… how many DO you need to destroy the world?), will spend more that $1 trillion on “defence” for the first time in history in 2008, according to this article in Le Monde. I put inverted commas around “defence” because their current strategy of non-UNSC sanctioned pre-emptive attacks can hardly be called “defence”. It’s a typical PR sleight-of-hand. Let’s call it what it is. It’s an “ATTACK” budget.
As part of this $1 trillion, the US will spend $23.4bn towards developing and maintaining nuclear warheads.
The older I get, the more I read, and the more unconvinced I am becoming that democracy and capitalism contain the model for the future for the human race. If the USA is the beacon of modern democracy, then I believe we need a new system, a better system.
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It is virtually impossible to overstate the profligacy of what our government spends on the military. The Department of Defense’s planned expenditures for the fiscal year 2008 are larger than all other nations’ military budgets combined. The supplementary budget to pay for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not part of the official defence budget, is itself larger than the combined military budgets of Russia and China. Defence-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history. The US has become the largest single seller of arms and munitions to other nations on Earth. Leaving out President Bush’s two on-going wars, defence spending has doubled since the mid-1990s. The defence budget for fiscal 2008 is the largest since the second world war.
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by cameron | Sep 18, 2007 | capitalism
“Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism” is the title of a new article written by HARRIET RUBIN for The New York Times.
“The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” are two of the most influential books I have ever read. I was fortunate enough to have them recommended to me when I was in my early 20s and I have read both of them more times than I can remember since then. They never fail to inspire me to try to achieve everything I can with my life.
Amazon.com Widgets
by cameron | Jul 14, 2007 | capitalism, Podcast, Uncategorized
A great example of Christian tolerance in the US senate.
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Chris Pirillo is getting up to speed on the problems inherent in the American system of democracy and capitalism. Interesting to see someone like Chris speaking out about this. Watch the first ten minutes of the video he’s linked to. Chris has just agreed to come on GW for a chat about the issues. Can’t wait!
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We took the kids to the Pixar exhibition and to see the Fantastic four film today. The Pixar exhibition is worth the price of admission just to see the amazing zoetrope! I can’t recommend this enough. I was totally blown away by it and we were all voted it the highlight when we left.
As for the FF film…. well the kids loved it, and I got to watch Jessica Alba for a couple of hours. Can’t complain about that. But you don’t get to see Galactus???? WTF?? They talk about him, he is apparently about to devour Earth (starting with the Thames), the Silver Surfer flies out to confront him, but we don’t get to see him? Majorly disappointing. The film as a whole is as lightweight as the first one. It’s kind of weird to see Michael Chiklis appear a couple of times when Johnny sucks up Ben’s powers – we’ve just finished watching The Shield Season Three on DVD. God I love that show. Anyone out there got Season Four that you could “loan” me?
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Got this email from new listener Holden today, made my morning:
I just started listening to podcasts over the last two months or so. I just wanted to tell you that your Napoleon podcast and the G’day World podcast have been entertaining and educational as I mow lawns all summer up here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I’m very glad to learn that there are other people who care about critical thinking and reason, but don’t just stop there, who want to change the world for the better. As I’m going through all the G’day back issues I was struck by #239. You really spoke to me, and even though this is about three months late, thank-you for telling it like it is. I recently went through that sort of re-inventing time. I switched from Christian ministry to the wide undefined world of writing and have never looked back.
Thanks Holden! Great to know I’m not talking into the wind. And it’s great to know that out there, somewhere, there are Christians who are thinking and reading outside of the narrow confines of the religion.
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What’s the best way to keep a documents folder synchronized between two PCs these days? I’m going to be traveling a bit over the next month and I want to have a copy of my documents folder sitting on a portable 80GB USB hard drive to take with me. The way I see it, I have three options:
1. Move all of my documents from the hard drive they currently sit on (a bulky external USB drive attached to my Vista desktop PC) onto the small portable hard drive and just use it as my central documents storage from now on. The only concern I have is losing it while I’m on the road. Of course I can back it up locally before I leave.
2. Just before I leave, put a copy of the documents folder onto the portable drive, work from that while I’m on the road, then copy those documents back to the main drive when I get home.
3. Have some sort of solution that synchronizes the folders between the two drives every time I plug the portable drive back into the desktop. Pre-Vista I used to run Microsoft’s Foldershare but it doesn’t seem to work on Vista.
Recommendations?
UPDATE: I installed Foldershare again just to check it out an apparently it is limited to 10,000 files, so I can’t use it to synch my documents folder. I’m now trying Microsoft Synctoy which looks like it might work. I just need to remember to plug in the portable drive to the desktop when I get back from my trip to synch everything back as I can’t do it over the cloud, which would be ideal.
by cameron | Jun 1, 2007 | capitalism, Podcast
Another show with the brilliant Dr Peter Ellyard today. I popped around to his place yesterday without any planned agenda and, as I had hoped, we ended up talking about a whole range of interesting things, including:
What entrepreneurs dream about
Peter’s introduction to the operas of maestro Richard Wagner
How globalism and tribalism are playing out around the world
Why the United Kingdom might break up within five years
What “Australian values” are
Chavez’s activities in Venezuela
The rise of “sustainable individualism” over capitalism and communism
What a great gift this guy is.
If you missed them, check out my other shows with Peter.
GDAY WORLD #204 – Dr Peter Ellyard, Futurist
GDAY WORLD #213 – Dr Peter Ellyard, Futurist – part two
Now… folks… this isn’t radio. This is podcasting. It’s supposed to be a conversation, not just me talking at you.
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