Zonie63
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Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
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quote:
ORIGINAL: YN
Perhaps 30 years ago US foreign policy and the knowledge of it and it's consequences could be fairly said to be outside the United States electorate's knowledge, things done by the CIA were done in secret and with plausible deniability, whether the coups, death squads, School of the Americas trained puppets, the US support for the Latin American drug trade, or the Activities of North American and European based corporations, etc.,
We knew about those things 30 years ago. We're just a few months shy of the 40th anniversary of the US-backed coup in Chile. The public obviously knew about the Vietnam War and the Pentagon Papers by that time, as well as the Watergate scandal. There were already widespread conspiracy theories about the JFK Assassination. We were also beginning to learn about companies like United Fruit and their exploits in Latin America.
I think when Nixon was forced to resign, it may have given the public a false sense of security that "the system works." Whatever happened in the past was in the past, but I can see where some people might have thought "NOW, we're going to go into a new direction" back in the 1970s. It seemed that we were heading that way.
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However if things like the Iran-Contra scandals, the massive revelations of CIA misconduct, the need for the United States government to remove their puppet from Panama, or the Argentine junta they installed attacking their English allies over the Maldives did not wake them to the clandestine activities and misconduct of the CIA and their corporate elites then it is becoming culpably negligent on your electorates part, as you said.
I think you mean the Falklands, not the Maldives. 
I'm not entirely sure what happened in America between the time of Nixon's resignation (when it seemed like we were steering towards a better course) and Reagan's election in 1980. By the Election of 1976, the Republicans were reeling from Watergate, and the Democrats took the White House and both Houses of Congress that year. I didn't think Jimmy Carter was such a bad President, although I think the Iranian hostage crisis from 1979-81 ruined his presidency and pretty much drove the American electorate into the arms of Ronald Reagan.
I've heard it alleged that the Reagan campaign actually made a deal with the Iranians occupying our embassy to keep the hostages there until after Carter was out of office. For all intents and purposes, Iranian terrorists helped to influence the U.S. Election of 1980. Imagine that. A U.S. election manipulated by an outside foreign power. Why the Iranians would support Reagan for President is beyond me. But it came up again during the Iran-Contra scandal, as you mentioned.
On the subject of the Contras, those who didn't support aiding the Contras were called "communists," and nobody wants to be called a "communist." When I was in high school, our history teacher brought in some retired general who was a member of the American Conservative Union. He was there to tell us about his involvement in liberating the Philippines during World War II, but he also showed us a video from the ACU about the Soviet threat. With the Sandinistas in power in Nicaragua, the fear was that the old "Domino Theory" would apply to Central America, which would then lead to communism in Mexico, and then the United States. (I think the producers of Red Dawn must have seen that same video, since they used the exact same scenario for the movie.)
So, there's a sense of conflicted loyalties, I think. At the time, the belief was that the Soviets were playing hardball, so we had to play hardball. It's a rough world, and therefore America has to play rough. Nice guys finish last. That sort of mentality was quite prevalent at the time (and still is, to a large extent). Even though we knew what was going on, the neo-conservative "National Interests" argument prevailed. The public largely accepted it, as there were no large-scale protests like there were back in the 1960s and early 70s.
I don't think it's really due to a lack of knowledge, but probably more due to apathy than anything else. I think some people are just hoping to live out their lives, not rock the boat, and are pretty much resigned to "that's how things are." The prevailing attitude from what I can tell is that "the system sucks, but there's nothing we can do about it." Well, "nothing" other than a few minor changes here and there, like healthcare or a few tweaks in tax policy. That's about the most "reform" anyone can expect.
There are Americans who tend to be liberal when it comes to domestic policy, while more conservative when it comes to foreign policy. In addition, there seem to be quite a number of Americans who really don't understand foreign policy. They might understand "CIA misconduct," because they've heard a lot about that - in media, popular culture, conspiracy theories, etc. The CIA and their reputation is pretty well known to the general public, and they've been influenced by a general cynicism about government and corporations overall. Even if it doesn't come from the news media, the entertainment media seem to have worked well in this regard. Evil corporations, insane military leaders, twisted CIA plots, megalomaniac politicians - Hollywood has covered all the bases in creating these perceptions in the minds of Americans (and perhaps in other countries as well, since American movies are so popular).
Unfortunately, Hollywood does not present a very accurate picture of real world geopolitics, so most Americans are left up in the clouds, wondering just what in the heck is going on. The line between fact and fiction has become blurred in a lot of people's minds.
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And even the drug cartels of today are the consequences of this, the skills of the drug smugglers, the money laundering and the weaponry used are all the evolution of the United States conduct in the past. The Panamanian, and Colombian drug criminals are armed and trained by the people the CIA had as "technicians" supporting the CIA supported police states, the money is laundered by the same Anglo-American financial institutions, and so forth.
This country has had an obsession with drugs for as long as I can remember. There are those who are obsessed with doing drugs, and those who are obsessed with stopping people from doing drugs. The public has been thoroughly convinced that they must fear "drugs."
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Central American rurales did not suddenly develop the the skills needed to avoid sophisticated electronic and other surveillance; operate sophisticated international money laundering schemes hiding what would be shiploads of cashy money; or hire and train large bodies of paramilitary professionals; in furtherance of the international movement of trillions of USD in funds, drugs and weapons.
The people operating this network are those trained by your government to support the CIA and your corporations.
Anglo-Americans have similar problems of their own creation in the Islamic world, and many in the United States have awoken to that unpleasant reality as well.
I think that Americans sat up and took notice of the Islamic world once the Arab oil embargo set in. Sure, Americans could easily boycott grapes, since it's just grapes. But Americans love their cars so much, to cut off their gasoline supplies was just so devastating. It reminded me of the old saying "when you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."
< Message edited by Zonie63 -- 5/6/2013 7:35:00 PM >
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RE: Anarchy & Hegemony: A defense of American Imperialism - 
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