Stockton Rush’s name will never be forgotten for his folly that took 5 lives in a contraption doomed to fail. That same wishful thinking in totally unsuitable material — was held by a CIA/WINPAC analyst named Joe Turner: Who provided a path to war that cost countless lives, unspeakable destruction, trillions of dollars & counting, and poisons political discourse to this day and probably generations to come.
“Never heard of him!” — I’m not surprised (in a country that can’t even get the self-evident straight) . . .
Even 20 years later!
By Design
America Remains Mired in the Murky
What does it say to you: That on evidence claimed as components to build a nuclear bomb — the “debate” was hijacked by 10-second sound bites? Shouldn’t any debate establish what the debate is actually about? What does it say about a country that can’t even establish that much on a matter of this magnitude?
As I said in my doc:
All the sarin gas shells in the world would have no bearing on the aluminum tubes and other intel, but loyalists to logical fallacies are not burdened by the inconvenience of FACT.
They will nitpick over pebbles while refusing to even glance at the mountain of evidence that crushes their “convictions.”
— Richard W. Memmer: Act V
For the sake of argument: Let’s say Saddam had full-blown active WMD programs on chemical & biological weapons. The tubes would still be a lie — whether the war would have been justified in that scenario or not. I’ll go one further: Let’s say he had a uranium enrichment program in operation as well, but that the rotors were carbon fiber — not aluminum.
Once again, the tubes would still be a lie.
Getting lucky in finding something you didn’t know about — does not absolve you from a case that was woven out of whole cloth.
The road to reality is blocked by detours designed to keep you going in circles. Purveyors of poppycock reroute you with narratives that avoid detail like Black Death. The way out is to start with an inconsistency or two that’s narrow in scope:
And take the trail where it leads . . .
To ascertain the truth on any topic:
If you’ve got something concrete to go on — that’s your point of entry. By all means, keep the door open in every direction. But by nailing down the definitive first, it paves a clearer path to all the rest. This country does the exact opposite on everything:
Lumping it all together and never even approaching where you should have started in the first place:
I’m not here because I’m interested in talking about this topic. I’m here to do something about it so we can stop talking about it. I’ve got an idea — and it’s got teeth! All ya gotta do — is do what you say you do. And my idea is a framework for debate that boxes you in to do exactly that. You won’t like it — but here’s the deal:
Your opposition won’t either!
And who knows, you might learn to love embracing challenge, changing your mind, and the fruits from demanding across-the-board accountability.
This — is not that . . .
This is Broadcasting Beliefs About That
Worrying is a cheap replacement for caring. Complaining is a cheap replacement for fixing. Outrage is a cheap replacement for supporting. It’s easy to tear down. It’s much harder to build up.
That’s a snappy way of sizing up the shallowness of our times, but it’s meaningless without the work it takes to act on those concerns. And right on cue, out comes the “conversation” — the self-satisfied slinging 60 seconds of “concern” and calling it a day:
Or at least until the next “concern” comes along that strikes their fancy for a fix.
What I have in mind would change the dynamic of debate: Where clarity & accountability come calling and they don’t give a damn about Left & Right.
In this world — a.k.a. reality:
Your commitment to critical thinking would be based on the consistency of your actions — not your claims. And you’d take pride in acting on your concerns instead of advertising them.
Case in Point
I wrote the original version of this post on my other site, but the exchange below prompted me to write a new one. While I wholeheartedly agree with this guy on the essence of what he wrote — I spotted some problems inside of 60 seconds (starting with the title itself). To be sure, he did some solid work in his 11-page post (which I plan to read in full later).
But I don’t need to read it all to know what’s missing (as in — what matters most). All the more reason why his response is so striking to me:
“Great detail”?
There’s more detail in my illustration below than in his entire article (as in detail that matters most — the numbers):
My surgical specificity in this clip puts this lie in its place in 5 minutes alone. To take a story this complex and convoluted and boil its essence down to a few minutes was no small feat. Imagine what I did with 160!
Trillion Dollar Tube
“There is no skimming over the surface of a subject with [Hamilton]. He must sink to the bottom to see what foundation it rests on.”
— Major William Pierce (Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton)
Wouldn’t it be absurd to share that quote if my clip contained nothing but trite talking points? Some circles are not burdened by squaring their walk with their talk. They seem to think that advertising virtue equates to embodying it.
I’m not suggesting Mr. Moore goes that far simply by sharing a link, but his closing bit below rings hollow to me:
The truth, finally, was tortured until it was no longer recognizable. And the sons and daughters of America were sent marching off to war wearing the boots of a well-told lie.
If 20 years later:
The author of those words shared them with the only person on the planet who told this story in full (from every angle that matters most). And that instead of blowing right by my work so he could pointlessly point to his:
We’d combine forces to put this lie in its place once and for all.
If I came into this cold . . .
On that image alone, I’d know this guy’s not fu#kin’ around (not to mention I’d have to know what the hell he’s up to). And I’d damn sure know it’s bigger than the biggest & most costly lie in modern history. In the face of such craftsmanship and detail as follows:
The last thing I’d care about is the format of his website.
DOE’s standard is to spin a tube at 20% above 90,000 RPM before failure — so 48,000 short is a pretty loose definition of “rough indication.” . . . Out of 31 tubes in subsequent testing, only one was successfully spun to 90,000 RPM for 65 minutes — which the CIA seized on as evidence in their favor.
One DOE analyst offered a superb analogy of that contorted conclusion: “Running your car up to 6,500 RPM briefly does not prove that you can run your car at 6,500 RPM cross country. It just doesn’t. Your car’s not going to make it.”
In an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter, these guys were playing horseshoes with centrifuge physics . . .
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
Seems like someone so concerned with the sons and daughters of America (and how the truth was tortured beyond recognition and still is): Would be interested in hearing me out on how the truth could finally see the light of day — and then some!
Negative, Ghost Rider
The pattern is full . . .
Until the rise of podcasts, twitter, and the various forms of independent media / journalism, people weren’t really aware how legacy media was influencing their thinking. I think people are finally waking up and may surprise you here, especially if more talk about it.
New formats for funneling information that caters to your cravings is not what I’d call enlightened. And those who couldn’t spot clearly dishonest actors before — think they’re wide awake now? The Twitter bio behind that quote begins with “Groupthink averse.”
It would never occur to him that everything in that Tweet is Groupthink 101.
So Mr. Moore comes along with his gift of “great detail” without an atom of curiosity for mine (and how the merging of both could be the gift that keeps on giving). In responding to someone who commented on his piece called A Culture of Cowardice (which is fitting for how I feel) — I wrote the following (the numbers referencing the image that follows shortly):
- #1 is the same quote from my words below the doc image above: A degree of detail I doubt he’s ever seen on this subject. Few have!
- #2 provides a YouTube link to Trillion Dollar Tube. My money says he didn’t even click on it (and if he did — it would make his shallow reply even worse). Moreover — I point out that loose language like “incentivized” and “cherry-picked” has no teeth (even though it’s entirely true).
- #3 is a link to my post below (none of which is mentioned in his article)
To be fair — Mr. Moore’s article is from 2005, but still: This mountain of information was publicly available for over a year before he wrote it. At least he was in tapped into the tubes as being of paramount importance (which is a helluva more than I can say for Mr. Sowell). Not one word in his articles on WMD addresses the marquee claim on a mushroom cloud.
And all of this was available before he wrote Weapons of Crass Obstruction.
How do you reconcile that?
No need . . .
Right on cue . . .
I tend to believe Thomas Sowell. He is brilliant and has worked at a think tank for about 40 years. Sources matter! Yours is from a concerned citizen.
About those think tanks . . .
Nothing to see here either:
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
And this one . . .
Associated Press, October 3rd, 2004: Rice said she learned of objections by the Energy Department only after making her 2002 comments.
Richard W. Memmer: Are we to believe that the National Security Advisor of the United States was unaware of an intelligence dispute of this magnitude that had been going on for well over a year?
One Congressional investigator went so far as to call it a holy war. And doesn’t it strike you as suspicious that she didn’t bother consulting the DOE before serving up images of a nuclear detonation?
— Act II
Holy War
Then there’s this picture:
Even in the most unsophisticated years of my youth: It would have been unthinkable for me to pull that stunt (something so utterly devoid of effort, courtesy, and curiosity). To not investigate an offering from someone so clearly in command of the material — would be like asking me not to breathe.
- #4 alludes to the idea I have in mind — and that it takes critical thinking to understand it
- #5 states a bare-minimum requirement for critical thinking: “stopping to organize and evaluate the information we are receiving.”
He had no such notion — and it’s almost impossible to find anyone who does anymore: Including the people writing about the importance of critical thinking.
I addressed this in great detail in a 2005 piece for Huffpost, if you are interested.
I’m interested in doing something about a culture that increasingly values bullshit as currency. I’m interested in getting people to understand the meaninglessness & destructiveness of sharing concerns without acting on them. In interested in learning from others just as I’m interested in them learning from me.
I’m interested in how we can harness:
a.k.a. learning!
As in — not this . . .
V for Victory & Venom for Values
In this fantasyland where wishful thinking rules: You can win an argument without even knowing what the issue is about. What you do in denying the undeniable daily would be unthinkable for me to do ever.
“WUT”
In my youth, I could not have imagined a world in which even people with PhDs would act like imbeciles in the face of information they don’t instantly understand. That an entire country could take satisfaction in insulting your own intelligence on a daily basis just astounds me.
Adulthood is about spending the time to think before talking . . . Adulthood is about controlling our emotions, learning to take a deep breath and modulating our moments of anger or frustration.
V for Victory is my 15-part series on factions acting as force fields of fallacy for the Left & Right: Shielding you from the whole truth while you’re pursuing part of it believing you’re after all of it. To concisely capture the absurdity that’s canon across these echo chambers: Imagine a club for international travel made up entirely of people without a passport.
Day after day, they talk about their love of going somewhere — with no interest in anyone who’s been somewhere.
It’s a world where you can blow right by this question below and call yourself a “critical thinker.” After all — it says so in your bio (boltered by daily broadcasting of beliefs) : Reinforced by friends cemented in the same standards (that you instantly abandon the second they don’t serve you).
a.k.a.
The imagery above is all you need to answer that question, and the more you look — the worse it gets (and not just on Sowell). The story I’m out to tell takes both parties to task on the biggest & most costly lie in modern history — along with some other issues at the core of America’s decline.
Sowell is simply a conduit through which to tell that story.
And how his role within it could be harnessed for good. Compelling him to admit where he’s wrong will work wonders for where he’s right.
Wouldn’t it be something if an idea that threw you for a loop — piqued your curiosity to probe for more? But I’m mostly met with a culture that “insist upon on ‘affirmation independent of all findings’” (borrowing from Peck who borrowed from Buber).
You make it impossible to have this conversation within a single frame — let alone the bigger picture!
After all — you’re busy!
You’re always busy . . .
America’s in perennial pursuit of ideologies: Warfare waged with galactic levels of baggage & bullshit bolstered by
opinions lightly adopted but firmly held . . . forged from a combination of ignorance, dishonesty, and fashion
— Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom
As I’ve repeatedly said . . .
I’m not out to “DESTROY” Sowell — quite the contrary! Stick around, you’ll see. That aside: If he stepped into a debate with me on WMD, the beating he’d take would be biblical. If you think you can challenge me on that — I invite you to try.
I’ve been inviting you for a really long time.
And your answer to that challenge?
From one of Sowell’s finest . . .
And yeah . . .
I’m making fun of your childish YouTube titles like “DESTROY.” Speaking of titles — there’s not a chance in hell that I’d ever say anything like the “Little Tubes of Terror” on a matter of this magnitude.
It’s so cheap and diminishes the quality of his good work right out of the gate.
It’s ironic that he immediately follows the title with: “Journalism, like every craft and profession, needs to purge itself from time to time of diseased tissue.” It would never occur to him that his title is part of the cancer that America has become. That it was in 2005 speaks volumes for where we were going.
In and of itself, the title’s not a big deal.
Had he engaged in actual conversation, I wouldn’t have said a word about it. But in light of his flinging of a link in all of 10 seconds (the title suits his lack of seriouness and civility).
And that — is how it all begins . . .
Once you quit hearing ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ — the rest is soon to foller
10 years ago . . .
I set out to do something about that:
When I Saw the Writing on the Wall
I took on the automatons of the time (Left & Right). No one listened, and lo and behold — automatons exponentially multiplied. Those times were tame compared to today. The toxicity of venom has been taken to a whole other level with pride.
People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results. They choose it because it seems authoritative and familiar — and I’m not and never have been familiar.
— Michael Burry, The Big Short
If that were not overwhelmingly true, this site would not exist. I would not have been practically spit on for 20 years of telling undeniable truth of mathematical certainty (painfully obvious deception shaped everything you see today).
If this title doesn’t tell you something my commitment to objective scrutiny, what would?
The rotor speed required to separate uranium isotopes doesn’t care who’s president, and when it comes to ascertaining the truth, neither do I. In order to maintain such speeds, the material properties of centrifuges are as critical as it gets. You don’t need to interview a world-renowned nuclear scientist to figure that out, but I like to be thorough.
To claim that Iraq WMD wasn’t a lie should be like saying we didn’t land on the moon. As I wrote and produced the most exhaustive documentary ever done on WMD, I would know.
No rational person would repeatedly deny the undeniable, and just minutes into any on post this site, you’d know something’s not right, but you find it’s with me:
[As] I’m not and never have been familiar
If I came across this and hadn’t done my homework, on the title alone — my first thought would be: “I must be missing something pretty big!”
You have other ideas . . .
Button your lip and don’t let the shield slip
Take a fresh grip on your bulletproof mask
And if they try to break down your disguise with their questions
You can hide hide hide behind Paranoid Eyes
In the last few years — I’ve seen savagery beyond anything that inspired the doc (and that’s what gave me the idea). Back then, it was about going up against institutions and putting up a mirror to all of America. Now, I just need to get to one man: A professional know-it-all with a cult-like following unlike anything I’ve ever seen. As I’ve been in the trenches battling hermetically sealed minds for decades, that’s saying something.
His disciples see him as some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes.
And that — is an opportunity!
As a distinguished scholar once said: “The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.”
— Thomas Sowell
The man’s a magician:
As I’m practically spit on by people promoting principles I followed to find he didn’t. Simply by virtue of writing those words, he couldn’t possibly do the same in service of his own ideals? And lo and behold — sleight of hand is how they pulled it off.
When you have absolutely no idea what’s going on here, on what basis are you so doubt-free?
Festinger would have a field day with the force field of fallacy that shields this man (who peddled partisan hackery on this fiasco for the ages that shaped all you see today). He’s worshipped for following the facts — never mind he didn’t go anywhere near ’em (flagrantly ignoring irrefutable evidence of mathematical certainty).
Following Facts Where They Lead
“Said so and so”? . . . that’s one helluva trip you took there, Mr. Sowell.
Stirring Defense!
How do we make people realize they’ve been lied to? You have to knock down one small pillar that’s easier to reach.
The people who Tweeted those lines I combined from a conversation I came across — had no idea that they perfectly captured the principle of my Clear the Clutter plan. I’ve got the perfect pillar:
As exposing Sowell is my bridge to expose it all!
Sowell’s hailed as a folk hero for calling out problems he helped create (and takes no responsibility for any of it).
A lot of that goin’ around!
It’s pure fantasy to think that you can ignore key dimensions of a problem and magically solve it. The problems that plague America are interrelated, and anything short of addressing that is going nowhere. But everyone’s wrapped up in their wheelhouse — operating under umbrellas of interests that don’t account for complexities outside of them.
Repeatedly rehashing issues is not the mark of problem solving: It’s the mark of a market. All these channels are blunt instruments (including those I agree with). Like Black Lives Matter, you’re just pounding away at problems without any examination of the efficacy of your efforts.
But why bother when failure is a pretty profitable enterprise these days?
On that note:
Building on his enormously successful first edition. Tom Nichols confirms his thesis and proves that the assault on expertise has only intensified.
So, outside of selling books and building a following, you didn’t succeed — at all. When a deservingly popular book didn’t make a dent in 7 years (and everything’s gotten worse to boot): I fail to understand the excitement for an expanded edition doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making a dent either. Such questions don’t compute with this crowd or any other.
That cat is so fitting for the folly of our times:
“And now, even now” . . .
The cat . . . TOTALLY out of the BAG!
Congratulating yourselves for ordering a book and broadcasting it for Likes: It’s all so goddamn pointless (as there’s no purpose beyond pretending you’re part of some glorious pursuit of the truth and what’s right). Never mind you all refuse to listen to any expertise that challenges you — which flies in the face of the whole f#@king point!
Your followers are so passionate about expertise — that they blow off the person who was years ahead of you in explaining this problem (and in far more sophisticated ways):
Not to mention offering real-world ideas on what to do about it.
The same person telling you that new edition has exactly zero chance of doing of any better than the first (in actually accomplishing anything). And when that prediction comes true: All your audience will care about is congratulating you when you come along advertising the 3rd edition:
Waiting in line for the signed copy they crave!
Unbelievable!
Indeed, nowadays, we tend to take in and repeat whatever the values and beliefs of those around us have rather than forming our own independent thought and stopping to organize and evaluate the information we are receiving.
Perfectly put — except for the “fading” part.
In our Age of Unenlightenment — “fading” is an understatement for the ages. The echo chamber below embodies the islands of idolatry that operate entirely on narrative, not principle. But they believe it’s principle for precisely the reason Baker beautifully captured above (to the point where people seem to believe that advertising virtue equates to embodying it).
And on that note:
I’m sure it’s intoxicating to amass a following and feel like you’re making a difference. But I’m going to weigh their impact partly as a reflection of their community: How people behave, not what they believe. If you can’t get that right, I don’t care how big your following gets — you’re taking this nation nowhere. What’s more, you’re making matters worse and being rewarded for it.
I’m going to show you how to fix the problem you don’t even know you have.
We should be above whatever the fad or the fashion is of any given day. We should be looking at the deep questions. We should be analytical. We should be emphasizing reason.
— Glenn Loury, Tucker Carlson Today
Only for problems that are popular and easy to perceive? Whatever’s in your wheelhouse? Is that as deep as your questions go, Glenn? The likes of Loury & McWhorter (and all of America) — want to have conversations that work for them:
As if issues exist in a vacuum . . .
And don’t even get me started on this clownish crap for clickbait:
Not to mention . . .
This hero-worship horseshit:
At every turn . . .
The faithful tap dance around reality — oily evading anything that requires them to hold Sowell to his own standards.
Hard to Imagine:
That I have to explain that quote to people who seemingly live to flood the internet with his words.
He and his flock incessantly complain about the media — and they don’t make policy. But the second I scrutinize Sowell — suddenly you have new standards.
180 — how fitting!
And on that note:
Not only did Sowell flagrantly fail to follow the facts on all-things Iraq — he brazenly ignored the debauchery in his own party to politely pounce on the other. And yet somehow his patently obvious history of hypocrisy & lies has gone unnoticed for decades by people heaping praise upon him.
It’s not seasoned with any of that — he’s just trying to have a white lab coat on and look at the facts.
— John McWhorter
If his Crap is King claims on WMD isn’t “seasoned” to you, Mr. McWhorter:
What is?
Hard to Imagine
And Damn Disappointing to Boot
It’s bad enough I gotta deal with unyielding yahoos who yearn to praise Sowell as if it’s a daily duty to broadcast his brilliance — while butchering his principles in practice: But to see people I respected fall into the same trap — enabling their “National Treasure” and the echo chamber around him:
Good grief!
Do the people you put on a pedestal really want to solve problems?
Do you?
Man is at least as much a problem-creating as a problem-solving animal. Better a crisis than the permanent boredom of meaninglessness.
— Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom
Life at the Bottom — exactly! . . .
The Social Dilemma Division
Ah, the “Have you seen The Social Dilemma?” crowd:
Viewed in 38,000,000 homes within the first 28 days of release
So why don’t ya Tweet about it some more — because surely the reason it didn’t work is insufficient exposure for a doc damn near everyone in America knows about. If you advertise your concerns enough — surely that’ll magically make a dent someday.
And if it doesn’t, at least you got your fix for feeling like you’re participating in addressing a problem you’re perpetuating by the very nature in which you participate.
All day, every day!
Critical Thinking Crowd
There is no measure for how preposterous it is that people take endless delight in flooding the internet with claims about their immaculate critical thinking skills: But don’t consider anything that falls outside the formula of titillating their TL;DR mentality . . .
Craving fodder from a trough fed by standard scrolling with ease.
And “stopping to organize and evaluate the information we are receiving”?
Cognitive Dissonance Camp
Flooding the internet with clichéd crap like “the cognitive dissonance is strong in this one” is not the mark serious-minded people interested in problem solving. It’s almost impossible to find anyone who is, but they sure love to Tweet their concerns as if they are. And lo and behold, the second anyone in the Cognitive Dissonance Camp is challenged — cognitive dissonance kicks in to absolve themselves.
Then merrily move along — as they gotta get back to bitching about people who behave as they do.
Vanguard for Victories in Vocabulary
“Enslaved People”
It’s not the change in terms that bothers me so much: It’s the complete absence of intellectually honest discussion by people preoccupied with victories in vocabulary.
When I am making my edits, “John’s slave” becomes “a person enslaved by John.” “John owned Sally” becomes “John enslaved Sally.” . . .
Good grief!
Even if there is a distinction deserving of discussion:
What you miserably fail to understand is that the net effect of your efforts is what counts (not your well-meaning intent). If you do far more harm than good — what’s the point?
But you know best
Your March of Folly mentality always does:
Like many alternatives, however, it was psychologically impossible. Character is fate, as the Greeks believed. Germans were schooled in winning objectives by force, unschooled in adjustment. They could not bring themselves to forgo aggrandizement even at the risk of defeat.
— Barbara Tuchman
Unschooled in Adjustment
With all the problems that plague America — it just astounds me that this is of paramount concern:
Consider this sentence: “George Washington owned slaves at Mount Vernon.” It doesn’t agitate our sense of morality as much as the sentence “George Washington enslaved people at Mount Vernon,” does it? To most people, it seems much worse to say, read, or hear that someone “enslaved” other people than that they “owned” other people.
That’s partially because ownership is one of the primary rights and most cherished ideas in the American system — and most Western systems — of government.
I’m not among “most” . . .
And on what basis is she making the claim that “most people” see it that way? “Owned” has an ugliness that “enslaved” does not — precisely because we know it’s not a “primary right” to own people. Such efforts are really reaching to re-engineer what cannot be undone.
All this over-the-top engineering of sensitivity has gotten totally out of hand. Excessive sensitivity breeds hypersensitivity. When you water things down to be politically correct, our nation’s ability to discern decreases right along with it: Creating a culture that’s increasingly more easily offended and radically irrational — across the board.
Jesus — it just never ends . . .
And don’t even get me started on how homelessness is a problem perpetuated by those most sensitive in their approach to solving it. Whatever their asinine ways on the Right, they make a helluva lot more sense on this subject than the Left.
If you wanna start solving problems instead of perpetuating them — it’s gotta get ugly.
Or as ol’ Bill perfectly put it:
Tough love used to be timeless:
Now everything’s an assault on increasingly fragile egos. And so typical of the times — nothing has meaning anymore (which was predictable when you water everything down to the point where its original intent is conveniently forgotten). The ability to take criticism (harsh or otherwise) — is at the core of what this nation so desperately needs:
While you’re killing us by being needy.
Like the Left, the Right has gone out of its mind — but they’re not always wrong (far from it). The Right is right on the money on the impossibly stupid pampering of woke:
I don’t see what the problem is!
— Typical Tweeter tapping earth-shattering insight
You don’t see — a lot!
Your track record is not what I would call astute — and the Right doesn’t have anything to write home about either. I fail to understand how you think we can solve anything in a country that can’t even get the self-evident straight:
Incredibly, you look at that . . .
Coupled with this:
And act like it’s this . . .
“I don’t understand. I don’t know understand. It’s all so incoherent and confusing with all these things I have to stop and think about.”
That’s because you wallow in a world of paint by numbers — where people telling you what you wanna hear every goddamn day: Package it all neatly into nursery-rhyme narratives:
Turning your mind into mush!
That you have not developed the capacity understand matters of complexity beyond your current comprehension — doesn’t mean they don’t make sense. And there is no measure for how preposterous it is that people who can’t even get the self-evident straight:
Have the bottomless gall to belittle me on making correlations in 3 dimensions while you wallow in one.
I didn’t get the memo . . .
When did acquiring knowledge become: “I don’t understand everything — so I can’t act like an imbecile who can’t understand anything“? Would you browse a textbook then blame the teacher for your failure to understand the material? If you’re gonna blow right by illustrations and clips at the crux of the story: Don’t complain that you can’t understand what you didn’t stop to consider.
And for now, last but far from least:
This nation has no remorse!
Not for relatively recent wrongdoing, anyway. It appears I’m more horrified by my typos than America is with dumb, dishonest, and delusional wars. And truth be told, those who landed on the right side on Iraq: Most of ‘em don’t know jack either. Just because you were right doesn’t necessarily mean you arrived at it intelligently — and being reinforced by casual conviction makes for increasingly sloppy & stupid thinking.
[W]e must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it
— M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
In a nation that incessantly blames and complains (seemingly for sport) — no one’s taking responsibility for anything. The ever-rising ocean of partisan pettiness is gluttony under the guise of concern. What would you call untold millions marching to a Twitter-rage parade on WMD — dishing on the deaths of Rumsfeld and Powell (and whatever anniversary marks the moment):
But too lazy to get off your ass to see what we can do about it. Of course, that would require holding your own accountable as well:
So there’s that
Happy 20th Anniversary!
Seize the day to be jacked up on fuel to fire off your fury and excuses in a nation that never learns: But loves to light it up in lip service to virtues.
Ever-so bold behind force fields of fallacy that butcher those “beliefs.“
Anyone wanting to know the truth would not behave in ways that make damn sure you never will. Defenders of the indefensible make it impossible to discuss even a single image — and yet have the temerity to bitch about my website. While you’re gleefully glued to tradition on format & formula:
The same formula that created this clusterfuck in the first place.
Heart Over Mind . . .
I love you so much that I can’t leave you
Even though my mind tells me I should
But then you make me think that you still love me
And all my thoughts of leaving do no good . . .You’ve got me heart over mind worried all the time
Knowing you will always be the same
You’ll keep hurting me I know but I still can’t let you go
Cause my heart won’t let my love for you change
More factions to follow . . .
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
— Attributed to Mark Twain