Lies, Lies, and More Lies, in History-Illiterate America

[SHRED]

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I know...historical facts don't really have an affect on what Bush says at his speeches, nor do these facts have very much influence in the formation of thoughts and opinions within the pea-sized brains of the remaining few supporters he has left.

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Lies, Lies, and More Lies, in History-Illiterate America
Larry Beinhart
Posted August 25, 2007 | 04:40 PM (EST)


George Bush - and other Iraq War supporters - have argued that if we withdraw from Iraq the result will be like the slaughters - the killing fields -in Cambodia.

Here are the facts:

· The killing fields were real. The genocide against their own people was committed by the Khmer Rouge.
· The Vietnamese - the Communist Vietnamese - were the people who went in and put a stop to it.
· The United States then supported the Khmer Rouge.

Here's how that came to happen.


~SNIP~


When George Bush, or anyone else, uses the Cambodian holocaust as a warning of what might happen if America withdraws from Iraq, remember the facts.

1. Part of the holocaust in Cambodia is directly attributable to American bombing. The 750,000 dead. (Comparable to the number of Iraqis killed by American forces in this war.)

2. The civil war that led to the victory of the Khmer Rouge came about, at least in part, because of America's support of Lon Nol.

3. The "enemy," the Vietnamese Communists, were the ones who put a stop to the Khmer Rouge.

4. The United States supported the Khmer Rouge - after their murders, after the genocide. That support helped a civil war continue for another decade. More death, more destruction.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-beinhart/lies-lies-and-more-lies_b_61810.html

[ladjf]

1. Something is making Americans dumb. We need to find out

what it is.

[enlightenment]

2. Failure to value learning for the sake of learning.

We only value education for what it can "do" for us, in economic terms, and young people are told to go to school so they can "get a better job" not because it is something they should do for themselves.

I'm not saying that's wrong - but it reduces learning to a tool that has only limited value. To value learning for learnings sake gives it a meaning that is not dependent on externals. Learning should be like breathing; it should be something we strive to do every single day, whether we are in a classroom or not.

We are rapidly becoming a very incurious nation. If you do not wonder, you will not discover. Learning should be wonder, not duty.

[Demeter]

3. Attitude

Unless you can make people give a damn about something other than their vices and addictions, it's going to go on to the point of Death, and then the question will not exist anymore than New Orleans exists.

[ladjf]

4. True. But I think that type of attitude is symptom of a deeper

underlying cause.

[mwb970]

5. Americans have been getting dumber for decades.

I first noticed it in the 70s. The decline became steeper once St. Ronnie took over. Now we're so dumb we "elect" (and even "re-elect") incompetent, arrogant criminals as our "leaders".

How much dumber can we get?

[krispos42]

6. A deficiency of vitamin DU..... n/t

[Felix Mala]

7. The neocon puppeteers - Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity - only arm

their sheeples with half the facts, if you can say "half." That makes them very dangerous, but also very stupid. Not good in a voting bloc unless your entire platform is built on lies.

[BridgeTheGap]

8. "You can fool some of the people all of the time

You can fool all the people some of the time
but you can't fool all the people all the time."

Supporters of the Bush cabal fall into the first category.