I am somewhat amazed, even
taken aback, by the unexpected attitudes of some of my friends, although I
suppose I shouldn’t be. We have a kind of informal club that meets every
Tuesday evening. We think of it as “The Gentlepersons Club” as both males and
females are welcome. There aren’t a lot of members and we play billiards, not
pool, billiards, now known in the U. S. as carom billiards. We also of course
have conversations about various topics sometimes but not always politically
related conversations.
Last Tuesday in a
conversation I casually observed that Vladimir Putin had recently married his
girlfriend, apparently a one-time gymnast medal winner. I went on to observe
that he had divorced his wife of 30 years with whom he had two daughters, but
no one was sure where they were. One of the women immediately said, “Maybe he
got rid of them.” I confess I was astounded. Why on earth would this woman, a
perfectly bright, reasonably liberal democrat (I don’t have any other friends)
say such a thing? Obviously her remark must have been prompted by an assumption
that Putin must be a kind of Stalin clone, an evil person who would presumably
not hesitate to dispose of the woman he was married to for 30 years plus their
two offspring. Of course I don’t know where they are, but I would bet a lot of
money they are well-off and living in comfort somewhere, if perhaps anonymously
for their own protection.
And of course they all seem
to believe that Putin is responsible for the situation in Ukraine, having
aggressively moved towards that country. They are apparently unaware of the
violent coup we promoted, along with the EU, that overthrew the democratically
elected President (who was, granted, an evil, greedy son-of-a-bitch) with the
aid of some neo-Nazi groups who happily joined in to help, and are now trying
to destroy the Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine.
Anyway, the next day, in a
conversation with another friend, I remarked that Hamas had offered a ten year
truce to Israel provided certain (what I thought were perfectly reasonable)
demands were met, and Israel had turned them down. My friend seemed to be
confinced that Israel was right to do so because Hamas wouldn’t stop attacking
them even if there was such a truce, another attitude that surprised me (Hamas,
being Arab, was obviously untrustworthy). Of course he and the others also seem
to believe that Hamas started the recent trouble by suddenly (and I guess for
no apparent reason) firing rockets into Israel.
Now you have to understand
that none of these friends are news junkies although they do watch some news on
the MSM. None of them as far as I know watch Fox (non) News. They are liberal
democrats, certainly not Neocons, and are all basically opposed to war,
especially the ongoing troubles in both Ukraine and Palestine. I would describe
them all as very typical American citizens, somewhat informed, but accepting
whatever our MSM tells them. So I guess it is not surprising they have the
attitudes they do, the attitudes that our corporate controlled media want them
to have. If ordinary people in the U.S. believe that Putin is an evil dictator
trying to re-establish the Russian empire, ruthless in his attempts to do so,
and believe that Hamas has no legitimate reasons for firing rockets at Israel,
both gross and false claims, what chance is there really to solve any of these
problems? The powers that be have us brainwashed into believing their lies and
gross oversimplifications so they can pursue their corporate interests and world
hegemony. Putin and Hamas stand in their way, so Putin and Hamas are the bad
guys and we, the U.S. and our allies are overwhelmingly the good guys. We have
been fed so many lies and so much misinformation in recent years I truly
believe that ordinary Americans now live in surreal webs of misunderstanding,
divorced entirely from the events in the real world.
“If you do not tell the truth about yourself
you cannot tell it about other people.”
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