Ignorance is Bliss

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
Americans have very little notion of what is happening in the rest of the world. And if they actually do care and try to find out, they usually content themselves to watching various domestic news sources that tell them nothing but what they want to hear; something fascinating, a little of the morbid and a lot of the sensational. Thus are we able to sleep in our beds in our houses in our various cities or suburban conglomerations all across the country. Such notions as class and poverty are vague concepts that, although hard to miss, are easy to ignore in a country where 98% of the population has a TV. Rumors of the occasional revolution or coup or famine or war occasionally are heard, but easy to dismiss as anomalies or the natural functioning of the world and be twisted into just another opportunity for self-aggrandizing reporters to show their skill at hiding the truth. Truth you say, what is that? The truth is just a plain picture, which is apparently is a hard sell these days. Let me give you an example. We are told that we are in a life and death struggle with militant Islamic terrorists, who are for no explainable reason hell bent on taking away our precious freedom. Say what you will about the objectivity of the media, that is undeniably how they put it to us. Well fine, I guess that is certainly a perspective, but here is another. We have been engaged in a 75 year long free for all for the exploitation of Southwest Asia's resources with the necessary accompaniment of political control of its people and they are finally beginning to collectively come to the realization of that fact. Having acquired this new consciousness they naturally turn to the only people with the courage to stand up against our outrageously powerful military, the fact that these people are fearlessly devout Muslims is purely coincidental and a result of circumstance. Now I'm very ready to admit that my view is just as subject to criticism and rebuke as there's, but it is just as valid, probably even more so since I'm at least trying to use some historical facts as a basis for my assertions. How about this, what would the media be squawking about if we didn't have all the Muslims to hate on? They would be all about Chinese expantionism, North Korean nuclear insanity, or maybe go back to beating the old anti-Russian drum again. This isn't the medias fault, they produce a product to be consumed just like everyone else. The one they are pitching is as old as dirt, the concept of the other, and their is very little reason to believe we are going to stop eating it up any time soon. So the natural question that we get from all this: Why do people in the US prefer being spoon fed their geopolitics to just actually deducing it for themselves? Rather than tell you what I think, answer that one out for yourself!