Dysfunctional Bush and his anachronistic cronies are leading us right into a catastrophic Middle Eastern blowout. That much is apparent. But what's not so clear is why we're allowing it to happen.
Analyzing Dubya's psychological challenges is not enough - he's the symptom not the cause, and while the rapidity of societal decline has seemed to accelerate since 2000's farcical US presidential election, the framework for rollback was in place long before. If it hadn't been, citizens quite simply wouldn't have tolerated the rigged results.
But what mechanisms could have been used to facilitate the rollback? How can an unwilling population be trained to blindly accept a new, repressive social order?
A CIA instruction manual entitled "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare" provides some clues. Written in the early 1980s (coincidentally, soon after Bush Sr. headed the Agency) the document was part of the US government's crusade to bring down Nicaragua's leftist government, by providing training and weapons to the Contra rebels. Detailing how to gain a community's support through propaganda and selective violence, the manual begins "In effect, the human being should be considered the priority objective in a political war ... Once his mind has been reached, the 'political animal' has been defeated, without necessarily receiving bullets."
Analyzing Dubya's psychological challenges is not enough - he's the symptom not the cause, and while the rapidity of societal decline has seemed to accelerate since 2000's farcical US presidential election, the framework for rollback was in place long before. If it hadn't been, citizens quite simply wouldn't have tolerated the rigged results.
But what mechanisms could have been used to facilitate the rollback? How can an unwilling population be trained to blindly accept a new, repressive social order?
A CIA instruction manual entitled "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare" provides some clues. Written in the early 1980s (coincidentally, soon after Bush Sr. headed the Agency) the document was part of the US government's crusade to bring down Nicaragua's leftist government, by providing training and weapons to the Contra rebels. Detailing how to gain a community's support through propaganda and selective violence, the manual begins "In effect, the human being should be considered the priority objective in a political war ... Once his mind has been reached, the 'political animal' has been defeated, without necessarily receiving bullets."