Politicians! Tell people what they want to hear and BS shovelled by the shipload or propaganda pieces like this one? And because all too often there are vested or conflicting interests or a hidden or very different agenda?

Some of the most vocal self-confessed libertarians are or were libertarian only at home or for themselves! Names and pack drill? Putin, Stalin, Netanyahu, Hitler, Ergodan, Theresa May, Himmler and that well-known philandrist, Donald Trump? Who is the finest example of the expression, charity begins at home! And I know you know what I mean!

Time to start telling it like it is and what's actually possible, rather than this or that heaping helping of BS. And the reason for the energy crisis and the destruction/dismantling of our ultra critical manufacturing sector.

Without which we are virtually defenceless! And could be so different if our "Leaders" weren't welded to coal!
Alan B.

Meanwhile a comment based on Mcluhan's famous phrase "the medium is the message"
What kind of powerful in-your-face, bodily smithereening communication do BOMBS make?

As at July 31st 2017 under herr trumpenfuhrer the USA had dropped 20,650 bombs on Islamic countries in 2017. Since then the number of bombs is most probably much much higher. And some dreadfully sane "conservative" dingbats think that the trumpenfuhrer should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Under the O-bomber the USA only managed a total of 26,000 in all of 2016. He should of course be stripped of his peace prize.
And of course peace-loving Amerika has been bombing one or more Islamic countries almost every day for the past 20 years or so, ever since the first Gulf war.

Dreadfully sane Americans then wonder why the citizens of these forever traumatized countries hate the USA government.

Although they pretend otherwise ALL of the usual "conservative" and back-to-the-past "traditionalists" suspects are just as much trapped within the now world dominant secular-materialist paradigm as the dreaded "liberals" as described in Mark's essay. And by extension their mooted politics are just as (potentially) dreadful - even more so.

Secular-materialist culture is the extension/projection of the now world-dominant paradigm of scientism, in which we all trapped with NO exceptions.

ALL of conventional politics and culture invites (and limits) us toward enthusiastic participation in a mortal lifetime displayed within a scheme of dreadfully indifferent powers, laws and forms - even if they prattle on about their naive childish, even infantile creator-"God", the Bible and "Jesus".

The universe of science is a mighty pool of senseless rocks, winding like clockwork, shedding a soup of poor beings cited with the demand for yes and yes, until, in some terminal collision, they are made soundless or snuffed out in the indifferent molecular roar. Yet, if human beings or their politics act in the manner like the universe they suppose, there are cries against barbarism, totalitarianism, and unlove.
How can we justify and demand superior behavior on the part of humankind if we conceive of humankind merely in terms of the mortal ego and the secular cosmos?
Without a total psycho-physical "grounding" in a Higher Sacred and Transcendental view of self and world and Reality, then there is NO alternative to the mad gleefulness of conventional exoteric religiosity and the sorry result of angry secular mortals.

Interesting choice of words "trump hating American's" - quite typical of how right-wingers frame the culture wars shouting matches.

How many left-wing or progressive GUN-TOTING militias and hate groups with their associated websites appeared in America when Trump was elected?

By contrast how many GUN-TOTING militias and hate groups with their associated websites appeared in America when Obama was elected and during his time in office? As far as I know there was well over a thousand.

Furthermore hasnt Trump actually empowered many of these outfits.

" As far as I know there was well over a thousand."

There are two types of statistics - those you look up and those you make up. This is the latter.

Daffy Duck.

*...Meanwhile a comment based on Mcluhan's famous phrase "the medium is the message"
What kind of powerful in-your-face, bodily smithereening communication do BOMBS make?...*

Simple answer; bombs secure oil supplies, and further, and probably more importantly, bombs secure profits. Ask Israel!
Currently, bombs are not enforcing ideology at all. They are actually annealing in the furnace of grief, a formidable opposition to secularism of the West.

I could dissect and proffer answers to the other eloquences of your post if you wish; but I don't think you do!

As memory serves Diver, the Yanks dropped more ordnance on Laos than they did on Germany during the entire WW11.

And achieved only advancing the communist cause as formerly peace-loving Buddhists were incentivised to resist!

And consequently achieved the very opposite of their enunciated goals. With subsequent dire consequences for various ethnic minorities.

And because the diabolically dumb control freaks that is the American high command weren't able to differentiate between Buddhists and communists.

And so instead of allowing free and fair elections in adjacent South Vietnam. Were disposed to install a completely corrupt Catholic minority government.

Even today, can't seem to get it right. As in desert storm mark one, pulled out leaving the Bucher of Baghdad ensconced, in control and wreaking havoc on his own people.

Similarly during the Syrian civil war that's cost the lives and Liberty of thousands they balked at doing what needed doing, i.e., a cruise missile through Assad's bedroom window while he was at home and tucked up in his beddy byes, preferably at a time when his equally evil, mass murdering, homicidal brother was a house guest.

You'd almost believe the American war material supply chain was running all these campaigns? Not so much to bring them to a swift resolution, but rather, to maximise profits, as the only imperative and to hell with the cost in human lives!

Little wonder many are now referring to it as the evil empire. And not because of any fault with the people, who are simply ignorant, obtuse, indifferent or incapable of affecting internal change.

And on par with the average (couldn't give a rat's) average Aussie.

Even as China eclipses Ameria as the dominant superpower! With the aid of American globalized corporations and their addiction to extreme capitalism, human exploitation, the profit curve and the lowest common denominator!

As we hurtle toward a future that looks as warm and comfortable as the dark and desolate, dark side of the moon! Well done thou good and faithful servants! He, he, haw, haw, ha, ha.
Alan B.

So the US drops bombs on Vietnamese troops hiding out and resupplying in Laos and that proves what a pack of bastards the US are.

And US fails to drop bombs on Syria and that proves what a pack of bastards the US are.

For many in the bozo brigade, they determine what is right and wrong by determining what the US did/does. Whatever the US does is definitionally wrong according to these people. No thought required.

Yes, a pack of power consumed bastards, given we weren't at war with either Cambodia or Laos.

And just as dumb as the politicians who ordered it and the generals who okayed it.

The Anzacs, on the other hand, dealt with a communist terrorist threat to Malaysia emanating from Indonesia and originated/actioned in/from Indonesia, by following the terrorists to their Indonesian hideouts and destroying their gardens.

Eventually, with few live fire exchanges, these extremely hungry folk melted back to the Malaysian Campongs from which they came and had to tolerate the ire of their village head; and extremely disenchanted family and friends.

And because it was a successful strategy! Could have been replicated in Vietnam. Along with free and fair elections, which would then have brought Buddhist Cambodia and Laos onside and far less hostile.

Given their brother Buddhists, would have been elected by a significant majority.

And with that created a self-interest block of anti-communists ready willing to able to take the fight to them as popular cause and local uprising against them, instead of the Yanks and their Aussie allies.

That saw more sacrificed young American lives than that taken during the entire WW11 campaign!

Who needs enemies when you have friends like that?

And when the going got tough! The tough got going and gone! And we are far too reliant on them for our enduring security!
Alan B.