Jim Wheeler
BS, USNA, Annapolis, 1959; MSA, The Geo. Washington U., 1975; Submariner, Commander, USN, 1959 - 1981; Aerospace battery engineer & mgr., 1981 - 1999; Political affiliation: Mainly of the Democratic persuasion but not a fan of the extremes on either side.
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Still Skeptical After All These Years by James R Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Still Skeptical After All These Years 
That was really good and on target in my opinion. As I said to Melanie yesterday, you can’t bomb an ideology out of existence that people hold. Our approach is futile and with brief temporary gains. There are more long term setbacks than any gains with our current approaches.
Years ago, I did a lot of reading into a think tank group called the New American Century made up of conservative neo-cons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
They made their way into the Bush administration with W as their puppet. Their ideologies are just as bad as those we are trying to kill in the middle east.
We humans are a troubled lot in so many ways. We are also wonderful beings in many other ways.
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I first learned about The New American Century when I read The Librarian, by Larry Beinhart, a “frenetic, scary, and darkly comic thriller that goes deep into the dark heart of election-year politics.” I just now pulled the book off my shelf and am tempted to read this riveting book again. Although the book is fiction, The New American Century I knew was not. If only Al Gore’s prevailing in the popular vote had put him in the White House. But there is little to be gained by What ifs.
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What if…If only…you are so right. Thanks for your interesting comment.
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If the alternate realities theory is correct, somewhere exists a world where Gore did win. If more understood the butterfly effect, they would rush to vote, overtime. Thanks for your input, Helen.
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Thanks, Jim, for the PNAC link. I wasn’t aware of it but am not surprised. The most politically dangerous thing in the world just might be eggheads with no personal war experience fixated on American exceptionalism. Among others, Condoleezza Rice comes to mind.
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The entire GOP is full of them, actually. Those in office and those bankrolling. And not a day’s service in the military among them. Because, like Cheney, they had other priorities … so we should remember and have priorities other than putting them/keeping them in office.
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Saw this live Friday night. Worth seeing again. I agree with Maher – popcorn is a whole lot cheaper than engaging in a perpetual war in the Middle East.
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Good to hear from you, Herb. I’ve been reading your occasional columns in the Joplin Globe and miss connecting with you on Duane’s blog. I think he may have gotten burned out.
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Popcorn is so much tastier than the crow we have been eating since our ill-conceived invasion of Iraq for their non-existent role in 9/11.
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Interesting discussion … especially with a wide range of people. Why do they hate us? What do they want? Why are we there? … Those are good questions that are quite complex. On a side note, Michael Steele makes more sense than he did when he was the party chairman … (I occasionally hear him on XM.
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Agreed, Frank. The capacity of politicians to be disingenuous is remarkable. I could never be one because I am a compulsive truth-teller, yet the pros, like Steele, are able to think politically and, some of them, rationally at the same time. It’s well, I think, that the primary process is grueling because it tends to expose the real personas.
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On his radio show I heard Steele say that politicians will always play the political card first. Of course that implies using other cards as opposed playing and holding all cards being the same. … I too couldn’t do it for the same reason. BTW – on his radio show he teams with a liberal – and they have great dialogue.
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