A new link and some thoughts.

Harry wrote an addendum to his post Social Engineering watch which I'll heartily endorse.

Addendum: The war on them, whoever they are at any point in time, is also a war on us. It is a transfer of wealth and a means of asserting domestic control.

"They" always seem to be out there whoever "they" are. All sorts of organizations and special interest groups have "them" out there trying to take away or influence what "we" have. It's an intriguing concept and one that the social engineers and propagandists rely on to get their message out there and maintain control. A population thinking about what "they" are doing isn't going to be really thinking about what the powers that be are really up to, which is maintaining and keeping control. Dissent is to be vectored away.

Over here there's the impression of a seige mentality in the US which somehow has ben engineered over time. For some reason I interact with those who don't take this narrowed down view of the world. They get around, they read and interact with those around the globe. They own a passport.

The seige mentality is also applies to us downunder. there are some nasty domestic policies hi-jacked by the Co0nervatives directly from the pages of the ultra-right "one Nation" party. Those who agree with these policies of border protection, detention and the like I tend to steer away from. I tend to have friends who have friends that were born overseas. And as one friend observed "There are arsehole Australians, just like there are arsehole Arabs...... it's not unique to one particular group."

Speaking of things posterior......Sometimes I wish those who are dubious of "them" would shift their arses off their sofas, in front of their CNN/ NASCAR/ NFL/WHATEVER bigscreens and get out there an interact. Pretty soon they'd find out "they" are just the same as "us".

Which brings me to my latest link Ethnomusings via Peter ( a bit of a globetrotter and intelligent enough to see through the "them" hysteria!). It's opened up the glorious world of South America. Colourful both in the images and the quantity and quality of the writing...... as I commented over there, you can smell the coffee from here.

My little world has ben opened up a bit more.