Recently I was interviewed on Epoch TV’s “American Thought Leaders” show, hosted by Jan Jakielek about the similarities and differences between what is happening now in Afghanistan and what happened in Saigon in April 1975. Here is a link to that interview. It lasts about 30 minutes. I hope you will find it interesting. Ron Yates
“Somebody was asleep at the switch.”—Likely put into a soporific state by the mandatory CRT training or the hunt for the “real national security threat”—the angry non-minority male. Thank you for correcting the popular misconception that the iconic helo-vac photo is not the embassy. It was actually the rooftop of the building where an Agency officer lived. That is why the choppers were Air America rather than USMC. I like to think that back in June, when it was apparent the current administration’s Afghan policy would soon result in a disastrous clusterfark, the company got its people out of Dodge. One of the comments posted below your interview offered an interesting analysis of the problem with modern journalism (The gist, slightly changed for clarity):
The business side of the news media has changed.
Back in the 1970s, newspaper companies, for their primary source of revenue, depended on subscribers who paid for individual subscriptions.
If a news company lied, its reputation would suffer, and subscribers would cancel and go to competitors.
In the Internet age, most media companies are struggling to compete against free news.
Many media companies survive by selling out to billionaires or becoming a subsidiary division of a much larger media company.
These new owners aren’t journalists, and they aren’t interested in charity—throwing money at money-losing ventures.
Instead, they are using these news companies to push propaganda that benefits their investments, and losing money is a non-issue—a gambit to enhance the bottom-line.
Imagine a company wants to push thru a bill that will increase its profits by $100 million.
The company might lose $10 million a year on the “news” division, but they used the media to gain support for their bill, or to install/influence a politician who will do their bidding—a good “investment.”
Yes, the media today are much, much different than they once were. Too many are run my hedge fund moguls or by people who have no concept of the responsibilities that journalism once proudly bore. Today, so many have abandoned that responsibility and turned to propaganda. What we now have is a pack of news organizations that behave more like the old Soviet Pravda, the news organizations.