I have no answer but the propaganda machine is hard at work on the masses from all sides and so is the big money. I cannot draw any other conclusion that fits what is happening. Pretty scarey stuff. I repeat, Captains and Kings is an excellent book.
When I finished that book I read Bradley's Fly Boys and it commented on a fact that I did not know, had never seen in any documentary and thought was way tooo symbolic. Commodore Perry sailed to Japan in 1853. Perry took to shore a letter wanting to trade with the Japanese. He also took along with him a blue flag with 31 white stars. The Japanese took the letter and told him to leave. When the Japanese surrendered after WW-II, 92 years later, a guy by the name of Lt. John Bremyer was given emphatic instructions to guard and not let out of his sight a box to be delivered. He flew through 12 time-zones to deliver that same flag to Admiral Halsey.
The U.S.S. Missouri lay just 4-1/2 miles northeast of the spot where Commodore Perry had anchored his ship. Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur were ferried out to the Missouri on the destroyer Buchanan (named after Commodore Buchanan who was first to step on Japanese soil with Commodore Perry. The nine member Japanese delegation traveled from Tokyo to Yokohama for the surrender ceremony. They traveled the same route the emissaries had trod to shuttle messages between Commodore Perry and the last shogun.
Couple all this symbolism 92 years after the fact and the court-martial of Admiral Kimmel regarding the bombing of Pearl Harbor and I suggest all this symbolism has another meaning that was 92 years old. Who remembered all of this and what was the real significance? Power and power by whom and passed on to whom after 92 years?
There is continuity in this world. Most of it goes unnoticed an a day-to-day basis. Most Americans are ignorant of this aspect of our lives.
When I worked for the government in the Balkans a few years ago, we did a little diagnostic test on our students. I can't replicate it here, but it demonstrated that Americans are almost unique in looking forward with optimism while most of the rest of the world looks backwards for it's instructions on how to behave. We, as a nation, have much to learn about how the rest of the world perceives us.
This, of course affects how they react to our rather straightforward approach to life.