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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGoldfish Crackers
"We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
-- John Kerry; April 22, 1971; Vietnam Veterans Against the War, testimony to Congress
https://speakola.com/political/john-kerry-veterans-against-vietnam-war-testimony-1971
Scientists are not entirely sure about the memory capacity of goldfish. Most think that it likely depends upon the amount of stimulation they find in their home environment. Is it a day? A week? Perhaps a month? One can never know for sure, although the leading theory is that their memory is somewhere between two to ten times greater than that of the common republican homonid found in the United States of America.
I do not expect people under the age of fifty to think of John Kerry's famous presentation to Congress in 1971. But I find it curious that some people of my generation -- including republicans, and a variety of media "experts," among o0thers -- to be able to draw a line between the end of the Vietnam war and Afghanistan. I know that it would be best to set the bar low, even on the gound itself, yet it seems to have been buried six feet below the ground. The expectation of the human variety of goldfish are totally unaware of what takes place when a country loses a protracted war.
Why, my good friend who is 50% informed and 50% misinformed asked me, didn't President Biden immediately provide visas for the Afghan citizens who would undoubtably need to leave their country when the US withdrew? I mean, it's not like leaving Grenada after the noble invasion in 1983 to prevent the construction of an airport run way that would have been almost as long as the one in my home town, population 3,500. That was our nutmeg, after all.
I reminded him of Stephen Miller, a man that even my friend finds toxic. And how Miller, who does not believe the citizens of Afghanistan or Iraq are equal in human value to Europeans -- specifically, white Europeans -- did his best to stop the process of visa applications. It is not as if Joe Biden was landing on firm ground when he took office.
https://news.yahoo.com/anti-immigrant-trump-aide-stephen-223016016.html
But the thing that best defines the Trump cult, at least in my opinion, came when my second-cousin was talking to a woman who had a multitude of Trump yard signs and flags on her lawn, on the street he lives on. He recently mentioned the possibility of her taking them down. She asked why? He said because Trump was too much like Hitler. She asked who Hitler was? He stared in disbelief, until she asked, "Oh, was he the guy that killed those people?"
I do believe that everyone has the right to vote. But it seems odd that the vote of a goldfish counts as mych as mine.

underpants
(188,296 posts)Good read.
H2O Man
(76,095 posts)pansypoo53219
(21,874 posts)H2O Man
(76,095 posts)correctly, Miller put a stop to even the visa application. And I think a federal court ruled that was illegal, yet it continued. Miller is a terrible human being ..... which is why Trump had him in a leading role on immigration in his administration.
I'm as upset by what is happening in Afghanistan. But I don't blame President Biden. And I note that several of my very left-wing friends and associates are really impressed that President Biden is doing the right thing.
ShazzieB
(19,258 posts)"Oh, was [Hitler] the guy that killed those people?"
Not enough facepalms in the world for this. JFC on a jet-propelled pogo stick.
This kind of staggering ignorance is exhibit A for anyone who doesn't understand why the US needed a holocaust museum, or why the world doesn't need holocaust museumS, plural.
Never forget. And never let the rest of the world forget, either.
I was stunned. I asked him if he was certain that was what she actually said? He was indeed sure. It is dangerous for this level of -- as you said -- "staggering ignorance" to be found in any person who completed high school. And it is the exact measure of staggering ignorance within the population that made Trump such a threat.
crickets
(26,158 posts)has to stop to think who Adolf Hitler was. There's no excuse, not even poor public education, for that level of ignorance. Just living life (TV, movies, video games, f*cking memes) should have given anyone in this country past toddlerhood a nodding acquaintance with who Hitler was.
Well said.
H2O Man
(76,095 posts)Malcolm Nance nails it:
Kid Berwyn
(18,997 posts)Spells things out, right and square, Malcolm Nance did.
Regarding goldfish brains, what Dorothy Parker said when asked to use horticulture in a sentence during a drinking word game at The Algonquin:
You can lead a horticulture, but you cant make her think.
Thank you for adding, H2O Man.
H2O Man
(76,095 posts)Great quote!
I suppose the answer is the most obvious, but I still question how anyone who doesn't know who Hitler was can graduate high school, get a driver's license, or vote? How can they be a human being?