"The False-Self views the Truth-Self as naked and insane and defenseless ... because, of course, the False-Self is created when the Truth-Self is utterly defenseless, usually when it is at the mercy of parental power, such mercy of which, of course, is not forthcoming."

'As the US and Iranian governments escalate tensions in the already volatile Straits of Hormuz, and China and Russia begin openly questioning Washington's interference in their internal politics, the world remains on a knife-edge of military tension. Far from being a dispassionate observer of these developments, however, the media has in fact been central to increasing those tensions and preparing the public to expect a military confrontation. But as the online media rises to displace the traditional forms by which the public forms its understanding of the world, many are now beginning to see first hand how the media lies the public into war.' -- It is by our will alone we set their minds in motion.

'If you want to influence the thinking of a nation, or even a community, you have to paint with a very broad brush. That means, first, you have to aim at one of a few powerful nonrational drives that affect most people in much the same way; second, you have to pile as much pressure as possible onto whatever drive you have in mind, so that you can overwhelm whatever the psyche of the individual might throw at you; and third, you have to weaken the reasoning mind, because that’s the part of the self that most often trips up efforts to work magic off basic drives, especially when those efforts aim at goals that most of the targets think are against their best interests. Political thaumaturgy ... relies on mass media, and relies on repetition and compelling verbal or visual patterns that sidestep the critical faculties of the reasoning mind. ...the political thaumaturge is always affected by his or her own magic. ...you can’t spend your time creating words and images that appeal to the nonrational mind without your own nonrational mind being influenced by them, and the more compelling your thaumaturgy is, the more surely you will be caught by your own spell. ...it’s par for the course for political thaumaturges to end up as true believers in their own propaganda...'

'The reality of corporations, the abuses of history, and how to truly break free of propaganda.' -- “We all see society through the matrix called ‘the family’. Mummy is a Democrat and Daddy is a Republican. But where do ‘corporations’ fit into this matrix? ... ”

'That Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster, made in collaboration with the Pentagon, came out in the mid-1980s, when polls showed many Americans expressing doubts about the post-Vietnam military and about the constant saber rattling from the White House. But the movie’s celebration of sweat-shined martial machismo generated $344 million at the box office and proved to be a major force in resuscitating the military’s image. Not only did enlistment spike when “Top Gun” was released, and not only did the Navy set up recruitment tables at theaters playing the movie, but polls soon showed rising confidence in the military. For every “Hurt Locker”—a successful and critical war film made without Pentagon assistance—American moviegoers get a flood of pro-war agitprop, from “Armageddon,” to “Pearl Harbor,” to “Battle Los Angeles” to “X-Men.” And save for filmmakers’ obligatory thank you to the Pentagon in the credits, audiences are rarely aware they may be watching government-subsidized propaganda.'

'"People who invest in print media are going to see their holdings grow by leaps and bounds, and they'll probably ask themselves, 'How can this be real?'" continued the experts, every single one of whom described print media as "the closest thing there is to a money tree." "Well, trust us, it's real. You can expect to make a lot of money very quickly, and best of all, you'll do it by supporting a pillar of American society." In explaining print media's remarkable appeal, the entire financial community said citizens rely, and will continue to rely, on printed newspapers to keep them not only informed about current events, but better prepared to function as the kind of knowledgeable citizens a robust democracy requires.'

'The authors warn that extraterrestrials may be wary of civilisations that expand very rapidly, as these may be prone to destroy other life as they grow, just as humans have pushed species to extinction on Earth. In the most extreme scenario, aliens might choose to destroy humanity to protect other civilisations. "Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions," the report states. "Green" aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. "These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets," the authors write.'

'#Leadership by a self-glorifying, manipulative New Age Prophet ... #Assertion of an apocalyptic threat to all mankind. #An absolutist definition of both the threat and the proposed solution(s). #Promise of a salvation from this pending apocalypse. #A strident intolerance of any outside criticism of the Cult’s definition of the problem or of its proposed solutions. #A “Heaven-on-Earth” vision of the results of the mission’s success and/or a “Hell-on-Earth” result if the cultic mission should fail. #An inordinate fear (and an outright rejection of the possibility) of being proven wrong in either the apocalyptic vision or the proposed salvation.'

'"The al-Qaeda network is fully prepared to continue the jihad against the American infidels by launching deadly attacks, but your outdated and rusting transportation infrastructure needs to be completely overhauled for those strikes even to be noticed," al-Zawahiri said. "We want to turn your bridges into rubble, but if we claimed credit for making them collapse, nobody would ever believe us." "We'd really just be doing you a favor because then you'd actually have to rebuild them," al-Zawahiri added. Throughout the threatening video, the terrorist leader questioned the priorities of American politicians, asking why they would refuse to fund engineering projects that would create jobs, bombing opportunities, and new ways for the U.S. compete globally.'

"You are an old man… who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no Third Worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems! One vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variant, multinational dominion of dollars! Petrol Dollars, Electro Dollars, Multi-dollars. Reichsmarks, Rins, Rubles, Pounds and Shekels! It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic, and subatomic, and galactic structure of things today." -- Arthur Jensen, Network (1976)

'A limited hangout is a public relations or propaganda technique that involves the release of previously hidden information in order to prevent a greater exposure of more important details. It takes the form of deception, misdirection, or coverup often associated with intelligence agencies involving a release or "mea culpa" type of confession of only part of a set of previously hidden sensitive information, that establishes credibility for the one releasing the information who by the very act of confession appears to be "coming clean" and acting with integrity; but in actuality, by withholding key facts, is protecting a deeper operation and those who could be exposed if the whole truth came out. In effect, if an array of offenses or misdeeds is suspected, this confession admits to a lesser offense while covering up the greater ones. A limited hangout typically is a response to lower the pressure felt from inquisitive investigators pursuing clues that threaten to expose everything...'

'Hollywood is ravaging the back issues of Marvel and DC Comics to come up with even marginal characters that can be turned into movies. The attraction of these characters is that they reinforce the dominant social theme of modern Western justice, including the paraphernalia of its court system, adversarial construct and prison system. People are entirely intimidated by the West's current judicial system ...the most ingrained of all modern power-elite memes. People literally cannot conceive of how justice can be gained except by some omnipotent state. Turning people into superheroes to reinforce the status quo is perhaps an emergent elite tool in a larger arsenal. But the bigger issue is mind control generally. From movies to books to television, people are bombarded with dominant and sub dominant social themes. Most people still have a hard time thinking that the world could be organized in another way. War is Peace. Paper money is Gold. The State is Freedom.'

'In order to seal you in slavery, your government must pretend that you were never free. It must shatter your true history into facile propaganda, into fairy tales that endlessly repeat the fantasy that your political leaders rescued you from the scary chaos of liberty. The murder of memory is the first crime of the State – and the source and sustenance of all its other crimes. Why do we believe this propaganda, these fairy tales? I submit that it is to avoid the knowledge of our own enslavement. Most people's beliefs are ex post facto justifications for the after-effects of brute power... We must abandon our illusions of Statist benevolence – not to save ourselves from the State, but from each other – from the festering resentments and predations that inevitably grow among citizens clawing and biting for crumbs from the political table.'

'...this project is ideologically flawed... it is driven by precisely the kind of biased thinking and contempt for the public that the people behind the site believe motivates the major news outlets... they assume that all of the news is biased propaganda, but then all they do is replace the original content with skewed snarky propaganda of their own... At the root of this and many other art and technology projects is the idea of getting people to see things your way. It is deeply anti-social. It is at once an admission that convincing people through argument has failed, and also that the blame for the failure rests entirely on the public, not the speaker. -- ...these hackers aren’t interested in giving the reader a choice. That choice exists is the true radical idea. It takes what is implicit and unconscious and under the control of others and renders it conscious, explicit, and subject to our control. Taking the objects of media and government and making them subjects again.'

'One of the most difficult – and essential – challenges faced by libertarians is the constant need to point out “the gun in the room.” We hear nonstop nonsense about the “social good,” the “redistribution of income,” the “education of children” and so on – endless attempts to bury the naked barrel of the state in a mountain of syrupy metaphors. In more than 20 years of debating these issues, though, I’ve never met a single soul who wants to either shoot me himself or have someone else shoot me. I take enormous solace in this fact, because it explains exactly why these euphemisms are so essential to the maintenance and increase of state power. The reason that euphemisms are constantly used to obscure “the gun in the room” is the simple fact that people don’t like violence very much. Most people will do almost anything to avoid a violent situation. Just keep pointing out the gun in the room, over and over, until the world finally starts awake and drops it in horror and loathing.'

'..."crimes against humanity"... This is phony, as is the nation-state itself. While the concept of the nation-state is useful, its personification is not. The state, contrary to popular descriptions, has neither wants nor needs. It is merely a geographical description. Likewise, "humanity" is a concept, not an individual. One can commit a crime against a person. One cannot commit a crime against "humanity," as it is merely a concept, a description, a place-holder. Western leaders have set up a mechanism based on a misrepresentation. They do this quite a bit, in fact. There is the concept of the "central bank" that is supposed to aid in keeping economies stable and healthy but does no such thing. There is the concept of regulation, which is supposed to provide guidelines and discipline for the market itself but fails lamentably (as it cannot, in fact, succeed). There is the concept of (regulatory) democracy itself, which regularly gives birth to socialism, fascism and even communism.'

'The New York Times, NPR and broadcasters across the country are attacking RT for embracing a not-so-mainstream approach to broadcasting the news. Lauren Lyster fires back at allegations about the legitimacy of RT and their guests.' -- YOU HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE, MISS LYSTER! AND YOU WILL ATONE! http://youtu.be/Kb26LaVuOBk

'One of the main functions of politicians – and journalists – is to simplify the world for us. But there comes a point when – however much they try – the bits of reality, the fragments of events, won't fit into the old frame. ...the fundamental problem with this simple story of good versus evil is that it does not permit a proper critical framework that allows you to properly judge not only those you are fighting, but also your allies. -- America and the coalition invaded Afghanistan with the simple aim of destroying the terror camps and setting up a democracy that would allow the country to be ruled by good people. But in the ensuing decade they have been tricked, spun round and deceived by the complex web of vested interests there. And their inability to understand and deal with this has led to the rise of a state crippled by corruption in which it is impossible to know who the "good" people might be any longer.' -- YOU

'Media is the science of handling the masses. The very word "HANDLING" is used constantly, not only in PR firms, but in major corporations and governments. "How are we going to HANDLE these people?" "We are going to have to HANDLE the public reaction" are sentences that are endlessly spewed all over the New York mass media, the Hollywood-based "entertainment" studios and the Federal Government in Washington DC. Handle, handle, handle. That's what the power-elite, ponzi artists are concerned with in their daily lives. So, they figure, the best way to "handle" all this is to consolidate the media down to less than 10 multinational corporations (done); take controlling ownership of each (done); and then promulgate an endless spew of false reality to the general population. Now the public can be HANDLED because they have been pre-programmed to act in "politically correct" ways. Part of this handling is done by people known as "PUNDITS" those puking, round faces and blond bimboes...'

'What are the odds that WikiLeaks would release an Osama bin Laden nuclear bomb story only a week before his putative death at the hands of American Navy Seals? -- So let us summarize once more. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda both seem supported, at least in their initial incarnations, by the CIA and other Western intel involvement. Meanwhile, the current narrative regarding these two entities is at the very least questionable. The idea is that bin Laden's death will cause al-Qaeda to try to strike at the West with nuclear weapons. Yet the holes in this narrative are many. ... -- We are watching history being written and it is phony history being repeated millions of times by frightened naked apes populating the mainstream media. Money Power, which seeks to use such incidents to further global domination, demands it; but repetition doesn't make it so. You, dear reader, may believe anything you wish. But as for us, we know the truth. We can see it, hear it and smell it. And it stinks.'

'Persuasion profiling potentially offers quick, easily transferable, targeted access to your personal psychological weak spots. -- By alternating the types of pitches—Appeal to Authority (“Malcolm Gladwell says you’ll like this”), Social Proof (“All your friends on Facebook are buying this book”), and the like—Kaptein and Eckles could track which mode of argument was most persuasive for each person. Some book buyers felt comforted by the fact that an expert reviewer vouched for their intended product. Others preferred to go with the most popular title or a money-saving deal. Some people succumbed to what Eckles calls “high need for cognition” arguments—smart, subtle points that require some thinking to get. Still others responded best to being hit over the head with a simple message. ...people respond to the same type of argument in multiple domains. ' -- Has got electrolytes?

"We don't live in countries, we live in farms. As soon as you get that you're on a farm, you don't want to produce for the farmers anymore. How do they keep people bound to their farm? They give people religion and patriotism, they make you afraid of immigrants [and thereby promote limits on immigration and emigration]... The way that I would keep my livestock close and relatively enthusiastic is I would tell them that family is everything. Family is the highest good. Loyalty to family is everything. 'Blood is thicker than water.' The whole family isn't going to leave. Keep them bound to each other. Family = virtue is primitive nonsense. But why is it so common, so omnipresent? Well, because if you're bound to your family then you're less likely to go to another farm. Promoting family loyalty is excellent capitalist livestock management practice. If you can keep these family bonds welded then people will feel free to leave but it will be functionally nearly impossible to do so."

'Initially a Facebook platform game, Shadow Government will use economic and sustainability data, and government-modeling software from the Millennium Institute to give players a chance to build and run, or destroy their own virtual countries. "[Shadow Government] will also raise awareness about the services that Millennium Institute offers to governments, the private sector and civil society as well as individuals to better inform their green and fair growth policies and responsible behavior." Millennium Institute wants the Shadow Government games to be incorporated into curriculum from primary schools through universities. "We will be able to incorporate real world news and data, sometimes in real-time. We could take a different world-focus [with the game content] depending on what is going on in the world... Seeing how people play, in aggregate, will be one way of crowd sourcing ideas to help or predict systemic issues."' -- I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY

'The idea of "humanitarian intervention" which is behind the decision to attack in Libya is one of the central beliefs of our age. It divides people. Some see it as a noble, disinterested use of Western power. Others see it as a smokescreen for a latter-day liberal imperialism. I want to tell the story of how this idea originated and how it has grown up to possess the minds of a generation of liberal men and women in Europe and America. It is the story of a generation who became disenchanted with traditional power politics. They thought they could leap over the old corrupt structures of power and connect directly with the innocent victims of war around the world. -- Out of Srebrenica came a strange new hybrid – a humanitarian militarism. And in the 1990s it rose up to capture the imagination of a generation on the left in Europe. It even had French philosophers behind it. But ... they had no critical framework by which to judge the "victims" they were helping.'

'...the single, significant problem that the mainstream Western media is facing ... is that mainstream publications are seen increasingly as providing unreliable information tailored to the promotion of one-world dominant social themes. The main difference between the blogosphere and the mainstream media is that the blogosphere directly confronts the phenomenon of the Anglo-American power elite and its attempts to create one-world government without ever admitting that it is doing so. The emphasis on Western and even world control by a small monetary elite differentiates the alternative media from the mainstream, which is under control of money power itself. In essence, money power and the media elites are one in the same. Mainstream reporting is thus not in a position to report honestly; that's not what they are about. They are similar in nature to the Federal Reserve, which states one of their pirmary objectives to be controlling inflation when in fact THEY CREATE IT.'

'Achieving new heights of hypocrisy, the U.S government is hyping the threat of Libyan-backed reprisal terror attacks inside the United States, while launching air strikes in support of so-called “protesters” who ... are in fact Islamic fundamentalist Al-Qaeda cells who want to impose sharia law in Libya. -- The fact that the establishment media, particularly the BBC, which has aggressively pushed this “humanitarian” hoax in its rapacious cheerleading effort for the conquest, is parroting the narrative that this is a just war, when in reality it is about helping Al-Qaeda terrorists to carry through a coup d’état, is the ultimate hypocrisy. It’s a hypocrisy made more revolting by the fact that [2+2=5] who so vehemently opposed the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are now willing to offer their enthusiastic backing for military attacks having bought the sickening lie that the likes of the United States ... has now suddenly developed a conscience for human suffering.'

And a whole new reality was set into motion.

'The U.S. is losing an information war to alternative media outlets, including RT. That's the message from Hillary Clinton to Congress members, who are questioning the State Department's US $47 billion budget request for next year. And as RT's Gayane Chichakyan reports, the U.S. Secretary of State says Washington needs to step up its propaganda efforts.' -- Competition is a sin!

'NEW YORK—In an effort to provide viewers with an authentic, first-person account of conditions on the ground in Libya, CNN news anchor Kyra Phillips conducted an exclusive, one-on-one interview Tuesday with the Al Jazeera news anchor who interviewed leaders of the uprising. "What can you tell us about what they told you about what the situation is like for them right now?" asked Phillips, going directly to the source of the Arab news network's extensive on-air discussions with key figures in the rebellion. "'This fight for freedom has come at a great cost to you,' is what I imagine you said to them, correct?" CNN has announced it will continue its firsthand reporting on the chaos in Tripoli's streets from its bureau in Cairo, more than 1,000 miles away.'

'The reports of Libya mobilizing its air force against its own people spread quickly around the world. However, Russia's military chiefs say they have been monitoring from space -- and the pictures tell a different story. According to Al Jazeera and BBC, on February 22 Libyan government inflicted airstrikes on Benghazi -- the country's largest city -- and on the capital Tripoli. However, the Russian military, monitoring the unrest via satellite from the very beginning, says nothing of the sort was going on on the ground. At this point, the Russian military is saying that, as far as they are concerned, the attacks some media were reporting have never occurred. The same sources in Russia's military establishment say they are also monitoring the situation around Libya's oil pumping facilities.'

"Eye, the machine... freed from the boundaries of time and space, Eye co-ordinate any and all points of the uni-verse wherever Eye want them to be." -- Ear, the mesh-aeon

'...the UK Met predicted a winter a couple of degrees above the usual. The UK Met, having got it completely wrong, decided the best course of action was to announce post hoc that actually they did get it right, really, they predicted cold weather, but they didn’t tell the public, they just told the politicians. The politicians apparently asked them not to let on to the public, or so the story goes, and the plot thickens. One way or another someone is using tactics with all the forward thinking you’d expect from a five year old. If the Met office is not incompetent then the implication is one of implacable dishonesty from either the BOM or the UK government (or possibly—both). The BBC reported it, without asking too many hard questions, which makes them look a bit silly too. Now, instead of the Big Scare Campaign Team working together, three big formerly aligned groups are fighting for their own cred. The BBC versus the Met versus The Government.'

'...the UK Met predicted a winter a couple of degrees above the usual. The UK Met, having got it completely wrong, decided the best course of action was to announce post hoc that actually they did get it right, really, they predicted cold weather, but they didn’t tell the public, they just told the politicians. The politicians apparently asked them not to let on to the public, or so the story goes, and the plot thickens. One way or another someone is using tactics with all the forward thinking you’d expect from a five year old. If the Met office is not incompetent then the implication is one of implacable dishonesty from either the BOM or the UK government (or possibly—both). The BBC reported it, without asking too many hard questions, which makes them look a bit silly too. Now, instead of the Big Scare Campaign Team working together, three big formerly aligned groups are fighting for their own cred. The BBC versus the Met versus The Government.'

"People become relativists because they're raised by a crazed absolutist: somebody who is an absolutist but completely irrational like a fundamentalist Christian, or a Nationalist, or somebody who is culturally prejudiced in some fundamental way. They're crazy AND they're absolutist. And there's no possibility of overturning crazy absolutism [because an irrational absolutist can't rationally differentiate a true absolute from a false one], so the only room that the child can find in that kind of mental environment is to say everything is relative. You can't oppose the crazy absolutism with rational absolutism [because having denied rationality, an irrational absolutist can only resolve disputes using violence, and you're just a small child], so you just retreat into a general fog hoping to hide from the irrational dogmas raining down on you. Relativism is an emotional defence mechanism that results from the imposition of irrational absolutes like religion, culture, statism and so on."

'Murdoch's problem was that he really wasn't in the publishing business. He was a propagandist. Even as a supposed free-market, conservative, small government type there was a lot he did not wish to cover and a good deal that his vast army of journos could not cover. Murdoch's publications wrote of smaller government, but never managed to cover the West's military industrial complex that spent trillions on unnecessary wars every year. Murdoch's publications covered business mostly from a corporate perspective, neglecting to address issues regarding multinationals and mercantilism—how the state favored large enterprises and facilitated them. Murdoch might even cover issues of personal liberty but only within the accepted confines of Leviathan's grasp. No discussions of anarchy for Murdoch. Nor even of the problems with monopoly state justice. Or the general dysfunction of regulatory democracy. This was his deal in fact, the reason he likely had access to so much power elite money.'

'In August 2006, the IPPR produced a thirty-page report entitled Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better? ... concluded that: "Many of the existing approaches to climate change communications clearly seem unproductive. And it is not enough simply to produce yet more messages, based on rational argument and top-down persuasion, aimed at convincing people of the reality of climate change and urging them to act. Instead, we need to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement. To help address the chaotic nature of the climate change discourse in the UK today, interested agencies now need to treat the argument as having been won, at least for popular communications. This means simply behaving as if climate change exists and is real, and that individual actions are effective. The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken."'

'...if one subscribes (as we do) to the idea of an Anglo-American power elite that uses its tremendous, familial banking wealth to move society toward one-world government, then the evolution we are observing makes a good deal of sense. Money power makes all the difference; it provides a formidable incentive for self-censorship. Money determines fashion; wealthy donors fund museums and theatres that make "gate-keeper" decisions. The subtlety of money power—as brutal as it can be—is wondrous to behold. What was resisted in one generation is welcomed in the next. The beauty of money power is that once a theme, trend or cultural direction is set into place, it tends to propagate on its own. Only a relative few gatekeepers are needed. Establish a trend and the mimetic elements of human behavior take over. People are inevitably tribal. It is a survival instinct and a success-instinct. One sees what is successful and wishes to emulate it. Within this context almost anything can be nurtured.'

'For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. To pursue its underground interest in America's lefty avant-garde, the CIA had to be sure its patronage could not be discovered. This was the "long leash". The centrepiece of the CIA campaign became the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a vast jamboree of intellectuals, writers, historians, poets, and artists which was set up with CIA funds in 1950 and run by a CIA agent. It would be the official sponsor of touring exhibitions; its magazines would provide useful platforms for critics favourable to the new American painting; and no one, the artists included, would be any the wiser.' -- Art?? We have no need of art! We simply do everything as best we can.

'For as long as there have been movies, the US government has collaborated with filmmakers to ensure that their view of the world was shared with audiences around the world. From Hollywood shoot-em-ups to Pentagon spin doctors, The Listening Post takes a look at the relationship between the military and the media.'

'...we came across a couple of articles dealing with an apparently abortive comic book enterprise that was to the feature the UN. The headline: "Marvel Comics to Produce United Nations Comic Book." Since we cannot find any trace of such an effort, we assume it died aborning back in 2008, leaving us bereft of a sub dominant social theme that might go like this: "Vaccine Man! Oil-for-Food Man! Global Tax Man! – Fighting for the rights of the Western power elite throughout the world! ..." -- Comic books and their movies reinforce the criminal justice meme (as opposed to a kind of private, tribal and familial justice that likely worked well for much of the world until about 300 years ago) – but they surely do double duty. Comic books support elite fear-based promotions with great persuasiveness. As Hollywood weakens, however, and the Internet continues to fragment entertainment choices, we question whether the elite will be able to rely on this significant tool in the future.'

'“Violent extremism” is one of those undefined police state terms that will mean whatever the government wants it to mean. In this morning’s FBI’s foray into the homes of American citizens of conscience, it means antiwar activists, whose activities are equated with “the material support of terrorism,” just as conservatives equated Vietnam era anti-war protesters with giving material support to communism. Americans are the most gullible people who ever existed. They tend to support the government instead of the Constitution, and almost every Republican and conservative regards civil liberty as a coddling device that encourages criminals and terrorists. Americans are too gullible, too uneducated, and too jingoistic to remain a free people. As another Nazi leader Herman Goering said, “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace-makers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger."'

'Americans continue to express near-record-low confidence in newspapers and television news -- with no more than 25% of Americans saying they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in either. Confidence is hard to find, even among Democrats and liberals, who have historically been the most trusting of the news media. While 18- to 29-year-olds express more trust in newspapers than most older Americans, Gallup polling has found they read national newspapers the least. Younger Americans also expressed more confidence than older Americans in several other institutions tested, including Congress, the medical system, and the criminal justice system, suggesting younger Americans are more confident in institutions in general.' -- (Survey Methods ...a random sample of 1,020 adults, aged 18 and older, living in the continental U.S., selected using random-digit-dial sampling.)

'Dominant Social Theme: It is the destiny of the world to be at war—economically, politically and ideologically—for at least the next 100 years, and it is a war the West must win. What is going on, in our view, is the creation of various new intellectual justifications for Western superiority and more importantly for people in the West to band together despite their current wretchedness. It is rare to be observing the birth of a new dominant social theme, but we believe we (and you) are witness to one. The sophistication of these arguments is breathtaking. The manipulation of information is spell-binding. This is how it has always been done—for the intelligentsia must be satisfied before a meme can truly take hold. When we contemplate how cleverly these fear-based promotions are developed it seems to us that they are among the highest forms of art. What we are saddened about however is that they are to be placed in the service of cultural paranoia, militarism and domestic repression.'

'When the dominant story-telling of a society becomes disconnected from its reality, then the sociopolitical narrative has lost its hold. When people cease to believe, or when the dominant social themes grow too ludicrous and are unbelievable of themselves, then the organizational "glue" of society begins to fail. What is the American narrative these days? It used to be one of individualism, entrepreneurship, family and community. The mythos was agrarian and frontier-oriented. But the elite succeeded in the 20th century, when it was most untrammeled, in swapping these verities for woman's liberation, big government militancy and welfarism, military and civil policing and anti-free-market activism. Now in the era of the Internet, with collapsing economies and an inability to manufacture believable dominant social themes, the elite has nowhere to turn. It is a victim of its own success. Hollywood's distress signals a larger one.'

'Dominant Social Theme: It is possible though not prudent. -- Once people have granted the possibility that it could happen, then the jump to expecting that it might or would happen is not nearly so broad. This is how even the most shocking possibilities can become tomorrow's realities. It happens gradually via constant discussion over time. As mainstream media discussions about Iran continue, the possibility of a war with Iran will gradually become less shocking, at least on the surface. People will be desensitized to the process. -- ...it is perfectly possible that the power elite feels it has no other choice. Western economies are not easily salvaged at this point and war is a good alternative to social unrest that would be aimed at the power elite itself. War is indeed the health of the state. There will of course be arguments pro and con about such a war but it will be pro-offered within the elite's fear-based paradigm: Iran is an existential threat and must be confronted.'

"There is a pattern to the way these scares develop." -- FORCED MEMES ARE FORCED

Gisted -- Parents have a very ambivalent relationship towards capitalists. To assuage parents' guilt about using the TV as a free babysitter, capitalists put anti-capitalist messages in kids cartoons to provide parents the excuse that by letting their children watch TV programming, they are in fact educating them about the 'selfishness' of capitalism. But when parents tell their children that self-interest is bad and that you shouldn't do things for your pleasure but rather you should do things for the pleasure of others – that's a really terrifying idea for children – it totally screws up their sense of security. A child is left with a very basic question: if self-interest is bad, why did my parents have me? Because to take pleasure in my existence would be selfish, right? But if selfishness is bad, then my parents must really not want not me. -- If you genuinely take joy in your children then your children are secure in their value to you—there's nothing 'selfless' about this at all.

'In the past, when changes were imposed on populations, they would take to the streets, protest and even riot. The main reason for this clash was due to the fact that the change was clearly announced by the rulers and understood by the population. It was sudden and its effects could clearly be analyzed and evaluated. Today, when the elite needs a part of its agenda to be accepted by the public, it is done through desensitization. The agenda, which might go against the public best interests, is slowly, gradually and repetitively introduced to the world through movies (by involving it within the plot), music videos (who make it cool and sexy) or the news (who present it as a solution to today’s problems). After several years of exposing the masses to a particular agenda, the elite openly presents the concept the world and, due to mental programming, it is greeted with general indifference and is passively accepted. This technique originates from psychotherapy.'

Gisted -- 'Morality' is a form of a magick because without morality there's no self-attack, and if you can't get your slaves to self-attack for disobedience then the costs of human ownership and control are really high. The immoral, the amoral, and the evil all understand that if you can train people in 'virtue' when they're young, then you own them for life because people so desperately want to be good. It's all the 'moralists', the 'virtuous', and so-called 'good' people who say that morality doesn't work and who try to come up with every single possible exception to a virtuous rule in order to paralyze real virtue. But the evil people know morality *does* work because they've successfully indoctrinated children using the argument from morality (that obedience to the State is virtuous, that the State protects, that the State helps the poor, etc) and ensured that people can never escape from the noose of 'morality' or the invisible fence of slave-on-slave attack.

"In all these tales, a depressed life of dumb chores and crushed opportunities gets magically transformed into an 'heroic' – and always violet – adventure when an older man comes and takes you away. All this is just designed to make you want to go to war when the State comes to kidnap you. Real heroism is, however, something very different from what is always portrayed. Real heroism is something you can achieve now, today."

'Lowenstein spends a good deal of time and effort composing an article that analyzes the inability of the Fed to determine market bubbles (and both of the chairmen he mentions have actually indicated that the Fed has no forward-looking methodology to do this) and then suggests that the Fed move aggressively to control market bubbles. How does that make sense? It doesn't. In fact, this sort of article contributes to what we would call a power-elite Hegelian dialectic. Such logic would not likely be endorsed by a teacher reviewing a college term paper, and yet it occurs in the pages of one of America's most powerful and prestigious newspapers. Perhaps Lowenstein really believes his analysis and conclusion, but we see it and other articles like it that are critical of the Fed as part of a shifting dialectic that is intended to keep the mainstream media abreast of public opinion while continually trying to control the conclusions that people reach, and thus the outcome.'

Sounds interesting. Probably lacks critical distance since it's written from 'the right'. -- 'In 2008, Barack Obama lobotomized a generation. For an entire year, otherwise clear-thinking members of the most affluent, over-educated, information-drenched generation in American history fell prey to the most expensive, hi-tech, laser-focused marketing assault in presidential campaign history. Twitter messages were machine-gunned to cell phones at mach speed. Facebook and MySpace groups spread across the Internet like digital fire. YouTube videos featuring celebrities ricocheted across the globe and into college students’ in-boxes with devastating regularity. All the while, the mega-money-raising engine whirred like a slot machine stuck on jackpot. The result: an unthinking mass of young voters marched forward to elect the most radical and untested president in U.S. history.'

'TWO government advertisements that use nursery rhymes to warn people of the dangers of climate change have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for exaggerating the potential harm. The adverts, commissioned by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, used the rhymes to suggest that Britain faces an inevitable increase in storms, floods and heat waves unless greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control. They attracted 939 complaints — more than the ASA received for any advertisement last year.'

'The reality of the mainstream media is that it is meant to reinforce power elite themes. But the alternative media, which is not, has millions of readers. Therefore, it is too late for the power elite to stop the spread of "truthful" sociopolitical and economic information – much of it free-market oriented. Additionally, technology is moving so rapidly – and the Internet is so intertwined with people's consciousness and with corporate business strategies – that radically pruning the 'Net through selective censorship will be most difficult. At some point such efforts (which are certainly underway) may run into a judicial standoff. The resultant publicity may make further attempts ever more problematic. Andreessen believes the mainstream media is somewhat technology-phobic. But in fact it is probably a much larger and more terrible problem. By purveying lies, mainstream media has forfeited the trust of its audience.'

‘Beware of white women who come bearing Nigerian proverbs.' – Nigerian proverb. -- To play, post a comment explaining your Nobel-Prize-winning idea for how the World Bank can successfully whitewash its international public image. Note: All of your ideas are valid, except any solution that suggests that the World Bank make online propaganda in the form of a game. They already did that – it’s called EVOKE! -- Our game INVOKES the guise of progressive social activism and community organising to promote pro-capitalist ideology. Its implicit message is that the problems of the world – including hunger, poverty, environmental destruction, injustice and disease – can and must be solved within the logic of the free market system.' -- Well it could, if it were actually free. +9000 internets for the parody and righteous anti-debt campaigning, -10000 burned-out braincells for the lack of economic understanding – which is precisely what enables these parasitic institutions to take hold.

"ANGER, HATE, EXTREMIST, IGNORANT, ANTI-, AMMUNITION, CONSTITUTION, RACIST, VIOLENT, CONSPIRACY..." -- Yo, MSNBC. Imma let u finish but the Soviet Union had the best propagandists of all time. OF ALL TIME!

'Journalist Chris Hedges discusses his recent book Empire of Illusion: the End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. In it, he charts the dramatic rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy, and illusion. Hedges argues we now live in two societies: one, the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world and can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth; the other, a growing majority, is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic where serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins.' -- "Things become so grim that there's a retreat into self delusion." -- Excellent summary of progress already made along the road to serfdom, also an urgent warning of the rise of utopian christian fascism. It's a shame he calls for an equally utopian "militant" socialism to fight against it. Violence is violence is violence. Neither the left fist nor right fist can justify it.

'Here are issues that we would argue ARE politically correct: [*A long list*] -- We've listed the above areas of "political correctness" only to prove what regular readers of the Bell already have guessed: that our impression of political correctness (in the 21st century anyway) has to do with being careful not to contradict the dominant social themes of the power elite! Throughout the 20th century, and into the 21st, power elite promotions were so powerful, threatening and effective, that people - businesses, too, and, of course, government - carefully self censored, even when they could not explain how and why they came to their self-censoring determinations. This was the ultimate triumph of elite promotional memes - they exercised an iron-clad hold over people's imaginations and internal life. Yet of course it would be the Bell's argument that all of that may be changing now as the Internet-driven conversation continues to rapidly expand.'

''...capitalism is a dreadful tag. There we've said it! It was presented and defined by Karl Marx in "Das Kapital" and was meant to be derisive. The opposite of "bad" capitalism is "good" communism, of course. Why must we constantly be exposed to the spectacle of pro-free market individuals describing their sentiments using terminology invented by a determined enemy of the marketplace and the invisible hand? Free-markets of course are not particularly about money. They are about the ability of individuals to take individual, unfettered human action to build better lives for themselves, their families and their communities. -- It is not fashionable to note, but people, when they are not preoccupied with their own survival are often most charitable – and personally not institutionally. This is an aspect of the human condition that is all-too-often downplayed in modern life by state apologists who only emphasize human evil to raise up the meretricious mechanism of redistributionist smut.'

'We are disease-ridden, junk-food addicts selfishly condemning future generations to parched-Earth misery. We are bad parents who will end up killing our kids by stuffing them full of snacks. We are potential wife-beaters who don’t know when to stop drinking, how to cross the road, or even why it’s important to vote. Nothing better reveals the contempt in which the New Labour government holds the British public than its advertising campaigns. [T]he days when public information campaigns simply imparted information to the public are long gone. Now the aim is to scare us into submission and make us feel so disgusting and/or guilty that we will change our habits. -- The advertising industry has hailed the government as its ‘lifeblood’ and has rewarded the Central Office of Information (COI) with numerous accolades, including ‘advertiser of the year’ and ‘advertiser of the decade’.' -- So, Communist Purpose has infiltrated the 'Advertising' 'Industry'.

'The Hegelian Dialectic is a philosophical approach that in principle explains how human beings progress toward a better and more egalitarian condition but in practice provides the power elite with a strategy for controlling society. -- To move the public from point A to point B, one need only find a spokesperson for a certain argument and position him as an authority. That person represents Goalpost One. Another spokesperson is positioned on the other side of the argument, to represent Goalpost Two. Argument A and B can then be used to manipulate a given social discussion to promote IDEA C. -- The Hegelian dialectic is a powerful technique for influencing the conversations of cultures and nations, especially if one already controls (owns) much of the important media in which the arguments take place. One can then, as the monetary elite characteristically do, emphasize one argument at the expense of the other, effectively shifting the positions of Goalposts One and Two.'

Another Pied Piper piping: How dare you claim to own your body and mind in the coming 'new age of the world order' -- 'Based on the themes in the book The Global Brain, this moving audio-visual presentation explores the idea that the Earth is an integrated, self-regulating living organism and asks what function humanity might have for this planetary being. It suggests that we stand on the threshold of a major leap in evolution, as significant as the emergence of life itself, and the essence of this leap is inner spiritual evolution. Moreover, Peter Russell maintains that it is only through such a shift in consciousness that we will be able to manage successfully the global crisis now facing us. [Praised by educators and politicians, and used by many international corporations' -- (Now if this was about us all becoming 'free' and living in 'harmony' (equality, by the socialist utopian dogma), why would he hype those lot?) NO GATEKEEPERS. NO LEADERS. NO EGOISTS. NO ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT]

'This is One Spectacular Poster of ClimateGate Covering 3 Decades. You have to see this up close to believe it. Look up close and admire the detail while you despair at how long science has been going off the rails. To better appreciate the past and what was exposed by the CRU emails, the Timeline chart consolidates and chronologically organizes the information uncovered and published about the CRU emails by many researchers along with some related contextual events. That the chart exists at all is yet another example of how skilled experts are flocking in to the skeptics’ position and dedicating hours of time pro bono because they are passionately motivated to fight against those who try to deceive us.'

'This is THE MOTHER OF ALL PROMOTIONS. ...a terrorist without a state is as much of a danger, long term, as a toaster without power, a flashlight without a battery or an agenda of religious violence without state backing. We have come to believe this because we are students of free-market economics. Absent the coercion of the state, there is competition - and people are free to choose whether or not to support a "terrorist." A group of terrorists banding together will likely always seek to live off what the local populace can provide (and almost inevitably, therefore, they will have to be domestically acculturated - not from somewhere else). If the local populace does not wish to support the "terrorists" in their midst, the likelihood of the terrorist movement succeeding is slim, long term. ...free-floating, endless, nonstate (stateless) terrorism, unfunded and illogically destructive, is not economically feasible, let alone sensible. It is a fairytale, a Hollywood movie. It is a lie.'

'In the ponerogenic process of the pathocratic phenomenon, characteropathic individuals adopt ideologies created by doctrinaire, often schizoidal people, recast them into an active propaganda form, and disseminate it with pathological egotism and paranoid intolerance for any philosophies which may differ from their own. They also inspire further transformation of this ideology into its pathological counterpart. Something which had a doctrinaire character and circulated in numerically limited groups is now activated at societal level... -- It also appears that this process tends to intensify with time; initial activities are undertaken by persons with milder characteropathic features, who are easily able to hide their aberrations from others. Paranoid individuals thereupon become principally active. Toward the end of the process, an individual with frontal characteropathy and the highest degree of pathological egotism can easily take over leadership.'

'Their tendency to see human reality in the doctrinaire and simplistic manner they consider “proper”, transforms their frequently good intentions into bad results. However, their ponerogenic role can take on macro-social proportions if their attitude toward human reality and their tendency to invent great doctrines are put to paper and duplicated in large editions. -- ...their readers do not realize what the authors’ characters are like; they interpret such works in a manner corresponding to their own nature. The minds of normal people tend toward corrective interpretation thanks to the participation of their own richer, psychological world-view. However, many readers critically reject such works with moral disgust but without being aware of the specific cause. -- An analysis of the role played by Karl Marx’s works easily reveals all the above-mentioned types of apperception and the social reactions which engendered separations among people.'

'Produced by The John Birch Society, 1969.' -- #1. Get control of a farm under a populist flag like "communism" or "social democracy". Prime the 'higher' slaves for the new flag via your favourite universities. Every higher slave likes to be part of the vanguard. #2. Tax the slaves on the farm and spend the money on war. #3. Set up 'wealth-fare' state services for the war casualties and their dependents paid for with debt (loaned by your own private bank) whilst increased taxes pay the interest on that debt. #4. When the slaves complain about wars and taxes, give them cheap 'credit' and 'parties' to choose between. Everyone likes a party. Everyone likes to be awarded credit. #5. When people become jaded with the parties, give them strange new slaves ('terrorists') from foreign farms to fight against. Everyone likes to believe they're a better class of slave. #6. Get control of a new farm. Every slave likes to be part of the biggest farm franchise; they think it protects them from war.

'...if the hard core arises for certain identifiable reasons, it can be broken up or at least muted by government action ["cognitive diversity"]. ...there are intrinsic costs to the strategy of giving up on the hard core and directing government efforts solely towards inoculating the mass audience. For one thing, the hard core may itself provide the most serious threat. For another, a response geared to a mass audience (whether or not nominally pitched as a response to the conspiracy theorists) will lead some to embrace rather than reject the conspiracy theory the government is trying to rebut. This is the legitimation dilemma again: to begin a program of inoculation is to signal that the disease is already widespread and threatening. Under pluralistic ignorance, the perverse result may actually be to spread the conspiracy theory further. -- With an audience already thoroughly in the grip of conspiracy theories, open counterspeech may simply be more grist for the conspiratorial mill.'

What flavour your propaganda? State flavour? Soros flavour? Iliberal Liberal with a dash of Hipster flavour? Environmentalism flavour *SPECIAL OFFER HALF PRICE*? Godless Heathens! flavour? Irrational Nationalism flavour? Anti-Russia flavour with bitter Anti-China aftertaste? How about Neo-Con flavour with *FREE Soldier Toy (Made In China)*? You can't go wrong with Classic Fear flavour. BBC (Big Brother Cock-snot) flavour, perhaps?

'This article is also a most injurious and scathing attack on Wikipedia. It is astonishing because it shows how easily the entire fabric of elite propaganda could be ripped away in about, say ... a month, if the mainstream press put its mind to it. The entire, global-political deceit hangs by a thread in our opinion, and that thread is mainstream communication. Many of the most successful US alternative sites (with the exceptions of free-market ones in particular) have some sort of overt or covert linkages to FBI, Homeland Security, etc. The trick is seemingly always the same - conflate free-market thinking with aliens and shape-shifting reptilians and thus the whole conversation may be relegated to a "whacko" fringe. (An alternative methodology is to the use the products of free-market thinking sites and interweave authoritarian messages - again confusing the argument).'

Comment: JoeTFriday: 'The slave master's dream: Convince the slaves that it is the intangibles like the master's smile and the preacher's promise that constitute the real values in life. Now the state will take over where the slave master left off after being so rudely interrupted by Enlightenment thought. Get used to postmodern subjectivism as the ruling paradigm. There's a world of intangible wealth out there for your enjoyment. The state will use the TANGIBLE goods in your best interest, thank you very much.' -- Reply comment: vidyo555: 'RIGHT ON'

'The marketeer will often resist interference with the current distribution of property rights in a given society, whatever its origin; but the libertarian will be much more likely to favor potentially radical measures designed to rectify past injustices. In addition, the libertarian has no particular reason to endorse the marketeer’s moralizing about market conditions; and the libertarian who [holds] the libertarian ideal ... will surely want to emphasize that some economic conditions [authority/hierarchy/tradition/culture/conformity/etc] that do not involve the misuse of force are nonetheless objectionable because they minimize freedom and reduce people’s effective capacities for responsible action. The libertarian will sometimes find the marketeer a useful ally; but the libertarian should not, I think, want to be a marketeer except when being a marketeer does not involve accepting naïve beliefs about the origin or dynamics of actually existing markets.'

'...It is centrally targeted at my generation (20 somethings, who grew up in a binge drinking stupor and with glorious apathy) who quite happily buy anything the government tells them (not that they pay attention to that anyway, they actually think MI5 works similar to on TV and is there to protect the public from "terrorists" [hilarious I know]). -- The program speaks of "camps" set up by the government to keep dissidents in and people displaced by the radiation from the blast and whatnot (and all the other things coming in the near future, I.D. cards, security checkpoints etc. I was just surprised they didn't have everyone microchipped yet!). The second episode portrayed protesters as terrorists (which has obvious propaganda purposes that any idiot can grasp)...'

'This documentary probably gives one of the best explanations into why the Mainstream Media works in the way it does, distorts the truth and twists words to fit their personal agenda.' -- !!!

'1983, Bezmenov explains his background, some of his training, and exactly how Soviet propaganda is spread in other countries in order to subvert their teachers, politicians, and other policy makers to a mindset receptive to the Soviet ideology. He also explains in detail the goal of Soviet propaganda as total subversion of another country and the 4 step formula for achieving this goal: #DEMORALIZATION #DESTABILIZATION #CRISIS #NORMALIZATON'

'The public has been duped into believing thrilling falsehoods rather than unexciting truths. Huxley explains how the propagandists have stolen our freedom: "In their anti-rational propaganda the enemies of freedom systematically pervert the resources of lang­uage in order to wheedle or stampede their victims into thinking, feeling and acting as they, the mind-manipulators, want them to think, feel and act. An education for freedom (and for the love and intelli­gence which are at once the conditions and the results of freedom) must be, among other things, an educa­tion in the proper uses of language." -- "Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge? Does a majority of the population think it worthwhile to take a good deal of trouble, in order to halt and, if possible, reverse the current drift toward totalitarian control of everything?"'

'They are appearing in newspapers and on posters alongside major roads in Britain. There is Barack Obama's head, on it superimposed the image of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's leader. The slogan reads: "Who poses the greatest nuclear threat?" For many people the answer is clear – after all, Obama hasn't so far called for Israel to "vanish from the page of time". But for the Kremlin the Obama image is the latest step in an ambitious attempt to create a new post-Soviet global propaganda empire. Two decades after the demise of Pravda, the Kremlin's 24-hour English language TV channel, Russia Today (RT), is launching its first major advertising blitz across the UK. Dubbed North Korean TV by its detractors, the channel, available on satellite and cable TV, gives an unashamedly pro-Vladimir Putin view of the world, and says it seeks to correct the "biased" western view offered by the BBC and CNN. -- But is anyone actually going to watch it?' -- Yup. I'll even read the Guardian occasionally.

Ethical Man channels the spirits of "virtually all scientists" in an attempt to PROVE global warming "unscientifically" in a kitchen. -- FFS! Where is the sea, the clouds, the sun's magnetic field, the cosmic rays? -- Part 2 "Hackers" sponsored by "sophisticated agencies" "allegation". And the 'audience' ends up persuaded. WHERE'S THE PERSUASION?? Off-camera?? An old "African proverb"?? FFS, BBC. New lows, if that were possible. 100% PURE PROPAGANDA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU53cf_gQw8

'There is a long and sordid tradition of trying to socialise children by scaring them. The aim of such socialisation-through-fear is twofold: firstly, to get children to conform to the scaremongers’ values; secondly, to use children to influence, or at least to contain, their parents’ behaviour. The Big Brothers of the 1940s saw children as tools of moral blackmail and social control. Today, in the twenty-first century, scaremongers see children in much the same way, exploiting their natural concern with the wonders of life to promote a message of shrill climate alarmism. In a world where moral education seems to be exhausted, where teachers are reluctant to judge or to explain the difference between right and wrong, environmentalism has become one of the few values that educators feel comfortable with. The growing significance of environmental issues in the school curriculum is directly proportionate to society’s broader moral illiteracy and loss of purpose.' -- I'm snitching on you

PROPAGANDA, PROPAGANDA. READ ALL ABOUT IT!