Tag: Propaganda

Popular Culture 20110429: Propaganda

Self-deception is not a new cultural phenomenon, but it has always been popular.  Self-deception takes many forms.  Some kinds are harmless, such as the almost universal one of thinking that one is more attractive than one actually is.  Others can be devastating, such as thinking that one is, for example, thinking that one is obese when actually he or she is seriously underweight.  Interestingly, both of these conditions have to do with self image.  As a matter of fact, many kinds of self-deception have to do with self image.

There are other kinds as well.  In many of those cases it is not just an individual having deceptive thoughts herself or himself, but rather is encouraged to cleave to ideas that the individual probably deep down believes not to be true.  This is the basis of the idea of propaganda, when ideas are planted by outside sources.  There is one big movement that is current and we shall talk about it at some length.  

CBS 60min.: “Curve Ball”


eighth anniversary of America’s invasion of Iraq.

Yep, and it seems now that the U.S. media is trying to spin their own rovian revisionist history as to why they didn’t do their jobs, eight years later!


And after all this time, questions still remain as to why the United States launched the war in the first place.

Really Simon, questions? Seems hundreds of thousands here with added millions, us ‘focus groups’, around this planet were questioning before, on the day the invasion started and all these years later, as well as paying attention to the better late then never Inquiries held as well as all the proof then and through these eight years. Where have all of you been?


So how did U.S. intelligence get it so wrong?

Did intelligence get it all wrong “who spun a web of lies which convinced America’s top spies”, or is it more reality that you all followed breathlessly what cheney and all his brother and sister neo-cons, who found a story line from a single source they could build up with what other ‘intelligence?’ they cherry picked, think powell at the U.N., and added to justify their destructive goals, sold you and few questioned, remember all that love towards rumsfeld!

HILLARY GETS IT

Yes – I was a Hillary supporter for the Presidential election.  Yes – I think she is smart and competent.  She would have made a better president domestically – foreign policy – questionable; perhaps the same as Obama and his advisors. She’s tied herself to this administration.  Still, because I like and admire her – I give her slack.  She is working in the world muck – we are sitting outside in the clearer air.  But, as I said she’s tied herself to Obama Brand policies.

No matter that (and please don’t make this a flame diary about Hillary) – she gets what’s going on as to the foreign tv presence in our midst.  Thank God say I – though I suppose most politicians and American pundits haven’t recognized yet that we are falling behind in newsgathering and televising points of view, and we are eating oil soaked dust.

I watch RT News every day for at least l/2 hour and often more – I go to Max Keiser’s televised spots at least twice a week on my computer.  More importantly, more and more people (not even mildly left) are watching.  I recently had a conversation at the train stop with a nice, nonpolitical woman who is avidly watching RT.  (I didn’t know this stuff, says she.)  I have given up on non-cable news channels.  I won’t go to NPR since they hired several military officers in the ramp up of the Iraqi invasion – no.  Not too much on the other side as I recall – the rational side.  Frontline does good work – and of course, I miss Mr. Moyers.  MSNBC is a distracting noise – giving us the false impression that one of media MOTU is listening to us.  Really, that was only an executive corporate decision “Let’s give them this so they’ll be quiet.”  (This is how cynical I’ve become.)

But Hillary understands more and more Americans and other Westeners are watching the foreign news channels.  RT is where a viewer could learn, for instance, that homeless people in New York have a lottery at shelters to see who gets in for the cold nights.  And right now an enlightening program is up on the Chicago Grain Exchange and world hunger. They have well put-together slices of Russian life as well – travelling all over Russia, focusing on the best of Russia’s culture and cottage industries – no doubt fostering travel.  I want to go to St. Petersburg next year (though because of Tolstoy, not RT.)   During the ramp up to the Iraqi War, BBC and the Canadian Public radio stations were a balm making that horror more bearable, and for that there is gratitude.  But BBC is not as sharp as it once was – sounds tired and trying to please the MOTU (only with a British accent which is always a plus).

So when Hillary says in a congressional hearing that we are falling behind and specifically mentions RT News, she is right.  She has watched it and said it was “instructive.”  In other words, she gets it.  It is instructive.  Now does the government want the populace here to get it – nope.  What she wants is a superduper American channel like these foreign outlets to get the American point of view out.  As long as we continue to send the marines and ships out to oil rich countries – well, let’s say it’s gonna be a hard sell.    

Question:  How do we hide invasions, torture, whistleblower hunting season, drones, the death of the middle class and the rise of a corporate and slave society?  Answer – we can’t hide all of it of course. And why would they put it out there for all to see? (See Julian Assange and Bradley Manning) Thank God there are still good, honest journalists here.  But those journalists won’t be on the news outlet she is proposing.  Nay – but it gives me a bit of pleasure.  At least Hillary gets it.

And here’s a thought:  Michael Moore, Matt Tabbai, Chris Hayes, Glenn Greenwald won’t be getting spots on that news outlet.  Ya think.

   

Germans call a Spade a Spade, So…….

Why can’t we!

Reading this sounds pretty damn familiar, 21st century amerika, but not quite as blatant yet, or is it.

Actually they use two very descriptive leads to the story, and they should know, first:

Right-Wing Extremism

Is the lead then we get to the meat.

1st Amendment, 5th Estate

PhotobucketThere is no revolution without winning the hearts and minds of the very people who must fight it for you.

It not only matters that the information travels, but in how it travels. There are those whose job is in the painstaking research, often resulting in books, if only the footnotes in the same. There are those whose job is in straight, “unbiased” reporting for mainstream publications, local papers or scholastic journals. I think it is important to continue to support 4th estate. Without your subscriptions, how can entities like “The Nation” survive?

What is just as important to remember? Most of these very institutions have been pressed, in the name of “objectivity” to abdicate their duty to report without actual bias. Facts seem to have a penchant for a “liberal bias” by undermining the propaganda arm of the Right’s agenda.

Worse yet? Disgusted by the right-wing bloviating as “reporting” by dubious “news” channels like Fox, the Left has become unwilling to OPINE. Edward R Murrow would be spinning in his grave. There was a time, ladies and gentlemen, to do as he did and call McCarthyism what it was, and there is a time, and that time is now, to call Assangism what it is. Both things are an attempt to prevent the dissemination of ideas, cover up wrongs and demonize truth tellers to protect predatory capitalism. There are now constraints in place, constraints created by the very entities that benefit from the status quo that are put upon journalists who wish to make a living writing.

That is where we ground-level writers must do our duty, and fill the void. We have nothing to lose, and must speak the things the muzzled cannot…. speak them until it becomes impossible for the MSM to not address.

Assange is a High-Level AQ Operator

So I made the mistake of going into a Walmart today. First off, I ask God for special dispensation when I go through the doors. Let’s face it, the company is built on slave labor. Shopping there is morally abhorrent. The conditions of its Chinese laborers alone is a sufficient abuse of human rights to have the whole fucking Walton family and their heirs imprisoned for life. Then there’s the abuse of American Walmart employees who are paid so little that they can’t afford the cheap crap they sell. They don’t get health care. They’re taught how to sign up for Medicare. Food stamps. Fuel assistance.

Anyway, it was on the way home, it was late and the only food store open. As I’m parking my car I’m noticing all the security cameras – light poles, on the building, going through the door, in the store in each aisle. I had enough cameras on me to produce a 3D documentary of one man’s quick stop to get some late dinner fixings.

Being the techie I am I wander to the back of the store to check geek and LCD prices. There at the back of the store is a wall of screens with the same loop running over and over…


The Department of Homeland Security this week stepped up its “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign, but you won’t be seeing more ads in New York City subway cars. No, the public service announcements will be featured in a far different location: Walmart.

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano recorded a video clip that will be looped over and over again at a total of 588 Wal-Mart stores nationwide.

“Homeland security begins with hometown security,” Napolitano says in the clip. “That’s why I’m pleased Walmart is helping to make our communities more safe and secure. If you see something suspicious in the parking lot or in the store, say something immediately.”

I stood there in shock and awe. As in “Awe, fuck!”

Rachel and Jon

Watching/Listening to this Stewart needs to go and watch and read All of what’s been coming out of the Inquiries into the Iraq War, as well as during and in the now, especially the Brit Inquiry. He’s spinning the hawks lines in this interview without caring about the Facts that have just proven what millions were saying as that administration were doing. While no criminal charges will come directly out of these inquiries the testimonies are now the record and can and will be used by others for possible criminal charges, We Hope!  

American Tinder Box



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On the one hand…

Bad Mood Rising. Short fuses on human time bombs. Powder kegs of combustible frustration. Palpable erosion of the social fabric. Race wars, class wars and culture wars. Rage; the new bliss. Violence; the logical extension of free speech in a tone-deaf world. Murder-suicide and fifteen minutes of fame. Write the note and blow out your brains along with the wife, kids and the management team who fired you for cause in the name of “results.” Shareholder value. No longer a human but a line-item on a ledger. No longer a person but an impediment to the profit margin.

Comfortably Numb



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How else can you explain it?

Massacres, disasters, high crimes, betrayals, faked pandemics, the disintegration of decency, the destruction of dignity, the religion of the root of all evil and the genocide of the poor by the rich.

Flashes of outrage replaced by short-term memory fail. Moments of insight chasing the rabbit down the memory hole.

They say in time “everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and every secret will be brought to light.”

But I say what more do you need? The truth isn’t “out there” it’s right in front of your face. Staring at you and daring you to do something about it.

It’s not the truth which sets you free, but what you do about it which frees you.

 

Cass Sunstein’s dangerous ideas.

Cass Sunstein has failed to notice that denizens of the tubes frequently quote others whom they despise in order to mock them.  It’s called balance.  Here, for example, is Cass Sunstein himself:

“Momma Cass ‘Dream a Little Dream for Me'” Sunstein thinks web sites like Docudharma should volunteer or be coerced into providing links and ideas to alternative opinions to the ones being expressed by single-minded dharmavillains.  

“The best would be for this to be done voluntarily,” said Sunstein, “But the word voluntary is a little complicated and people sometimes don’t do what’s best for our society,” he added.

“The idea would be to have a legal mandate as the last resort….an ultimate weapon designed to encourage people to do better,” Sunstein concluded.

Postcard from the Propagandist



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It’s a bombardment. Up, down, left and right. Inside out and upside down. An onslaught. Back and forth, to and fro, here and there and back again. A blizzard of threats. A maelstrom of lies which prey upon your worst fears.

Invading hordes of coloreds. An avalanche of disaster. Moral depravity and economic catastrophe. Politicians and Piranhas swim the tank of bottom feeding frenzy. And you are fish food.

Down the Foggy Ruins of Time

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.

In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you.

Republicans have a Tambourine Man.  His name is Limbaugh.  He’s a psychopath, but that doesn’t bother Republicans, they admire psychopaths.   Democrats have a Tambourine Man.  His name is Obama.   He panders to psychopaths every chance he gets, but that doesn’t bother Democrats, pandering to psychopaths is what they do.  They call it Centrism.

I remember Election Night 2008, I remember the hope so many progressives had that evening, but that evening’s empire of hope has turned into sand, vanished from our hands, left us blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.  Who can sleep?  Who can sleep when war crimes won’t be prosecuted, when Gitmo won’t be closed, when there’ll be no withdrawal from Iraq, when the war in Afghanistan will go on and on and on, when we’re all on a one way trip on Wall Street’s magic swirling ship, when our senses have all been stripped, when our hands can’t feel to grip, when our feet are too numb to step, when there’s nothing left to do but watch the boot heels of Karma grind what’s left of this country into dust.    

My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet.  I have no one to meet, and this ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming . . .

Independence Hall Pictures, Images and Photos

Independence Hall is just a relic from America’s forgotten past.  Democracy is gone, it’s vanished into the foggy ruins of time.

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