[Keith_McClary]

One of my (many) pet peeves is how most of our "news" merely parrots stuff leaked (planted) by unnamed "officials".
As this 9 minute Chris Hayes video points out, these leaks are illegal, but are never prosecuted. But when Manning or Snowden leak stuff that TPTB don't want us to know, it's treason.

[Oneaboveall]

I found this great quote today and I figure this is a good place to repost it. It might help provide some insight as to why USAns fall for this stuff:

It’s a curious position being taken by representatives of the social conservative movement — the idea that a college education is a waste of time and that intellectuals are elitists and should be shunned. Reality-challenged politicians and pundits — especially those affiliated with the tea party movement — have embraced ignorance of the modern world, and they regard a distrust of the well-educated as an attribute to be used in their desire to be perceived as “just one of the common folk”.

Lord knows we don't want our children to go to college and have their heads filled with all kinds of IDEAS. Before you know it, they'll be thinking for themselves, challenging the status quo, and developing new points of view.

And we certainly don't want our national leaders to be eloquent, scientifically literate, and generally well-informed about the world in which we live. Much better to derive scientific theories based on the teachings of the Bible…

The Ahmadienjad demonization...

Sounds like a Robert Ludlum novel.

[PrestonSturges]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/orwell-1984-sales_n_3423185.html

Sales of 1984 have skyrocketed since the NSA scandle broke. I remember reading it in high school over 30 years ago, perhaps it is time to read it again.

It's nice to see goobers reading the works of a life-long socialist.

[Rod_Cloutier]

It's nice to see goobers reading the works of a life-long socialist.

Worse the powers that be are using the disaster model he portrayed as a template to build and run a genuine functioning model of totalitarian oppression.

Similar to this other fictional example which might become reality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... PCXp8#t=2s

[PrestonSturges]

Propaganda works best when it claims to be fighting a conspiracy. Especially if there is no war, it must claim to be fighting the enemy within. Then, like every conman and psychopath, claim you are saving everyone from the threat only you are smart enough to see.

If you are interested in the art of propaganda, read Mein Kampf, which was really a propaganda handbook. It was a team effort, so Goebels probably wrote the most coherent parts

The art of leadership. . . consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention. . . . The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.(Mein Kampf, p118)

If you are having a hard time picturing what it would look like to lump all opponents into "one category," see this guy:


See also pretty much anything posted by Plantagenet.

[ralfy]

Reminds me of

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_lgTIZ22jE

[davep]

This is a pretty funny account of the NSA coming to recruit schoolkids.

http://mobandmultitude.com/2013/07/02/the-nsa-comes-recruiting/

[Keith_McClary]

For some reason I follow this bizarre comic:

[Rod_Cloutier]

I saw a very interesting video today:

http://youtu.be/CZo1sXsC-68

So many people are hooked on TV & movie lies that they can't discern what is real and what is fiction anymore. They call us 'realists' by many names, conspiracy theorists, greenies, hippies, ect, and the ultimate insult is to be told that it's really not happening, it's all in your mind.

This video made me stop and reflect on my own isolation.

[Sixstrings]

I'm full of doubts; I hope that makes me wise!

It does!

But as my gramma used to say.. there also comes a time when you got to "sh*t or get off the pot."

Free speech, and a free internet are the best ways to get at the truth. Everyone puts their propaganda out there and it's a melting pot and the truth can distill out of the zeitgeist.

BECASUE of our free speech in America, and the internet bypassing corp media, you've been able to see North Korea's documentary.

Because of this international forum and all the views aired, I have a much better understanding of things. Not all that useful to me, personally, but hey otherwise I may have kept voting Republican and voted for another war ya know?

Global free speech is good, people talking, and it would prevent future wars and breakdown barriers. Which is why Iran, China, and North Korea censor their internet. Russians have state media but at least a free internet (for now). A truly strong government can *withstand* free speech.

North Koreans are totally locked up, they have zero access to internet, not even a Chinese censored net. Or any food to eat, for that matter.

(or maybe I'm unusual, and most people stick to the cable news that fits them, and the internet news sites that fit them -- if people look to multiple sources that works, but traditional media wise we have lost a lot of objectivity and become so polarized)

p.s. the real definition of propaganda is purposely ignoring facts that are counter to your agenda, it's a lack of objectivity. Sometimes things are deep though, and a journalist can't hash out all the complexities in every article -- but an honest journalist makes good judgment calls, is objective, and won't ignore relevant facts. I guess this is the "sh*t or get off the pot" dillemma, every issue out there really is very complex and deep and people don't have time for it all and have to make up their minds and they stick to it.

Honestly, everyone I know in my life doesn't have much understanding of world events at all, or even how our own government works.

[sparky]

.
Dr Goebbels theorem
"if you repeat a lie a thousand times it become the truth "
Sparky theorem
"if you repeat a lie a thousand times , you end up believing it yourself"


Be skeptical of what you believe , mankind is a delusional machine

[ROCKMAN]

Six – And it doesn’t even take well spun propaganda sometimes. Just count on pure ignorance. We all have a few stories. One of my worst is about a young lady tech working with my company back in the late 70’s. All nonstop news coverage about the Iranians taking our embassy/holding US hostages. And of course there was all the chatter around the coffee pot in the office. After several days she finally got enough nerve to ask why the US took that ayatollah man hostage and wouldn’t give him back.

Stupidity…no propaganda required. LOL. BTW she didn’t make it to the office her first day on the job: got lost so she just went back home.

Of course my favorite story of Hollywood’s concept of reality was the scene in "Armageddon" as the oil was blowing through the derrick on that offshore drill rig and all the hands was dancing around the drill floor celebrating. I doubt the 11 hands that died on the Macondo blowout were smiling very much when the well came in. I’ve been on a few rigs when a well kicked...no one was laughing. I’m sure you don’t imagine the hands celebrating. But how many millions of Americans now believe we let wells come in wild like in the movie and celebrate the event? A lot more then will ever read about the reality of such a situation.

And now that I’ve brought it up a question for the group here. I’ll readily acknowledge that the intelligence level of our little family is certain well about the average person. But how many here who saw the movie think that scene represents anything close to real life/

[yellowcanoe]

Of course my favorite story of Hollywood’s concept of reality was the scene in "Armageddon" as the oil was blowing through the derrick on that offshore drill rig and all the hands was dancing around the drill floor celebrating. I doubt the 11 hands that died on the Macondo blowout were smiling very much when the well came in. I’ve been on a few rigs when a well kicked...no one was laughing. I’m sure you don’t imagine the hands celebrating. But how many millions of Americans now believe we let wells come in wild like in the movie and celebrate the event? A lot more then will ever read about the reality of such a situation.

Blowouts are certainly a bad thing but a blowout did play a significant role in the development of Alberta's oil industry. The discovery of the Leduc oil field in 1947 was hardly noticed outside of Canada. That all changed a year later after the blowout of the Atlantic #3 well. The blowout made international headlines and it became obvious to a lot of people that Alberta was on its way to becoming a major oil producer.

[Newfie]

Roc,

Yale does this long term study about who believes in climate change. One year they published the actual survey questions and did some break down on how they were answered. I think you had to dig to find the data.

IRC, and I'm pretty sure I do, those who were in the deepest denial were:
Well off, upper middle class or above
Well educated
Home owners
Older

http://environment.yale.edu/climate-com ... March-2012

In my personal analysis of this data it meant that the folks most likely to deny CC were those who were most invested (personally and financially) in the continuance of BAU. In other words, they WANTED to believe that everything would continue as-is, thus therefore did.

Another trait that they had in common was that the shut off outside information and were very distrusting of anyone not from their immediate family or close intimates. That makes it tough to reach them.

It also pretty well defines those who have the most influence in our culture be it through government or business.

[Keith_McClary]

BECASUE of our free speech in America, and the internet bypassing corp media, you've been able to see North Korea's documentary.

U.S. Plummets in Global Press Freedom Rankings

[ROCKMAN]

Newfie - “…those who were most invested (personally and financially) in the continuance of BAU”. Exactly. Long ago in another life time I belonged to a very small trip that strived to teach its members to not be like those folks who want to live forever. If you allow yourself to be distracted by such efforts to maintain BAU (such as living) it will hamper you in your various efforts. A true enough philosophy for sure. But difficult to adhere to when you’re in the sh*t. LOL. If you don’t care about losing what you got then you don’t tend to reject the possibility of those situations that could take it away. Like Dylan said: “When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose”. The trick, of course, is how to act that way when you do have something to lose like your stuff…or your life.

[sparky]

.
On smarts and office worker getting lost
my brother in law put an add in the paper looking for an employee
he made a mistake and gave a wrong address ,
two people found his real address and were there for the interview ,
he gave the job to the first one to turn up ( he was on time )

[Sixstrings]

U.S. Plummets in Global Press Freedom Rankings[/url]

They're talking about the whistleblowers -- bradley manning, snowden. Yes, it's a problem. There was even talk there for a while about maybe going after the journalists that published Snowden's stuff. Thank goodness we're not totally over the ledge, yet, and that talk didn't go too far.

We do still have free speech in that you can write any kind of book you want to, and publish it. The government will not ban your book. Places like Russia do ban books.

We still have an uncensored internet. Whereas China does not -- they will block anything they don't want their people seeing, anything that could get them thinking and challenge the government.

If government ever bans any political speech website or foreign information source, then that will be a big red flag. The next red flag from there would be wider censorship, as China does, then worst on the spectrum is like North Korea.

Keith, it's fine to mention where the US is missing the mark on something, but where I get concerned is with the overall prevailing anti-american attitude out there. You've got Americans as anti-american as Iranians and Russians are. It's from all this alternative media, Al Jazeera and RT and infowars and they all sound alike.

That's all well and good, and they are right on things, but I honestly worry perspective has been lost in all the "we're no better than they are" stuff -- because we actually are. If we ever forget that, and people assume we're the same as China and Russia, then it's not too far a stretch for our gov to go ahead and do it.

It would be better for you to mention the actual issue, the whsitleblower thing, rather than just throw it out there how "the us is plummeting in press freedom." That makes it sound like we're the same as China and Russia when that is not the case, we've got one little canary in the coalmine about these whistleblowers and THAT is what would be helpful to make people aware of. The specific issue. Not just "US press freedom plummeting." <-- that's the kind of headline you'd see in RT.

EDIT: Read the whole article, yeah it does sound like it's getting bad:

The threats facing newsgathering in the U.S. are felt by both longstanding journalists like New York Times national security reporter James Risen, who may serve jail time for refusing to reveal a source, and non-traditional digital journalists like Barrett Brown.

Brown is a freelance journalist who has reported extensively on private intelligence firms and government contractors. He now faces more than 100 years in jail for linking to stolen documents as part of his reporting, even though he had no involvement in the actual theft.

Yikes. What is that, a blogger facing jail for linking? I wonder what the details are on that, if he linked to something then that's not like he's refusing to reveal a source.

Hm.. it would take a lawyer to weigh in here.. I don't recall the law on this and the back and forth on it over the years, when reporters can be jailed for not revealing a source. Did this happen back in the 90s, wasn't there some woman who had to sit in jail for not testifying or something. Susan McDougal? It's all fuzzy now. I seem to recall some reporter doing some jail time back then.

I don't know the law on this. Maybe someone else does.

Bradely Manning was in the Army, and Snowden was NSA, so those are totally different oranges from a journalist. It's a much bigger red flag for journalists to get prosecuted.

And P.S. ... speak out about China and Russia too, then okay fair is fair. What irks me is that it's an avalanche of anti-us, Huffpost saying the same things Russia pokes us with. So who's talking about Russia? Nobody.

[Newfie]

.
On smarts and office worker getting lost
my brother in law put an add in the paper looking for an employee
he made a mistake and gave a wrong address ,
two people found his real address and were there for the interview ,
he gave the job to the first one to turn up ( he was on time )

When I worked for a transit (30 years ago) agency we tested applicants. I wrote the test, not hard, but someone would have to study, do a wee bit of research. The agency had a training center where they very openly taught the test. The goal was to hire folks, not make a barrier. I anted folks who wanted the job enough to make the brief trip to the training center.

If I had an opening I would get maybe 50 applications. I'd put them into piles.
Good....under 10%
Maybe..... 20%
Everyone deserves a chance......40%
Except these turkeys......30%

At the very best of times I would get 20% who could pass the test.

Later, working a construction job, the civil sub was trying to hire track workers. They had to be legal immigrants or better and pass a drug test. Many would never show up for the test. Most of those that did failed. With that criteria his hire rate was around 30%.

I had a boss in construction/maintenance. A job came up, not for me. I went to the office, there was trash pile at the front door. I started to carry it out. He told me to stop. That was his REAL interview, if the guy would walk over the trash he didn't want him. He wanted enough initiative to take out the trash.

Come to think of it, that could be a husband test!

What has this to do with propaganda?

Well, if you are sloppy and unthinking in your daily habits, just waiting to be told what to do......then you are probably the same in your mental habits, a prime candidate for falling prey to propaganda. Don't think, don't take initiative, done research, just sit around and wait to be directed.