Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ There's so much more to propaganda than just manufacturing consent for governments and wars. It trains us what to value. What to think a successful human being looks like. Where to place our interest, energy and attention. It shapes our very personalities. It warps our humanity.
"Gonna go get a degree from an Ivy League university and become a senior fellow at a prominent think tank so I can make extremely intelligent observations like "Vladimir Putin is Adolf Hitler and Ukraine is Poland" and "Xi Jinping is Adolf Hitler and Taiwan is Poland".
Variation: "Gonna go get a biomedical degree from an Ivy League university, so I can "rise" to the level of feckless federal bureaucrat or greedy corporate-pharma CEO."
As someone who spent 9 yrs at an Ivy League University, I can safely say that they are simply more-prominent and better-funded (billions in endowment) vehicles for inculcating the white Western (Euro-American) dogma of market capitalism, including diverse apologies for colonialism. And sure, as a grad student, I managed to do some fascinating research, while mostly learning that I loved teaching and vowing that I'd never be a high-handed robotic lecturer and would instead be available to my students. I assure you that in the Ivy scheme of things, this path is frowned upon, not the route to either notoriety or enrichment (wanted: millionaire alumni to further increase that endowment). People like me are supposed to use the Ivy degrees & connections to become a good science capitalist like the CEO/ upper management of Pfizer. Or bureaucrats like the FDA drones who lied us into mediocre vaccines after grossly incomplete assessment in clinical trials, and who ineptly mismanaged this pandemic.
John Stockwell, who ran CIA operations in Angola, among other things, remarked that the CIA would routinely fabricate communist atrocity stories out of whole cloth, complete with purported eyewitness testimony and faked action photos, then feed those stories to friendly news sources, knowing that US news outlets would pick those stories up and publish them.
He also said that the CIA ignored the laws forbidding it to propagandize inside the US whenever it felt like it.
Anyway, anyone who thinks that propaganda isn't real has never heard of the advertising industry.
Caitlin, you and I disagreed about Carlson recently, but I see nothing to criticize here. You even wrote, "Sure Carlson might say true things I agree with sometimes...." I don't get all my "information about the world from Tucker Carlson," as you seemed to think previously, but I do find myself agreeing with most of what I see of him on YouTube.
On reflection, I think that has a lot to do with YouTube algorithms on what to recommend. I see a lot of Fox News segments in their recommendations. The ones that are recommended tend to be ones I agree with related to Trump (or Republican) Derangement Syndrome (Orange man bad and any Democratic criticism good) or some of the more idiotic policy positions Democrats have made, especially those that are falling out of favor with independent voters. I can't recall seeing any recommended videos supportive of anti-China sentiments, probably because my history indicates I wouldn't agree. I think the algorithms are intended to keep people glued to YouTube by catering to their implicit biases within a narrow Overton window. They have the effect of intensifying the political polarization. You are correct that Carlson is tolerated because he supports at least one faction of the elites and their narrative, but he's no more "odious" than Brian Steltzer, Rachel Maddow or Anderson Cooper. He's also used as a sheepdog to lure in those disgusted by the Democrats, but that doesn't mean all of us watching and cheering "get our information" from him or Fox or will vote Republican. I think the AI has become more and more confused because it suggests more and more videos that are not current, which is indicative that most of the current content that might attract me has been censored or devalued.
I admit that after a lifetime of "leans Democrat" voting, I've become polarized against the Democratic Party during the last 5 years. This occurred long before YouTube algorithms started placing Fox or Tucker Carlson in its recommendations tailored to my history, and it was 100% caused by Democratic Party behavior since 2015 as well as party bylaws enabling that behavior. I find both major parties to be part of our problem but the Democrats to be far more corrupt than the Republicans. My opinion started moving in that direction when the Democrats purged Dennis Kucinich, and have grown more pronounced over time, culminating in the dirty tricks played during the 2020 Presidential election, first by smearing Tulsi Gabbard during the primaries, then doing all they could to "fortify" the election, including massive, illegal ballot harvesting.
Time to name the "Who". Saying MSM is a cop out. Pointing fingers at Carlson and Maddow is a waste of time. These guys are getting paid. Who's paying them?
NPR was talking about all the Coal Mines in Wyoming closing and the power plants being shut down, then they dropped the "bomb" that Bill Gates is going to build a Nuclear Power plant -- and it is "green"!
I find myself gravitating to your Tucker Carlson snippet, trying for perspective, and I can't quite believe I'm defending him.
He's against the current warmongering with Russia, and said that Jimmy Dore changed his mind regarding Julian Assange. Where else do Average Joes hear this? His audience included President Trump when he was in office and Carlson is currently wildly popular with the republican base, which regards the Washington establishment as captured and non-representative, mirroring much of the grassroots left.
Do I agree with Carlson's take on China? On American supremacy? On arming Israel? Probably not. But is it not a good thing that other decidedly counter--blob arguments get put out where the largest number of Americans will hear it, or should purity of message cancel that out?
There's a thing with yoga that goes "start where you're at." I'm combining that with your comment about yelling truths into a hole accomplishes nothing, and I come to the conclusion that I'd rather have Tucker Carlson on the air than not.
This is some of the most blatant propaganda I've seen. And the comment section is a sad collection of biased misdirected rants. Where's the logic? US healthcare system is profit over people. US produces a vast amount of air, water and soil contamination for the entire world. Wealth disparity is beyond comprehension. Blaming the powerless is the game. Profit over people is the culture. No wonder things are fucked in the US. It correlates logically. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/01/science/covid-deaths-united-states.html
May I just suggest a book for the bookworms out there, on propaganda.
"Propaganda", by Frenchman Jacques Ellul, 1973-English version. Forget the sexist second half of the title and see how we get manipulated. Like from shortly after birth onward. You'll never watch another TV show or movies the same; or read corporate(MSM) media news, for that matter. Oh, and the Ivy League schools just charge more to inculcate the elite for US capitalism, "the captains of industry", as they say. Peace
I wanted to write a sci-fi story about a paranoid executive at a marketing agency who is so excited about how his team is about to deliver perfect, irresistible, marketing. And and the payoff is he sits at his desk and slowly realizes his competitor has already achieved this. Now I hope somebody else writes it better than I would have.
I think reading is a vaccine of sorts against propaganda. Of course it needs to reach beyond the pool of propaganda. But the classics of literature help. The classics of sci-fi help. And purposely finding that annoying, edge of your ideology text, and reading it like you would eat vegetables, helps.
We all know the American Oligarchy only cares about immediate profit. Ritter names names and tells us exactly who is selling us out. Unfortunately, I'm not a "names" kind of guy -- hell, it took me years to finally figure out who Ritter was. Caulk it up to being on "the spectrum" or whatever. Maybe that's the problem with most of us. We can't keep track of that secondary level of policy makers who are destroying us. They hide in the shadows so that when the Presidency moves from Republican to Democrat (or visa versa) they are still there controlling foreign policy for the benefit of the Oligarchy. American == ADD.
Concomitant with our biased, misdirected rants; those of us reinfected after mRNA are apparently looking at Lewy bodies, T-cells, Tau bundles and NO/ONOO cycle cognitive issues (right as the US congress prepares to resemble acasting call for "Justified" extras?
Propaganda mixes lies into truth. If it was all lies, you'd reject it. The propaganda double-agent (Trump, imo, Alex Jones) mixes the truth into obvious lies, causing people to reject it. I talk about this on my YT, Conspiracy Theorist as the New Heretic: https://youtu.be/UJI1X7l48vM.
If hairless monkeys could understand the massive, yawning gulf between the world as it actually exists and the narratives we've been fed about it since childhood, human society would immediately collapse into nothingness. The real world is far more different from gregarious narratives feeding human herd instincts, than it is from any work of fiction.
"Gonna go get a degree from an Ivy League university and become a senior fellow at a prominent think tank so I can make extremely intelligent observations like "Vladimir Putin is Adolf Hitler and Ukraine is Poland" and "Xi Jinping is Adolf Hitler and Taiwan is Poland".
Variation: "Gonna go get a biomedical degree from an Ivy League university, so I can "rise" to the level of feckless federal bureaucrat or greedy corporate-pharma CEO."
As someone who spent 9 yrs at an Ivy League University, I can safely say that they are simply more-prominent and better-funded (billions in endowment) vehicles for inculcating the white Western (Euro-American) dogma of market capitalism, including diverse apologies for colonialism. And sure, as a grad student, I managed to do some fascinating research, while mostly learning that I loved teaching and vowing that I'd never be a high-handed robotic lecturer and would instead be available to my students. I assure you that in the Ivy scheme of things, this path is frowned upon, not the route to either notoriety or enrichment (wanted: millionaire alumni to further increase that endowment). People like me are supposed to use the Ivy degrees & connections to become a good science capitalist like the CEO/ upper management of Pfizer. Or bureaucrats like the FDA drones who lied us into mediocre vaccines after grossly incomplete assessment in clinical trials, and who ineptly mismanaged this pandemic.
Wish I could 'heart' this a hundred times. Amazing points, especially the last one
John Stockwell, who ran CIA operations in Angola, among other things, remarked that the CIA would routinely fabricate communist atrocity stories out of whole cloth, complete with purported eyewitness testimony and faked action photos, then feed those stories to friendly news sources, knowing that US news outlets would pick those stories up and publish them.
He also said that the CIA ignored the laws forbidding it to propagandize inside the US whenever it felt like it.
Anyway, anyone who thinks that propaganda isn't real has never heard of the advertising industry.
Caitlin, you and I disagreed about Carlson recently, but I see nothing to criticize here. You even wrote, "Sure Carlson might say true things I agree with sometimes...." I don't get all my "information about the world from Tucker Carlson," as you seemed to think previously, but I do find myself agreeing with most of what I see of him on YouTube.
On reflection, I think that has a lot to do with YouTube algorithms on what to recommend. I see a lot of Fox News segments in their recommendations. The ones that are recommended tend to be ones I agree with related to Trump (or Republican) Derangement Syndrome (Orange man bad and any Democratic criticism good) or some of the more idiotic policy positions Democrats have made, especially those that are falling out of favor with independent voters. I can't recall seeing any recommended videos supportive of anti-China sentiments, probably because my history indicates I wouldn't agree. I think the algorithms are intended to keep people glued to YouTube by catering to their implicit biases within a narrow Overton window. They have the effect of intensifying the political polarization. You are correct that Carlson is tolerated because he supports at least one faction of the elites and their narrative, but he's no more "odious" than Brian Steltzer, Rachel Maddow or Anderson Cooper. He's also used as a sheepdog to lure in those disgusted by the Democrats, but that doesn't mean all of us watching and cheering "get our information" from him or Fox or will vote Republican. I think the AI has become more and more confused because it suggests more and more videos that are not current, which is indicative that most of the current content that might attract me has been censored or devalued.
I admit that after a lifetime of "leans Democrat" voting, I've become polarized against the Democratic Party during the last 5 years. This occurred long before YouTube algorithms started placing Fox or Tucker Carlson in its recommendations tailored to my history, and it was 100% caused by Democratic Party behavior since 2015 as well as party bylaws enabling that behavior. I find both major parties to be part of our problem but the Democrats to be far more corrupt than the Republicans. My opinion started moving in that direction when the Democrats purged Dennis Kucinich, and have grown more pronounced over time, culminating in the dirty tricks played during the 2020 Presidential election, first by smearing Tulsi Gabbard during the primaries, then doing all they could to "fortify" the election, including massive, illegal ballot harvesting.
Time to name the "Who". Saying MSM is a cop out. Pointing fingers at Carlson and Maddow is a waste of time. These guys are getting paid. Who's paying them?
NPR was talking about all the Coal Mines in Wyoming closing and the power plants being shut down, then they dropped the "bomb" that Bill Gates is going to build a Nuclear Power plant -- and it is "green"!
I find myself gravitating to your Tucker Carlson snippet, trying for perspective, and I can't quite believe I'm defending him.
He's against the current warmongering with Russia, and said that Jimmy Dore changed his mind regarding Julian Assange. Where else do Average Joes hear this? His audience included President Trump when he was in office and Carlson is currently wildly popular with the republican base, which regards the Washington establishment as captured and non-representative, mirroring much of the grassroots left.
Do I agree with Carlson's take on China? On American supremacy? On arming Israel? Probably not. But is it not a good thing that other decidedly counter--blob arguments get put out where the largest number of Americans will hear it, or should purity of message cancel that out?
There's a thing with yoga that goes "start where you're at." I'm combining that with your comment about yelling truths into a hole accomplishes nothing, and I come to the conclusion that I'd rather have Tucker Carlson on the air than not.
Your mileage may vary.
This is some of the most blatant propaganda I've seen. And the comment section is a sad collection of biased misdirected rants. Where's the logic? US healthcare system is profit over people. US produces a vast amount of air, water and soil contamination for the entire world. Wealth disparity is beyond comprehension. Blaming the powerless is the game. Profit over people is the culture. No wonder things are fucked in the US. It correlates logically. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/01/science/covid-deaths-united-states.html
May I just suggest a book for the bookworms out there, on propaganda.
"Propaganda", by Frenchman Jacques Ellul, 1973-English version. Forget the sexist second half of the title and see how we get manipulated. Like from shortly after birth onward. You'll never watch another TV show or movies the same; or read corporate(MSM) media news, for that matter. Oh, and the Ivy League schools just charge more to inculcate the elite for US capitalism, "the captains of industry", as they say. Peace
whatever money changers touch turns into sh;t in a hurry.
Two random thoughts:
I wanted to write a sci-fi story about a paranoid executive at a marketing agency who is so excited about how his team is about to deliver perfect, irresistible, marketing. And and the payoff is he sits at his desk and slowly realizes his competitor has already achieved this. Now I hope somebody else writes it better than I would have.
I think reading is a vaccine of sorts against propaganda. Of course it needs to reach beyond the pool of propaganda. But the classics of literature help. The classics of sci-fi help. And purposely finding that annoying, edge of your ideology text, and reading it like you would eat vegetables, helps.
So speaking of Propaganda, I hope folks will listen to Scott Ritter this time: https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/02/americas-putin-psychosis/
We all know the American Oligarchy only cares about immediate profit. Ritter names names and tells us exactly who is selling us out. Unfortunately, I'm not a "names" kind of guy -- hell, it took me years to finally figure out who Ritter was. Caulk it up to being on "the spectrum" or whatever. Maybe that's the problem with most of us. We can't keep track of that secondary level of policy makers who are destroying us. They hide in the shadows so that when the Presidency moves from Republican to Democrat (or visa versa) they are still there controlling foreign policy for the benefit of the Oligarchy. American == ADD.
Concomitant with our biased, misdirected rants; those of us reinfected after mRNA are apparently looking at Lewy bodies, T-cells, Tau bundles and NO/ONOO cycle cognitive issues (right as the US congress prepares to resemble acasting call for "Justified" extras?
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/covid-sightings-omicron-reinfections-brain-effects-shabby-us-performance-western-australia-border-controls.html
https://www.jci.org/articles/view/149633
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-british-medical-journal-story
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/30/on-the-misuse-and-invention-of-words/
https://readsludge.com/2022/02/01/house-democrats-new-anti-progressive-pac-is-funded-by-corporate-lobbyists-and-pacs/
Propaganda mixes lies into truth. If it was all lies, you'd reject it. The propaganda double-agent (Trump, imo, Alex Jones) mixes the truth into obvious lies, causing people to reject it. I talk about this on my YT, Conspiracy Theorist as the New Heretic: https://youtu.be/UJI1X7l48vM.
If hairless monkeys could understand the massive, yawning gulf between the world as it actually exists and the narratives we've been fed about it since childhood, human society would immediately collapse into nothingness. The real world is far more different from gregarious narratives feeding human herd instincts, than it is from any work of fiction.