„By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms— elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial—but democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.“ — Aldous Huxley, book Brave New World Revisited Source: Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 3, p. 25
IMO, one point Aldous got wrong is the show will be run in the quiet. I believe it will be so loud it will be hard to think. As many have guessed/forecast before, I too predict it will be a mix of Huxley and everyone's favorite colonial policeman/informer, Orwell.
Everyone forgets to add a heavy dose of Franz Kafka ala The Trial or The Castle to that dystopian cocktail. The Bureaucracy against which you can never win.
I was not attempting a comprehensive treatment of the issue, merely making a brief observation.
Cannabis ingestion has the potential to disregulate the frontal neo-cortex, which is responsible for linear thinking, abstraction and higher level cognitive functions.
Cannabis is the most widely used psychoactive recreational drug by a very wide margin and the encouragement/normalisation of its use fits the political agenda of the oligarchy perfectly.
I do not know enough about the legal side of things to comment, I was simply making a point about the social/cultural normalisation of cannabis, its predictable effects on the cognitive functioning of users and the political benefits of this for the oligarchs.
i would do the same if i were one of them. if i wanted to be one of them, i would do the same as most others like cenk uygur do.
on a totally different note, when it comes to US policies involving Korea, jeffrey bader, tony blinken, avril haines are three old hands in the state dept that have been blocking Koreans' wish and push for peace and north-south corporation in the peninsula. just so you can keep an eye out as the corporate media completely ignored massive protests in SK against recent US-SK war games.
Freedomland was a pro-patriotic theme park in NJ that my family visited when I was 5 or 6 years old. I briefly flashed on it yesterday and this post returned it to mind. What a slick propaganda vehicle for brainwashing a young mind. These vehicles are/have been ubiquitous in US society since WWII. I'm sometimes amazed that I began to reject that brainwashing by the age of 19 and moreover that by my dotage, I've experienced a complete rejection thereof. Looking back, I recognize that the voyage from "rah-rah USA" to "what a bloody over-theatricalized opera of excuses for covert and overt violence" is quite a long and tortuous one. I can only hope that as a greater number of folks travel this road, some type of hundredth-monkey effect might ensue, shifting enough consciousness to make a difference in subsequent perception of that violence-framed-as-patriotism. As to the frustration of"shouting into a hole in the ground": been there, felt that.
The propagandists know well how Nationalism allows them to convince so many of America's youth to sign up for war - and older Americans to accept supporting war abroad.
And then the horrific violence of war, is pretty much hidden from the American people because of state control (by proxy) of the few multi-media conglomerate corporations running the mainstream networks - that millions of Americans end up listening to everyday.
It's only when the horror of war comes to an American's front doorstep (Vietnam, World War II, World War I, Korean War etc.) that you get a pause in the militarism and nationalism. I forgot who said it, but the human race is lucky war is so horrible, or else the species probably would have extinguished itself a long time ago.
When I see the American flag these days - I often just see the swastika of nationalism instead. A flag of corporate sponsored militarism that bombs, drones, and spends trillions of American dollars to murder human beings abroad. And we've been doing it now for decades.
"What a slick capitalist vehicle for extracting money from a propaganda drunk populace." If the people were not already fully stoned on propaganda, then they'd feel queasy and uneasy in such a place.
Freedomland was actually in the Bronx, on the site of what is now Co-op City, at the time the largest public housing project ever built in the US and unironically awarded, via the typical New York City method of awarding contracts. Let's just say the fact that the buildings began sinking not too many years after they were built, indicates the level of care those centimillion-dollar contracts were awarded with. I could say more, but it would reveal too many contacts I had when I lived there and their personal information. "Freedom", to be corrupt and pillage, indeed.
Damn, I am reminded everyday how memory corrupts with age. Thanks for the reminder. We lived in Brooklyn, so as a little kid, trips to the Bronx seemed as distant as Jersey.
Few have any idea how parochial many urbanites were (still are?) in places like NYC. It wasn't uncommon then to find people who grew up and lived in one borough of NYC and save for Manhattan, never visited or knew much about the others and were totally disdainful of them. Just the Brooklyn Dodgers / Yankees rivalry might be one thing, but it went far beyond that. I was one of those who went anywhere and everywhere in that city, still discovering places I'd never known of until the days before I blessedly left forever at 25 and got my immediate family to do so a couple of years later. Went back in 2014 and it only confirmed the wisdom of that move.
So true. I was pretty much 100% in Brooklyn except when my grandma took me shopping to Macy's in Manhattan (Herald Square) -- which we called "New York". Once I escaped Brooklyn, I subsequently lived in each borough except Staten Island. Then, like you, I escaped NYC completely.
Chomsky's book "Manufacturing Consent," written in 1988, may turn out to be one of the most important and influential books of our time. Sadly, it only gets truer with every passing year.
What was your take on Chomsky's calling out Trump as the worst criminal in US history even attacking his base and claiming many reminded him of the Nazi youth of his past? Now I call that propaganda especially when you had the likes of Bush/Cheney in the White House who were responsible for so much human destruction. Even Obama with his dirty war in Syria, his toppling of Libya, and oh yes, his helping to implement a coup in Ukraine, and I don't want to leave out his weekly get togethers to decide who gets droned next. Recently Chomsky claimed Trump was the only statesman who could end the war in Ukraine, and I agree. I believe it never would have come about had he won a second term, and had the democrats not vilified him for wanting to get along with Russia and gave support to that old and ignored refrain. The mainstream media and many, if not most, on left wing sites were all on board with anti-Trumpism and were willing to look the other way when it came to Russia-gate and every nefarious deed the democrats used to oust an elected president, and even now continue to try and prevent him from another term in office. I use to love Chomsky, saw him a number of times in person, but he and many on the left who also engaged in anti-Trump propaganda lost me. Not to mention many of his policies were never contested by the democrats who now put on a charade of liberalism. To think I was a registered democrat, but no more.
Fran, I’ve been an adoring fan of Chomsky until recent years, too. I’ve seen him speak, and like everyone else in attendance gave him a standing ovation. I don’t want to denigrate some of his more brilliant and heretical contributions to the political conversation, but his statements about how the unvaxed should be locked up was the last straw for me.
I do chalk up some of his recent statements to age, but I am leaning more toward the notion that this (partial) author of Manufacturing Consent is himself manufactured—as a kind of pressure-relief valve to keep the politically left from blowing. I’m not saying he’s wittingly working for the deep state, but he has certainly been allowed a considerable amount of freedom of speech and institutional/financial support that would not be granted to other professors (especially where he currently draws a paycheck at the University of Arizona).
I feel the same about that other icon of the left, Ralph Nader. They both powerfully embody and articulate “old left" values, but their solutions are always inanely vapid: vote (for Democrats) and write or call your Senator and Representative—which, IMO, are the two most impotent and meaningless wastes of time imaginable in The Empire.
I must say after watching what the Democrats and Republicans did to Ralph Nader (and when he left the Democratic Party I did too) as to being one of the mouth pieces for the Democrats. He has definitely the old school morals of Democratic beliefs but during the speech he gave when he left the party he clearly stated he no longer believed they were the same and very much disagreed with how they basically excepted bribes. When he ran for president against Bush and Kerry they set the state troopers on him at the debates! Then tied him up in court so you can see why I have a hard time excepting Mr Nader to be amongst these mouth pieces you refer to. However things change and I have not kept current with his recent actions.
Speaking personally, I have little use for Trump, but at the same time,. while Chomsky says some things I agree with, I do not take him or any earthly human as an oracle.
"I use to love Chomsky," Age spares no one, but there are mistakes on both sides. Love of any intellectual is unhealthy, but in particular never fall in love with an idea or concept. Be ready to test it when circumstances change.
Equally, I don't understand this fixation on Trump. Like his good ideas, hate his bad ideas, and know the real reason why you feel the good are good and the bad are bad.
"left wing sites were all on board with anti-Trumpism" Huh, I've seen plenty of anti-Trumpism from the "right" of the aisle, I'm pretty sure from the lucidity of your writing your not going to tell me the flacid turtle Mitch McConnel or the late Keaton 5 alumi John McCain were in love with MAGA. On the other hand, I've seen a host of so called left wing pundits like Jimmy Dore, Black Agenda Report, etc, parse when Trump's admin had statements to the "left" of the DNC (statements & tweets are a long way from being actual enacted policy when one knows they'll never funded by Congress, they might even be cheap electioneering but no politician would stoop to that, would they?) Maybe you might want to go to the original sources, rather than take Chomsky's statements without context, and then think about how much fun it must be to go through life with every statement recorded, and then set upon by enemies and how you might fare?
I am very clear on what I found disturbing about the Trump years, and continue to feel the same now. I didn't vote for Trump, never voted for a republican, but I would never vote for Hilary Clinton in 2016, or any other year, since I agree with Assange that she's sick with her need for power and her lust for war. He felt compassion for her. I don't. I am now a registered independent, but voted for Trump in 2020. I am very clear as to why the Trump years were very disturbing to me and continue to be so. I didn't believe in Russia-gate from the beginning of that propagandistic lie. Interesting that as soon as the DNC emails were hacked , Mooky, Clinton's campaign manager, proclaimed loud and clear with no evidence that the Russian's did it. Hilary and the democrats pushed the lie with the complicity of the FBI that the Russians helped get Trump elected. Trump got quite a bit of negative backlash on his visit to Russia, and a mindset that believed it was a good idea to get along with Russia. Now under Biden we have a proxy war with Russia, something which began in earnest under the Obama administration. The left that I could depend on in the past abandoned any sense of independence and joined the mainstream media and the democrats in a common cause, and that was to remove Trump from office. I happened to have watched his speech on January 6, and never thought he was mounting support for an insurrection. What I saw were capital police letting hundreds in through the doors of the Capital. I saw altercations, yes, but when does a crowd attempt to take over the reins of government with no weapons? Now we have an unconstitutional Jan 6 committee, who in the beginning of their "noble" pursuits paraded Dick Cheney around, the neocon so instrumental in killing hundreds of thousands of people if not millions, displacing millions, creating black sites and Guantanamo bay under the banner of America's war on terror. Now that Trump is out of office the democrats and their cohorts in the FBI continue to play their anti-democratic games which should disturb everyone. It matters not that Trump has been labeled a threat to our democracy, since I see that threat coming from the democrats. I'll wind up by saying that the democrats have been quite effective in their condemnation of his base and causing a lot of division in this country with many elitist democrats seeing them as uneducated and an amoral lot which one cousin has posted on his site, yet the ass calls himself a liberal.
This is something you can not say to the democrats without serious reprisal. They will turn on you like rabid dogs! It seems to me that they have an addiction? It's like an alcoholic if you tell them they are addicted they can't see it. I see the Republicans the same way though because any I tell the truth or facts to become belligerent and immediately spew falsehoods. I believe the whole 2 party one party is just as corrupt as you can get!
As they say religion and politics aren't up for discussion. However, during Trump's 2016 win, and I didn't vote for him, but simply did not vote my party's choice, a democrat at the time. As a result of my choice I lost a long time friend who attacked me verbally, and repeatedly in writing until I had enough and no longer spoke to her, and no it was not based on some other underlying issue. My brother also developed Trump derangement syndrome and to this day there is a strain in our relationship that didn't exist before. A cousin, who was a captain in the military, was equally offended by my choice, also by my out spoken anti-war remarks which added to his anger. In 2016 the woman next door said to me, "I think I can tell you, I voted for Trump." I told her she could vote for anyone as far as I was concerned, her choice. Interesting that the people who so vocally attacked others who voted for Trump, or simply did not vote see themselves as liberals yet express utter contempt for those who did, and feel entitled to tell them in an abusive manner who they should have voted for. They came across as authoritarian and no doubt justify their position with their anti-Trump hate. I am not the one condemning them for voting for a woman I can't stand and during her long career has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and the destruction of whole countries. Personally I have never experienced this type of extremism with republicans even as an outspoken critic during the Bush/Cheney years.
I dunno, lots of people are all-in for The Trump Cult and come up with the most hilarious and quaint excuses for the man, the same way Obama Groupies did for their hero.
Okay, Bill, so I followed the link and spent the next 4+ hours watching. I'd say you owe me one, but that was time so well spent--easily the best documentary of recent history I've seen since I watched Oliver Stone's Untold History of the U.S. many years ago. I have studied Freud and read Bernays, but this put all the pieces together to powerfully to show how their ideas have damn near ruined the world. When it was over--stopping with the Clinton/Blair administrations--I wanted it to continue to the present. But, of course, we already know very well what came next.
Taking up agency would be deadly to their pleasure under cognitive dissonance. Their lives are like being in the driver seat of a car using a VR headset that's playing Grand Theft Auto. It only works if the State/Capitalism has disconnect the controls from the car. Subconsciously they fear the real life, it is a lot harder.
For an excellent example of how Hollywood participates in the Propaganda - I would recommend watching 22 Miles with Mark Wahlberg - I counted 17 examples imbedded in the movie in general conversations & background that whitewash Government/Presidential crimes - they include sound bites from all of the last 5 American Presidents. The Propaganda continues long after the official narrative is dismantled by scrutineers
"People are kept hopelessly enslaved by giving them the illusion that they are free, and any voice which interrupts that illusion is silenced by whatever means necessary."
This is why I say elections are pointless rituals of compliance not effective means of choosing leaders. The propaganda around the "sanctity" of our elections is stronger than all the war propaganda combined. The news this week that the FBI has been outed as being corrupt and guilty has many people arguing for the integrity and validity of government law enforcement agencies that have been shown to be openly corrupt and vile in every way imaginable.
It seems in the late sixties there was this mushrooming awareness of many things that were wrong. It is now mushrooming again, but not in full bloom yet, it's still mainly spreading underground. But the number of people connected to that underground is growing, and it will come to a boil at some point, like it has in times past. We need to keep bringing up the ignored history, the shunned truth, and a wholesome path forward needs to become clear. Change will happen, we need to be on top of it, in the midst of it, lest it gets 'managed' by evil in a bad direction - again.
Man that is something I've always felt in my gut but never had the courage to say in discussions - because for most people, only being literally dragged away as a heretic by the inquisition is non-free speech.
Our media and government’s response to Occupy Wall St. is a good example of what happens to unpopular speech.
Also, I realized decades ago that there are no “good countries”. Just bad and worse. It’s pretty damn difficult to get most people to wrap their heads around this painfully obvious observation.
I don't think I've been to a bad country. I've seen a lot of bad government, I've seen plenty of bad people, but in general I've found nearly everywhere full of good people trying to be better people. America may be an exception, but then it brags about being exceptional.
The unholy alliance of the Big Tech Alphabet People with Uncle Sam's Alphabet People (CIADHSIRSBLMATFDEACDC et patati et patata) leaves free speech folk with an unpalatable dilemna of being censored, self censoring or banishment to remote platforms and endless echo chambers. We should all vomit on their $400 sneakers. Where have all the rebels gone?
There are handbooks on how to implement pulling the wool over the public eyes, written by Edward Bernays in the 1920. Propaganda and Crystallizing Public Opinion are guidebooks on how to establish a propaganda state, how to manipulate the public into believing anything the state wants. Madison avenue has used those tools but he real true believers in Bernays work are government propagandists and political scientists.
What are some sources you’d recommend for one to look behind the official Covid narrative? I am exposed to critique more and more but tbh my way into this stuff in a big way has been the war. I just can’t get over how seamlessly people were convinced escalating a war was just. It’s rocked my whole world.
That article is a summary of this much longer one, which takes a while to read but has proven to be very prescient - The Snake-Oil Salesmen and the COVID-Zero Con: A Classic Bait-And-Switch for a Lifetime of Booster Shots (Immunity as a Service) https://www.juliusruechel.com/2021/09/the-snake-oil-salesmen-and-covid-zero.html
The unholy alliance of the Big Tech Alphabet People with Uncle Sam's Alphabet People (CIADHSIRSBLMATFDEACDC et patati et patata) leaves free speech folk with an unpalatable dilemna of being censored, self censoring or banishment to remote platforms and endless echo chambers. We should all vomit on their $400 sneakers. Where have all the rebels gone?
I love this piece. Of course, in college in the 1980s, I was taught to look at issues from at least three points of view. So, like many, I've always known that both Fox & MSNBC are no good.
And now I love reading Caitlin Johnstone, and listening to Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, Russell Brand, and Michael Malice. Even Candice Owens has grown suspicious of those who own the media, like Bill Gates, and the tyrants he carries water for, like the World Economic Forum. It doesn't mean I always agree with this people; in fact, they are on opposite sides of many issues. But at least they are doing their own research (as am I) and making an effort to question all tyrannical narratives, like all of the BS that surrounded the vax. At least we can now admit that it causes heart attacks and is 100% worthless.
Free Julian Assange! You americans should stand up to free him from unjustified jail and ridiculous extradition request! If not you're an accessory of neo nazi! And accomplice of a crime
„By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms— elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial—but democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.“ — Aldous Huxley, book Brave New World Revisited Source: Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 3, p. 25
Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1744774-aldous-huxley-by-means-of-ever-more-effective-methods-of-mind-ma/
IMO, one point Aldous got wrong is the show will be run in the quiet. I believe it will be so loud it will be hard to think. As many have guessed/forecast before, I too predict it will be a mix of Huxley and everyone's favorite colonial policeman/informer, Orwell.
Everyone forgets to add a heavy dose of Franz Kafka ala The Trial or The Castle to that dystopian cocktail. The Bureaucracy against which you can never win.
They usually won't give you the dignity of a clean loss either, they want you on the hamster wheel for as long as possible.
Indeed!
And do not forget the legalisation and promotion of cannabis. The oligarchs and those who work for them want a population of near-zombies.
The manufacture and sale of mind-altering drugs for decades; the promotion and sale of alcoholic drinks escape you so cannabis is the culpirt?
I was not attempting a comprehensive treatment of the issue, merely making a brief observation.
Cannabis ingestion has the potential to disregulate the frontal neo-cortex, which is responsible for linear thinking, abstraction and higher level cognitive functions.
Cannabis is the most widely used psychoactive recreational drug by a very wide margin and the encouragement/normalisation of its use fits the political agenda of the oligarchy perfectly.
Cats prefer strong coffee.
The last thing Big Pharma wants is LEGAL WEED. Weed users in general use far less if any pharmaceuticals. Thats why its STILL a schedule 1 drug.
I do not know enough about the legal side of things to comment, I was simply making a point about the social/cultural normalisation of cannabis, its predictable effects on the cognitive functioning of users and the political benefits of this for the oligarchs.
i would do the same if i were one of them. if i wanted to be one of them, i would do the same as most others like cenk uygur do.
on a totally different note, when it comes to US policies involving Korea, jeffrey bader, tony blinken, avril haines are three old hands in the state dept that have been blocking Koreans' wish and push for peace and north-south corporation in the peninsula. just so you can keep an eye out as the corporate media completely ignored massive protests in SK against recent US-SK war games.
Huxley - wrote that all those years ago, and so damn well. Sigh. What a talent.
Freedomland was a pro-patriotic theme park in NJ that my family visited when I was 5 or 6 years old. I briefly flashed on it yesterday and this post returned it to mind. What a slick propaganda vehicle for brainwashing a young mind. These vehicles are/have been ubiquitous in US society since WWII. I'm sometimes amazed that I began to reject that brainwashing by the age of 19 and moreover that by my dotage, I've experienced a complete rejection thereof. Looking back, I recognize that the voyage from "rah-rah USA" to "what a bloody over-theatricalized opera of excuses for covert and overt violence" is quite a long and tortuous one. I can only hope that as a greater number of folks travel this road, some type of hundredth-monkey effect might ensue, shifting enough consciousness to make a difference in subsequent perception of that violence-framed-as-patriotism. As to the frustration of"shouting into a hole in the ground": been there, felt that.
As a child, I was blinded by the 1964 World's Fair, where techno-utopianism was owned by corporate power to bring ever increasing wealth and progress!
In school, I read my hyper-cometitive "SRA Series" and did a book report on Wernher von Braun as a scientific hero who brought us the Space Program!
My chemistry teacher told me that nuclear power was clean and safe and cheap!
The Pilgrims brought food to the starving savage Indians!
This was decades before the USA! USA! USA! chants.
“Freedom Land” $15 admission.
The propagandists know well how Nationalism allows them to convince so many of America's youth to sign up for war - and older Americans to accept supporting war abroad.
And then the horrific violence of war, is pretty much hidden from the American people because of state control (by proxy) of the few multi-media conglomerate corporations running the mainstream networks - that millions of Americans end up listening to everyday.
It's only when the horror of war comes to an American's front doorstep (Vietnam, World War II, World War I, Korean War etc.) that you get a pause in the militarism and nationalism. I forgot who said it, but the human race is lucky war is so horrible, or else the species probably would have extinguished itself a long time ago.
When I see the American flag these days - I often just see the swastika of nationalism instead. A flag of corporate sponsored militarism that bombs, drones, and spends trillions of American dollars to murder human beings abroad. And we've been doing it now for decades.
"What a slick capitalist vehicle for extracting money from a propaganda drunk populace." If the people were not already fully stoned on propaganda, then they'd feel queasy and uneasy in such a place.
Freedomland was actually in the Bronx, on the site of what is now Co-op City, at the time the largest public housing project ever built in the US and unironically awarded, via the typical New York City method of awarding contracts. Let's just say the fact that the buildings began sinking not too many years after they were built, indicates the level of care those centimillion-dollar contracts were awarded with. I could say more, but it would reveal too many contacts I had when I lived there and their personal information. "Freedom", to be corrupt and pillage, indeed.
Damn, I am reminded everyday how memory corrupts with age. Thanks for the reminder. We lived in Brooklyn, so as a little kid, trips to the Bronx seemed as distant as Jersey.
Few have any idea how parochial many urbanites were (still are?) in places like NYC. It wasn't uncommon then to find people who grew up and lived in one borough of NYC and save for Manhattan, never visited or knew much about the others and were totally disdainful of them. Just the Brooklyn Dodgers / Yankees rivalry might be one thing, but it went far beyond that. I was one of those who went anywhere and everywhere in that city, still discovering places I'd never known of until the days before I blessedly left forever at 25 and got my immediate family to do so a couple of years later. Went back in 2014 and it only confirmed the wisdom of that move.
So true. I was pretty much 100% in Brooklyn except when my grandma took me shopping to Macy's in Manhattan (Herald Square) -- which we called "New York". Once I escaped Brooklyn, I subsequently lived in each borough except Staten Island. Then, like you, I escaped NYC completely.
Chomsky's book "Manufacturing Consent," written in 1988, may turn out to be one of the most important and influential books of our time. Sadly, it only gets truer with every passing year.
What was your take on Chomsky's calling out Trump as the worst criminal in US history even attacking his base and claiming many reminded him of the Nazi youth of his past? Now I call that propaganda especially when you had the likes of Bush/Cheney in the White House who were responsible for so much human destruction. Even Obama with his dirty war in Syria, his toppling of Libya, and oh yes, his helping to implement a coup in Ukraine, and I don't want to leave out his weekly get togethers to decide who gets droned next. Recently Chomsky claimed Trump was the only statesman who could end the war in Ukraine, and I agree. I believe it never would have come about had he won a second term, and had the democrats not vilified him for wanting to get along with Russia and gave support to that old and ignored refrain. The mainstream media and many, if not most, on left wing sites were all on board with anti-Trumpism and were willing to look the other way when it came to Russia-gate and every nefarious deed the democrats used to oust an elected president, and even now continue to try and prevent him from another term in office. I use to love Chomsky, saw him a number of times in person, but he and many on the left who also engaged in anti-Trump propaganda lost me. Not to mention many of his policies were never contested by the democrats who now put on a charade of liberalism. To think I was a registered democrat, but no more.
Fran, I’ve been an adoring fan of Chomsky until recent years, too. I’ve seen him speak, and like everyone else in attendance gave him a standing ovation. I don’t want to denigrate some of his more brilliant and heretical contributions to the political conversation, but his statements about how the unvaxed should be locked up was the last straw for me.
I do chalk up some of his recent statements to age, but I am leaning more toward the notion that this (partial) author of Manufacturing Consent is himself manufactured—as a kind of pressure-relief valve to keep the politically left from blowing. I’m not saying he’s wittingly working for the deep state, but he has certainly been allowed a considerable amount of freedom of speech and institutional/financial support that would not be granted to other professors (especially where he currently draws a paycheck at the University of Arizona).
I feel the same about that other icon of the left, Ralph Nader. They both powerfully embody and articulate “old left" values, but their solutions are always inanely vapid: vote (for Democrats) and write or call your Senator and Representative—which, IMO, are the two most impotent and meaningless wastes of time imaginable in The Empire.
I must say after watching what the Democrats and Republicans did to Ralph Nader (and when he left the Democratic Party I did too) as to being one of the mouth pieces for the Democrats. He has definitely the old school morals of Democratic beliefs but during the speech he gave when he left the party he clearly stated he no longer believed they were the same and very much disagreed with how they basically excepted bribes. When he ran for president against Bush and Kerry they set the state troopers on him at the debates! Then tied him up in court so you can see why I have a hard time excepting Mr Nader to be amongst these mouth pieces you refer to. However things change and I have not kept current with his recent actions.
Speaking personally, I have little use for Trump, but at the same time,. while Chomsky says some things I agree with, I do not take him or any earthly human as an oracle.
"I use to love Chomsky," Age spares no one, but there are mistakes on both sides. Love of any intellectual is unhealthy, but in particular never fall in love with an idea or concept. Be ready to test it when circumstances change.
Equally, I don't understand this fixation on Trump. Like his good ideas, hate his bad ideas, and know the real reason why you feel the good are good and the bad are bad.
"left wing sites were all on board with anti-Trumpism" Huh, I've seen plenty of anti-Trumpism from the "right" of the aisle, I'm pretty sure from the lucidity of your writing your not going to tell me the flacid turtle Mitch McConnel or the late Keaton 5 alumi John McCain were in love with MAGA. On the other hand, I've seen a host of so called left wing pundits like Jimmy Dore, Black Agenda Report, etc, parse when Trump's admin had statements to the "left" of the DNC (statements & tweets are a long way from being actual enacted policy when one knows they'll never funded by Congress, they might even be cheap electioneering but no politician would stoop to that, would they?) Maybe you might want to go to the original sources, rather than take Chomsky's statements without context, and then think about how much fun it must be to go through life with every statement recorded, and then set upon by enemies and how you might fare?
I am very clear on what I found disturbing about the Trump years, and continue to feel the same now. I didn't vote for Trump, never voted for a republican, but I would never vote for Hilary Clinton in 2016, or any other year, since I agree with Assange that she's sick with her need for power and her lust for war. He felt compassion for her. I don't. I am now a registered independent, but voted for Trump in 2020. I am very clear as to why the Trump years were very disturbing to me and continue to be so. I didn't believe in Russia-gate from the beginning of that propagandistic lie. Interesting that as soon as the DNC emails were hacked , Mooky, Clinton's campaign manager, proclaimed loud and clear with no evidence that the Russian's did it. Hilary and the democrats pushed the lie with the complicity of the FBI that the Russians helped get Trump elected. Trump got quite a bit of negative backlash on his visit to Russia, and a mindset that believed it was a good idea to get along with Russia. Now under Biden we have a proxy war with Russia, something which began in earnest under the Obama administration. The left that I could depend on in the past abandoned any sense of independence and joined the mainstream media and the democrats in a common cause, and that was to remove Trump from office. I happened to have watched his speech on January 6, and never thought he was mounting support for an insurrection. What I saw were capital police letting hundreds in through the doors of the Capital. I saw altercations, yes, but when does a crowd attempt to take over the reins of government with no weapons? Now we have an unconstitutional Jan 6 committee, who in the beginning of their "noble" pursuits paraded Dick Cheney around, the neocon so instrumental in killing hundreds of thousands of people if not millions, displacing millions, creating black sites and Guantanamo bay under the banner of America's war on terror. Now that Trump is out of office the democrats and their cohorts in the FBI continue to play their anti-democratic games which should disturb everyone. It matters not that Trump has been labeled a threat to our democracy, since I see that threat coming from the democrats. I'll wind up by saying that the democrats have been quite effective in their condemnation of his base and causing a lot of division in this country with many elitist democrats seeing them as uneducated and an amoral lot which one cousin has posted on his site, yet the ass calls himself a liberal.
This is something you can not say to the democrats without serious reprisal. They will turn on you like rabid dogs! It seems to me that they have an addiction? It's like an alcoholic if you tell them they are addicted they can't see it. I see the Republicans the same way though because any I tell the truth or facts to become belligerent and immediately spew falsehoods. I believe the whole 2 party one party is just as corrupt as you can get!
As they say religion and politics aren't up for discussion. However, during Trump's 2016 win, and I didn't vote for him, but simply did not vote my party's choice, a democrat at the time. As a result of my choice I lost a long time friend who attacked me verbally, and repeatedly in writing until I had enough and no longer spoke to her, and no it was not based on some other underlying issue. My brother also developed Trump derangement syndrome and to this day there is a strain in our relationship that didn't exist before. A cousin, who was a captain in the military, was equally offended by my choice, also by my out spoken anti-war remarks which added to his anger. In 2016 the woman next door said to me, "I think I can tell you, I voted for Trump." I told her she could vote for anyone as far as I was concerned, her choice. Interesting that the people who so vocally attacked others who voted for Trump, or simply did not vote see themselves as liberals yet express utter contempt for those who did, and feel entitled to tell them in an abusive manner who they should have voted for. They came across as authoritarian and no doubt justify their position with their anti-Trump hate. I am not the one condemning them for voting for a woman I can't stand and during her long career has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and the destruction of whole countries. Personally I have never experienced this type of extremism with republicans even as an outspoken critic during the Bush/Cheney years.
I dunno, lots of people are all-in for The Trump Cult and come up with the most hilarious and quaint excuses for the man, the same way Obama Groupies did for their hero.
Watch Adam Curtis' documentary series "The Century Of The Self" for a superb intellectual history of social control and propaganda:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
Okay, Bill, so I followed the link and spent the next 4+ hours watching. I'd say you owe me one, but that was time so well spent--easily the best documentary of recent history I've seen since I watched Oliver Stone's Untold History of the U.S. many years ago. I have studied Freud and read Bernays, but this put all the pieces together to powerfully to show how their ideas have damn near ruined the world. When it was over--stopping with the Clinton/Blair administrations--I wanted it to continue to the present. But, of course, we already know very well what came next.
Thanks for the link!
Yeah there was an article saying 20 years later it was still super relevant.
Twenty years on: the second-order prediction of the Herman–Chomsky Propaganda Model Andrew Mullen; Media, Culture & Society, 2010
Taking up agency would be deadly to their pleasure under cognitive dissonance. Their lives are like being in the driver seat of a car using a VR headset that's playing Grand Theft Auto. It only works if the State/Capitalism has disconnect the controls from the car. Subconsciously they fear the real life, it is a lot harder.
For an excellent example of how Hollywood participates in the Propaganda - I would recommend watching 22 Miles with Mark Wahlberg - I counted 17 examples imbedded in the movie in general conversations & background that whitewash Government/Presidential crimes - they include sound bites from all of the last 5 American Presidents. The Propaganda continues long after the official narrative is dismantled by scrutineers
"People are kept hopelessly enslaved by giving them the illusion that they are free, and any voice which interrupts that illusion is silenced by whatever means necessary."
This is why I say elections are pointless rituals of compliance not effective means of choosing leaders. The propaganda around the "sanctity" of our elections is stronger than all the war propaganda combined. The news this week that the FBI has been outed as being corrupt and guilty has many people arguing for the integrity and validity of government law enforcement agencies that have been shown to be openly corrupt and vile in every way imaginable.
Ain't that the truth!
It seems in the late sixties there was this mushrooming awareness of many things that were wrong. It is now mushrooming again, but not in full bloom yet, it's still mainly spreading underground. But the number of people connected to that underground is growing, and it will come to a boil at some point, like it has in times past. We need to keep bringing up the ignored history, the shunned truth, and a wholesome path forward needs to become clear. Change will happen, we need to be on top of it, in the midst of it, lest it gets 'managed' by evil in a bad direction - again.
Man that is something I've always felt in my gut but never had the courage to say in discussions - because for most people, only being literally dragged away as a heretic by the inquisition is non-free speech.
Our media and government’s response to Occupy Wall St. is a good example of what happens to unpopular speech.
Also, I realized decades ago that there are no “good countries”. Just bad and worse. It’s pretty damn difficult to get most people to wrap their heads around this painfully obvious observation.
I don't think I've been to a bad country. I've seen a lot of bad government, I've seen plenty of bad people, but in general I've found nearly everywhere full of good people trying to be better people. America may be an exception, but then it brags about being exceptional.
I was talking about governments.
The unholy alliance of the Big Tech Alphabet People with Uncle Sam's Alphabet People (CIADHSIRSBLMATFDEACDC et patati et patata) leaves free speech folk with an unpalatable dilemna of being censored, self censoring or banishment to remote platforms and endless echo chambers. We should all vomit on their $400 sneakers. Where have all the rebels gone?
The rebels are just trying to survive their economic wage slavery and barely have time to brush their teeth in the morning.
Apparently the ones you speak of are not really rebels?
There are handbooks on how to implement pulling the wool over the public eyes, written by Edward Bernays in the 1920. Propaganda and Crystallizing Public Opinion are guidebooks on how to establish a propaganda state, how to manipulate the public into believing anything the state wants. Madison avenue has used those tools but he real true believers in Bernays work are government propagandists and political scientists.
Not everything, even in corporate media, is propaganda and not all elements of propaganda are factually false.
The best propaganda blends truth with lies and distortions.
There's a big difference between skepticism and nihilism.
Great article. Now do all the censorship on behalf of Big Pharma...even Dr. John Campbell is not immune despite using official government sources. https://wholistic.substack.com/p/the-censored-john-campbell-video
Using government sources can be the most hazardous act to one's health, aka Julian Assange.
the COVID scam is even bigger than the Ukraine scam...because it affects everyone...why she never addresses it amazes me
I would guess the pro-pharma propaganda associating "anti-vaxxers" with "right-wingers" was successful on some level.
She is waiting for you to come up with the link of all links - the link that would link them all.
For now though keep working on the list below so it would clot people's devices. If clot shots didn't get them then your links will.
What are some sources you’d recommend for one to look behind the official Covid narrative? I am exposed to critique more and more but tbh my way into this stuff in a big way has been the war. I just can’t get over how seamlessly people were convinced escalating a war was just. It’s rocked my whole world.
If There’s One Thing You Need to Read About Covid, This Is It (According to one writer, everything they’ve done to “fix” covid has made things worse. Possibly on purpose.) https://wholistic.substack.com/p/if-theres-one-thing-you-need-to-read
That article is a summary of this much longer one, which takes a while to read but has proven to be very prescient - The Snake-Oil Salesmen and the COVID-Zero Con: A Classic Bait-And-Switch for a Lifetime of Booster Shots (Immunity as a Service) https://www.juliusruechel.com/2021/09/the-snake-oil-salesmen-and-covid-zero.html
the "virus" myth explained...https://www.bitchute.com/video/rHmg8EY3cXPD/
here ya go...https://childrenshealthdefense.org/
ALL vaccines are a scam...a very lethal scam...https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/a-century-of-evidence-has-accumulated?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
https://www.westonaprice.org/#gsc.tab=0
https://healthimpactnews.com/2022/with-the-chemical-imbalance-myth-exposed-thats-not-all-psychiatry-got-wrong/
https://odysee.com/@DrAndrewKaufman:f/False_Gods_Experts_and_the_Death_of_Science_with_Dr_Sam_Bailey:f?r=6tnNBbk7eXYjhXVMisQJAp9XnFg3z4Wh
https://www.technocracy.news/then-the-technocrats-came-for-the-children/
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/should-you-get-any-vaccines-the-data?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
https://thehighwire.com/
The unholy alliance of the Big Tech Alphabet People with Uncle Sam's Alphabet People (CIADHSIRSBLMATFDEACDC et patati et patata) leaves free speech folk with an unpalatable dilemna of being censored, self censoring or banishment to remote platforms and endless echo chambers. We should all vomit on their $400 sneakers. Where have all the rebels gone?
I love this piece. Of course, in college in the 1980s, I was taught to look at issues from at least three points of view. So, like many, I've always known that both Fox & MSNBC are no good.
And now I love reading Caitlin Johnstone, and listening to Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, Russell Brand, and Michael Malice. Even Candice Owens has grown suspicious of those who own the media, like Bill Gates, and the tyrants he carries water for, like the World Economic Forum. It doesn't mean I always agree with this people; in fact, they are on opposite sides of many issues. But at least they are doing their own research (as am I) and making an effort to question all tyrannical narratives, like all of the BS that surrounded the vax. At least we can now admit that it causes heart attacks and is 100% worthless.
Love it! Great piece! Thank you!
Free Julian Assange! You americans should stand up to free him from unjustified jail and ridiculous extradition request! If not you're an accessory of neo nazi! And accomplice of a crime