It Takes A Lot Of Education To Keep Us This Stupid
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The oligarchic empire is working harder and harder to bolt down our minds in service of its agendas.
Silicon Valley is working more and more openly in conjunction with the US government, and its algorithms elevate empire-authorized narratives while hiding unapproved ones with increasing brazenness.
The mass media have become so blatantly propagandistic that US intelligence operatives are now openly employed by news outlets they used to have to infiltrate covertly.
NATO and military institutions are studying and testing new forms of mass-scale psychological manipulation to advance the still developing science of propaganda.
A transparently fake "whistleblower" is being promoted by the US political/media class to manufacture support for more internet censorship and shore up monopolistic control for institutions like Facebook who are willing to enforce it.
Wikipedia is an imperial narrative control operation.
They've imprisoned a journalist for exposing US war crimes after the CIA plotted to kidnap and assassinate him.
The powerful work so hard at such endeavors because they understand something that most ordinary people do not: whoever controls the dominant narratives about the world controls the world itself.
Power is controlling what happens; absolute power is controlling what people think about what happens.
If you can control how people think about what's going on in their world, if you can control their shared how-it-is stories about what's happening and what's true, then you can advance any agenda you want to. You'll be able to prevent them from rising up against you as you steal their wealth, exploit their labor, destroy their ecosystem and send their children off to war. You can keep them voting for political institutions you own and control. You can keep them from interfering in your ability to wage wars around the world and sanction entire populations into starvation to advance your geostrategic goals.
This status quo of exploitation, ecocide, oppression and war benefits our rulers immensely, bringing them more wealth and power than the kings of old could ever dream of. And like the kings of old they are not going to relinquish power of their own accord, which means the only thing that will bring an end to this world-destroying status quo is the people rising up and using the power of their numbers to end it.
Yet they don't rise up. They don't because they are successfully propagandized into accepting this status quo, or at least into believing it's the only way things can be right now. Imperial narrative control is therefore the source of all our biggest problems.
And they're only getting more and more aggressive about it. More and more forceful, less and less sly and subtle in their campaign to control the thoughts that are in our heads.
Many of those who have this realization see it as cause for despair. I personally see it as cause for hope.
![When you tear out a man's tongue..." -Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones [957x601]: QuotesPorn](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4569c82a-469d-492a-add1-4622e0014813_957x601.png "When you tear out a man's tongue..." -Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones [957x601]: QuotesPorn")
They work so hard to manufacture our consent for the status quo because they absolutely require that consent; history shows us that rulers do not fare well after a critical mass of the population has turned against them. And they're working harder and harder to manufacture that consent, even as extremely influential people begin questioning whether we're being deliberately deceived about everything.
They used to look like someone using a bucket to bail out water from a leaky boat. Now they look like someone treading water, barely managing to get their mouth and nose high enough to take gasps of air.
They're working harder and harder because they need to.
The fact that the propagandists have to work so hard to keep our society this insane means the natural gravitational pull is toward sanity. They have to educate us into crazier and crazier ways of thinking from the moment we go to school until we die, because otherwise we'll collectively awaken and shake off their shackles.
It takes a lot of educating to keep us this stupid.
You think you're struggling? You should see the people trying to manufacture consent for a status quo that is both plainly insane and self-evidently unsustainable. They're the ones doing all the heavy lifting in this struggle. They're the ones fighting gravity.
Hope is not a popular position to take in a world that is being abused, exploited and being driven mad by manipulative sociopaths. Which is understandable.
But I just can't help it. I look at how hard they are struggling to keep the light from bursting in and driving out the darkness, and I can't help but think, "Those poor bastards can't keep that up much longer."
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Is anyone talking about the incredible power differential between propagandists and propagandized, the one that's hundreds of times more disparate in favor of the supposed victims than its opposite?
I don't know what it's called but there's a narrative driven phenomenon that literally renders us blind to what happens right in front of our noses. We see it happen, someone can say did you just see that happen and we'd say yes, but then some renegade water-cannons the bullshit away and calls out what happened for what it essentially is, which means what it really is, everyone insists that the "fool" or "moron" or "subverter" doesn't know what they're talking about because you can't say *that* about *this*. I've had people argue that when authorities murder people it's not murder, and when authorities perpetrate violence, it's not violence, and when their war dogs decimate and pillage and rape, those aren't crimes against humanity, those are unavoidable collateral damage.
Not kidding.
That's how powerful compartmentalization can be. Put the same thing in a different box and put a different label on it and suddenly, subliminally, it feels like a different thing.
In terms of the inordinate expense and resource drain required to keep the propaganda juggernaut going and defend it against the truth -- which notice, means defending a little pack of lies against the entire universe that has no interest in playing along -- compared to lies, the ease and efficiency and speed at which truth spreads without any special support or encouragement and the difference in its impact wherever it goes makes it a no-brainer, hands down winner crossing the finish line before lies have managed three steps from the post.
It's bizarre to see how it works and then look at people dumbly staring as if they were blind would they just saw.
The only way it can work is if thousands and millions choose to lie right along with it.
Our complicity in the lies blinds us to the lies and blinds others who mistake the arrogance of the insensate for the confidence of the experienced.
We can't know what we can't see, when we don't see but pretend we know, in terms of what takes place in us cognitively, neurologically, it's like we opened an inner portal straight into the depths of the insane delusions of hell.
As soon as people realize where the power actually resides and that they were light to all this time to cringe in dread at the horrendous illusions played out on "world stage" -- does anyone notice what that expression implies in terms of humanity versus psychopathy? -- we'll finally see the insane and infantile games of the rich which cover and distract from their bloody, rape crazed secrets for what they are. The glory in their shame, and the smoke from the cataclysm that is coming to destroy all their works will go up forever and ever. We've never been closer to that tipping point.
I don't know I entirely agree with Caitlin's premise; if the Wizard no longer feels the need to even hide behind a curtain, is he working harder or easier?
It's true that trust in legacy media is at an all time low, and viewership of that media by the under 55 age group is almost non-existent, so the fight for control and censorship of on-line content is furious.
I'd like to believe that there's a bright dawn looming just beyond our dark horizon. I would also like to believe that there's a suitcase under my bed containing two million dollars, but at this point I can't tell which is the more likely.