Yesterday, a mosquito was noticed alighting from my hand, and a drop of blood was seen in the same area it had departed, the two events possibly connected; the drop was thought to potentially contain hundreds of red blood cells. (The actual number would be millions). Thanks for editorially defecating on the NY Times, one of my favorite pursuits; but your skill at it is clearly unequaled.
What she is doing Vin is commenting on what is sometimes contained in the phrase 'live in the moment ' which of course is not recommending that you forget the past or prepare for the future. But that is just what the NYT and its fellow yellow rags don't want you to do. And they and all of the system's propaganda. machine work at ceaselessly to accomplish. The vast mass of Palestinian blood is vitally connected to the US supplied bombs and tank shells but while sometimes unavoidable seen on the clothes of the living wounded and dead the NYT and all of the propaganda machine will at best comment on t in passing ,but best not at all.
“A lot of people who grow skeptical of the mass media correctly assume that these outlets are propaganda services for the US empire, but incorrectly assume that this means they must be lying all the time.”
This was actually a really good thing to point out. It’s so easy to imagine these outlets are spinning blatant lies around the clock, when in reality, the tactics are much more subtle and sinister in that they bend the framing of the story so that the parts they want you to see jump out at you while the parts they don’t want you to linger on slips right by you. We, as readers, have to become just as sophisticated as the propagandists who weave these complex narratives together if we are to better understand the world we’re living in.
Parsing newspaper articles for suggestions of what actual facts might be inferred from the skews of their censor applied emphasis was a skill highly developed in the late stage USSR. Now, slowly being re discovered in "The West"(™).
Been 40 years of eyes open for me as I watched NYT and others lie about US imperialism in Central and South America as they conducted decades of their “dirty war” against mostly indigenous people. Describing innocents as “caught in the crossfire” (when the truth is they were deliberately targeted and murdered by US trained and funded terrorist death squads) was the end of any credibility for the legacy media.
That is exactly the kind of critical thinking that needs to be taught to everyone, starting with the morning after the bedtime story. But I don’t think parents do that any more. Teachers don’t either.
True, Logic should be taught to youth at a young age along with basic math and language skills. Public education has been continuously underfunded and downgraded purposely for decades now in the US.
Instead, educational institutions from Pre-K to college has been replaced Woke, activist teachings; how to turn students into revolutionaries instead of tomorrow’s intellectuals.
I disagree with you here. Most people don't understand what "Woke" means and its origins. Woke means to be "AWARE and CONSCIOUS" of systemic and structural inequalities and unnatural imbalances (racial, economic, gender, sex, age, planet earth, the environment, ecology, etc.). The 'Right' has co-opted the term to mean 'virtue signalling and fake activism'. I agree that there is also an element of the 'Fake Left' that has weaponized being "WOKE" to carry out their own agendas. Hence, BOTH the FAKE LEFT and the RIGHT are enemies of being WOKE and BOTH have co-opted the term for their own purposes.
IMHO, critical thinking revolutionaries and activists are WHAT IS NEEDED to combat the problems plagueing our societies, cultures, the world, and planet earth.
I respectfully disagree here. I think the mistake you, and many others, often run into is to deem any definition that does not fit your preferred worldview as "Right." Yes, the woke terminology was initially meant to signal being "aware" and "conscious" to systemic and structural injustices. In its practical implementation, however, it takes on a whole different meaning—i.e. the meaning you've labeled as "Right." Political framing has nothing to do with what many are observing themselves. The practical implementation of Woke has its roots in Marxism, which shows up as people having a critical consciousness and taking on a worldview that demarcates everything across oppressor-oppressed lines; similar to Marx's economic stratification of society into the Proletariat vs. Bourgeois classes. You can see this play out across identity markers such as race (White vs Black), gender (Male/Female vs However many Genders currently exist), sexuality (Straight vs LGBT), etc. And the goal of such Woke collectivists, is to constantly always advance new states of revolutionary action, whether physically, psychologically, or linguistically, against their so-called "oppressors" or "enemies."
So like I expressed earlier, schools are no longer teaching students from early age into college how to actually think critically, how to function in a complex society, how to be good and decent people that change the world for the better. Instead, the priority has been shifted toward Woke indoctrination. Brainwashing children with oppressor vs oppressed narratives, having them believe their identity is the most important thing, teaching them to see race, sex, gender, as things that are priority, raising them to be activists and revolutionaries instead of bright, creative minds that can have an impact on the world.
We don't need more revolutionaries, drunk off of the power of their ideology. We need better thinkers, better people, better individuals who believe traditions are sacred, who have a strong concept of reality, and actually want to push the culture in a healthy direction, not in one that poisons even more kids...as many early education teachers are doing (see TikTok manic teachers for examples).
As mentioned elsewhere in this comments section, I've substituted in two urban school districts in two different states. I never witnessed the pushing of the Marxist world view template on the students as the means of accessing reality. It gets tricky doesn't it? I'm old and was conditioned by the then one-sidedness of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, written by the victors. And, boy oh boy, was that version shattered when I read Morrison's Beloved. And a more inclusive version of truths broke apart that old one sided one.
Having lived in Zaire when Mobutu was President taught me a lot about experiential authoritarianism and oppressor and oppressed. Not through a Marxist lens, either. When the bus stopped, and the men and women segregated into two lines. And, the men without identification were then and there conscripted into the army. Who needs an ideological lens to grok the reality of that?
'I think the mistake you, and many others, often run into is to deem any definition that does not fit your preferred worldview as "Right." '
I'd say it is more like, if the definition of a word has been deliberately distorted by the MSM for their vile purposes then that redefinition is "Wrong." I call such redefinition "Orwellization."
I don't use Orwellized words -- the MSM has succeeded in ruining their usefulness -- and instead discuss specific issues. I recommend this course to all.
Revolutionaries are what brought the oppressed masses of the system from being servile slaves to being citizens .Most successfully as nonviolent activist as in eg Trade Unionists And non violent activist are continuing to help improve this vile system. Violent ones tend to live short unhelpful lives as it quickly exterminates them .
Also in UK. Critical thinking has long been eliminated from the education system, alongside the increased fees for further education. meaning fewer and fewer young people can access college and university. They don't want the population to be able to disseminate. Also, artists of all persuasions (actors, writers, designers, painters etc) are by their very nature, people who think outside the box, and the arts generally have been underfunded for decades, for a reason.
Please. Some teachers do teach how to make pertinent discriminations. Blanket generalizations about all teachers and their teaching is unjust. Having been a teacher I know a thing or two about my teaching and - having been a substitute teacher for other teachers in two urban school districts, I know something about what and how other teachers teach. Don't we want to support our teachers instead of habitually making blanket statements about their deficits?
I’m not sure why you’re taking my words as an affront on your experience as a teacher. I don’t know who you are or what you contribute in the teaching realm. I’m simply speaking to what we have been observing for nearly a decade now across every single level of society, from educational institutions (at every age level) to the business setting and on and on.
Have you seen the Evergreen State College documentary? Because that’s where I would point you toward to really get a grasp of what I’m getting at, straight from the mouth of college professors who were front and center of this phenomenon. It’s #1 on the list here:
I'm not sure either why you think I take your words/view as an affront to my experience? I didn't take your view as an affront but as simply one "take" different from my own and wanted to share my experience. It's clear you highly view the Evergreen professors has having the pertinent (real)(maybe even the core or whole?) truth. Given my experience is "lived" (as distinct from a derived concept) - as the likelihood the Evergreen profs' view is also experientially based- there's more "wholeness" by my inclusion.
Not criticizing individual teachers, it’s the system and the constraints it imposes that are the problem. Have you seen how US legacy media and political class has responded to protests on campus? What the administrators have done to the protesters? Kudos to teachers who support critical thinking and free speech, but also understand their jobs may also be at risk.
Euclid's Elements was a standard text for millennia. Abraham Lincoln credited it for his development in logical thinking. Sadly this text has disappeared from education.
I was talking to someone yesterday who was saying that we need to look at things from all perspectives. My problem is that I don't see any perspective other than the fact that Israel is committing genocide and that there are pictures of horrific acts being put into our faces every time we read the news. I don't understand why we have to look at all perspectives equally when thousands of people are being killed in an inhumane and immoral manner.
Thank you Susan. The perspective that an ongoing genocide must be stopped is precedent. And that’s not even really a “perspective” as much as it is empirical reality. What else does a person need to know in the face of such heinous immorality?
I am not sure that is always the case. I think that there are some people who actually do believe that Palestinians are "human animals" and see Israel as merely defending itself. I wish they were using a code word to excuse something inexcusable, but sadly, I think that sometimes the people that say those things really believe what they are saying to be the absolute truth. The propaganda machines and the brainwashing have been very efficient and it is going to take a lot of work to clean up the mess they have made. Look how long it has taken for the American colonizers to just begin to realize the damage they have done to humanity and to our world by their irrational thinking that the European, male, white way of doing things was correct and right while any who were not the same as they were, were savages and a threat to "civilization". That thinking is still with us to way to large an extent.
It seems to me that there are several reasons to try to see the other side’s perspective. One is tactical. If you don’t know and understand the motives behind the various parties involved, you have a huge handicap when trying to resolve issues or problems with them.
The other is understanding just what our species is capable of when believing in certain myths, aka religion, and ideology. The more we know, the more we may be able to bring such belief-driven atrocities to an end. Knowing how others think doesn’t imply agreement, or excuse.
I’m really tired so maybe what I just wrote is nonsense.
"If you don’t know and understand the motives behind the various parties involved, you have a huge handicap when trying to resolve issues or problems with them."
The MIC wants the issues exacerbated, not at all resolved. Therefore they are attempting to forbid all attempts at understanding while punishing those who somehow nevertheless manage to achieve such understanding. Scott Ritter's passport was seized for this reason.
yes, I agree, but I don't see other perspectives as equal. To me, it is clearly wrong to kill children and thousands of others as well as destroying all infrastructure. The annihilation of a people and a country is not defensible. I don't see how there are "sides" here. I do understand zionist brainwashing and all the other brainwashing that so many experience and I do understand that confuses the issue for many, but for those who have the means and ability to change this situation, then they must. But they don't. My discussion was around a politician setting up a business situation in Tel Aviv now so that, in case the Israelis "win" he will still have a business interest there. That is how I don't see all perspectives as being equal.
It’s way worse than this. It’s so effective that those being propagandized help to spread it. You don’t need an army of skilled liars when you have masses (80% of the population?) furthering the narratives without being ‘in on it”. That’s the real power. People base their entire identity on being patriotic Americans, supporting (worshipping) the military. Team USA!
Yep, just look at the entrenched positions of Biden and Trump supporters alike. They will not even listen to anything that contravenes their world-view.
People are so bamboozled by the likes of CNN that they actually think they’re well informed. I’ve had family members insist they are very well informed because they listen to NPR and read the New Yorker. Had another friend say she watches “the news” on CNN daily but she’s never heard about the Nordstream pipeline. It’s a very effective way to shape a narrative and propagandize the professional managerial class.
Linguistic gymnastics is what they teach in school of higher learning. The people that are the best at get the jobs. Underhanded language. Words are important and can be very misleading. It's a form of brainwashing.
Much of what passes these days for education boils down to symbol manipulation.
This is why, contrary to popular belief, the educated are more prone to cognitive dissonance than the rules, in that they are more practiced at rationalization.
It is little-known but cognitive dissonance is the feeling of being forced to behave contrary to one's beliefs. To get rid of this awful feeling the victim will often adopt the alien beliefs as their own, thus resolving said dissonance. Reports from 1930's say it was very effective, particularly the Heil Hitler/Nazi salute requirement.
The "hostage rescue" operation was timed to drive the Pro-Palestinian protests around the White House off the front page and lead media story. Biden people are incredibly blatant in other their genocide and propaganda.
sorry, been traveling and just saw this. It was widely reported but here is a cbs report. Easily googled. And it was not a hostage rescue, it was yet another slaughter of innocent Palestinians.
Yes, well, Western; but really just psychopathic shit people; that sort of behavior can be turned off and on at will, that they'll leave the switch always in the on position just proves that humans as a whole are a shit species not even worth the time of day. It's like seeing a really nice breed of dog go extinct, because people decide that other breeds are even better. My suggestion would be for everyone to get themselves a gun and the next time someone takes your parking spot; get out of your car, walk up to bitch that took your parking space and shoot them in the head. That's what it's all about; WTH you waiting for? For them to take away your guns too? WTF?
A guy whose job it is to carry a gun, to do only with it that which is ordered by his superiors, rightly questions the mental state of the guy who thinks his independent use of a firearm can solve any of society's problems.
Freedom isn't the same as being free, it is the outcome of everyone fulfilling their responsibilities to their fellow citizens.
Once you know someone is looking after the important things that you can't, and after you have done the important things that they can't, then you are free...until the next important thing needs to be done.
By and large, guns are 99.99% shitty tools at getting productive things done!
My response assumed "Pfc" in your handle was a reference to military service, and from that assumption, that you have received training to use a firearm, putting you in the "well regulated militia" camp. I found it ironic that @Too much work spoke of firearms in a manner that suggested he's had no such training (or discipline), attaching firearm use to freedom, putting him in "the right to bear arms" camp.
I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms, when bear arms are outlawed, all those poor bears will have terrible back aches from running around upright all the time.
I have seen no signs of bears WANTING to bear arms, but if they want to, I would be in favor of the right to arm bears as well.
The "Brevette Pfc. Billy Masterson" screen name is an incredibly obscure literary reference to a trashy Scifi novel of long ago.
I was rendered 4F by a spinal fusion about a month after my 18th birthday, becoming the first male in my family NOT to serve in any military for 4 generations.
Well, you're about right about that, but the USA has no legitimate government, only gangland gangster's, as even the NYT reported today about the IDF using rape as a weapon. So! Training? Please, get real!
Probably my psychopathic ex friend who's now a professor with City Colleges of Chicago and a jack-of-all-trades for the Mafia, who got her that job in the first place and loves to toy with my Internet access devices to prevent my ability to respond.
What I really noticed not on this website of course but on others that the demons really did come out to play. So, obviously, hardly any difference between this and the Middle East Monitor where the hate levels are extremely high. In addition I paid a surprise visit to the department of human services and wouldn't you know but that it was jam packed with Ukrainian refugees, Or were they the front lines of an invasion?
LOL, you know, I really love people who come to the aid of child serial killers, John Wayne Gacy; you must have known him when he was still out there. I met the whole family, including, the child that got away, and the guy who helped Gacy procure his victims. So, who are you? One of Skillman’s hired hitmen?
Hostages? Freed? These are prisoners of war. These are tried and convicted murderers. Come on, every effing Israeli of bat mitzvah and bar mitzvah fame, well well, in the murdered raped poisoned, seiged maimed stolen Palestine is a mercenary for the shekel, the lie and the death machine of the concentration camp the Jews of Israel have designed.
Hostages? They are enemy combatants to Palestinians and the world which is watching.
Disagree with the perversions metted out by a people whose very religion sets the world into Chosen People as god/dog's only people and the rest of us as oxen, or worse?
Surviving propaganda, and in your view, Judaism, means ending this victimhood through thinking. Deductive and inductive reasoning.
But alas, Jews have been extorting the world heavily since WWII . Billions from dumb as rocks Germany.
The numbers just don't pencil out, but $35 billion from the Krauts to so called HoloCost victims.
And now the Nazis are at it again.
Conscription, rationing, and subway stations turned into bunkers. For the first time since the Cold War, Germany has updated its plans should conflict erupt in Europe, with ministers citing the threat posed by Russia.
The 67-page document, known as the Framework Directive for Overall Defense and released this week, envisions the complete transformation of daily life for German citizens in the event of war.
I think Zionists try to link their agenda with Judaism, not the reverse. All major religions get hijacked by psychopaths to justify atrocities. Ultimately it’s an excuse to gain power, money, land, resources, but not based on true beliefs. There’s a difference between religion and ethnicity that gets blurred too often. This is my own opinion
And when people are bombarded with these false impressions, it's hard for them to see things differently. These words paint a picture that is hard to repaint.
An excellent article, thank you. How many Americans know how to recognize a piece of propaganda or analyze it? We are not taught the methodologies. It would be very different if we were taught them, as we learn to read and write, AND as we are taught rudimentary skills to deploy “comprehension,” in order to pass standardized tests, to enter the workforce. The propaganda is not sophisticated as much as it is unchallenged. The skills aren’t inherently difficult to learn but they may not be easily accessible for lots of reasons. That’s a vague claim, I know, because there are multiple factors that make the potential challengers unequal to the task of definitively refuting the propaganda.
A lot of work goes into becoming a master misanthrope and developing effective tools against your fellow human, and much work for the latter to develop counter tools.
That other WMD, preceding and goaded by Biden, Bush the Minor, was a master distractor, as the decider in chief, urging us to go shopping; the advertising for which, sold by the NYTimes-media, sanitizes the destruction, degradation and displacement of resource based peoples around the world.
Telling and/or writing the truth does not mean telling and/or writing “the whole” truth. For example, the news says: "Tonight an Israeli soldier was killed in Gaza"; and it's true, but they fail to say that dozens of civilians, women and children were killed in Gaza tonight.
Yesterday, a mosquito was noticed alighting from my hand, and a drop of blood was seen in the same area it had departed, the two events possibly connected; the drop was thought to potentially contain hundreds of red blood cells. (The actual number would be millions). Thanks for editorially defecating on the NY Times, one of my favorite pursuits; but your skill at it is clearly unequaled.
What she is doing Vin is commenting on what is sometimes contained in the phrase 'live in the moment ' which of course is not recommending that you forget the past or prepare for the future. But that is just what the NYT and its fellow yellow rags don't want you to do. And they and all of the system's propaganda. machine work at ceaselessly to accomplish. The vast mass of Palestinian blood is vitally connected to the US supplied bombs and tank shells but while sometimes unavoidable seen on the clothes of the living wounded and dead the NYT and all of the propaganda machine will at best comment on t in passing ,but best not at all.
“A lot of people who grow skeptical of the mass media correctly assume that these outlets are propaganda services for the US empire, but incorrectly assume that this means they must be lying all the time.”
This was actually a really good thing to point out. It’s so easy to imagine these outlets are spinning blatant lies around the clock, when in reality, the tactics are much more subtle and sinister in that they bend the framing of the story so that the parts they want you to see jump out at you while the parts they don’t want you to linger on slips right by you. We, as readers, have to become just as sophisticated as the propagandists who weave these complex narratives together if we are to better understand the world we’re living in.
@Stephen Obisanya
Parsing newspaper articles for suggestions of what actual facts might be inferred from the skews of their censor applied emphasis was a skill highly developed in the late stage USSR. Now, slowly being re discovered in "The West"(™).
Here comes samzidat?
It's spelled substack now 😹
Been 40 years of eyes open for me as I watched NYT and others lie about US imperialism in Central and South America as they conducted decades of their “dirty war” against mostly indigenous people. Describing innocents as “caught in the crossfire” (when the truth is they were deliberately targeted and murdered by US trained and funded terrorist death squads) was the end of any credibility for the legacy media.
That is exactly the kind of critical thinking that needs to be taught to everyone, starting with the morning after the bedtime story. But I don’t think parents do that any more. Teachers don’t either.
True, Logic should be taught to youth at a young age along with basic math and language skills. Public education has been continuously underfunded and downgraded purposely for decades now in the US.
Interestingly, I mentored a Mexican high school student recently, and was delighted to discover he HAD to take logic and philosophy! Wow!
Instead, educational institutions from Pre-K to college has been replaced Woke, activist teachings; how to turn students into revolutionaries instead of tomorrow’s intellectuals.
I disagree with you here. Most people don't understand what "Woke" means and its origins. Woke means to be "AWARE and CONSCIOUS" of systemic and structural inequalities and unnatural imbalances (racial, economic, gender, sex, age, planet earth, the environment, ecology, etc.). The 'Right' has co-opted the term to mean 'virtue signalling and fake activism'. I agree that there is also an element of the 'Fake Left' that has weaponized being "WOKE" to carry out their own agendas. Hence, BOTH the FAKE LEFT and the RIGHT are enemies of being WOKE and BOTH have co-opted the term for their own purposes.
IMHO, critical thinking revolutionaries and activists are WHAT IS NEEDED to combat the problems plagueing our societies, cultures, the world, and planet earth.
I respectfully disagree here. I think the mistake you, and many others, often run into is to deem any definition that does not fit your preferred worldview as "Right." Yes, the woke terminology was initially meant to signal being "aware" and "conscious" to systemic and structural injustices. In its practical implementation, however, it takes on a whole different meaning—i.e. the meaning you've labeled as "Right." Political framing has nothing to do with what many are observing themselves. The practical implementation of Woke has its roots in Marxism, which shows up as people having a critical consciousness and taking on a worldview that demarcates everything across oppressor-oppressed lines; similar to Marx's economic stratification of society into the Proletariat vs. Bourgeois classes. You can see this play out across identity markers such as race (White vs Black), gender (Male/Female vs However many Genders currently exist), sexuality (Straight vs LGBT), etc. And the goal of such Woke collectivists, is to constantly always advance new states of revolutionary action, whether physically, psychologically, or linguistically, against their so-called "oppressors" or "enemies."
So like I expressed earlier, schools are no longer teaching students from early age into college how to actually think critically, how to function in a complex society, how to be good and decent people that change the world for the better. Instead, the priority has been shifted toward Woke indoctrination. Brainwashing children with oppressor vs oppressed narratives, having them believe their identity is the most important thing, teaching them to see race, sex, gender, as things that are priority, raising them to be activists and revolutionaries instead of bright, creative minds that can have an impact on the world.
We don't need more revolutionaries, drunk off of the power of their ideology. We need better thinkers, better people, better individuals who believe traditions are sacred, who have a strong concept of reality, and actually want to push the culture in a healthy direction, not in one that poisons even more kids...as many early education teachers are doing (see TikTok manic teachers for examples).
As mentioned elsewhere in this comments section, I've substituted in two urban school districts in two different states. I never witnessed the pushing of the Marxist world view template on the students as the means of accessing reality. It gets tricky doesn't it? I'm old and was conditioned by the then one-sidedness of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, written by the victors. And, boy oh boy, was that version shattered when I read Morrison's Beloved. And a more inclusive version of truths broke apart that old one sided one.
Having lived in Zaire when Mobutu was President taught me a lot about experiential authoritarianism and oppressor and oppressed. Not through a Marxist lens, either. When the bus stopped, and the men and women segregated into two lines. And, the men without identification were then and there conscripted into the army. Who needs an ideological lens to grok the reality of that?
'I think the mistake you, and many others, often run into is to deem any definition that does not fit your preferred worldview as "Right." '
I'd say it is more like, if the definition of a word has been deliberately distorted by the MSM for their vile purposes then that redefinition is "Wrong." I call such redefinition "Orwellization."
I don't use Orwellized words -- the MSM has succeeded in ruining their usefulness -- and instead discuss specific issues. I recommend this course to all.
Education in the United Snakes has been shit long before wokeism became a thing.
What’s wrong with revolutionaries???
They’re often some of the best and the brightest.
Are you pining for the good old days of chattel slavery, and “the only good injun is a dead injun”???
Language is useful in understanding history (the one that was NEVER taught in skool).
And, maths is good for counting all the victims of settler colonialism.
Revolutions are good for putting an end to all of that authoritarian bullshit.
Did they have you study Nineteen Eighty-Four when you were in class???
Me either.
Pity.
I might’a WOKE up sooner.
Revolutionaries are what brought the oppressed masses of the system from being servile slaves to being citizens .Most successfully as nonviolent activist as in eg Trade Unionists And non violent activist are continuing to help improve this vile system. Violent ones tend to live short unhelpful lives as it quickly exterminates them .
"Did they have you study Nineteen Eighty-Four when you were in class???"
Yes. Animal Farm and The Jungle too. But that was 1970 in Ann Arbor.
I’m envious of your education situation.
I gave up on organized obedience training (skool) in the seventies.
I didn’t discover The Jungle until early adulthood.
Managed to get a liberal arts education in my thirties.
Better late than never.
It’s pleasing to know that some of my fellow travelers got some good experiences in school, as opposed to loads of corporal punishment.
The establishment does not seek “revolutionaries”, it seeks workers willing to obey authority.
Also in UK. Critical thinking has long been eliminated from the education system, alongside the increased fees for further education. meaning fewer and fewer young people can access college and university. They don't want the population to be able to disseminate. Also, artists of all persuasions (actors, writers, designers, painters etc) are by their very nature, people who think outside the box, and the arts generally have been underfunded for decades, for a reason.
Please. Some teachers do teach how to make pertinent discriminations. Blanket generalizations about all teachers and their teaching is unjust. Having been a teacher I know a thing or two about my teaching and - having been a substitute teacher for other teachers in two urban school districts, I know something about what and how other teachers teach. Don't we want to support our teachers instead of habitually making blanket statements about their deficits?
I’m not sure why you’re taking my words as an affront on your experience as a teacher. I don’t know who you are or what you contribute in the teaching realm. I’m simply speaking to what we have been observing for nearly a decade now across every single level of society, from educational institutions (at every age level) to the business setting and on and on.
Have you seen the Evergreen State College documentary? Because that’s where I would point you toward to really get a grasp of what I’m getting at, straight from the mouth of college professors who were front and center of this phenomenon. It’s #1 on the list here:
https://stephenobisanya.substack.com/p/the-monthly-review-may-2024
I'm not sure either why you think I take your words/view as an affront to my experience? I didn't take your view as an affront but as simply one "take" different from my own and wanted to share my experience. It's clear you highly view the Evergreen professors has having the pertinent (real)(maybe even the core or whole?) truth. Given my experience is "lived" (as distinct from a derived concept) - as the likelihood the Evergreen profs' view is also experientially based- there's more "wholeness" by my inclusion.
Not criticizing individual teachers, it’s the system and the constraints it imposes that are the problem. Have you seen how US legacy media and political class has responded to protests on campus? What the administrators have done to the protesters? Kudos to teachers who support critical thinking and free speech, but also understand their jobs may also be at risk.
Euclid's Elements was a standard text for millennia. Abraham Lincoln credited it for his development in logical thinking. Sadly this text has disappeared from education.
We taught it at home. No way schools are teaching this.
That was my thought. Make this a mandatory article in media literacy and critical thinking classes and make those classes mandatory in all schools.
If you ever wanted to know what it was like living in Germany in the 1930s, just look out the window.
This has occurred to me more than once. No torchlight parades though.
I was talking to someone yesterday who was saying that we need to look at things from all perspectives. My problem is that I don't see any perspective other than the fact that Israel is committing genocide and that there are pictures of horrific acts being put into our faces every time we read the news. I don't understand why we have to look at all perspectives equally when thousands of people are being killed in an inhumane and immoral manner.
Thank you Susan. The perspective that an ongoing genocide must be stopped is precedent. And that’s not even really a “perspective” as much as it is empirical reality. What else does a person need to know in the face of such heinous immorality?
Those are the it’s-too-complicated camp when taking about resolving the Israel/Palestinian conflict that had been going in for 80 years..
That is usually a code word for someone trying to make excuses for the inexcusable.
I am not sure that is always the case. I think that there are some people who actually do believe that Palestinians are "human animals" and see Israel as merely defending itself. I wish they were using a code word to excuse something inexcusable, but sadly, I think that sometimes the people that say those things really believe what they are saying to be the absolute truth. The propaganda machines and the brainwashing have been very efficient and it is going to take a lot of work to clean up the mess they have made. Look how long it has taken for the American colonizers to just begin to realize the damage they have done to humanity and to our world by their irrational thinking that the European, male, white way of doing things was correct and right while any who were not the same as they were, were savages and a threat to "civilization". That thinking is still with us to way to large an extent.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be necessary to play such tortured word games.
That is the point of Orwell's "Politics And The English Language" - plain writing does much to expose real agendas.
OK, look at things from all perspectives. Then barf and move on.
It seems to me that there are several reasons to try to see the other side’s perspective. One is tactical. If you don’t know and understand the motives behind the various parties involved, you have a huge handicap when trying to resolve issues or problems with them.
The other is understanding just what our species is capable of when believing in certain myths, aka religion, and ideology. The more we know, the more we may be able to bring such belief-driven atrocities to an end. Knowing how others think doesn’t imply agreement, or excuse.
I’m really tired so maybe what I just wrote is nonsense.
"The more we know, the more we may be able to bring such belief-driven atrocities to an end. "
And the more misinformation one absorbs, the more the atrocities will continue. This is the true goal of the MSM.
"If you don’t know and understand the motives behind the various parties involved, you have a huge handicap when trying to resolve issues or problems with them."
The MIC wants the issues exacerbated, not at all resolved. Therefore they are attempting to forbid all attempts at understanding while punishing those who somehow nevertheless manage to achieve such understanding. Scott Ritter's passport was seized for this reason.
It’s the only way toward peace..to look at others and even opposite perspectives
yes, I agree, but I don't see other perspectives as equal. To me, it is clearly wrong to kill children and thousands of others as well as destroying all infrastructure. The annihilation of a people and a country is not defensible. I don't see how there are "sides" here. I do understand zionist brainwashing and all the other brainwashing that so many experience and I do understand that confuses the issue for many, but for those who have the means and ability to change this situation, then they must. But they don't. My discussion was around a politician setting up a business situation in Tel Aviv now so that, in case the Israelis "win" he will still have a business interest there. That is how I don't see all perspectives as being equal.
It’s way worse than this. It’s so effective that those being propagandized help to spread it. You don’t need an army of skilled liars when you have masses (80% of the population?) furthering the narratives without being ‘in on it”. That’s the real power. People base their entire identity on being patriotic Americans, supporting (worshipping) the military. Team USA!
Yep, just look at the entrenched positions of Biden and Trump supporters alike. They will not even listen to anything that contravenes their world-view.
People are so bamboozled by the likes of CNN that they actually think they’re well informed. I’ve had family members insist they are very well informed because they listen to NPR and read the New Yorker. Had another friend say she watches “the news” on CNN daily but she’s never heard about the Nordstream pipeline. It’s a very effective way to shape a narrative and propagandize the professional managerial class.
Linguistic gymnastics is what they teach in school of higher learning. The people that are the best at get the jobs. Underhanded language. Words are important and can be very misleading. It's a form of brainwashing.
Much of what passes these days for education boils down to symbol manipulation.
This is why, contrary to popular belief, the educated are more prone to cognitive dissonance than the rules, in that they are more practiced at rationalization.
It is little-known but cognitive dissonance is the feeling of being forced to behave contrary to one's beliefs. To get rid of this awful feeling the victim will often adopt the alien beliefs as their own, thus resolving said dissonance. Reports from 1930's say it was very effective, particularly the Heil Hitler/Nazi salute requirement.
The "hostage rescue" operation was timed to drive the Pro-Palestinian protests around the White House off the front page and lead media story. Biden people are incredibly blatant in other their genocide and propaganda.
the hostage recuse was a US operation that involved US in aid trucks invadind a refugee camp. we are vile in every way
I wouldn’t be surprised. Can you share evidence of this? I wanna help get the truth out but must vet it first…
sorry, been traveling and just saw this. It was widely reported but here is a cbs report. Easily googled. And it was not a hostage rescue, it was yet another slaughter of innocent Palestinians.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/us-support-israeli-forces-rescue-hostages-gaza/
Subscribe to @Carina Malatesta news roundups for reliable sources
Orwell gave us the blueprint for this 75 years ago, yesterday.
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/on-the-75th-anniversary-of-orwells
The ruling classes read "1984" and think to themselves "ooh, I want me that!"
Orwell got his ideas for "1984" by observing the ruling classes...
Superb analysis of Western propaganda.
Yes, well, Western; but really just psychopathic shit people; that sort of behavior can be turned off and on at will, that they'll leave the switch always in the on position just proves that humans as a whole are a shit species not even worth the time of day. It's like seeing a really nice breed of dog go extinct, because people decide that other breeds are even better. My suggestion would be for everyone to get themselves a gun and the next time someone takes your parking spot; get out of your car, walk up to bitch that took your parking space and shoot them in the head. That's what it's all about; WTH you waiting for? For them to take away your guns too? WTF?
@Too much work
What did YOU notice while walking across that meadow?
"A well regulated militia..."
A guy whose job it is to carry a gun, to do only with it that which is ordered by his superiors, rightly questions the mental state of the guy who thinks his independent use of a firearm can solve any of society's problems.
Freedom isn't the same as being free, it is the outcome of everyone fulfilling their responsibilities to their fellow citizens.
Once you know someone is looking after the important things that you can't, and after you have done the important things that they can't, then you are free...until the next important thing needs to be done.
By and large, guns are 99.99% shitty tools at getting productive things done!
@Ixglackian
Could you make it clear who you are responding to?
I asked a question about what another commenter might have PERCEIVED in the OP's "metaphorical meadow". Did not mention guns at all.
My response assumed "Pfc" in your handle was a reference to military service, and from that assumption, that you have received training to use a firearm, putting you in the "well regulated militia" camp. I found it ironic that @Too much work spoke of firearms in a manner that suggested he's had no such training (or discipline), attaching firearm use to freedom, putting him in "the right to bear arms" camp.
@Ixglakian
I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms, when bear arms are outlawed, all those poor bears will have terrible back aches from running around upright all the time.
I have seen no signs of bears WANTING to bear arms, but if they want to, I would be in favor of the right to arm bears as well.
The "Brevette Pfc. Billy Masterson" screen name is an incredibly obscure literary reference to a trashy Scifi novel of long ago.
I was rendered 4F by a spinal fusion about a month after my 18th birthday, becoming the first male in my family NOT to serve in any military for 4 generations.
Well, you're about right about that, but the USA has no legitimate government, only gangland gangster's, as even the NYT reported today about the IDF using rape as a weapon. So! Training? Please, get real!
Probably my psychopathic ex friend who's now a professor with City Colleges of Chicago and a jack-of-all-trades for the Mafia, who got her that job in the first place and loves to toy with my Internet access devices to prevent my ability to respond.
@Too much work
Are you posting under more than one account and getting confused?
Yes. YOU in the USA with your guns...........where are they?
They are not being turned on you disastrous Govt.
The US (speak) has always been about other nations being cowards!
Why is it that this 'supposed militia' is not turning their guns on the Govt?
ALL cowards.
It was raining so hard it was hard to see anything.
OK, still, keep an eye out for any interesting frogs or the odd rainbow.
I heard the frogs and some crows but it was so misty. Couldn't even take a photo it was so humid and camera wouldn't work.
I am sure there was a rainbow somewhere?
What I really noticed not on this website of course but on others that the demons really did come out to play. So, obviously, hardly any difference between this and the Middle East Monitor where the hate levels are extremely high. In addition I paid a surprise visit to the department of human services and wouldn't you know but that it was jam packed with Ukrainian refugees, Or were they the front lines of an invasion?
That there's a 900 pound psychopath in the room
That is called a cape buffalo. Your meadow is clearly someplace else than mine.
Laughing.
Check out the radio active shit bomb that went off the other day in the middle east, somewhere totally unexpected; or was it?
LOL, you know, I really love people who come to the aid of child serial killers, John Wayne Gacy; you must have known him when he was still out there. I met the whole family, including, the child that got away, and the guy who helped Gacy procure his victims. So, who are you? One of Skillman’s hired hitmen?
@Too much work
It's best not to post while intoxicated or otherwise out of contact with reality.
Just a wild guess, but yet another, CIA front has gone toast. For those not in the know "Mint Press News" is a MI6 front; have a lovely evening
@Too much work
You'll have to be more specific about "radioactive shit bomb" and whatever the issue with MPN might be.
Hostages? Freed? These are prisoners of war. These are tried and convicted murderers. Come on, every effing Israeli of bat mitzvah and bar mitzvah fame, well well, in the murdered raped poisoned, seiged maimed stolen Palestine is a mercenary for the shekel, the lie and the death machine of the concentration camp the Jews of Israel have designed.
Hostages? They are enemy combatants to Palestinians and the world which is watching.
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/oh-man-it-is-a-jewish-thing-blinken
I disagree. These people are also victims of propaganda since a young age
Disagree with the perversions metted out by a people whose very religion sets the world into Chosen People as god/dog's only people and the rest of us as oxen, or worse?
Surviving propaganda, and in your view, Judaism, means ending this victimhood through thinking. Deductive and inductive reasoning.
But alas, Jews have been extorting the world heavily since WWII . Billions from dumb as rocks Germany.
The numbers just don't pencil out, but $35 billion from the Krauts to so called HoloCost victims.
And now the Nazis are at it again.
Conscription, rationing, and subway stations turned into bunkers. For the first time since the Cold War, Germany has updated its plans should conflict erupt in Europe, with ministers citing the threat posed by Russia.
The 67-page document, known as the Framework Directive for Overall Defense and released this week, envisions the complete transformation of daily life for German citizens in the event of war.
I think Zionists try to link their agenda with Judaism, not the reverse. All major religions get hijacked by psychopaths to justify atrocities. Ultimately it’s an excuse to gain power, money, land, resources, but not based on true beliefs. There’s a difference between religion and ethnicity that gets blurred too often. This is my own opinion
And when people are bombarded with these false impressions, it's hard for them to see things differently. These words paint a picture that is hard to repaint.
It is challenging but can be done.
An excellent article, thank you. How many Americans know how to recognize a piece of propaganda or analyze it? We are not taught the methodologies. It would be very different if we were taught them, as we learn to read and write, AND as we are taught rudimentary skills to deploy “comprehension,” in order to pass standardized tests, to enter the workforce. The propaganda is not sophisticated as much as it is unchallenged. The skills aren’t inherently difficult to learn but they may not be easily accessible for lots of reasons. That’s a vague claim, I know, because there are multiple factors that make the potential challengers unequal to the task of definitively refuting the propaganda.
A lot of work goes into becoming a master misanthrope and developing effective tools against your fellow human, and much work for the latter to develop counter tools.
Once you see it, it’s unmistakable and difficult to swallow.
When I was a kid there was a game that taught how to recognize propaganda. It wasn't fun to play and it didn't catch on.
Excellent article, explaining how easily the establishment's press set their own boundaries and lead us to misunderstand what's really going on.
Beautifully and accurately detailed, Caitlin.
That other WMD, preceding and goaded by Biden, Bush the Minor, was a master distractor, as the decider in chief, urging us to go shopping; the advertising for which, sold by the NYTimes-media, sanitizes the destruction, degradation and displacement of resource based peoples around the world.
Telling and/or writing the truth does not mean telling and/or writing “the whole” truth. For example, the news says: "Tonight an Israeli soldier was killed in Gaza"; and it's true, but they fail to say that dozens of civilians, women and children were killed in Gaza tonight.