A friendly place for serious bloggers to freely discuss any problem.
definition: From Spanish and French libre (“‘freedom, liberty’”)
Leave your troubles outside! So - life is disappointing? Forget it!
We have no troubles here! Here, life is beautiful...
The girls are beautiful... Even the orchestra is beautiful!
The AEC coolly says: "eight seats have now been temporarily removed from the count."
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Trigger article:
Coalition snatches vote lead from Labor By Sarah Collerton Updated August 30, 2010 23:25:00 «Julia Gillard had been using Labor's two-party preferred lead as a reason why the independents should back her party to form a minority government. ... But that argument may have disintegrated, with the latest election figures showing the Coalition now holds a lead of more than 1900 votes on a two-party preferred basis. ... A recalculation means eight seats have now been temporarily removed from the count.» [AusBC/news(1)]
Comment 1: Impossible! The AEC needs reminding: One wo/man, one vote, and *all* go into the count. Nothing else makes sense, what the bloody hell are they playing at?
Comment 2: An outright lie! It is only possible to write ".. the Coalition now holds a lead" since the published figures have been fiddled; if the true figures were to be used, the statement is simply *untrue*. As such, this amounts to a lie from the AusBC. Not so BTW, the 'rolling count' at the bottom of each election-coverage article has never included the Greens seat in the ALP count, although that Green has indicated he is 'on board' with Labor. On the other hand, the new 'independent' National from WA is always included by the AusBC in the coalition tally, although that National has formally declared he does *not* wish to be included in the coalition. This is *more* evidence (adding to the veritable landslide) towards AusBC pro-Lib bias. Alleging pro-Lab bias simply doesn't pass the 'giggle test' - for reasonably intelligent observers; it's a filthy pro-Lib misleading propaganda ploy.
2nd article:
Vote count strips Labor's legitimacy: Bishop By Sarah Collerton Updated August 31, 2010 01:28:00 «"It's hard to see what moral authority or legitimacy Julia Gillard can now claim." Ms Bishop says the Coalition is now significantly ahead on Labor on "all counts". "The primary vote, the two-party preferred, ...» [AusBC/news(2)]
Comment 3: No. The "the two-party preferred" count - as now 'fiddled' - has absolutely *no* legitimacy.
Comment 4: Any fool can see that following (3), Ms Bishop is utterly incautious at best and possibly an outright liar for using 'fiddled' figures. She must know of the fiddle. She would rule us; do we really want such rulers?
Comment 5: Note the headline-language deployed by the AusBC: "snatches vote lead" & "strips Labor's legitimacy". Depraved and more; factually wrong. It's the AEC who's doing the counting, all the rest of us are witnesses and *no one* can *snatch* anything. As for 'legitimacy,' Howard ruled for a session based on a minority of the count - did he acknowledge that as illegitimate? The AusBC are supposed to be unbiased reporters, paid for by our (we the sheople's) taxes.
Latest article:
Labor back in front as election lead see-saws Updated August 31, 2010 12:17:00 «But this morning Greens leader Bob Brown says the figure is meaningless because eight seats have been taken out of the equation. "If you look at the whole of Australia and you treat every seat equally, when you do that Labor's ahead and is likely to keep that lead right the way through to the finishing pole," he said. ... Writing in his ABC blog this morning, Mr Green said the AEC's current count was incomplete without all 150 seats included.» [AusBC/news(3)]
Comment 6: Some sanity; better be effective.
-=*=-
Fazit: What is this, Repug-style vote manipulation? Heads must roll - at both the AEC & the AusBC.
There is a 'lie-cloud;' what I've termed the pushed-propaganda paradigm, swamping us in our natural search for 'news and understanding.' News because we feel we have to stay up-to-date, to know what's going on in the world (generically but also practically, to know how to vote - say). Understanding (speaking on my own behalf, but generalising 'from the part to the whole') - because 'what' on its own is not enough, some of us want to know 'why.'
One problem is that the news we get is not the 'unvarnished truth,' rather sometime-facts too often enveloped in misleading spin (= lies).
Example; fact: "Russia is fuelling Iran's nukular-reactor." Spin: "The West fears Iran is seeking an A-bomb." (A particular Anne Barker speciality.)
Once, there was only the MSM (main-stream media) and (optionally for some) publicly financed broadcasters. Since the MSM is privately owned & run, their 'profit motive' allows them to push their own opinions - so they say, but it should never extend to undermining politics by lying. Publicly financed broadcasters should tell us *exclusively* the truth; why else do we pay for them? (8¢ per day, or whatever: OUR, WE THE PEOPLE'S TAXES.)
Now we have the opportunity (thanks, internet) to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of the (lying) MSM info-gatekeepers, so those of us who care to look and take the time to do so may clearly see the (apparently planned! - or at least not planned against) catastrophe confronting us.
Our once jewel-like planet, upon which we 101% depend, is going down the gurgler (aka ecosphere tor-let) on at least these *five* levels:
1. Far too many people.
2. Dangerously excess CO2.
3. Increasing resource depletion.
4. A really stupid economics 'system.'
5. Last but by no means least, wars for spoil.
Only a small part of a pico-sec's reflection should be required for the reasonably-intelligent to realise that eternal expansion within finite limits is an absolute impossibility. Yet that's what's been allowed to happen (by trend) with population; *why* didn't anyone act while acting was still possible, i.e. at least as late as following 'The Limits to Growth' à la the Club of Rome, 1st brought to public attention in or around 1972? Not only has population growth *not* been contained and neutralised, but most 'opinion leaders' still speak of 'economic growth,' not just as possible but desirable to the point of 'must.' Eternal growths in population and production are both an utter nonsense, and are clearly *impossible*. Of course, warnings came much earlier, see wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe - Malthus (1766–1834). One effect of current economic practice[1] seems to be testing the Malthus-associated wiki/Iron_Law_of_Wages on the 'down' side, depressing wages *everywhere* (trending to *below* sustenance) - a true 'road to serfdom.'
[1] Current economic practice; keywords: Washington Consensus (hardly a 'consensus' when so obviously forced); World Bank, IMF, neoliberalism, globalisation, privatisation, downsizing, lean&mean, out-sourcing, off-shoring, sub-contracting, de-unionisation; any more dastardlies?
Once more to the reasonably-intelligent; what can we expect when they hand us medicine/health services, water, electricity, 'phone, post, sewage, garbage, all for-profit, except to have our lives squeezed - to death if so deemed - all for ever-more profit & reduced quality (lowest common denominator) services?
But, of course, it gets worse. The profit motive drives capitalism, so they like to crow, and all other -isms are gone (1st communism, now socialism - except for the socialisation of losses, see GFC & obscene bank bail-outs.) Buy low, sell high, they blithely exhort. Except again, it's not a *fair* profit they're after (cost plus a reasonable, motivating margin), but 'economic rent' in all its ugly infamy.
A special word on wars: *All* wars require at least one aggressor (cf. Nuremberg); and so all wars are wrong from inception. (Proof: Someone (aggressor) has to start shooting/invading; stopping/eliminating that aggression would eliminate all war.) With the establishment of the UN, one might have thought that wars were in fact banned, and with political will would be have been prevented/eliminated. Wrong. Went wrong almost literally within minutes; see Palestine, aggressor Zionist invasion thereof, subsequent brutal occupation - 62+ bloody years ago, continued down to today with no just end anywhere in sight. Another round of Nuremberg-style courts needed. Latest Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan by stealth & possibly next Iran. *All* wars of aggression, *all* wars for spoil - for land, water, oil/gas, pipeline routes, hegemony. Recall that force is the resort of the IQ-challenged, and murdering-theft about the worst crime imaginable.
A note on terrorism; yes, it exists. Car bombs were deployed (if not invented) by the Zionists invading Palestine, '47/8. Al-Qaeda was initially a CIA-construct. How to we know how much Islamo-strife is deliberately incited by external interference (read CIA, again?) One way of reducing the impetus to terrorism may well be to stop aggressively invading and theft-intentioned occupying (oil-bearing) Islamo-homelands.
We can easily see by the most casual inspection exactly who the villains are, namely the you-ass-eh regime and its illegitimate Z-sprog colonials-by-murdering-force (say 'Hello' to the collective 4th Reich.) I mentioned the 'why' - both for the wars and the idiotic neoliberal economic system, and the answer is for these tyrannical regimes (and their shadowy backers) to enrich themselves. Note that it's not meant to enrich the US sheople - proof: 40mio on food-stamps, same number with no medical insurance & no realistic hope of being treated in a medical emergency (Obama's new 'health program' notwithstanding, another 'gift' to the already obscenely 'profitable' FIRE sector).
Finally, a word on excess-CO2: It's a known green-house gas, a certain amount in the air is *required* to keep our once jewel-like planet's ecosphere in our comfort-zone. Too much - and we've crossed the too-much line of around 300ppm already - and our climate may, most probably will, change to make our lives far more difficult, if not outright impossible. The warnings are all there, going back at least as far as Malthus. So to the final two questions, (1) why don't we have systems being put in place to save our world, and (associated), (2) where are the truly smart people? Unless stopped and soonest, we're all going down the gurgler together, when we go.
Thesis: Without enlightened action (soonest!), things will not only never get better, they'll get ever uglier, faster.
-=*=-
Not too many things are truly simple, in fact very often the exact opposite. Take a modern digital photo; 4k*3k pixels, each pixel with say 32 bits = 402653104 bits. It's a lot - but the photo is essentially processed bit-by-bit - and bits are *very* simple things, each being only 0 or 1. This little allegory shows that even the most complex things can be broken down into simpler parts, single bits being the least complex of all. That's exactly what digital computers do - and if they can & do, why not sheople?
In other words, nothing one normal person can conceive of cannot be explained to others (esoterics like quantum-mechanics possibly excepted); that being so, why do some - all(?) politicians and most MSM - tell us lies? BIG problem.
One can get into trouble with absolutes; all, every, none etc.. It's why I put (?) after the 'all' above. Thanks, but "No, thanks!" to JWHoward, we were told: "All politicians lie!" Vis-à-vis the pro-wars (on *both* 'sides;' bipartisanship = un- and antidemocratic) - and vis-à-vis the Iraq war '03+ (illegal invasion morphed into brutal occupation, same for Afghanistan '01+ & Israel '48+) - we were lied to, and that's a *provable* fact. (Proof omitted here, but can be confirmed by a non-superficial inspection. As Huxley's "Island" begins - attention!)
-=*=-
Q: Why does anyone lie?[1]
A: To deceive.
Q: Who wants to be deceived?
A: Only a tiny (bizarre!) few.
Q: So why do they[2] tell us lies?
A: Beats me.
Q: Why do the sheople accept lies?
A: Beats me even worse, and there's the rub: If only the sheople would stop accepting lies ... a mighty big IF! (First & most effective step: Turn off the TVs!)
-=*=-
Q: Would it be possible, to eliminate *all* lies?
A: IMHO yes, but before that come the quibblers. (What's in it for them?)
For example, some quibbler might say "What of some kid with terminal cancer - you gunna say Yore gunna die!!?"
Naturally, the quibbler has chosen a 'hard one.' No one 'enjoys' being confronted with his or her own imminent demise, one may suppose least of all a young child.
On the other hand, some *deliberately* confront children with their own imminent demise - then offer them the cynical religious hook: "Everyone dies; IF you believe in this g*d THEN get 'life after death.'"
Aside about 'belief:' All who 'believe' do so more or less in the absence of evidence. By the conservation laws, *no* information/message of *any* type may enter our universe, and so no (putative) g*d can signal its (alleged) existence, same for the 'life after death' swindle; proof *utterly* impossible. The reason why small children accept such indoctrination is that they are so constructed to have unquestioned trust in their 'primary carers' aka parents. Telling children lies is nothing other than permanent, doubly damaging *child abuse*. (Q: Why doubly damaging? A: By being deceived, it damages children directly, then a second time when they realise that they've been lied to = betrayal of trust.)
I wrote above: "First step, turn off the TVs!" Going one step further, for the little kiddies: Don't even turn the TV on! That's actually the 2nd step; the 1st is: Do not lie to your children, ever! After all, IF the aim is to eliminate lies (mine is), THEN that's one essential place to start stopping the lies; don't tell any yourself, and *never* to your kids.
Of course, we'll never get rid of TVs, but it *must* be noted, that that's the portal for most of the lies thrown at us, and not 'just' via the 'news.' It's never "just a movie!" - lots of so-called 'entertainment' and obviously many ads contain subversive content. Proof: How else have the sheople become so desensitised that they tolerate the mass-murder-for-spoil now commonplace - Israel (62+ bloody years, still no justice in sight), Afghanistan, Iraq, likewise?
Also of course, it's not 'just' wars (themselves unjust); some critical problems were recognised starting long ago, with the *anticipated* excess-population explosion (ignored, nothing done), and latest excess-CO2 induced climate-change (= climate crash, one way or another, possibly permanently crippling our once jewel-like planet's *life-support* systems), the excess-CO2 problem being ignored (if at all acknowledged) - and nothing done. The 'vehicle' for most of our troubles, foisted upon us partly if not entirely via lies and bipartisanship, is neoliberalism, its hand-maiden so-called 'free' markets and its running-dog companion globalisation.
That's not to say that neoliberalism et al. doesn't work (mostly negatively) or doesn't have *some* redeeming features (however few), but on the whole, as implemented, it is doing us (we the sheople), our economies and our (only!) world grave damage.
The proof of this damage is as obvious as ubiquitous; perhaps no more so than in the vicious, bipartisan = un- and anti-democratic privatisations of public utilities (phones, airports, roads, elec., water etc. in rising importance) - we can plainly see it is wrong, and ever was wrong. Yet the Qld & NSW *Labor* governments persist. Why? Idiots!
-=*=-
Fazit: We in Aus have just been through a Federal election, result not yet known but could end with a *totally* 'useless' result, whereby both major parties have the same number of lower-house seats: a 'perfect' stand-off.
In a way, it's a laugh; one could say that the sheople could not decide between one set of liars and the other.
As a result, some are calling for change.
My suggestion, as priority number one: Get rid of *all* lies - and liars.
-=*end*=-
PS From my headline, what's about: "Turning voters into villains?" Well, in the demos leading up to the illegal, Nuremberg-class attack on Iraq by B, B & H, some of us anti-wars cried "Not in our name!" Some quibblers (what's in it for them?) tried to argue that yes, it is in our (we the sheople's) names, because 'that's the system.'
News for the quibblers: No. Recall here "of, by, for."
Unless the sheople are fully and correctly informed, they are simply not able to make rational choices, assuming that there were enough honest candidates on offer, with a sufficiently wide palette of policy choice - including no war and no neoliberalism - available. Then, assuming that choice (of both candidates & policies currently, as then, *not* on offer), those elected *must* then properly represent the sheople - all else - and what we actually have - is tyranny.
IF the sheople are misinformed (we are!) THEN the sheople are *incapable* of reasoned voting, aka consenting even to being represented. The so-called 'leaders' are thus operating without informed consent, aka outside of democracy, let alone outside all decency and outside all 'acceptable' morality. As such, they do *nothing* 'in our name' and should be dragged before the courts as Nuremberg-class defendants. With penalties to be carried out as appropriate.
-=*=-
Ref(s):
[1] lie2 -n. 1 intentionally false statement (tell a lie). 2 something that deceives. -v. (lies, lied, lying) 1 tell a lie or lies. 2 (of a thing) be deceptive. give the lie to show the falsity of (a supposition etc.). [Old English] [POD]
[2] Foremost politicians, and ever more in the (corrupt & venal) MSM, including publicly financed broadcasters like 'our' AusBC. It is theoretically possible - even likely, that these liars are not even lying on their own behalf, but rather on behalf of the 'hidden, true rulers.' (Yes, the dreaded & much maligned C-theory. Unfortunately, lots of observable facts support exactly and only such a C-thesis.)
Subtitle: How to vote - not for whom, but the method.
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Posit: Our current government (Federal, Labor) could only be by a single degree worse - it could be Liberal.
In the 'political' context, both 'Labor' and 'Liberal' are fully misleading as names; Lab no longer represents the workers (except often by mis-representing them), and the Libs are in no way liberal[1]. In fact I'd go so far as to say that both Lib & Lab are traitors to the sheople in particular & democracy in general.
Recall my "IF any contradiction is found THEN the related theorem is *disproved*" logic; a corollary is that any single (meaningful) act = privatisation (say; back then Commonwealth Bank, latest Lotteries in NSW, utilities in Qld) is sufficient to destroy any putative 'for the people' claim by Labor. The sins of the Liberals are a) quite possibly more (nature of the beast) and b) quite possibly more damaging, think GST (regressive) and halving the CGT (doubled house prices at a single stroke.) Thanks, but "No, thanks!" to the universally acclaimed 'Aus best treasurer' Costello - the 'universal' meaning coming both via and with active assist from the corrupt & venal MSM incl. big bits of the AusBC.
Note that a GST was also previously on offer by Lab; that makes it bipartisan, as is the rest of the neoliberal erring ideology package. (How do they dare? Who asked 'em?) A moment's thought reveals bipartisanship to be un- and anti-democratic, since it offers the voters no choice. Boo! Hiss!
The single degree worse: Don't for the smallest part of a pico-sec think that Abbott will bring a micro-gram of improvement. Look instead to a) Lib 'form' and b) the UK Tories as the Aus Liberal Party preferred model; the Tories are currently embarking on idiotic, extreme austerity - right down Abbott's alley. Think: Rat up a drain-pipe.
-=*=-
Consider this:
An Empire, If You Can Keep It By Justin Logan March 01, 2010 Issue «An infantile polity that clamors for both tax cuts and increased welfare payments diminishes the prospect of solvency.» [antiwar/amconmag]
Comment 1: As usual, read it all, and interpret it carefully. For example, 'nation building' is not what the US does to its victims, rather the US endeavours to establish sub-branches of the US criminal rip-off economy, complete with local quisling/puppet viceroys to run them. They're not making anything "safe for democracy;" their target is the rip-off exploitation of the local sovereign owners' resources like oil in Iraq (Iran next) and minerals in Aus. The only thing that stops a US invasion of Aus is our government pre-emptively volunteering Aus to US rapine[2].
Comment 2: Any 'infantile polity' only clamours for what they are propagandised to. We've always (seems to me) had Q: "What's in it for me," at least since the 1st Fraser/Howard campaign. A: "$5!"
-=*=-
Fazit: Oh yeah; how to vote. Put Lib/Lab *last* in your own preferred order. If 50% + 1 of all voters did this everywhere, we'd get a parliament with absolutely *NO* Lib/Labs in it. Think about it.
-=*end*=-
PS What's about "of, by, for?" Oh yeah (again); A proper democracy requires, as a minimum, a fully aware and engaged electorate, full & free info flows (i.e. without a single lie), and a comprehensive range of honest representative-candidates. How many of these conditions obtain in Aus? Further, why not fully replace all (feckless, incompetent &/ corrupt) representatives with referendums? Vote specifically on each important issue, like the Swiss do? Think about that, too.
PPS The spruiked tax-cuts, of course and on the whole, benefit primarily the obscenely super-rich. A properly progressive taxation regime is *required,* even in the face of possibly wasteful government disbursements, in order to get all the filthy-rich $s back into circulation. The original Medibank, now Medicare, must remain & be made universal; only an idiot could expect "medicine for profit" to yield anything but less medicine and more profit - the runs are on the board, see the disgraceful US 'system.' Neoliberalism is a failed, erring ideology which has been foisted on the world under the cover of misleading info when not outright lies - neoliberalism must be ejected onto the rubbish-heap of history, soonest.
-=*=-
Ref(s):
[1] liberal -adj. 1 abundant, ample. 2 giving freely, generous. 3 open-minded. 4 not strict or rigorous. 5 for the general broadening of the mind (liberal studies). 6 a favouring moderate political and social reform. b (Liberal) of or characteristic of Liberals. -n. 1 person of liberal views. 2 (Liberal) supporter or member of a Liberal Party. liberalism n. liberality n. liberally adv. [Latin liber free] [POD]
[2] rapine n. rhet. plundering. [Latin: related to *rape1] [ibid.]
Caution: This essay can neither be conclusive nor fully substantiated; some things are not fully known to the author and others cannot be known at all - specifically, proof of the (non!)existence of any reputed g*d is by definition impossible.
What one can say vis-à-vis alleged g*d(s), is that by the conservation laws[1], as *no* evidence of any 'outside' agent may ever be detected, any 'belief' in some alleged g*d *must* be utterly baseless - and therefore risibly ignorant; see the definition of fantasy[2].
Thesis: 'The Enlightenment' has been deliberately opposed and implemented bits are being successively dismantled.
Prologue: "To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, ..."
Q: What went wrong, when and by whom?
-=*=-
Tools: Consider the statement:
"The exception proves the rule."
Me: No. Mathematically, IF any contradiction is found THEN the related theorem is *disproved*.
Consider Howard's statement (possibly paraphrased): "This (Aus) is a Christian country."
Me: So what? Apart from deliberately inflaming cross-cultural conflict for his own ugly purposes, any/all religions conflict with the entirely valid (and to be preferred) non-religious option, and so should, on simple fairness, egalitarian and equity grounds be excluded from all political discussion.
Then, *every* (sane) individual's #1 most precious possession is his/her life. To be killed is far-and-away the worst catastrophe that can befall any person, sane or in-. Following that, every religion I'm even vaguely aware of forbids killing as its #1 rule (possible exception, Buddhism; see comment about not knowing everything). Yet wicked people are wholesale slaughtering others across the planet. IF any g*d 'out there' was a) as powerful as alleged AND b) had any compassion at all, THEN c) it would intervene *to save all victims*. In fact, with the (perverse!) 'just war' doctrine, Christianity *allows* war -> industrial killing = murder. See Wikileaks revealed U-Doppelblitz-S in g*d we trust death squads, *announced* covert subversions running in 75 countries, appr. 1000 foreign bases, illegal invasions/brutal occupations Afghanistan & Iraq, Germany & Japan *still* occupied etc. Then see Judaism, and the vicious murder-for-spoil (land, water) and associated genocide and ethnic cleansing being performed in and around Palestine by the vile & criminal Zs. This (mass-killing of innocents) is not 'merely' some minor exception, it blasts all religions and their putative g*ds *TO HELL*. But it gets worse.
Once more at the beginning, consider religious instruction (= indoctrination) of minors. Before the 'age of reason' (brain capable of fully rational thought), the juvenile human transitions through a period of pure, unexamined trust. (A required survival mechanism: "Spiders can be deadly; don't touch!") This 'window of vulnerability' is the best (actually of course, the absolute worst) time to insinuate the g*d delusion, 1st by instilling the fear of death into the naïvely innocent, vulnerable and unprotected mind, then injecting the 'eternal-life' fiction & cynical hook. It's not 'merely' child abuse, it lays the foundation for a life compromised = damaged (almost) beyond any repair. Needless to say, such victims of irrational superstition are easily manipulated = controlled.
Now new (to me) and worse again:
How Disney Magic and the Corporate Media Shape Youth Identity in the Digital Age Wednesday 04 August 2010 by: Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock «The mouse will no longer embody a childlike innocence and generosity, but will instead be "cantankerous and cunning" and will exhibit "selfish, destructive behavior."[47] With Mickey's popularity in decline in the United States, Disney's market-driven agenda is visible not only in its willingness to transform the hallowed icon upon which its corporate empire was built, but also in the very way it has transformed Mickey Mouse's character. Although Disney's representatives suggest that this reimagining of Mickey Mouse merely reflects what is currently popular among young people, it seems more aligned with the current ideology of a ruthless economic Darwinism (also evident in reality TV shows) that has little to do with the needs of children and a great deal to do with a survival-of-the-fittest view of the world perpetuated by market-centered culture.» [truth-out/Giroux & Pollock]
Comment: The article is long and rambling, which doesn't damage the key impact, just makes it harder to extract.
-=*=-
The concept of some g*d is bizarre, and may be termed 'primitive superstition[3].' Clearly, it arose from the twin questions "Where did we come from, and where are we going?" Occam's razor enjoins us to seek the simplest solution, and nature 'naturally' follows. The g*d concept is *not* simple, involves (non-scientific) 'magic' and in fact begs the Q: If some g*d is the universe-precursor, what then is the g*d-precursor? Only possible A: Magic; hardly satisfactory. Since there can be no proof of any g*d's existence (by definition excluded), we cannot tell - but must suspect - that it's all a pack of lies. People may claim to be free to believe in what they like, but it's a bit self-condemnatory to believe on the basis of a) no (possible) evidence but b) wishful thinking, mostly acquired *before* the age of reason. Religion long preceded marketing (aka a branch of PR) and marketing's close associate, propaganda.
Recall that Bernays wrote the book on propaganda, was associated with Wilson's WW1 slogan "Making the world safe for democracy" and then transitioned propaganda techniques into the commercial world, 're-branding' them to PR. One essence of propaganda is "The big lie" - a natural associate of marketing's 'exaggerated' (when not outright false), manipulative claims. Lies again, see 'religion' immediately above.
One could posit (and I do so posit), that no worthwhile project needs - or should acquire - a cloak of lies. See defining example = Iraq, illegal invasion thereof. Recalling my contradiction-tool, a corollary: IF any lie THEN not worthwhile (and possibly criminal, Iraq again.)
So far so standard (however distasteful), with the Disney corruption of juvenile minds noted. Thesis: it's not just Disney but any/all TV; the less TV the better for all, it's (blindingly) obvious that as the big new post-WW2 thing, it's mainly through TV that the sheople have been dumbed-down - it's Oh, so convenient, the sheople compete to buy the biggest/latest, and moving, coloured pictures are a) enchanting and (key) b) are sucked-up by the brain, essentially unedited, and TV as babysitter should be equated with religion as wicked, deliberate child-abuse. But as usual, very little is ever simple; examine the *art* of Disney's corrupting, specifically the bit we could term "neo-Darwinism."
There are a few other nasty neo-terms floating about: neo-liberalism & neo-Cons. Neo-liberalism is a part of Reagan's "voodoo economics" as is the "Washington Consensus," IMF conditionalities (see "Economic Hit Man,") and all the -ve aspects of globalisation, and the neocons are associated with PNAC, itself associated with the Z's vile, aggressive murder-to-steal strategy/tactics. And Oh, how convenient was 9/11 vis-à-vis the expressed wish of the neocons for a "new Pearl Harbor?"
Comment: Since coincidence is by definition unlikely, all these -ves are more likely than not to be organised (and since many of the -ves are criminal, that screams "Conspiracy!") The only alternative is what I call "birds of a feather," but such birds would need common inspiration, so it's almost the same thing as consciously organised anyway.
-=*=-
Returning now, to the Q: What went wrong, when and by whom? Here is a good summary:
Trends to Barbarism and Prospects for Socialism By James Petras July 30, 2010 «Western societies and states are moving inexorably toward conditions resembling barbarism; structural changes are reversing decades of social welfare and subjecting labor, natural resources and the wealth of nations to raw exploitation, pillage and plunder, driving living standards downward and provoking unprecedented levels of discontent.» [ICH/Petras]
Comment 0: As usual, one should read the lot.
Comment 1: Some countries are forced into neoliberalism by the IMF; worse are those governments doing it 'voluntarily' (samples US, UK, Germany, Aus, CH; the list of such 'deviants' is long.)
Comment 2: There are no properly functioning democracies I'm aware of, proof is the immediately above mentioned, stupid implementation of neoliberalism (not honestly offered and often bipartisanly applied; bipartisan = un- and anti-democratic), and see my comments on lies.
Comment 3: Finally (for here), the proof of *coordinated* lies is offered by my AusBC experience; for years I 'accepted' the fiction of Z-David vs. a primitive Muslim/Arab Goliath; how wrong I was and how wicked of the AusBC to have implied such vicious lies. The AusBC couldn't be so bad without (bipartisan!) government permission.
Final Q (for here): Exactly *how* do they coordinate?
-=*=-
Fazit: What we can see is an apparently organised campaign against sheople across the world; sovereign resource owners being ripped-off (recall the attempted MRRT) and domestic populations being reduced to health-service starved, under- or actual un-employed penury. The rich may well always tend to get richer, but it's a) now gone critically obscene and b) for what conceivable purpose? Crashing the financial system, the 'sheople' system and our once jewel-like planet's ecosphere = human-life-support system all at the same time is not much of an achievement, especially so since the so-called 'élites' doing it claim to be on the neo-Darwinian winning side. Hard to see how. Oh, and there's nothing at all élite about crime.
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Epilogue: "We are not wholly bad or good, who live our lives under Milk Wood ..."
Paraphrased: We the sheople mostly try to be good, our so-called 'leaders' are mostly, if not wholly bad. Where are the truly clever ones? They must be able to see the problems better than I ever will - yet there is no visible resistance, let alone effective countervailing power.
Most exasperating Q: Why not?
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Ref(s):
[1] Briefly, there is an equivalence between matter and energy (Einstein; e=mc²); the conservation laws propose that *nothing* may either be created or destroyed, so far *no* exception has been found (and none expected); any 'message' from 'outside' our physical universe (aka 'all there is and ever can be') would violate the conservation laws and is therefore scientifically impossible. A smugly-smirking counter is: "Well, that's what g*d(s) do!" - no *rational* argument possible with that. Having 'faith in g*d(s)' is what some people do in the total absence of evidence.
[2] fantasy n. (pl. -ies) 1 imagination, esp. when unrelated to reality (lives in the realm of fantasy). 2 mental image, day-dream. 3 fantastic invention or composition. [Greek phantasia appearance] [POD]
[3] superstition n. 1 belief in the supernatural; irrational fear of the unknown. 2 practice, belief, or religion based on this. superstitious adj. superstitiously adv. [Latin] [ibid.]
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PS Yesterday was Hiroshima day +65 years, to be followed three days later by Nagasaki day (around a quarter of a million mostly innocent 'collaterals' instantly killed, more gruesomely expiring later) - the two most infamous single-act war crimes up until then, possibly for all time (unless the U-Doppelblitz-S &/ Zs nuke Iran.) Q: Why *two* bombs? One A: One was Uranium-based, the other Plutonium. They wanted the (kill)data from both. Good to see some queries being allowed in some MSM; too little too late perhaps, but no such vile injustice should ever be forgotten. The US A-bombing (obviously deliberate), along with 9/11 (impossible *not* to have been deliberate), tell us all we need to know about the US self-proclaimed world-ruling, so-called 'élite.'
Reprise: Why do the genuinely smart allow such criminals to dominate?
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Update, 16:51; PPS
It's a WikiLeaks World, Get Used to It Jim Harper is director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute. «Secrecy is sometimes necessary, and propaganda is a legitimate dimension of war, ... » [antiwar/cato/Harper]
Comment: One of the things they try to trick the sheople with (vis-à-vis government illegal, not to mention immoral spying on private communications, say), is: "If you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about." How stupid do they think we the sheople are? One could respond to the WikiLeaks-provoked tantrums: "Stop doing things you can't bear to admit to in public, i.e. stop lying, cheating and murdering to steal."
But that would not do, eh? The so-called leading 'élite' being honest, decent & law abiding, I mean.
An illustration of what we've lost (aka had ripped-off), and by whom.
The Remarkable Model of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia Escaping the Sovereign Debt Trap August 6 - 8, 2010 «Eventually, the Commonwealth Bank had branches in every town and suburb; and in the bush, it had an agency in every post office or country store. As the largest bank in the country, it set the rates and set policy, which the others had to follow for fear of losing customers. The Commonwealth Bank was widely perceived to be an insurance policy against abuse by private banks, serving to ensure that everyone had access to equitable banking. It functioned as a wholly owned state bank until the 1990s, when it was privatized.» [antiwar/cato/Ellen Brown]
Comment 1: It was privatised by the so-called sheople's friends *Labor*. Says it all. Shame.
Comment 2: Not too unrelated: "The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government reported yesterday." [ICH/Bloomberg]
Comment 3: Neoliberalsm has 'only' failed the sheople - but otherwise works, one thinks, as designed. Q: Did anyone ever clearly specify beforehand what the sheople have now lost (aka had taken away?) Were the sheople ever offered a proper, non-spun democratic choice? The limit appears to have been reached now with most governments going broke, the austerity programs, ever reducing government services, etc. etc.. If you've read the Brown article, you'll have seen that creating $s costs *nothing* = abso-bloody-lutely SFA. So why are these (private/privatised) bankers killing most economies of the world they can reach wholesale? What's in it for them?
"Do unto others ... " is both necessary and sufficient ("do no harm" added to stymie any kooks); 'enlightened altruism' works in any size group, providing most members unite to 'enforce' it. Just as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - when those (human) parts cooperate. "Me, me me!" is a recipe for eventual disaster; any and all rippers-off must be rejected. Truth is more beautiful than brutal; lies are deployed only to deceive - all liars must be identified, and immediately thereafter any communication with such liars terminated. Note Lakoff-framing and avoid the negatives; merely conversing with a propagandist will extend his/her/its platform - simply point 'em out, then turn 'em off. Our future depends on eliminating most/all error and becoming strictly sustainable.
