not 'just' dumbed-down, but *actively* corrupted [TV, erring ideology]

.. revolting ...

  .. troglodytic ...

    .. evil by stealth
 
[updated #1, #2]

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.

-=*end*=-

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?

-=*=-

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.]

-=*=-

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?

-=*=-
 
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.

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-=*=-
 
Update, 8Aug'10; PPPS

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?

[«back»]