The Psychology of Manipulation: 6 Lessons from the Master of Propaganda
Ryan Matters
Audio Version New Feature!
Edward L. Bernays was an American business consultant who is widely recognized as the father of public relations. Bernays was one of the men responsible for “selling” World War 1 to the American public by branding it as a war that was necessary to “make the world safe for democracy”.
During the 1920s, Bernays consulted for a number of major corporations, helping to boost their business through expertly crafted marketing campaigns aimed at influencing public opinion.
In 1928, Edward Bernays published his famous book, Propaganda, in which he outlined the theories behind his successful “public relations” endeavours. The book provides insights into the phenomenon of crowd psychology and outlines effective methods for manipulating people’s habits and opinions.
For a book that’s almost 100 years old, Propaganda could not be more relevant today. In fact, its relevance is a testament to the unchanging nature of human psychology.
One of the key takeaways of the book is that mind control is an important aspect of any democratic society. Indeed, Bernays maintains that without the “conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses”, democracy simply would not “work”.
We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
According to Bernays, those doing the “governing” constitute an invisible ruling class that “understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses”.
In Propaganda, Bernays draws on the work of Gustave Le Bon, Wilfred Trotter, Walter Lippmann, and Sigmund Freud (his uncle!), outlining the power of mass psychology and how it may be used to manipulate the “group mind”.
If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?
I recently explored this topic in an essay about how occult rituals and predictive programming are used to manipulate the collective consciousness, influencing the thoughts, beliefs and actions of large groups of people, resulting in the creation of what occultists call “egregores”.
Here I have extracted some key insights from Bernays in an attempt to show how his book Propaganda is, in many ways, the playbook used by the globalist cryptocracy to process the group mind of the masses.
1. If you manipulate the leader of a group, the people will follow
Bernays tells us that one of the easiest ways to influence the thoughts and actions of large numbers of people is to first influence their leader.
If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway.
In fact, one of the most firmly established principles of mass psychology is that the “group mind” does not “think”, rather, it acts according to impulses, habits and emotions. And when deciding on a certain course of action, its first impulse is to follow the example of a trusted leader.
Humans are, by nature a group species. Even when we are alone, we have a deep sense of group belonging. Whether they consciously know it or not, much of what people do is an effort to conform to the ideals of their chosen group so as to feel a sense of acceptance and belonging.
This exact method of influencing the leader and watching the people follow has been used extensively throughout the last few years. One notable instance that comes to mind is the horrendously inaccurate epidemiological models created by Neil Ferguson, which formed the basis for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s lockdown policies.
Once Johnson was convinced of the need to lockdown and mask up, the people gladly followed.
2. Words are powerful: the key to influencing a group is the clever use of language
Certain words and phrases are associated with certain emotions, symbols and reactions. Bernays tell us that through the clever and careful use of language, one can manipulate the emotions of a group and thereby influence their perceptions and actions.
By playing upon an old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass of group emotions.
The clever use of language has been employed throughout the Covid-19 pandemic to great effect. An obvious example of this was when the definition of “vaccine” was changed to include injections utilising experimental mRNA technology.
You see, the word “vaccine” is associated in the public mind with a certain picture – that of a safe, proven medical intervention that is not only life-saving but absolutely necessary.
If governments had told people to go get their “gene therapies”, the vast majority of the public would likely question the motives behind such a campaign; they would feel extremely sceptical because the phrase “gene therapy” is not associated with the same images, emotions and feelings as “vaccine”.
The same goes for the word “pandemic”, the definition of which was also changed. The word “pandemic” is generally associated in the collective consciousness with fear, death, chaos and emergency (largely thanks to Hollywood and the myriad virus films it has released over the years).
3. Any medium of communication is also a medium for propaganda
Any system of communication, whether phone, radio, print, or social media, is nothing more than a means of transmitting information. Bernays reminds us that any such means of communication is also a channel for propaganda.
There is no means of human communication which may not also be a means of deliberate propaganda.
Bernays goes on to stress that a good propagandist must always keep abreast of new forms of communication, so that they may co-opt them as means of deliberate propaganda.
Indeed, systems that most people would associate with freedom of speech and democracy are none other than means of circulating propaganda. Facebook fact-checkers, Big Tech censorship and YouTube’s Covid banners certainly fall into this category.
Other examples of this include the recent algorithm updates made by various search engines (including Google and DuckDuckGo) to penalize Russian websites. Although this should come as no surprise (Google has been engaging in this type of “shadow propaganda” for many years).
4. Reiterating the same idea over and over creates habits and convictions
Although Bernays terms this a technique used by the “old propagandists”, he, nonetheless, recognizes its usefulness.
It was one of the doctrines of the reaction psychology that a certain stimulus often repeated would create a habit, or that the mere reiteration of an idea would create a conviction.
Repeating the same idea or the same “mantra” again and again is a form of neuro-linguistic programming aimed at instilling certain concepts or emotions into the subconscious mind. Indeed, people who are feeling sad or depressed are often advised to repeat to themselves an uplifting saying or affirmation.
There are many examples of this simple, yet effective, technique being used to great effect over the last few years. Think Q’s “trust the plan”, the globalist favourite, “build back better” or the incessant repetition of that twisted phrase, “trust the science”. Included in this category are the 24/7-in-your-face death statistics and case numbers, aimed at promoting the illusion of a pandemic.
There are more obvious examples of this as well, such as news anchors in different areas all reading from the exact same script.
5. Things are not desired for their intrinsic worth, but rather for the symbols that they represent
After studying why people make certain purchasing decisions, Bernays observed that people often don’t desire something for its usefulness or value, but rather because it represents something else which they unconsciously crave.
A thing may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else, the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself.
Bernays gives the example of a man buying a car. From the outside, it may appear as if the man is buying the car because he needs a means of transport, but in actuality, he is buying it because he craves the elevated social status that comes with owning a motor vehicle.
This idea, too, applies to the events over the last few years.
For example, masks are a symbol of compliance. Everyone knows they don’t work but they wear them because of their desire to “fit in”, and to be seen as an upstanding citizen who follows the rules. Covid-19 injections are also a symbol and many people choose to get them because they have a desire to avoid being called an “anti-vaxxer” or a “conspiracy theorist”.
6. One can manipulate individual actions by creating circumstances that modify group customs
Lastly, Bernays tells us that if one wishes to manipulate the actions of an individual, the most effective way to do so is to create circumstances that engender the desired behaviour.
What are the true reasons why the purchaser is planning to spend his money on a new car instead of on a new piano? […] He buys a car, because it is at the moment the group custom to buy cars. The modern propagandist therefore sets to work to create circumstances which will modify that custom.
For example, why all of a sudden does everyone “stand with Ukraine”? According to Bernays, it’s not because there is a war going on and innocent people need our love and support, but rather because it is the new “group custom” to do so.
The process of altering group customs begins from the top down. In every nation or social clique, there are leaders, public figures and influencers. Manipulating those with the most sway eventually filters down into the public mind. That is why when a celebrity decides to wear something extravagant on the red carpet, a whole new trend can arise overnight.
Similarly, at the beginning of the Covid saga and then the Russia-Ukraine war, the media were quick to circulate stories of celebs “catching Covid” and urging people to stay home, or public figures condemning Russian actions and calling for stricter sanctions (which just so happened to hurt the West more than they hurt Russia).
The Propaganda Playbook
The world is a volatile place right now. Things seem to change quickly and no one knows what might happen next. However, amid all this chaos there is one thing that has not changed and is unlikely to change any time soon, and that is human psychology.
Because of this, the tactics used to manipulate people’s thoughts, beliefs and actions have not changed either. In fact, most of them were outlined in detail 100 years ago by Edward Bernays in his 1928 book, Propaganda.
That’s right, the Puppet Master’s playbook isn’t a secret. It’s right there, freely available to anyone who cares to understand how the powers that be seek to influence them on a daily basis.
Propaganda by Edward Bernays has now been added to our Forbidden Library. Read it now, along with other forbidden books.
Ryan Matters is a writer and free thinker from South Africa. After a life-changing period of illness, he began to question mainstream medicine, science and the true meaning of what it is to be alive. Ryan is also the founder of NewBraveWorld.org where he posts a selection of his essays related to topics such as science, philosophy, medicine, spirituality and current events. You can also follow him on Twitter.
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I must be a bit contrary. My politics are solidly to the right, but I eagerly got the vaccine the earliest moment I could possibly contrive to do so, at great effort, because I was convinced it reduced my chances of serious disease. So far, no side-effects and no COVID. But I was always skeptical of lockdowns and especially masks, which we barely used here in rural Texas anyway. I immediately responded with sympathy to Ukraine and then was surprised to find myself in synch with people I usually disagree with politically. I own a car because I need one for transport, but I also own a piano, an expensive indulgence I made room for at the earliest age I could pull it off.
So excited that the Ministry of Truth is finally gonna set us all straight!
“Nuclear attack Vaporizes London”
London, 11:45 am, UK Time:GMT, 10th October, 2022,
There was a blinding flash lighting up the whole area brighter than the brightest daylight.
There followed a tremendous sustained roar and a heavy pressure wave.
Immediately thereafter, a huge multi-colored surging cloud boiled to an altitude of over 40,000 feet.
Clouds in its path disappeared.
Soon the shifting stratosphere winds dispersed the narrow gray mass.
The Shard tower and a vast surrounding area had been entirely vaporized.
Where the tower had stood, there was a huge sloping crater.
New York Times
10th October, 2022
.
Times of disaster make you aware of the reality as it is.
It is always fragile, everybody is always in danger.
Just in ordinary times you are fast asleep, so you don’t see it, you go on dreaming, imagining beautiful things for the coming days, for the future.
But in moments when danger is imminent then suddenly you become aware that there may be no future, no tomorrow, that this is the only moment you have got.
So times of disaster are very revealing.
They don’t bring anything new into the world, they simply make you aware of the world as it is, they wake you up.
It depends on you how you use the moment: you can panic, you can go mad, you can break down in fear, in tears.
But that is not going to help your family or your friends or your beloved.
It is not going to help you either.
What are you doing to prevent the calamity that is coming closer every day?
The alternative is there, the catastrophe can be avoided – but who is going to listen?
The trouble is not that there is no way.
Everything can be changed but the masses are also programmed against change.
It seems humanity is insane.
Everywhere you can see this insanity, and if it were only a few people who were insane, it would be easy to do something for them, but if the whole humanity is functioning in an insane way, then a tremendous effort is needed to stop this idiotic behavior.
The people who are responsible for the basic catastrophe, that is, the insanity of humanity, are the politicians who are in power.
And their insane overlords the Globalists, WEF, NATO, UN, EU, these psychopaths who want more and more power.
These people are representatives not of peace but of death.
We are all always in danger.
The desire for more and more power is unending, and everybody is competing without thinking of the whole humanity, that all this competition for destructiveness is suicidal.
Up to now science has been accidental.
People have stumbled upon some discoveries, inventions.
Even discoveries were made for which they were not looking, but just groping in the dark with no sense of direction.
And obviously the politicians of the world, who liked more and more destructive power in their hands, immediately got the idea to enslave scientists.
Now every scientist is a slave to some nation, to some government and they function only for purposes which are anti-life, destructive.
The more destructive things they can find, the more they are rewarded and praised by their governments.
The idiots who are in power are not allowing scientific progress to help humanity to reach to a higher state of evolution, but are trying to divert all scientific progress towards a global suicide, and all in the name of beautiful words: democracy, socialism, equality, save the environment, freedom, individuality.
And yet there is no freedom anywhere.
There is no freedom of speech, there is no democracy anywhere.
And we are forcing the whole world to die for these empty words, which contain no meaning.
It is such an insane world that sometimes it seems almost unbelievable.
Politicians are keeping people in every way retarded just so that they can exploit them.
And they have been exploiting for centuries.
They have repeated their lies so often that they almost appear as truths.
Rather than fighting with each other, we should fight together, against the whole ugly political and superstitious past of humanity, so that we can get rid of it; and our love is freed, our freedom is in our hands, our individuality is given back to us.
There is only one fight which can be justified, and that is against the whole rotten past, because the past has been simply destructive of all human values.
If we can only disconnect ourselves from all of the lies, the enslavement and hypocrisy of the politicians and priests, there is hope for humanity, not only to survive, but survive intelligently.
Everybody has to take it into their own hands, the dignity of life, the dignity of being human, and everybody has to be assertive, and everybody has to be questioning about all the rules that the past has forced upon you.
And any discipline that is unreasonable, is irrational, is unintelligent, should be dropped without a second thought.
The secret is, start living more fully, more totally.
Be more alert so that you can find within yourself something that is unreachable by death.
That is the only shelter, the only security, the only safety.
And if you want to help your friends and family, let them become aware of this secret.
Use the opportunity to become awakened, that’s all you can do.
There is nothing else that you can do.
And tell all of your friends to use the moment for meditation.
The disaster is great, the danger is great, but great is the opportunity too.
This is just the beginning…
But.. that is precisely their script.
Humanity doesn’t need more science, it needs to reclaim its spirituality., which is the only thing that will enable humanity to defeat the machine-like Satanic force (aka Yahweh) that is taking us down.
True. But it may be too late to save mankind.
Christ was saved even though he was arrested, tortured and executed, because he watched his morals. He never fell for propaganda by money changers, priests, governorsl and other Con-men in the Temple.
He watched his morals? Huh?
“How to avoid falling prey to Con-men: Watch your morals” — Readers Digest
Science has put great power into the hands of ignorant and frustrated politicians, and this power itself will most likely be responsible for the total destruction of life on this planet.
These unconscious sociopaths are now in power positions where they control the possibility of global destruction.
If we become engaged in this kind of holocaust, can it be said to be accidental?
Aren’t we all involved?
Aren’t we all heading in the same direction?
We are in a great dilemma.
At such a crucial point, we can either perish or awaken into a new way of life.
Someone once asked Albert Einstein,
“What is the most important principle in scientific investigation?”
Do you know what Einstein replied?
Even in their wildest dreams the questioner could never have imagined the reply they were given,
Einstein said, “The absence of egoism.”
Modern physics, in the hands of Albert Einstein, has turned almost into mysticism.
Nobody has noted the fact, because mystics don’t understand modern physics and the physicists do not care about the mystics.
The mystics have always experienced that they are one, but nobody has listened to them.
Perhaps we are not mature enough to understand the depth of their declaration.
The mystics have simply expressed the oneness of all.
That existence knows only one moment.
The present moment.
Physicists go into detail.
Physicists say that existence consists of two elements: space and time.
And Einstein turned even these two into one.
Albert Einstein, especially, was the first scientist to come to the conclusion that time is the fourth dimension of matter.
He used to say that “There is not space and time, there is only ‘Spacetime’.”
We know the atomic structure of matter but nothing of the atomic structure of the soul.
And this is our great misfortune.
We have achieved power, but no peace, no enlightenment.
The aim should be peace, not power.
And if the aim becomes peace, then the focus will be on the mystery of human consciousness itself, not into the secrets of nature.
There has been much research and exploration into unconscious matter, but the time has come when we must concentrate on the evolution of human consciousness itself.
The science of the future will be the science of consciousness, not the science of matter.
This change must occur before it is too late.
Those scientists who are committed to the investigation of the inanimate are of the old orthodox mind bound by tradition and convention.
People of full awareness must come forth to alter the direction of scientific research.
Science must strive for knowledge of human consciousness itself.
In their efforts to master the material world modern scientists have attained results unprecedented in human history, there is no reason they cannot be equally successful in achieving the same insight into the individual.
Consciousness can be known, it can be mastered;
And only then humanity can be transformed.
The science of consciousness will come into being for the very first time.
This will give birth to the greatest event in human history, this will give birth to a great creative energy.
This alone will save humanity.
There is no other way.
What we have acquired through our knowledge of matter is nothing compared to what we will gain by knowing the conscious self.
Einstein had said, “the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one.”
We are accustomed to dividing time into past, present, and future.
But in reality these are not the divisions of time, these are divisions of our mind.
Because past does not exist anymore, except in our memories.
And the future exists not yet, except in our imaginations.
Time means mind.
Time is a projection of mind.
It does not exist, it is only an illusion, although a convincing one.
This science of religiousness has always remained in the hands of a few enlightened beings, it has never spread to the masses.
The organized religion of the people has always been fettered by superstitions and blind belief.
But now, the evolution of consciousness is finally eradicating this blindness.
The life of our planet and the future of humanity depends on this.
Organised religion has been playing the same-old gaslighting routine for millennia.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61218933
Climate change: Don’t let doom win, project tells worriers
Apr 28, 2022
A new project has been launched to address rising climate anxiety in students at the University of East Anglia. At the opening in Norwich, students told BBC News they felt hopelessness, anger and despair about climate change. They worry how they will live in a world with an unpredictable climate [you and I may know this as “weather”!] and the destruction of nature. On Thursday a new survey found that 45% of UK students worry about climate change once a week or more.
Literature student Meg Watts, 22, said that she had experienced depression after being overwhelmed by the scale of problems facing the planet. And she sought therapy after developing disordered eating when trying to cut out food packaged with plastic. The new programme was developed with mental health charity Norfolk and Waveney Mind, who realised young people were coming for counselling about their fears about climate change. Common worries were about food security and whether or not to have children, explained Ruth Taylor from Mind. “Young people are trying to get ready for what is coming,” she suggests.
—
The Next Tool?
Rajendra Pachauri (IPCC chairman 2002-15): “Children; we have to sensitize the young.”
Horrible! I looked up IPPC and sure enough: Al Gore, former Vice-president of Uncle $cam.
“Six Letters from the Master of Propaganda”.
One Letter from the Masters of Realism:
“Hello, Russian soldier!
“Forgive us for not being able to keep our world from war. We calmed down and thought that a peaceful life was forever, and that freedom is granted without a fight. It turned out that it wasn’t.
“Fascism is all around us. And that is why you are again back in line, as you were in that terrible year of 1941. You are a Chechen, a Bashkir, an Ossetian, an Abkhaz, an Ukrainian, a Buryat or a Belarusian. You are a Russian soldier, whoever you are! You came to defend those who are weak and helpless. You have come to win. Again and again. As once in the trenches of Stalingrad, so now in the steppes of Donbass.
“This war will be as hard as it was then. Not everyone will be able to live to this victory, but fascism will be destroyed … again. I believe that victory will come. The rebuilt cities of Ukraine and Donbass will celebrate May 9.
“Kyiv, Donetsk, Luhansk, Odessa, Sloviansk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and other cities will have a parade; where, like many years ago, the Victory Banner will be carried. And we will wait for that victory.”
They use Hollywood to push their propaganda narratives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmAj4c0-scI&t=179s
Back when I used to work in a TV archive watching mostly news – every news – every time of day (and migrated from the past) I began repeating Osborne’s austerity sound bites to myself. (Obviously it wasn’t a particularly controlled experiment). However, despite the fact that I was self aware that it was all BS, it actually worked to a worrying degree. Thanks to George the bastard for getting me out of debt.
Propaganda
Propaganda in extreme situations like convid require extreme censorship and extreme coercion as auxiliary forces. Extreme censorship requires in turn extreme concentration of propaganda mill ownership. Extreme coercion is only practical when the political systems are completely owned and controlled globally by international finance. In a sense convid became practical only because those in control are the descendants of farsighted power hungry plotters who thought in terms of millennia.
Yes, censorship goes hand in hand with propaganda. If it was just propaganda without censorship it wouldn’t work. Even if journalists only spouted propaganda but letters and comments from the people weren’t censored I think that would make a very big difference but we are censored – massively – of course. The censorship is simply phenomenal.
Check out this disgustingly rabid reporter censuring a federal Liberal politician for being a Libertarian and a heeder of “conspiracy theorists” and misrepresenting what he said about the vaccine. The politician said, “The vaccine contains chemicals,” which – of course – it does while the reporter very ignorantly quotes him as saying “The vaccine is a chemical”.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-IOS_GK0T-GK1C&v=1174314346662957
And yet “the vaccine is a chemical.” How can it possibly be defined as anything else? It isn’t living tissue (which itself has a “chemical” basis); nor is it an alien substance yet to be identified. It’s a bloody f*cking chemical!
I grow weary of those afraid to come out and throw the establishment’s buzz words back in its face. I’m forever referencing Dane Wigington of geoengineeringwatch.org – yet he cautions people not to use the “chemtrails” term because of all the bad connotations. F*ck the connotations!
Same thing with those opposed to vaccines: God forbid they should ever be caught dead calling themselves “anti-vaxxers.” Well, I’m an “anti-vaxxer” and proud of it! And I’ll say it to anyone who cares to listen.
Progress is NEVER made by those too timid to stand up for what they believe.
Not a single chemtrail theorist has come with anything convincing as to what the supposed chemicals are and how they get to people from those high altitudes in sufficient amounts to cause anything.
It seems hard for them to accept that the trails are water vapor- and that if an evil plot to spray nasty substances on the planet was afoot, they would be doing it at night….
And strangely it also requires a neptune hard aspect to eclipses….it happened with AIDs and happened again with covid…they had obviously learnt from AIDs but the same players were there with the same stories….and when neptune is about like that it is easy to get illusions and delusions happening….and equally oddly most so called leaders pushing hard had these aspects sting within their own energy fields so they were going to go along very easily…no doubt helped by wonderful bonus and promises of later positions elsewhere but oddly many probably didn’t even need that…such was their illusion of social goodness on their part..,.
i am forever fascinated by what the universe cooks up…
A lot of present day propaganda adopts the mask of “a totally rational and logical approach” which is described in vast reams of itemised texts that sound wonderfully impressive cf. the kind of waffle you find in the “methodology” section of these “fact checking” sites. The problem becomes clear when you actually look at the content of these sites: the specific claims made and realise that there is a huge disconnect between their touted “logic” and these claims. Indeed,even whilst making the claims, the pseudo-rational blather intrudes to distract you from the fact that they are bullshitting.
Conclusion: Never trust any site that presents itself as a “fact checker” or “guide to fake news” or the last word in “rationality” and warbles on about its “methodology”. There is no substitute for examining all claims made and doing your own checking and thinking.
“They know everything and control everything-there is nowhere to hide” is a popular “egregore”. It’s also a good marker for people to be taken with a large pinch of salt.
As for occult power….The kabbala and gematria are judaic hocus pocus ( or more precisely abracadabra) and their occult “power” is really just clever psychological manipulation. Fear mongering , smoke and mirrors, carrots on sticks, etc.
It is all very easy after two or three millenia of spiritual plague. People without inner guidance and experience of the Satanic/ Archonic and how it operares on the human mind are easy targets for brainwashing. This is why otherwise intelligent people fell for the COVAIDS scam. Without intuition and an inner center based on spiritual experience (not blind faith) anyone is an easy target. Intelligence alone is not enough and can backfire.
Millions have also fallen for ‘the aliens’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmAj4c0-scI&t=179s
No comparison with how many have fallen for the Abrahamic evil and who think the Bible contains some kind of genuine spiritual message.
The real threat to the US elites is the left, real socialism, so they are at war with it, either via the creation of the CIA’s woke left to discredit it, or via the championing of the far right, people like Elon, one of the corporate oligarchs, who we are to believe are champions of freedom and liberty, but of course that is a joke. The corporate fascist state exists purely to serve Elon and his mates. So again the fox is in the chicken cope to replace the wolf that has been driven out.
And that is becoming more obvious by the day…either something is diversion therapy like the Johnny D trial or the real thing like musk take over of Twitter….surprise surprise EU threatens to ban Twitter…no doubt others will follow….oh dear…poor Elon he was only trying to save Twitter….bullshit…
I have never posted a twt but I can see how annoying it must be to the powers that information can be spread far too easily via it…
You don’t need to be a leftist to oppose tyranny. In fact, many would argue that socialism and communism have led to the most tyrannical states of all. Leftist dictators know that, to impose tyranny, you must end free speech and thus any chance of democracy. To fight tyranny, you must therefore safeguard free speech, precisely as Elon Musk is doing, and precisely as leftists do not.
A good starting point for such an approach is Slavoj Žižek’s brilliant reconceptualization of ideology as a matter of action rather than knowledge.
For Žižek, the sign of an effective ideology is not “false consciousness” in the classic Marxian sense but rather the expression of belief through actions.
Žižek’s basic “formula” for ideological disavowal is “I know very well… but just the same… ” Under the spell of this formula, we may “know very well” that something is wrong, but “just the same” we continue to act as if all is well.
Fantasy is the mechanism that smoothes the contradiction between knowledge and action. Within a powerful enough fantasy, simply knowing that something is wrong is not enough to change behavior. Indeed, the cynicism that was once the hallmark of enlightened ideology critique is for Žižek the very essence of contemporary ideology, for cynicism (“I know very well what is wrong, but there is nothing I can do”) results in the same inaction as classical ideological delusion (“nothing is wrong, all is well”).
Melley, Timothy. The Covert Sphere .
Just got banned from Twitter. If you think anything changed with “Elon”… keep suppin’ the Flavor Aid.
Please sign up to a former mainstream journalist who tried to go it alone.
What did you post?
Musk’s human worth…
First, you will not be able to remain anonymous, once the proof of authentication is required by all Twitter posters. Secondly, nothing will change until Elon owns and operate the new upgraded free speech version of Twitter. And I don’t think you will be missed if you stay off Twitter.
So I guess the upgraded free speech version of Twitter requires everyone to reveal their true identity so those devout protectors of free speech will know where you live and will pay you a visit if your speech isn’t “free” enough!
I just got banned from zero hedge, the freedom loving right, for not saying far right stuff? They are all on the same side, that is the side of Corporate fascism, twitter and the controlled opposition, two cheeks of the same bum.
In one of his more useful modes, Noam Chomsky noted that the customary view of newspapers was completely wrong i.e. that the papers were the product to be sold and the readers were the customers. Chomsky suggested that the true customers were the advertisers and the product was the public itself or rather, access to that public. The advertisers pay the papers to put in adverts which were then circulated to the public, the news being just a kind of decoration to rope in customers. Of course, it was more than just mere decoration – bearing in mind that our consumer capitalist culture will always attempt to maximise all opportunities – and so the news serves a propaganda purpose. But the advertisements were the main thing.
And taking that into consideration, it really doesn’t matter that a large portion of the papers end up getting pulped. As long as the adverts have sunk into enough minds. I am starting to wonder if this Chomskian model applies to a much wider field – e.g. to books.
On surveying the contents of the shelves in bookshops I sometimes wonder how many of the millions of copies made each year end up in the remaindered bins eventually getting pulped. Of course many publishers need to have a minimal amount of sales. But there may be certain titles which serve a more “mechanical” purpose. Consider e.g. the demonization of Jeremy Corbyn via such titles as “Dangerous Hero: Corbyn’s Ruthless Plot For Power” (cover is an off-centre photo of Corbyn’s face with black shadowy background). Such books will obviously only have a limited “shelf-life” and clearly serve a propagandist purpose. That many of the copies might never be bought may not even matter. Many in the public will glimpse the cover and the image will be implanted in their minds.
Now consider the high profile given to Yuval Noah Harari. I’d suggest that this is a much bigger job aimed at delivering a philosophical outlook that the rulers want to implant as much as possible in the public mind.
The point I’m making is that the rosy view of how “the public” decide what gets printed by how much they buy and its corresponding image of publishers as dependent on this public is very wide of the mark. Money is no object at all to the ruling class. This world of “free trade” is nothing of the kind.
Chomsky seems to have sunk into a degenerating Nietzschean spiral, but this lucid past analysis is certainly true and correct. Not that I’m implying that he “stole” it, but by chance a few months back I finally got around to reading The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism* by Upton Sinclair.
*For those willing to read e-books, the link is to a free download at the Gutenberg.org site.
It was published in 1919; it presents a critical view of the state of Amerikan journalism comparable to Sinclair’s more famous critique of the meat-packing industry, The Jungle (also available at Gutenberg.org, BTW). Sinclair makes exactly this argument.
I was astonished, although I shouldn’t have been, to see how the earlier generation of capitalism-deformed and corrupted “journalism” resembles the bloated, corporatized, commodified. technology-jazzed pathological “journalism” of the present day, mutatis mutandis.
As I read it, I thought about the lofty idealism preached in “journalism schools”, and well-meaning journalists like Chris Hedges and Matt Taibbi who buy into the high-minded rubric (e.g. the ostensibly authoritative “Journalistic Code [or Canon] of Ethics”) and evidently sincerely believe that with rigorous reforms, mainstream, i.e. capitalist, mass-media institutions could and would produce reasonably “honest” journalism.
Sinclair himself proposes reforms, mostly schemes to decouple newspapers and magazines (the only “mass-media” of that era) from ownership by a cabal of wealthy newspaper barons like William Randolph Hearst. He envisioned “people-centered” mass-media supported by affordable subscription, and unionizing the occupation to afford honest journalists protection from managerial abuse.
But I think that he would wistfully agree that his proposed reforms, when attempted, were (are) strangled in the cradle, and that “honest journalism” remains a rare exception to the rule.
Thanks for the Gutenberg link. I have often found that these old books are remarkably perceptive and still very much relevant. Thorstein Veblen is also still worth reading. (If you can adapt to his labyrinthine style which I think he used to disguise the radical nature of much of his writings.)
That slanderous book on Corbyn or one like that was prominently displayed in WHSmith outlets on the shelves with the most visibilty during the weeks coming up to the elections… I nearly complained but just shoplifted instead.
I’m sure you know the saying that if you are not paying for it, you aren’t the customer, you are the product.
Although in some cases (e.g. where paywalls are involved) perhaps people are both customers and the product.
It depends where you start. Most anchor their minds in a “stance” borrowed from another, in the past family, nowadays a politician or a popular figure — think cultural appropriation and its corollary… the promoting of a distended mind-set.
In Britain be wary of challenging a “stance” because it is deacon-ized, like the “enforcer” or whip of a church or college. Once you adopt an off-the-peg attitude you soon are asked to “buy in” to other obligations (and if a cult, financial or performative duties).
The deacon or the beadle, and his muscle man the porter, is a long-established British mechanism for enforcing group think.
Why? Because most operate most comfortably as a herd. See post below. Uncouth to say it, but true.
Respectfully the vast majority of those views are heard from immigrants. Is your neighborhood still following the Act Covid in order to receive financial assistance above those normality available.
You talk of group think sidestepping factual consequences of Covid-19 Act Group Think., that is good bad indifferent catastrophic for a Individual imo.
With that thought, what was the purpose of funded BLM in the British Isles during 2020 do you think?
Tests?
Masks?
Restriction Reality:
Lockdown payout?
Continuation of possible ‘virus’ (sic) strains & threats of future Restrictions?
Dorothy Sayers in ‘The Lost Tools of Learning’ from 1947:
“We let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armour was never so necessary. By teaching them to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are prey to words in their emotions instead of being masters of them in their intellects. We who were scandalised in 1940 when men were sent to fight tanks with rifles, are not scandalised when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed progaganda with a smattering of ‘subjects’; and when whole classes and whole nations become hypnotised by the art of the spell binder, we have the imprudence to be astonished”.
What Sayers wanted was a return to the Trivium method of education and in particular here a rooting in grammar so people had a true understanding of the origin, construction and meaning of words. That faulty understanding and use of words was the basis of faulty ideas was a regular theme in Orwell. When I was starting in education, grammar had just about been removed by the psyop that it was “irrelevant” and “boring”.
Whatever one thinks of the Trivium, it’s obvious that the subject-based approach to education has been a disaster. It’s the basis of compartmentalisation of knowledge and a system that prioritises what to think rather than how to think. Curiously, while reviling almost everything else that came from there, it’s the one part of the Prussian system that the Anglo-American establishment embraced whole-heartedly and have never let go.
As the saying goes, ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’.
A great authoress, although ‘The Nine Tailors’ was a tough read, unless you happen to be an expert on bell-ringing. Not a widespread skill these days. That’s where compartmentalization has its value
I think grammar is a good servant, but a poor master. I was of the generation where English grammar was just about being removed in secondary education (though we’d had some at primary school).
However, as we had to do Latin as well as French, and grammar was unavoidable, it did feed back into our knowledge of our own language.
On the other hand, as far as French was concerned, we knew a ton of grammar, but could barely speak the language, and would have been hard put to understand anything a native speaker said to us. (No one expected us to speak Latin, except at mass).
Grammar is important, but it’s not the be all and end all. Grammar is to language what knowledge of how to use a hammer and chisel is to a sculptor. You may be an expert with a wide range of hammers and chisels, but this knowledge in itself doesn’t guarantee that you will be able to sculpt anything worth a damn.
maggie
The term “propaganda” was coined by a committee of Catholic cardinals about 1600 AD. The rest is the pathology of belief versus the modality of direct observation…
The origin wasn’t malevolent but to disseminate Church processings.
You have freedom, you have rights, you own your car, you own your house, you are a living being, you havent given your children to the state, your bank account is safe, you wont be chipped, our leaders are good, believe the science, vaccines work, chemicals in our food is healthy, fluoride is required, education education education? believe the BBC….on and on, double speak. Everything above is a lie.
Yeah, I was talking to a guy recently who grew up in East Germany and he said when he came to Australia he expected to be living in a free country but when he got here … I have to say I did think I was pretty much living in a free country till covid but I guess I was brainwashed.
I think you need to go back a big step further here – the use of mass communication etc needs a malleable audience, you’d never be successful with this stuff on, shall we say, the pioneers of the 1800s who settled the US. Mass propaganda is not going to be successful until you have a large, generally homogenous population – the kind of thing you get from 8 or 12 or 20 years of enforced schooling (let’s not call it ‘education’, it’s more anti-education). When you’ve trained the bulk of your population to believe the same things, and react in the same way to various stimuli (commies!! evil!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! etc), then directing them to hate or love any particular thing is just a bit of attitude adjustment, made much easier by group think. Notice 50 years ago a high-school diploma was considered adequate for population control, but now it’s a college degree – you can get a lot more group think into doing what is required for a college degree than a high school diploma. And the last 10 years with the hive-phones!!! – man, it’s going to take some doing to get the brains of these people unchained (which of course explains the completely seamless course correction from ‘FEAR COVID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ to ‘HATE RUSSIA SUPPORT UKRAINE!!!!!!!!!!!!’ – we’re pretty fucked. How many people do you know NOT controlled by their hive phones????
As those who’ve had to suffer my comments on repeat know, I’m more interested in the propaganda targeted to those who don’t believe them. They aim to control ALL our minds not just the minds of those who willingly believe them.
9/11 is one of the very best examples of two massive major propaganda campaigns – one targeted to the believers and one targeted to those who they couldn’t fail to anticipate would not believe their preposterous story. For covid it’s similar but I think 9/11 is the gold standard for disbeliever-targeted propaganda.
A very important quote from Orwell is:
“All propaganda is lies even when one is telling the truth.”
An excellent example of truth propaganda is the flagrant, showcased collapse of WTC-7 with journalists scripted to allude to it on the day. The implication that the journalists are speaking candidly is pure propaganda. They don’t let the truth just “slip out”, they don’t have journalists making their own comments on the building collapses. No way. It was all scripted. If the truth is going to be out there, they will be the ones managing that rare circumstance.
The thing is they can easily afford for the truth to be out there right in our faces because they know that no matter how in our faces it is, people will believe their propaganda rather than their exposed hands flashed right at us. They have carte blanche to play with the truth as they see fit … and use it as a propaganda weapon. WTC-7 is not the smoking gun, magnificent implosion that it is, it is more of a Trojan horse distracting from the much more revealing planes:
— faked planes means faked passenger deaths
— faked planes automatically means buildings came down by an engineered means (doesn’t work the other way)
— the planes keeps the focus on the failure of defence (or seeming failure)
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth presented us with the two very professional videos, Free Fallin’ (to the music of the Tom Petty song) and I Believe in Miracles. Who made these videos? Where did they come from?
I loved these videos before I had a clue that they were intelligence-produced … but I still love them, they are so wonderfully in your face. Check out what the journalists say in Free Fallin’. Think they’re speaking candidly … or scripted? Of course, they couldn’t have “candidly” alluded to fire bringing the buildings down because then all the disbelievers would think they were scripted, wouldn’t they?, but they’re not going to think they’re scripted when they’re telling the actual truth. Good heavens, no. They wouldn’t script them to tell the truth, would they?
Free Fallin’ – https://youtu.be/Vgx8Uwo-Vxc
I Believe in Miracles – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71fwKA9Udso
Even better than all journalistic eye-witness reports being scripted would be to simply let human nature take its course – that way it has the ring of authenticity.
In an unscripted world, everything coming out of journalists’ mouths would have happened exactly as it did. There would necessarily have been the entire spectrum of off-the-cuff reactions and opinions.
No matter how inured to the essential falsity of “news” they may have been, watching the events unfolding would have necessarily impacted the journalists in very predictable ways given each journalist’s particular psychology.
By far and away the best propaganda is reality. No one has ever topped it.
I’d be most interested in journalistic eye-witness reports you feel are candid on 9/11, Howard.
Here are some examples where scripting rather than candour is evident.
The infamous “psycho” Mark Walsh.
Confirms seeing the plane, “ream right into the side of the twin tower exploding through the other side … and then … mostly due to structural failure because the fire was just too intense.” Yeah, right. What do you think of his demeanour after witnessing such a shocking tragedy?
Vince DeMentri, WCBS reporter
“It was almost as if it were a planned implosion. It just pancaked.”
Note his smile as he says the word “pancaked”.
Al Jones, 1010 WINS reporter
“And I turned in time to see what looked like a skyscraper implosion. It looked like it had been done by a demolition crew, the whole thing just collapsing down on itself.”
How credible do you think it is that Al just happened to turn and see WTC-7 come down in 6.5 seconds?
Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor
“Amazing, incredible, pick your word. For the third time today, it’s reminiscent of those pictures we’ve all seen too much on television before, where a building was deliberately destroyed by well-placed dynamite to knock it down.”
Brian Williams and David Restuccio
Exchange between Brian Williams, MSNBC News Anchor and David Restuccio, FDNY EMS Lieutenant:
“Can you confirm it was No 7 that just went in?” [“Went in” is a term used in controlled demolition that comes from the fact that the buildings fall in on themselves.]
“Yes, sir.”
“And you guys knew this was comin’ all day.”
“We had heard reports that the building was unstable and that eventually it would either come down on its own or it would be taken down.”
I grant you none of these responses have quite the impact of, say, Herbert Morrison who reported the Hindenberg Disaster on May 6, 1937.
However, these are professional reporters, professionally trained to spew cliches and platitudes – which are precisely the kinds of phrases they would use even while witnessing a shocking event.
Besides, written words do not always convey the impact of spoken words. I have seen videos of a number of “eye-witness” reports which do indeed convey a much greater impact than their quite often tepid words would imply.
I should add that I’m far from certain anything at all happened (a la “September Clues”). But I do stand by my assertion that even extemporaneous remarks can be useful when made by people with “the right stuff.”
When I see a TV “journalist”, I think of Ron Burgundy from Anchorman reading the teleprompter exactly as it’s written. “I’m Ron Burgundy?” with the correct voice inflection.
If you didn’t click through the link above, you should!
Oh my goodness, what puppet muppets.
THIS ……
The SURVIVALIST a film released December 2020. “A post apocalyptic action thriller that posits a United States where nearly everyone has been wiped out by the Delta variant of Covid-19.”
They finished shooting just as the variant was emerging but before the “vaccine” went into wide distribution. So that’s alright then.
Let’s never forget that Bernays (along with fellow PR man George Creel) was one of Woodrow Wilson’s advisors for the Armistice at the end of WW1 when the Germans were offered soft peace terms with no reparations. However at the Versailles Peace Treaty that followed the Allies reneged on this offer and imposed heavy sanctions. This double-cross led inexorably to the total demoralization of German politics and to WW2.
http://jlombardi.net/pdf/bateson_versailles_cybernetics.pdf
I’ve read the linked article about occult rituals. The author quotes extensively from Michael Hoffman’s ‘Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare’. Hoffman’s books aren’t easy to get hold of and he doesn’t seem to do many interviews, but he did one here recently:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/author-michael-hoffman-discusses-his-new-book-twilight/id1388815042?i=1000552853132
I quoted one of Hoffman’s insights on a thread a while back, that secret society operations are structured to serve as initiations so anyone who has studied JFK or 9/11 is in a sense an apprentice mason whether one knows or likes it or not. Another insight from him: “only when the people think they are not buying something, can the real sales pitch begin”. He was writing in the context of sci-fi being used for predictive programming but it’s obviously true in other instances. Outright political propaganda isn’t the most dangerous sort. Who made a more enduring mark on people’s lives: Harold Wilson or The Beatles?
(Again, this isn’t to argue nobody should listen to a song or watch a film or read a novel. ‘The Long and Winding Road’ or ‘Hey Jude’ are great songs, it would be churlish to pretend otherwise. At least in those days the social engineering was wrapped in some artfulness unlike the debasement seen today).
Michael Hoffman collection
https://archive.org/details/johnbarbourinterviewsauthorhistoricalresearchermichaelhoffman/Michael+A.+Hoffman+-+Turning+The+Tables+On+The+Concensus.mp4
Question: whenever you mention anything occult or any secret societies, you always devolve to the Masons.
Perhaps the Masons are merely a foil set up to divert people’s attention away from any other secret society?
It should be quite obvious that the way to escape the control of secret societies is to form secret societies of our own. People are far too trusting and gullible and stuck to the religious narrative of a united humanity and loving your enemy.
A funny thing to say, seeing as that is exactly what masonry is (a secret society harboring and masking another secret society). While a bit on the long side clocking in at close to 5 hours, I’d easily recommend watching «Altyian Childs exposes freemasonry». It’s quite the eye-opener in terms of their symbolism and the obvious control they exert over literally anyone who is anything in this world. The top tiers of entertainment, politics and business is literally crawling with both open masons and crypto-masons. Their symbols are everywhere and easy to spot if you know what to look for.
https://rumble.com/v12hnfz-vaccine-propaganda-music-edition.html
Take Back Our Lives: The Selling of Health and Immunity (Left lockdown Sceptics)
Jug ears’ latest ruse to save the planet.
I used to think it would be good to skip straight to William but I fear he is his father’s son.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10755857/Wearable-COWS-neutralises-methane-wins-Prince-Wales-Terra-Carta-Design-Lab.html
William wanted Jimmy Saville to be godfather to his child. I’d also recommend comparing Kate Middleton’s maternity smock and the one worn by Mia Farrow in ‘Rosemary’s Baby’.
Royal pregnancies happen to be under the charge of Jill Dando’s husband – as if it couldn’t get any more disconcerting.
Ridiculous!
Question is, and I think this is a question for many below the line, why do the propaganda techniques, described in the essay, not work for me, but still have to follow the bullshit that comes from propaganda?
Not that I disliked the essay. In fact, I liked it and consider it to be very true. It explains much of the behavior that I see around me. For instance, when I was still ‘boss’ (‘had’ PhD students), in 2020, the PhD students listened to my arguments why covid was bullshit and seemed to agree with me. And then they listened to the head of the department (who was manically and unbelievably involved in the covid nonsense) and decided to forget all my arguments and reasoning and continued with social distancing, wearing mouth masks, testing and (later) ‘vaccinated’ themselves, because… the bigger boss told them to do this. This too, I think, was common behavior from ‘the herd’ that many below the line observed at the height of covid.
In terms of covid, things seem to return to normal now. But not because people consider all of it bullshit, but because the bosses stopped talking about the nonsense. For now…
Still, the covid propaganda didn’t work for me, and it didn’t work for millions of others.
My question therefore is (and I repeat myself): why didn’t it work for me (and millions of others), while I still have to follow the bullshit that comes from propaganda?
Now that is a question you don’t see asked many times, yet I think it is a pertinent question. So I thought I should raise the question here.
Three points: cohesive instinct of the herd, the artificial imposition by the media of groupthink, and a desire to resolve this by seeking the least-complex answer that appeals to the greatest number.
Herd – we think together. We wake up together. We turn our backs on those who wake up too soon, or too late.
Even on this site views are shared freely that would, just a few months ago, have been met with a somewhat stony silence. Thus the community wakes up together.
Groupthink – foisted upon us but also partly natural (shared experience),
Remember, just a decade ago, when the “wisdom of crowds” was all the rage. People spoke positively of “the hive” – that was before hive mind became an insult and people rediscovered the well-known book, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” — No, not the one recently written by Douglas Murray but the one from 1841.
Now Yuval Harari is all the rage, telling us that our consciousness is just a blend of chemicals.
I suspect your PhD students listened to you, understood your argument, but that understanding was overridden by a more powerful force that they internalized.
Simplification – the restatement of a simple argument that can be understood by the greatest number will always dominate over the more insightful but complex.
Often we may sigh when we encounter yet another article reinventing the wheel or ploughing the same furrow – but we stop our mouths and acknowledge that the information is new to some.
This desire for a simple answer is what takes us full circle: it must be an idea of its time, and which nods to shared experience.
The simplistic argument is not capable of withstanding appeals to envy, status and duty because it cannot account for more complex themes like the motives of others.
As the article above notes, Bernays played on appeals to envy, status, duty – and this is the precise argument used to push the Covid jab.
Those who are open to, or make time for, a more rigorous, nuanced argument can withstand propaganda.
Attempts to manipulate us can never be neutralized by the simple stories we yearn to hear, or those which, by presenting the old as new, keep us in an endless game of intellectual hide and seek.
collective consciousness/shadow.
jessica davidson’s essays.
lorie ladd videos
I think it’s to do with our natural inclinations and our upbringing although upbringing is no guarantee. The uncensoredwisdom.com blogger is a mother of 11 children who homeschooled them and brought them up to think for themselves, however, she’s found one university-attending child reject his parental guidance and follow the covid BS and she said a couple of other children needed to be “rescued” from going the same way. I was always inculcated to think that following the crowd was tantamount to crime and could only lead to Nazi-Germany-type situations and that authority should never be respected just because it was authority – it worked on me but I wonder if I hadn’t had that upbringing would I still be the same. People really do seem to feel a sense of safety and rightness in obeying the law and a sense of it conferring on them the moral upperhand whereas to me it feels so very unsafe and immoral.
same, it does not work on me at all and i can see it all very clearly , and have seen some of it before re advertising/films ectr. though i’ve been fooled once or twice as well.
i myself am someone who’s working on her own shadow/ psyche, this might make a difference, idk.
i’ve been ”into” psychoanalyses [while seeing the dangers in that, and psychiatry, and the psychopaths it attracts.
been into spirituality as well for most of my life while also being critical of that/new age /positive thinking misappropriations.
i am using psychological astrology a lot for myself, and to understand others/ what’s happening better.
or it’s just that i am naturally /as explained by my chart a somewhat rebellious type?!
It’s a good question.
Answering for myself, I think part of my distrust towards official narratives come from my Christian faith. I believe in the existence of Satan, that he actively works to deceive the whole world and that the book of Revelation is not just allegory.
This has also led to me feeling very disappointed in how the majority of Christians (it seems) have just blindly followed “The Science” and think it’s mad to think that all this will lead to anything else prophetically.
Additionally, I also researched 9/11 heavily in my 20s and the shocking conclusions I reached meant my distrust towards the official narratives was firmly cemented.
Opposition, or at least dissent, cannot be eliminated. For the plutocracy, it is a matter to be contained through propaganda, enforcement, brutality, etc.
In addition to the usual Social Compliance Disorder {1}, PhD students are strongly influenced by compulsive careerism (aka “the banality of evil”). For instance, Peter Duesberg reportedly lost all his students when he started questioning the AIDS dogma.
The best description I’ve found so far is by Emerson:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/Self-Reliance
{1} No results found for “social compliance disorder”
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22social+compliance+disorder%22
I think, going back even a long ways (I’m over 70 now) that we are raised, through the ‘education – indoctrination training system’ to be herd animals from a very young age – but some of us, for some inner spirit thing we have, are resistant from the beginning, and remain resistant, and never become fully herd animals – you have to behave in certain ways to get by in this society, but that inner resistance to ‘automatic, unquestioning obedience’ never goes away. And when the commands are too stupid or outrageous, the ‘get the fuck out of here!’ is kind of automatic.
I think all the replies here are good Willem. It’s interesting to read people’s varying takes.
The first reason that intelligent people turn to is: why would they lie? They can’t get their head round that, and they assume that the repetition worldwide means everyone in power has independently reached the same conclusion – they have not countenanced the other possibility. They think ‘lockstep’ is something conspiracy theorists say.
People who do not fall for it are not happy with this circumstantial evidence. They want hard evidence – they are more prone to critical thinking and take a forensic approach to what is most ‘true’. They do not require certainty – perhaps they didn’t have it in childhood/adolescence. Perhaps they have open doors of perception.
I also note that there is something seemingly genetic – in my family, the 4 adults from my father’s bloodline did not fall. The 5 adults with my mothers bloodline did. This is not because of closer ties – my closest relationships are with those on my mother’s side on the whole.
The strength of need to virtue signal holds more power over some people than others – most people like to be seen as virtuous, and enjoy easy avenues to this greatly. However, others are more inclined towards true virtue – what feels ethical has more sway.
Some are more susceptible to fear, which recent propaganda has exploited. The V & M ‘virtuous’ combo allowed them to feel they were ‘doing something’. It helped them escape their fear a little. If you weren’t that fearful to begin with, you didn’t need to do these things, and could spend time observing what was happening objectively.
I am unsure why these people were not at all suspicious (the history of Pharma, the madness of the measures, the incredible trickles of information about camps, curfews, mandates) – perhaps they were but drowned it out. I imagined once people knew they had va££ed the control group the game would be up.
I am similarly baffled though – as the levels of palpable nonsense are off the scale from where I am.
Thanks for all your answers, the links to other interesting websites and anecdotes.
To summarize:
It’s multicausal as it depends on the individual (who is unique) and circumstances (that are unique and often unmeasured). Some traits are visible though, including
1. Genetic factors: dissent is running in the family
2. For unknown reasons not being effected by the earliest forms of brainwashing as you questioned the schoolmaster’s narratives. Why you did that, may be unknown to you, but you did question from day 1. One hasn’t changed since the day he started questioning narratives. By doing so, one fortunately escaped the prison that was designed for you.
3. Not being happy with the easiest explanation that is given for a certain phenomenon. Question more.
4. Daring to question every option why a certain narrative is spun, including the option that everything is a (deliberate) lie within that narrative
5. Not being afraid (to fall out of the group) by questioning narratives
6. An intrinsic ethic that tells you what is genuine and what is good, independent of the status that society provides one for being ‘genuinely good’ (the latter leads to the banality of evil summarized by ‘just doing your job, and follow orders’)
7. Being raised that authority and following the crowd equals ‘Nazism’ (ie the worst possible outcome for a society to live in that should be challenged by all possible means)
8. Being able to ask yourself ‘tough’ questions about your own psyche and why you believe stuff (psycho-analysis). Know thyself.
9. Self-reliance: to live (and love) reality and love creators (including self-creators), instead of living and living through customs and (empty) slogans
10. Being able to live with uncertainty (maybe because one did not have much certainty during childhood/adolescence, yet was able to cope with uncertainty which became part of life)
11. Not being able (I would say fortunately) to drown out the obvious i.e., that politicians lie, that pharma is not interested in your health, that ‘social measures’ were obvious antisocial measures, that stopping a virus through all these measures simply could not be stopped through these measures, (believing otherwise would be like believing in miracles)
12. Knowing that you too, may fall for a narrative that turns out to be lie, which might have happened to you in the past and which makes you stand on your guard. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice…
I would like to add one more point
13. Being aware that being a person that does not fall for narratives like covid, and openly questions it, is not ‘smart’, as it will not give you privileges which you might have got if you would have followed the narrative and ‘predicted’ the desired outcomes as ‘expert’, which could have made you rich, famous and powerful (to some degree). I am adding this point as this was for me the central point of what I should do once I found out that covid was a scheme and swindle of which the favorable outcomes could be predicted. It’s a Faustian problem that many of my fellow epidemiologists solved by ‘not thinking’ ie by becoming a tool for power in order to get rich and famous. I am happy that I decided that I did not want to become a tool and thus (knowingly) excommunicated myself from academia (and a job that I loved). I choose humanity over becoming a tool. I think (‘know’ is too strong as one never knows what is right and wrong, but some people have this intrinsic feeling of knowing what is right and wrong and I certainly have that) that that was a good decision and to some way saved my life. I could not live in the wisdom that getting along and going along with the covid lie. Covid and everything that goes with it has been terrible for the population at large, and has been a real plague, as one can quantify for instance by the excess mortality that is abundantly present in countries who adopted ‘social measures’ and vaccinated large swaths of the population leading to genocide as one can see in graphs like these: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-average-baseline?region=Europe&country=~NLD
There is more to say. I hope that one day someone publishes a book about the biggest swindle in my lifetime leading to death and despair in the population, made possible by people which the population was learned to trust at face value (‘scientists’) and who misused that trust for their own profit (the believe that they were exceptional people with magic powers).
Connected with 2, 8, and 10: traumatic or highly significant events that disrupt one’s belief system is likely to make individuals immune to propaganda.
Thank you. I’d like to add to the list that somewhere in your life you must have needed to be very observant. A lot of people have never needed to be so, and it hasn’t developed into a habit for them. Survival can depend on accurate observation, and being told x while watching y happen demonstrates the need to be alert.
The psychology of manipulation. Lessons from Ukraine:
“Russia would have no qualms in destroying the Azovstal completely. The only thing that appears to be stopping them is that Ukronazi batallion Azov is holding many civilians (they claim 1000) hostage, including many children, of whom videos have now been released. They are clearly using the civilians as their last bargaining chip.
It’s a difficult situation for Russia to navigate as it does not want to create a massacre of women and children by bombing the Azov positions nor be responsible for their starving by besieging the factory indefinitely. This is the chief reason that negotiations continue.
There are also some reports that the Azov battalion doesn’t trust its own HQ in Kiev. If true this would make sense, as there were reports weeks ago that Kiev even launched Tochka missiles at Azov in Mariupol, showing a friction of some sort between the ultra-nationalist Azov battalion and the Ukrainian national authorities.”
https://tass.com/world/1416593
Sounds like the Ukronazis are about to learn their final lesson on power.
Or maybe they don’t give a dead rat ass about civilians but want to capture all the ones inside alive, instead of storming the place and killing everyone, which would be a bad pr move. Then, they will have one more bargaining chip plus will be able to collect, even through torture, additional info on how the west has spread it’s tentacles in Ukraine.
‘Group Customs’ are only important where professional livelihood takes place in ‘large groups’.
Anyone who has ever worked in corporations notices that, as the corporation gets bigger the tribal politics and uniformity become ever more stringent.
The free spirits of entrepreneurial inventiveness have little place in big corporations. They are oil tankers designed to sell a lot of standard products, not to actually invent them. Others can invent them, the corporation can buy them up/license them in.
If you want to reduce the power of propaganda, you need to increase the percentage of people working in small organisations where ‘group norms’ are less important.
It will not have escaped most readers here that the primary aim of ‘Lockdown’ was to bankrupt small business, leaving their niches to large online competitors like Amazon.
Propaganda at work, indeed….
indeed
Insightful comment, thanks.
+1
Good points.
I wonder if the author has noticed Bernays gaslighting his readers from the get-go on how a democratic (of the people, by the people, and for the people) is organized and functions.
I honestly think that’s the way Bernays’ mind worked. That was his sincere definition of democracy i.e. he automatically presumed that a tiny elite would always rule because they ought to and it’s the only thing that would work.
It’s got a fair bit going for it once we take in the stupidity of most people. I believe the idiocracy is a result of domestication – otherwise laughably called “civilisation”.
Point number one is, I believe, the key to all propaganda in that it points to the major flaw in human psychology.
People are not only inordinately but even hopelessly drawn to and influenced by the outward appearance of those assuming the mantle of “leadership.”
First of all there should be no “leaders” – it’s an overblown Daddy complex. But since people insist upon having them, they are almost certainly chosen and obeyed insofar as they represent an ideal father figure.
This applies equally to female “leaders.” Isn’t it remarkable how few – if any – female “leaders” can be said to be beautiful? or even extremely “feminine?” These female traits generally idealized by the public are not at all acceptable in women in leadership roles – they are seen as weaknesses. A tough woman should have more manly qualities.
Any way you look at it, the very concept of leadership is deeply flawed.
yep.
Totally right. I would add that for the propaganda to work, there have to be first installed in the minds of the subjects those complexes or flaws; but they are no more than conditioning, conditioning to which we are exposed from the moment of birth and most probably from before that.
Starting from our parents, close family and friends and in a growing circle as we grow, this society is programming the minds of the person to respond to the propaganda.
For example, obedience is submission to authority; is it a coincidence that parents demand obedience right from the start? Educators, religions, companies and society at large demand obedience and there are many tools to get it, from brute force to soft manipulation.
How can it be surprising that the majority of the population simply follow the commands of authority, any authority?
Obedience is submission, subjugation, slavery in its full sense and propaganda is but a means to create slaves without the use of brute force; it is far more efficient and economic.
My point is that the present situation is only possible because we have been made susceptible to propaganda for quite a few years, some of us our whole lives; propaganda does not work in a truly free person but I am afraid most of us have not met anyone like that in our lives.
The sugar coating on this obedience training is, as always, “It’s only for your own good.” It’s quite true that babies, young children, and all too often teenagers need “protecting from themselves.”
But that’s the parent’s responsibility – not the child’s. By instilling the concept of obedience, the parents are transferring their responsibility onto their children. In effect they are saying to the child: “It’s your responsibility to see you don’t get hurt – so you have to obey what we tell you; otherwise you will get hurt.”
Big Brother himself couldn’t have said it better.
“First of all there should be no “leaders” – it’s an overblown Daddy complex.”
Every herd needs a Leader. Every child needs a Father. That is the rule. The rest are exceptions.
‘ Every child needs a Father’
To a certain age. And then you grow up and stand on your own. And when you get older, there may come a time that the tables are turned and that the father needs the child.
All of this seems normal to me.
What is not normal is that grown ups are treated like toddlers and that dissent is considered as puberty, and that no grown-up can grow out of the phases of the child.
And the most astonishing thing of all: that grown-ups seem to like their dependent childlike state and love to be treated like toddlers…
But maybe (just maybe), the idea that grown-ups like to be treated as toddlers is also propaganda. Maybe, and I think it is actually more than ‘maybe’, grown-ups hate their dependent state, yet do not dare to say this openly, because they think it is ‘not done’ to openly despise the state their kept in by ‘society’. Maybe, all they need is a good example where someone openly says: Down with Big Brother!
The writing is on the wall…
Agreed. Especially this passage: “What is not normal is that grown ups are treated like toddlers. And the most astonishing thing of all: that grown-ups seem to like their dependent childlike state and love to be treated like toddlers.”
People don’t need leaders, they need knowledge and working brains.
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’ meters
— Bob Dylan, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” (1965)
That is hierarchical pack behaviour found in most primates and other animals. They just do not have the technology to take it the extreme we have. In other words, the guns are what makes humans different to apes in this context. The leaders are there because the herds unconsciously want them there. The denial of our animal nature by religion and modernity has made us play out these biological instincts without even realizing what we’re doing.
+1
Interesting name for the Polish Climate Minister ‘Anna Moskwa’. Destiny at work or a Putin agent?
Ukraine war: Russia to halt gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61237519
One of us is mis-informed !
The gas is available if they pay with roo-balls.
They cut their own throats if they decline to pay with roo-balls.
Source: Not the bbc.
+1
They’ve declined to pay in roubles, so, AFAIK, are freezing this morning. Good on them.
Not freezing, just paying $More for U$ LNG ($hipload$ of Liquefied Natural Ga$).
Except there is no infrastructure in place for accepting US supplies, and there most likely won’t be any before next winter kicks in.
That’s about par for Poland’s historic political wisdom. Plus paying Germany a premium price in euro for Russian gas that Germany buys cheaply in rubles and is re-exporting to Poland by reverse flow through Nord Stream 1. Just when I had begun to think those old Polish jokes were libels.
How many Poles does it take to buy a can of gas?.
(Bloomberg) Making Energy a Weapon , most read.
Well err, ok.
Sometimes the manipulation doesn’t work. They’re rioting all over France due to suspicion of fraud in “reelection” of Macron.
Apparently Macroni got around 34% of eligible voters to vote for him. He got 18+ million votes, she got 13+ million votes, and around 16 million either abstained or wrote “F**k You” on their voting forms. He’s a minority president. The majority didnt vote for him. It’s called Democracy,
Good to see Penelope (hey, that rhymes). But well, you know, every fucking national election at this point is a fraud from the get-go. Why we don’t just get to that point is what amazes me.
“War of Attrition” and “Rewilding”…
Not the names of two horses running in the 3.25 pm on Saturday…
If you believe The US plan is to wear Russia down through a “War of Attrition” in Battleground Ukraine, what gave you that idea ?
Bernays’ ‘Propaganda‘ was the very first book I read when Covid
propaganda struck. When the single case was being hyped up in that far off land. The smell of abatrat still lingering in the air.Covid began when its propaganda started and ends (ended) when its propaganda stops (stopped)
+1
Hence my GF (who worked within UK gov) trained me in 70s to withhold my mind. I realise now this was coming down the pike from eons ago. And it’s gotten so much worse – most people now have zero capacity to judge a situation or think through to logical conclusion (or alter an erroneous one they had previously believed). All planned obviously but what now? It seems impossible to break through the noise of everyone shouting.
Bernays wrote that when he couldn’t generate demand for something he was tasked to sell, something the public very sensibly didn’t want, he’d wrap it up in the language of rights. Calling cigarettes “freedom sticks” to get women smoking was the great example. It must be obvious how this playbook was used during convid – the supposed shortage of vaccines and the lack of supply to poorer countries was pure Bernays.
There’s a danger of giving people like him too much power. I like to think of him as the rather pathetic figure who appeared on Letterman and who ended up being treated as something of an object of ridicule.
Virginia Slims ads in the 1968: “You’ve come a long ways, baby.” (right out of the Bernays mold) The slogan was, of course, attacked by Women’s Liberation.
Women’s Liberation = Women’s enslavement. A hollow bankster coined phrase.
Very interesting.
Hell, none of this is new. Ask Plato. Its basic human stuff humans have always struggled with, lived with, and debated, until now at least, because they don’t want us to talk about it. We all do it in one way or another, with our kids, friends, at work. We’re manipulated all day, every day, our entire lives. Most of us know it but don’t give it a second thought. Better than being an ant, I guess.
The “Stand with Ukraine” thing is hilarious in a sick way. How easy that was. Good gawd. People are such fucking tools.
“Long before “Fake News,” the Greeks had a lively set of ideas about truth. The philosopher Socrates argued that absolute Truth (Sophia) is knowable and that we communicate best when we communicate only that Truth. His student, Plato, went further, saying that one can arrive at the Truth through the method of dialectic—which meant a process of questioning and testing. Taken together, Socrates and Plato proposed that wisdom isn’t based purely on possessing the “truth,” but—rather ironically—on being aware of one’s own ignorance of it.
While we remember Plato as a great philosopher of democratic Athens, in fact he wasn’t fond of democracy because he thought that not everyone could access Truth through dialectic. He also didn’t care for skilled oratory—rhetoric—for a related reason: he worried that people without knowledge of the Truth would use manipulation and “base rhetoric” to persuade audiences who couldn’t tell the difference. In contrast to Plato’s quest for a philosophical Truth, the Sophists’ goal was Phronesis—practical truth. They taught how to make the stronger argument through debating competing narratives. And rather than seeking Socrates’ absolute knowable Truth, Sophists saw Truth as whatever a community of equals with diverse opinions convinced another to believe was true.”
The Ancient Greeks’ Guide to Rejecting Propaganda and Disinformation (zocalopublicsquare.org)
In this comment you seem to equate Truth (capital T) with ‘that what is true’ (not false, small t). But Socrates (and Plato) were ONLY talking about the one fundamental truth about existence, or the true nature of Reality (that what really exists, capital R, not the superficial 3D perception of the world). That Truth, as something that can be known by the human attention when that Truth is reflecting Itself on the central nervous system; but not in any Tom, Dick or Harriette that forces the mind into some freaky peak-experience (and propagandising that to be that Truth and so misleading the seekers), but as a balanced and serene and permanent state of the mind that spontaneous and gradually arises under particular (meditative) circumstances and usually only settles after thorough purification of the mind (ridding it of conditionings -habits- desires- opinions….).
Just saying, these guys were not just like modern self-certified academic philosopher charlatans that communicate some ideas or their opinions on the ideas of others; they were in that state and as genuine ‘lovers of Wisdom’, they tried as good as possible to educate seekers about the existence of that Truth as the single and ONLY purpose of human existence and evolution and to point out the necessary preconditions and the methods (Wisdom with capital W) of how to get there.
Just saying.
Truth sine qua non.
I didn’t pay much attention in my philosophy class (101), so I may have missed the point. But my point was simply that propaganda is old as the hills and wasn’t invented by Bernays.
Truth has more than one form. A bit like the wave and particle theories of light and the electron. Orwell dwelt on this in 1984 when O’Brien ridiculed the fetishisation of objective reality. The truth is that fragile airframes cannot pass through massive steel structures like knives through hot butter. However the powerful can and have proclaimed this possible and the bulk of the powerless majority have accepted their masters version of the truth. Fifty years from now (if mankind survives) there will be no doubt about the planes “crashing” into the towers. Fifty years ago there was widespread suspicion of Polanski’s involvement in the Tate murders. Today that suspicion has completely evaporated.
Stand with Ukraine is easily changed to Fuck Ukraine. The latter rolls off the tongue easier.
The possibilities for mankind to completely screw itself are currently endless.
I dream of a time when that will no longer be possible – not because of a despot who forbids it, but because mankind will have developed beyond its teenager stage.
Could take a millennium or two though…
That we would have 1-2K years is a delusion; just see the myriad precipices toward which we rush with closing imminent in every case.
More like 1/1000th that window. And on the other side of this we ( or they, if you will ) shall all know the Truth.
You may be right.
I wasn’t saying we would have a millennium or two, just that that’s how long it could take, all other things being equal – and of course all other things are not very equal at the moment…
It’s hard to be optimistic, but if “The Truth” shall be known one day, I suppose there will have to be a few of us left to appreciate it…
There is no doubt much of the article is spot on. However, what is not touched upon in any depth is the distortion of history for the benefit of those who wish to create a false narrative in order to justify their present actions.
For example, WW1 was, as Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor described in their book Hidden History not about the well trodden simplistic notion of a European Civil war happening , because of an assassination of a minor aristocrat being assassinated in some backwater but a long term strategic plan to destroy an economic rival thus due to its consequences introducing a new world order.
Professor Antony C Sutton also wrote in depth with detailed documentation about how the events of the 20th century are not a closed book as did Eustace Mullins, Gary Allen, Professor Guido Preparata and many others.
Therefore, it is important to look very carefully at the historical events through analysis before leaping to conclusions !
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Battleground_Ukraine
What convinced Sutton that the Capitalism/communism paradigm was a sham were the Western technological transfers to the USSR. Why would the West help its supposed enemy build up its economic and military power? Sutton wote his findings up in ‘Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development’ which deserves to be much better known. The role of Astrazeneca in the Russian vaccine looks like exactly the same phenomenon – the 2020s’ equivalent of the 1930s’ massive tractor factory Henry Ford built in Ukraine that’s now almost wiped from the memory banks.
Does this mean everything Sutton says is gospel? Not necessarily, there are some concerning things about him. Firstly, Sutton worked at Stanford. Perhaps one had to be “in the belly of the beast” to gain access to this information? Secondly, Sutton later collaborated with Kris Millegan of Trine Day. Millegan admits his father was CIA and several of the books he’s published worry me (like Haslam propping up the AIDS’ hoax in ‘Dr Mary’s Monkey’ or Spence undermining Sutton’s own work in ‘Wall St and the Russian Revolution’). Maybe Sutton was duped – or desperate?
Well, first of all you completely ignore the work of Gerry Doherty and Jim Macgregor concerning the strategy to construct a World War plus of course the manipulating of history in order to convince ordinary folk to sacrifice their lives for lies.
Moreover, Sutton made some very important points, for example, ” don’t go beyond the evidence ” in order to establish an argument.
Something that so many commentators on this platform have forgotten! Let’s not forget Sutton produced actual factual, detailed, verifiable evidence to prove his points.
Do you have any,
Controlled opposition can be so very, very sneaky. I thought Sutton was a hero and then I noticed a contradiction in what he said about obtaining the membership of the Skull & Crossbones – agent fingerprints all over it.
In the video below Sutton says quite different things from what he says in an interview published in Technocracy and things generally don’t really add up.
Video: Antony Sutton. The Order of Skull and Bones Brotherhood of Death.
Sutton says the following just before the interviewer mentions a book just brought out by Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order:
“A little before six months ago I received the catalog which is the membership list of the society all the way back to 1833 and I received some of their internal documents, enough for me to put together: the way they correspond with each other, the operations within the order, to some extent their problems and to some extent their objectives.”
Interview in Technocracy: The Incredible Legacy Of Antony Sutton: Persecuted But Never Prosecuted
Sutton says:
“I knew nothing of Skull & Bones until I received a letter in the early 80’s asking if I would like to look at a genuine membership list. For no real reason I said yes. It was agreed to send the package by Federal Express and I could keep it for 24 hours, it had to be returned to the safe. It was a “black bag” job by a family member disgusted with their activities.
I spent all night in Kinko’s, Santa Cruz, copied the entire volumes and returned within the 24 hour period.
I have never released any copies or identified the source. I figured each copy could be coded and enable S&B to trace the leak.
How did I feel? I felt then (as I do now} that these “prominent” men are really immature juveniles at heart. The horrible reality is that these little boys have been dominant in their influence in world affairs. No wonder we have wars and violence. Skull and Bones is the symbol of terrorist violence, pirates, the SS Deaths Head Division in WW Two, labels on poison bottles and so on.
I kept the stack of xerox sheets for quite a while before I looked at them—when I did look—a picture jumped out, THIS was a significant part of the so called establishment. No wonder the world has problems!”
In the video interview although having only received the catalog and internal documents a little before six months prior he’s already published a book while in the print interview he says he kept the stack of xerox sheets for quite awhile. Some anomalies:
1. How credible is it that when asked if he wished to see a membership list he said yes “for no real reason.”
2. In the video interview he mentions both the membership list and internal documents while in the print interview only the membership list.
3. How credible is it that he would copy the membership list and keep it for awhile before looking at it?
4. How credible is it that he left looking at the membership list “for quite awhile” and yet still managed to get a book out about S&B within six months of receipt?
5. How credible is it that it took him all night to photocopy the membership lists (even if they did go back to 1833) and internal documents?
And where are the important revelations? What have we learnt from his receiving these prize secret documents?
Let’s look at his Wall Street Trilogy: Wall Street And Bolshevik Revolution, Wall Street And FDR, Wall Street And The Rise of Hitler. In every single book of this series, he established by a very detailed analysis the link between Wall Street and 3 of arguably some of the most important events in the 20th century. He analysed the intricate web of corporations, banks and companies that over and over again appeared in these seismic events that shaped history in this century.
Furthermore, he produced documents to support his statements. For example, ‘ “ Dear Mr President: I am in sympathy with the Soviet form of government as that best suited for the Russian people…” ‘ Letter to President Woodrow Wilson ( October 17, 1918) from William Lawrence Saunders, chairman, Ingersoll – Rand. ; director, American International Corp.; and deputy chairman, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. ‘ .
In addition, he proved that American Red Cross Mission in Russia in 1917 was a front for people such as the Wall Street Bankers, W.B to give the Bolsheviks very large sums of money “ Gives Bolshevik A Million. William B Thompson, who was in Petrograd from July until November last, has made a personal contribution of $1,000,000 to the Bolsheviki ..” The Washington Post of February 2, 1918. More Wall Street Bankers followed Thompson eg Raymond Robins In December 4, 1917.
Here is another example of Sutton’s extensive research on this connection between the Bankers and the Bolsheviks. ‘ “ Martens is very much in the limelight. There appears to be no doubt about his connection with Guarentee Trust Company. Though it is surprising that so large and influential enterprise should have dealings with a Bolshevik concern. “ Scotland Yard Intelligence Report, London 1919’
In Roosevelt’s case, Sutton painstakingly demonstrated how FDR was in hock to the very same people who had helped finance and nurture an embryonic Bolshevik Revolution. Let’s not forget he also proved the importance of the bankers and corporations in helping Hitler.
Many other researchers have, after Sutton, also established these links for example Professor Guido Preparata in his book Conjuring Hitler.
Therefore, your what ifs and inferences you are making about Sutton is to say the least questionable.
He produced ground breaking books about the hidden power of the international bankers and his works are still quoted to this day by people platforms such as James Corbett, U.K. Column, 21 Century Wire etc !
You are obviously much more knowledgeable on the subject of Antony Sutton than I am and I guess what raised my suspicions isn’t really a large amount of evidence. I should probably do more research.
Fair enough.
Agreed.
It is unfortunate however that some have misinterpreted Sutton’s work as being the proof two worldviews, Capitalism and Communism, are two sides controlled by the same actors.
Not being a historian of ideas, Sutton simply gathered irrefutable evidence to prove his thesis: capitalists condemn certain countries in public while supporting them in private. He didn’t deal, he wasn’t supposed to, with the history of ideas and worldviews for which not only facts, but context, are important to consider and interpret.
For instance, he didn’t talk much of Germany in his “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution” – apart the fact that it encouraged Russian revolutionary movements to steer up trouble that could make Russia whidraw from the war – which would have been of interest to a historian of ideas. Indeed, after reading literature of the twenties, one discovers that events and actors are very difficult to classify as good/bad, white/black, and one sees how the ideas navigate through the historical stream. Context is crucial. For example, the attitude of Germany towards the Soviets (asking them for instance to renounce to the Russian Empire and withdraw to the old borders of Russia as ‘good socialists’ and the reluctant refusal of Lenin), had a lot to do with the decisions that these had to make and the events that followed; the difficult choice they had to make between peace with Germany or continue the war to encourage revolutions elsewhere in Europe; the schism that occurred within the CC between Trotsky and Stalin; the support the latter gave to Chiang Kai Check, who led a Chinese bourgeois revolution and was responsible of the Shanghai massacre of 1927; the failures of the revolutions in Germany and Italy and the powerful effect it had in terms of the isolationist policy that Stalin had to adopt – socialism in one country, – as opposed to what the initial movement of 1917 was meant to be: the local manifestation of an international movement of the working class. The backwardness of Russia at the time that forced it to rely on foreign Capitals, etc.
All these considerations can help us understand the big picture, why events happened the way they happened and how the initial intentions get modified and moulded by the historical movement, and Sutton wasn’t concerned with much of that. So, for those who believe that Sutton proved that Capitalism and Communism is the same thing or are two sides of the same coin, for those who like the conformable black/white, good/bad labelling, I’m afraid you’ll have to dig deeper. As far as I’m concerned, what happened in 1917 is this: Capital as a mode of production was vigorously on the rise at the time (and how! It was getting rid of Germany from the international stage), and the socialist movement in Russia came too early and could be absorbed by the ascending tide.
It was not only Sutton, who was a very good researcher which is very important for any historian, but also Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador to the U.K who asked some fundamental questions such as “ Wer Hilft Hitler “ translated as Who Helped Hitler. He proposed that the Cliveden Set, lead by Chamberlain and hosted by Lady Astor were determined to orchestrate a war between Nazi Germany and the U.S.S.R.
Sutton analysed the goals that both the Wall Street Bankers and centrally controlled dictatorships had in common . Namely, having the State do the work for you.
https://archive.org/details/WhoHelpedHitler
Yes. Wherever Capital can reproduce itself there it goes specially if it can make friends with the State of a country to be rebuilt anew.
Thanks for the link.
Twitter’s board has accepted Musk’s offer; he’s going to take the company private; does this mean an end to Twitter’s psych manipulation, or a new kind?
You can answer this yourself, can’t you? Do you really believe this character role called “Elon” is benevolent and everything he/it is doing is for the “greater good”?
Tucker is back on and a few other who were forbidden to tweet.
Maybe Elon will also have a bridge to sell you. Plus some oceanfront real estate in Utah.
Promied less social media limits…what’s that say
Musk, Zuckerberg, Gates, Kramer, Epstein, etc. etc. do you notice a pattern? All comparatively youthful J3wz, fronting for DS.
of course! I’m gonna go kidnap some random Jew from the street. They will tell me everything about the NWO!
…fucking idiot
Your ocular nerve still connected to your anal tract? have it cauterized ya loon.
What is your point ?
Do you really still think people like Musk and Trump aren’t puppets of the same masters?
Edward Bernays was part of a cabal of miscreants who were extremely influential in getting the US into WWI.(the Creel Commission in the US and the Tavistock Institute in London) https://artvoice.com/2019/04/09/one-nation-under-control/. Bernays was also behind the campaign to create consensus for Eisenhower and the CIA to invade Guatemala. https://history.wsu.edu/rci/sample-research-project/
Bernays was singled handedly behind the push to get women to smoke cigarettes, he claimed to was chic, healthy and caused weight loss. Adolph Hitler, George Gobbles and the Nazi hierarchy overlooked the fact Bernays was Jewish and readily embraced his techniques in Germany!
Bernays’ techniques are currently being employed in every aspect of advertising, public relations, mass psychology and mind control.
Here’s an interesting piece of propaganda put out by Ukraine to “explain” today’s two grenade attacks on Transnistra. I understand all their broadcast antennas are now rubble. See if you can figure out what’s really happening.
https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukrainian-intelligence-calls-explosions-in-russian-backed-transnistria-a-false-flag-50236949.html
PS Rand Corporation paper a few years back calls for weakening Russia through, among other things, military involvement in Moldova. Maybe this is going to be reignited, what do you think?
3 days ago, rt posted an interesting historical article about a place most people have never heard of…
https://www.rt.com/russia/554330-uprising-transnistria-donbass-ukraine/
.. and yesterday it was the scene of spillages from the Ukraine crisis.
Curious.
I’m quite excited about Simon Elmer’s latest project: The Road To Fascism which is clearly a book in the making. You can access the series here:
https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/
The second part has this wonderful observation:
Part of what Simon Elmer is saying is that the current Ukraine episode is indeed just a little “breather”, a temporary “relapse” to something approaching the “old normal” where the puppets of the traditional theatre can once again resume their positions with a restored credibility which, given the almost comical cessation of the covid epic (acting like the ZZZZIP! of a record needle being swept up), is being seized on eagerly by almost everyone. There is a heady rush back to the familiar barricades long sanctioned by the media.
But all of this is just a temporary assertion of the “good cop” before the “bad cop” returns. I suspect this is a movement we will see repeated over and over as a gradual weakening of the old confident assumption that we are free to genuinely judge gives way to a new fearful submission.
Disagree, the character of Rik was neither ‘left nor right’ and it was aired post 1968-79 period.
Rise of the young executives in The City is where you frustrated left right political stiffs need to look respectively.
A new ‘novel’ lacking originality futher diluting creative ability is right up their alley.
Sorry Pass
The character of Rik was very much would-be Left (addressing a letter to a banker as “Dear fascist bully boy”) and speaking up allegedly for the poor etc. But really more concerned that there were flares on Top of the Pops. He was clearly intended as a parody of that mentality -which turned out to be prescient.
Ben Elton wrote most of ‘The Young Ones’ – look up his family background and see if it doesn’t scream “bloodline”.
Well, that fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, says very little of his family background, except that his father is of German-Jewish stock. Is that what you are getting at?
Anyway, “He said of his political views “I believe in the politics of Clement Attlee. I’m a Welfare State Labour voter.. Can’t say fairer than that.
Re: Simon Elmer’s latest project: The Road To Fascism
Does he mention Samuel Hoare?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hoare,_1st_Viscount_Templewood
First World War
Aged 34 at the time, Hoare joined the Army soon after the outbreak of the First World War. He was commissioned into the Norfolk Yeomanry as a temporary lieutenant on 17 October 1914.[14] To his disappointment, he was initially only a recruiting officer[10] and illness prevented him from serving at the front. He was promoted to temporary captain on 24 April 1915.[15]
While acting as a recruiting officer, he learnt Russian. In 1916, he was recruited by Mansfield Cumming to be the future MI6’s liaison officer with the Russian Intelligence service in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg). He soon became head of the British Intelligence Mission to the Russian General Staff with the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel.[10][16] In that post, he reported to the British government the death of Rasputin and apologised, because of the sensational nature of the event, for having written it in the style of the Daily Mail.[17]
In March 1917 he was posted to Rome, where he remained until the end of the war. His duties included helping to dissuade Italy from dropping out of the war.[10] In Italy, he met and recruited the former socialist leader Benito Mussolini on behalf of the British overseas intelligence service, which was then known as MI1(c). Britain’s intelligence service helped Mussolini to finance his first forays into Italian politics as a pro-war spokesman. Hoping to keep Italy on its side in 1917, during the First World War, British intelligence gave Mussolini, a 34-year-old newspaper editor, £100 a week to keep his propaganda flowing.[18]
For his services in the war, Hoare was twice mentioned in despatches, appointed Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1917, and awarded the Orders of St Anne and St Stanislas of Russia, and of St Maurice and St Lazarus of Italy.[7]
“It is not who votes, it is who counts the votes.”
“Fake fake, fake, fake… ENTIRELY FAKE!”
“That is what one gets from rigged elections; a field of pre-selected Corporate Fascist toady hacks and made up/make believe numbers.”
“Why it’s Mini-Hitler and his grandmother, Bride Brigitte Eva.”
?x51581
“One word, Piñata.”
Edith Piaf in a spirited version of the revolutionary song ça ira:
Actually, in capitalistland where EVERYthing is for sale, it’s who buys the ‘elected’ politicians afterwards ….
https://www.globalresearch.ca/aux-armes-citoyens-dissecting-stage-managed-french-elections/5778630
So it was Macron against Lepen…. not even a token left?
I admit that when it comes to French politics, I’m only a cynical low-information spectator dozing off far away in the US cheap-seats gallery– thus, I may be susceptible to projection.
My impression is that Jean-Luc Melenchon is the current “token left” candidate. He seems to be a slightly more credible version of Amerika’s “progressive” Bernie Sanders; that is, an opportunistic, powermongering, self-serving Wizard of Oz who appeals to credulous and desperate left-leaning Munchkins.
Like Sanders (and other progressive-liberals who cultivate the preposterous image of being a reasonably honest politician fighting for the “little guy”), in the electoral context Melenchon functions as a “Judas goat”.
In the early phases of a campaign, these alleged outsiders affect to be “serious” about winning and give their submissive constituency the impression that this time they have a real, if slim, “fighting chance”.
When the campaign enters the home stretch, and it becomes clear that the Establishment’s Usual Suspects are the only “viable” candidates, the would-be outsider Judas Goats lead their flock to the “lesser evil” front-runner’s pen (or killing floor).
I find the Judas Goat “leftists” to be more odious, reprehensible, and treacherous than the ostensibly unacceptable “fringe” candidates.
Yes, when I write comments on the electoral process I wear out my ” key! 😣
Great piece but it doesn’t answer a very important question — “If we’ve known all about this for 100 years or more how come it still works?”.
The same reason why drugs/vaccine-based medicine still works – even though humanity (and their pets) have never before been so chronically ill: Human beings have been tutored to remain infantilised, the problem always being out there, rather than with oneself. Ergo, someone else is always expected to come up with a quick fix. And this “they” eagerly do.
Humans: hopeless let-downs
you need to watch your use of ‘we’ – ‘we the rulers’ know all about it, ‘we the ruled’ not so much … there’s a group of ‘we who are curious about things’ somewhere in there, who read a lot and learn a lot, but are still basically powerless ‘we the ruled who’d like to do something about it but can’t seem to wake the fucking passive sheep up ..’
Excellent research Ryan. Wonder if there’s a way to counteract “crowds” and the effects of propaganda?
I think it’s like Luke and ObiWan and don’t hold your breath …
As Don Delillo said “The future belongs to crowds.” All of us freaks over here are the unpredictable individuals – the masses they seem to have figured out.
P. T. Barnum figured out the masses long ago.
Today’s ‘authorities’ are his great-great-great grandchildren, and they still give prayers of thanks unto him…
Well if you’re talking bread and Circus’ of course that goes back to Imperial Rome – but the more scientific and psychological tactics were pioneered in the 20th century. Distraction is one thing – inciting populations to commit x or y action is another.
These are some examples of jab injuries in little kids in Australia listed by the adverse events authorities. Anything listed as ”adverse event after immunisation” is a death.
719838 11/03/2022 7 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Cardiac arrest
722006 19/03/2022 9 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Testicular swelling
7223832 1/03/2022 11 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children
SARS-CoV-2 test positive
722925 22/03/2022 8 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Feeling cold
Heart rate irregular
Hyperhidrosis
Lethargy
Tremor
Vomiting
722983 22/03/2022 -31-
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Exposure during pregnancy
Foetal cardiac disorder
7242422 5/03/2022 5 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Influenza like illness
Respiratory tract infection
7252062 9/03/2022 7 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Chest pain
Headache
Lethargy
Pyrexia
725234 29/03/2022 10 F
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Carditis
Chest pain
Lethargy
Palpitations
SARS-CoV-2 antibody test positive
725354 30/03/2022 9 F
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Seizure
725352 30/03/2022 8 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Dyspnoea
Exercise tolerance decreased
Goitre
Rhinorrhoea
Sneezing
725357 30/03/2022 8 F
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Chest pain
725355 30/03/2022 9 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Breakthrough COVID-19
Chest discomfort
Cough
Pyrexia
Vomiting
725362 30/03/2022 7 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Chest discomfort
Headache
Myalgia
Pyrexia
Vomiting
725530 30/03/2022 9 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Clonic convulsion
Lethargy
Muscular weakness
Mydriasis
Postictal state
Vomiting
725700 31/03/2022 6 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Chest pain
Dyspnoea
725813 31/03/2022 11 F
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Chest pain
Dizziness
Dyspnoea
Flushing
725812 31/03/2022 10 F
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Chest pain
Dyspepsia
725987 31/03/2022 10 F
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Chest pain
Palpitations
725984 31/03/2022 6 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Abdominal pain
Arthralgia
Headache
Injection site reaction
Lethargy
Myalgia
Pyrexia
Viral infection
Vomiting
725996 31/03/2022 4 F
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Acute lymphocytic leukaemia
726024 31/03/2022 9 F
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Chest pain
Influenza like illness
Nausea
726246 01/04/2022 13 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Adverse event following immunisation
726245 01/04/2022 12 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Adverse event following immunisation = death
726975 04/04/2022 31 M
COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine (tozinameran) – Suspected
Poliomyelitis
And that’s why I believe the current abandonment of the covid restrictions, even for the unvaxxed, is happening in Australia – not the upcoming election, as many speculate. More people are waking up to the dangers of these jabs.
Biontech (Comirnaty) admitted to the US SEC that its poison would unlikely receive full approval by the FDA, so investors would not continue to be making such huge profits by betting on their product. Biontech said that they could not warrant the jab’s effectiveness nor safety. (Wallstreet Online)
Davis Martin and mates have started court cases….under a project called covid revealed….basically to get the fraud exposed if nothing else….and the CEO of both pfyser and Moderna have quit…no doubt taking their illgotten gains while they can.too many other issues popping up…
i.e. a cruise boat of triple vax got into trouble off Broome WA a couple of days ago…around 3 of the boat tested positive..,this is when one loves the PCR tests…