numan

I don't think Americans are that different from the rest of humanity --- it is just that it pays more to brainwash and manipulate Americans than other people. Everyone in the world is involved in the Matrix of Lies to greater or lesser degrees.

Americans are just like everyone else --- only more so! ---

I think you make a false dichotomy between, as I call it, "the Invisible Mind [sic!] of the Marketplace", and scheming, shadowy manipulators at the apex of wealth and power. Both are in operation destroying the last shreds of rationality and culture left in our disintegrating "civilization."

A hundred years ago, the uncontrolled forces of economic greed were much more important than even the Rockefellers and Morgans. Today, as wealth and power are concentrated in ever fewer and fewer hands, the billionaire Feudal Oligarchs have the preponderance of power.

But they are not, as yet, elements of an "Illuminati" cabal engineering the subjugation of their human cattle.

It is quite sufficient that they individually recognize their class interests, and co-operate as much as such rivals may do in short-term alliances.

I wish people were more familiar than they are with the politics of the Ancient World.

If they understood the relations of Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, Antony and Octavian with the Roman mob in the collapsing Roman Republic, or could perceive how much of Crassus and Nero there is in Trump, they would have a much better idea of what is going on today.
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numan

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Vast numbers of people have been working for decades, both consciously and unconsciously, on the Modern Totalitarianism Project. I wish that I could believe that they were all doing it consciously, like some Illuminati Conspiracy. Then one could hope that they were acting out of self-interest, and that there was at least some rationality behind what is happening to us.

There are, certainly, plenty of conspirators, but I fear that mainly the drive toward totalitarianism is unconscious ---- that Americans are in a trance, being pushed forward by the inertia of history, and creating yet more inertia that we will be unable to stop or control. That is why I am so insistent on forcing people to recognize totalitarianism as totalitarianism. I know that the bulk of people are zombies who will never wake up. But there are a few, "whose eyes are lightly covered with dust," who may be able to wake up before they stumble over the edge of the cliff.

Why are people so mindless? That is a deep question, and I also can only touch upon the surface of a reply. In very simple terms, I would say that most people are living in a kind of "virtual reality." Almost their entire higher mental world is being fed into them: television, mass media, entertainment, advertising, government and commercial propaganda, schools, even family, friends and acquaintances work together synergistically to create "false consciousness" and delusion. Of course, one of their deepest delusions is that they are "free and independent thinkers."

Moreover, if you do become conscious and aware, you must pay a price that most people are unwilling to pay. Where the madmen run the asylum, you may find being sane a real danger.

He has come a long way: The loss of memory from which he suffers causes him no suffering; his lack of self-will makes life easy for him; he values his own inability to concentrate; he considers it an advantage that he neither knows nor understands what is happening to him. He is mobile. He is adaptive. He has a talent for getting things done. We need have no worries about him. It contributes to the second-order illiterate's sense of well-being that he has no idea that he is a second-order illiterate. He considers himself well-informed; he can decipher instructions on appliances and tools; he can decode pictograms and checks. And he moves within an environment hermetically sealed against any infection of his consciousness. That he might come to grief in this environment is unthinkable. After all, it produced and educated him in order to guarantee its undisturbed continuation.
---- Hans M. Enzenberger
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Aufgeblassen

YOU should write books with you ability to tell tall tales!

numan

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I hope you didn't think that I was writing about you, Blowhard.

After all, I didn't say so.
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Aufgeblassen

Did NOT even crossing my mind (if you are referring to me right now).

BTW: How about answering question on special thread, OK? So we can get to the bottom of what is eating your heart out!

arcturus88

I don't agree with your politics, but I do appreciate your intelligent and thoughtful (as opposed to emotional) responses.

Aufgeblassen

If you are seriously calling me "Blowhard" (for all I know you could just be sporting), the word itself pretty much means the same as "boisterous". I have been pretty much been described as being opposite of that.

One time (around 1990), at Lockheed Martin, there was a "pissing contest" of sorts between the Manufacturing group and the Test Equipment Engineering group I was in. Manufacturing was complaining about me, and said I was BOISTEROUS. Well, my boss came strongly to my defense, and said that I "don't have a boisterous bone in my body". So that settled that.

So I likely don't have a blowhard bone in my body either!

numan

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I was merely translating into English what you call yourself in German. I don't think you should complain about that!
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Aufgeblassen

Actually, there is no translation; it is unique word I sort of made up. A similar word (spelled with only one "S") translates to: "inflated".

My son was taking German class at the time, and apparently we misspelled it, but it stuck. We were thinking more along the lines of literal translation meaning "out blast", but we used also it for fart.

Typical Google photo search for "aufgeblasen":

numan

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AMERICA'S JOYOUS FUTURE

Freedom = "Wholehearted support for the Homeland"

Slavery = "Wholehearted support for the Homeland"


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Aufgeblassen

Only YOU know what that is supposed to mean.

numan

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Zombiedom (or should that be, "zombie-dumb"?) arises from the susceptibility of common people to the propaganda ceaselessly pouring out of the boob-tube and other sources of indoctrination. These forms of manipulation are carefully constructed so as to take advantage of the emotional weaknesses of their anthropoid audience. The hominids are normally quite unaware that they are being manipulated emotionally. It is similar to the way religion preys upon the hopes and fears of simple-minded people, but it is far more efficient than religion. That is why the state, after so many centuries of strict control, permits religion to fade away. It is no longer needed in order to control people.

I remember, as a teenager in the 1950's, reading a book by Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, which described how the PR types were already, in the 1930's, covertly photographing and studying people who shopped in markets. They noted that, if their subjects' eye-blink rate went below a certain number per minute, they were in a state of semi-hypnosis and were more likely to make impulse-purchases. They discovered that the arrangements of the colors of the boxes on the display shelves could induce this state of semi-hypnosis in many people. Remember that as you walk down the aisles of your local supermarket.

Well, it has been nearly a century since those first, crude efforts at sub-conscious manipulation. Everything is far, far more sophisticated today. When I was a teenager, many people were very concerned about subliminal advertising. Do you hear anything about it today? Yet the techniques are much more advanced. Look at the flashing lights, the endless jumping from image to image, several times per second, to which people subject themselves when they watch TV.

There is no need to enslave people's bodies, when you can enslave their minds.
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Aufgeblassen

That should be a "IF", rather than "WHEN", and even then, the IF is highly unlikely. Apparently you have not heard that subliminal advertising is a hoax, a complete waste of time.
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numan

It seems to have worked on you.
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Aufgeblassen

You have no knowledge of what I have have bought or bought into. You on the other hand have made it clear what you have bought into, hook, line, and sinker!

numan

Yeah, yeah, that's what they tell you ! ---
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Aufgeblassen

I tried moderntotalitarianismproject.com to find them, but apparently they are such as small group, the outcasts don't even have one!

numan

Well, really, you don't know what my politics are, since I don't fit into any of the pre-programmed pigeon-holes.

Unlike most of the people I run across, I am not a totalitarian. I would be quite happy to see a variety of economic systems in the world. "Different strokes for different folks." To want to kill and die in order to establish one, universal economic system in the world ---- as the capitalists and communists wanted to do ---- seems supremely insane to me: as insane as the Age of Religious Wars.

I cannot resist quoting a snippet from Aldous Huxley's novel, After Many a Summer. Remember it was published in 1939 [ ! ].

I hope those who read this may feel some surprise that there were functioning, practical solar generators of electricity in 1939.

I hope that they will ask themselves why they have not heard about it before.

I hope that they will wonder if there are other things which have not been told to them ---- and why.
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arcturus88

I think I know your recipe:

1 cup pacifism
1 cup individualism
1 cup libertarianism

a teaspoon of anarchism
a dollop of liberal idealism


Start with one cup pacifism, it should be allowed to settle and ferment for 40-50 years. Swirl in individualism and libertarianism to make the pacifism less bitter. Add a teaspoon of anarchism to fortify the flavor of individualism. Throughout process add dollops of liberal idealism to taste (warning adding too much will spoil the whole recipe and will prevent it from congealing)


note:
to Tecoyah, this post was meant as a lighthearted and playful jab and not intended to offend or harm your father-in-law.

numan

You are quite wrong, Arcturus; none of those five apply to me --- all of them are much too simplistic and cardboard cut-out. But especially, libertarian does not apply to me.

I feel sympathy for the libertarian viewpoint; I share many of their concerns. But I am repulsed by their blind and lop-sided thinking. They have drawn our attention to many Great Truths, but remember what the famous physicist, Niels Bohr, said:

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."

To fully understand a great truth, one must also understand the cogency of its opposite.

For instance: libertarians are hypnotized by their fantasy of the Free Enterprise System. Now, if this religious ideal could exist, it would have a number of positive aspects ---- it would also have a number of negative aspects. But the real point is that it is a fantasy, a will-o'-the-wisp which ever recedes as you pursue it. Free enterprise does not exist, never has existed, and will exist ever less and less, if the libertarians have their way.

Libertarians rightly see the dangers of government, especially Big Government. But they do not see the dangers of business, especially Big Business. They see everywhere the virtues of the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace, but they ignore the dangers of the Invisible Mind of the Marketplace.

During the Middle Ages, the commoners were usually in alliance with the king, against the nobles. King and commoners were not friends, but they had a common enemy, and the commoners were in more immediate danger from the nobility than from the more distant king.

Today, the little people are endangered by both Big Government and Big Business, but Monopoly International Corporations are a more immediate and profound threat than government. They insinuate themselves into every crevice of our lives, and, if unchecked, would quickly reduce all of us to serfdom and slavery. Business monopolies are the antithesis of the free enterprise ideal, and bear far more resemblance to Stalin's state capitalism than to the virtue and pluck of libertarians' competitive small-business ideal.

Government is a dangerous ally, and is now mainly controlled by Big Business Monopolies, but what other choice do the little people have than to try to use the power of government to protect themselves from being eaten alive by the Monopoly Corporations? If libertarians really want to see their ideals bear some practical fruit, they should think long and hard about countering the tyranny of Big Business as well as fighting the dangers of Big Government. Then they might find more allies.

I remember a time when small businessmen were more important in American life than they are now. Under the influence of a lop-sided and unrealistic way of thinking, they usually voted for right-wing candidates who told them pleasing lies. Once in power, these supposed supporters of free-enterprise served the interests of the richest and most powerful. Then the Big Box stores spread everywhere, marginalizing and bankrupting the small businessmen who were suckered into electing the servants of International Monopoly Business. Most of these gullible people probably still vote for right-wing candidates. Thus we see that brainwashing and narrow-minded, obstinate clinging to only one way of looking at things can defeat even the power of basic self-interest.
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