Everything Is Going Very Well
By Safari
Donald's tweetstorm is exactly the thought pattern I would expect from a person consuming Faux News 24/7. Complete disconnect from reality, absolute lack of coherence in ideas, repetition ad nauseum of key words, conspiracy theories abound, general ignorance demonstrated in lack of proper English grammar.
And to think of all the patriotic zombies that have walled themselves off from any outside thought, living in the rightwing media bubbles from morning to night, bumbling to themselves day in and day out about Deep State Benghazi Emails from Hillary Podesta.
Manipulating thoughts and actions seems to be easier than previously thought, or at least it's more documented these days, especially in the Digital Age of social media, etc. Rightwing groups worldwide have latched on to these methods and 'active measures' wholeheartedly and considerable portions of populations seem to be moving towards more extremist rightwing views. The Cambridge Analytica psy-ops, coupled with this new Israeli ex-spy Joel Zamel specialized in social media manipulation (whose company Psy-Group's motto is "shape reality") are just two examples that have been outed in this election cycle. But as these manipulators pull their targets to the right, I've been thinking about what would happen if they truly tip the scales and send these extremists minorities into a frenzy. Are their financial masters capable of regret? Could it be possible to "un-brainwash" these people? Would they need therapy (surely they wouldn't go)? Will they be so anchored into their new reality that they'll hang on to their disinformation 'til death? I'm guessing the latter.
North Korea could provide us with a fascinating social experiment if somehow Dotard Donny opens up the doors to the hermit kingdom. The entire North Korean population has been fed extremist anti-American ideology their entire lives. It's central to their being. Their math problems in school are literally: "There are five Americans. You kill two. How many are left?" It's that extreme. How are the N. Korean leaders going to explain to their population that now we don't want to kill all Americans, we're going to work with them, etc...? Would their people just conform and accept, as life has taught them thus far? Or will they dig their trenches deeper rightwinger-style and start concocting conspiracy theories to deny reality?
What's for sure is that deep-pocketed ideologues will be working harder than ever to "shape reality" now that they've seen how well it works after the Great American Social Experiment of 2016.
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Reader Comments (8)
The electronic means of spreading propaganda is new, but the propaganda assault on the population has been well established for about a century. How and why this exists especially in the US is well outlined in"Toxic Sludge is Good For You" by Stauber and Rampton. It has been updated and put into video, so this informations is easily available to anyone. The same 2 authors, in "Trust Us, We're Experts", show how normal psychology makes us easy dupes for propaganda and lies. They also explain why it is difficult to decondition oneself.
But it can be done. One needs a store of information in order to notice the various common tricks of propaganda and thereby get some distance on it.
Yesterday, on Alex Witt's show on MSNBC, there was an interesting verbal altercation of libruls vs. a republican bot. All the other speakers called her on her propaganda talking points, and she started yelling and interrupting (the blond revealed to be a hag). It seems that the propaganda machine doesn't like being labelled for what it is.
Excellent post, Safari.
Your point about the N. Koreans pleasantly tickled the back of my early morning brain. Hadn't thought of that. Good way to start the day.
Yes, safari, what Ken said. That's such an interesting posit––will all those American haters suddenly take a left turn and head down the road to the U.S. love nest? My guess is that they will comply with whatever is expected of them, but secretly harbor hate in their bosoms. Who the heck knows––it's a closed society.
The lack of preparations preceding this meeting is astonishing; I predict it won't go well but you can bet Trump ain't gonna take any blame.
PD, it'll be fine. Either they won't meet (probable), or if they do it will be only one day, with two (i.e. not joint) verbal announcements that they intend to work together.
There is no way that DiJiT and whomever he has working on NK can create anything real in what DiJiT likes to call a "short period of time."
Safari,
Authoritarians are prime examples of reality shapers. But as efficient as they might be, they can't drill a love of the value of truth out of everyone, to their dismay. There will always be some who resist, as there are those now resisting the illegal and amoral actions of Trump, the Party of Traitors, their media adjuncts, and an increasingly far-right, ideologically tainted judiciary.
Ray Bradbury once wrote a story (can't recall the name now) about a man who was picked up by the police for walking outside at night instead of staying indoors being brainwashed by some version of Fox like everyone else. He is sent to a reeducation camp to have his "reality shaped" properly. We're not there yet.
Later he would go on to write "Fahrenheit 451" about another authoritarian society that had banned books in favor of keeping people stupid with huge doses of televised nonsense. But even some who had been brainwashed, the hero, Montag, for instance, are able to overcome this disability. Montag joins a group of rebels who have ingested whole books, actually become the books in hopes of using this cultural heritage to rebuild society one day.
But this is where we get to the downside of all this reality shaping such as what Trump and Fox and Confederates and hackers who serve them are pushing every day.
The world of "Fahrenheit 451" becomes so infested with lies and paranoia that it implodes in nuclear holocaust. The survivors, the book people, set off at the end of the story to put the pieces back together.
The point being that although there are some--in our present situation, many--who resist the authoritarians, the Trumps of the world can exert such a baleful influence that much can be damaged or lost completely before a course correction can be made.
And it's also instructive to remember that Bradbury's book, about the danger of banning books, has itself been periodically banned.
It's a constant battle.
Another factor that is now in play is the level of trust that any person feels. Or, the flip of that, the level of suspicion any person feels. Right now, our biosphere is obviously in crisis. Or, saying the same thing, our economy is in crisis, or, saying the same thing, our community's integrity is in crisis. Whether you're a touchy-feely commie tree-hugging free-love hari-krishna long-haired hippy atheist pushing for big brother to take over everything, or you're a goose-stepping brown-shirt mountain-man survivalist gun-toting guardian monster-truck wife-beating anarchistic fascist, you can sense that things aren't going well and doubt that things can go well. Fear and distrust of government is now both broad and deep.
Perspectives today are no longer limited to the garden and pasture, and to the closest village. The stuff we maintain is no longer limited to a few hand tools and the bed frame grandpa made. More and more, we have more and more, and all that more and more has consequences that have more and more impact and require more and more compensatory management. Simply put, more and more, everything has to be micromanaged, from climate, to food, to waste, to childhood, to friendships, to health, to finances, to privacy, to the soil, to the oceans, to the tool I'm writing with, and to so much more of everyday life. Complexity - system inputs no longer seem to correlate with system outputs.
Back to government. What is it? Certainly far more than just the cop and the tax collector and the bosses directing them. In the old days, there was the lord in his castle and he (occasionally, even she) seemed to be in control. But hovering behind the lord was the priest and behind the priest was the merchant prince. The lord had to please first the priest, then the prince if she wanted to govern "auto"cratically. Today the order has changed. The prince has charged toward the front and can reasonably be seen as ahead of the lord. The poor priest has more or less been thrown under the bus, but still manages to occasionally, force his more repressive demands. And the People? As always, cut out of the process, for they are, as always, incoherent, irrational, ignorant, and selfish. Yet justifiably outraged and genuinely fearful when government, in all its public and private and sectarian branches, has lost its legitimacy.
So killing social media would solve no problems, just as burning books or eliminating rock n' roll would solve no problems. These things are the messenger (although perhaps also the massage), not the message. They are symptoms, not causes.
Yes, for government to achieve legitimacy again, to gain the trust of a large majority of those governed, change is needed on a massive scale and in a very short period of time. Is anyone willing to accept innovation, even invention, in how government is organized? Is the fear as deep outside government as it is inside? A wag once said something like "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." It is as, or more, true today than ever.
At the conclusion of US-China trade negotiations in Washington, just before the China team decamped, we got this story:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-17/china-buys-record-amount-of-russian-soy-as-it-shuns-u-s-growers
Losing agricultural sales to Russia? That's pretty embarrassing, and expensive for U.S. farmers.
The wily heathen Chinese are no longer being subtle.
BTW, after this round, DiJiT announced that China will buy more U.S. ag products and be great for U.S. farmers.
Maybe not this year.
He was right ... all this winning hurts.
The Rude Pundit today is elegantly and very clearly explaining the entire mess in terms even regular deplorables may understand. Thank you all for bringing good journalism to one place, let us strive for wide sources of information.