March 09, 2020 "
Information
Clearing House" -
The saying resembles a logical
syllogism in structure, but it
isn’t. Taking it apart in
thirds, it’s doesn’t follow that
“you can fool all the people
some of the time” because it’s
too much to assume you can know
“all” (an absolute) the people.
It also doesn’t follow that you
can fool “some of the people all
the time” because it’s too much
to assume you can know “all” the
time (that absolute again).
However, the third part rests on
secure grounds because of the
negative phrasing, substituting
“cannot” for “can”. Here you’re
not positing anything about
“all” the people or “all” the
time, so the absolute is turned
on its head into an admission of
its unknowability.
Therefore, the third part is
true. You can’t fool all the
people all the time, but that’s
not saying much and cold comfort
it is because the people that
fool people merely rely upon
fooling a sufficient number of
people a sufficient amount of
time. That’s the operating
principle. Whether it’s called
public relations, advertising,
spin, fake news, or propaganda,
it’s all lying. We’re lied to
every hour of the day, every day
of the year.
There’s a tendency to think
disinformation is growing worse
in kind in an internet age. It’s
not. It’s the same rain over a
larger area. The problem of
disinformation can be traced to
self-interested hierarchy. It
should not surprise that those
with power and authority have
need to shape public perception.
How else to maintain a position
of disparity and gain a proper
level of obedience, when the
clumsy methods of brute force
and bribery are bypassed?
At a basic level of
self-defense, the task of the
free person is to maintain a
critical attitude. Not to do
this is surrender. As protection
against unjust hierarchy, the
task of a free society is to
insist that systems of authority
must justify their continued
existence. This is in the spirit
of anarchism. Not the blowing up
of buildings but the blowing up
of mirages.
The United States government
took a very important lesson
from Vietnam. It reasoned that
in order to retain control of
its imperialistic agenda it had
to eliminate forced
conscription. By putting its
pocketbook to work, and paying
volunteer soldiers well and
paying mercenary contractors
extremely well, it took care of
campus and associated problems
while it could assure Americans
that nobody had been forced to
fight. You see, they’re all
patriotic.
Maybe not forced directly, but
by lying to Americans about the
need to fight (and remember that
polls showed most Americans in
favor of attacking Iraq), the
forcing took the form of
manipulated public opinion
through a mass media amplifying
the deceit, overwhelming
conscientious and informed
dissent. Millions of dissenters
here and many millions more
around the world. For nothing.
The USG had reasoned correctly
that its predominant propaganda
apparatus could control the
population to align itself
(unknowingly) with US
imperialism.
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
Non-Stop Propaganda?
|
The opposition party was not
opposite, with notable
exceptions. It went along in
part not to appear unpatriotic
but also because its corporate
basing is aligned with US
imperialism, so it had nothing
to lose. At the time, the most
liberal tv network, MSNBC,
positioned as an alternative to
FoxNews, fired Phil Donahue for
becoming an outspoken critic of
the imminent Iraq invasion.
A seeming contradiction in human
behavior is the deep admiration
felt for those that opposed
authority in the past while
simultaneously submitting to
authority in the present. We
have no trouble taking Galileo’s
side today, but knowing what we
know about human behavior, we
should have no doubt that
transported back to that time,
the collective us would have
been dead against him. Seems
like we have to wait for popular
opinion to shift.
Likewise any other past
anti-authoritarians (examples
could fill a book), and now
extending this to Jesus.
Religion aside, the historical
Jesus was a whistleblowing
activist taking a political
position against the Roman
Empire and its quisling Jewish
priestly caste. We should have
no doubt that the collective us
would have seen things
differently than we see them
today.
It takes awhile. Even Daniel
Ellsberg is not completely
rehabilitated in the public’s
mind, as he deserves to be. And
why? Because the USG is still
sensitive to Vietnam. That, and
because he’s still alive. Martin
Luther King, Jr. was an enemy of
the state while alive. Now the
state takes credit for him.
Which brings us to our
present-day whistleblowing
activists. Limiting it to only
the three most prominent, that
would be Chelsea Manning, Julian
Assange, and Edward Snowden.
Assange is alive, no thanks to
US/UK brutal, punitive
treatment. He is a political
prisoner, something the US will
not admit but openly referred to
as such by the Queen of England
when she was asked to intervene
on Assange’s behalf.
Manning has been made to suffer
for years. Their treatment at
the hands of the state is
comparable to what Alfred
Dreyfus endured at the hands of
the French state. How many take
the side of the state today
against Dreyfus? And yet, how
hard was it at the time.
We have our own Emile Zola’s
speaking out for these two, but
public opinion is firmly on the
side of a state intent on making
an example of them. Dreyfus
ultimately had a fair trial,
something Assange is inherently
denied by the Espionage Act
charge for which there is no
defense.
Should it be a crime to reveal
US crimes, including war crimes?
Let’s pause for a moment and
admit that many will answer,
yes. Public opinion is
essentially saying, yes. But
what reaches us as “public
opinion” is not raw clay but
what it has been formed into by
a government that gives that job
to itself.
Edward Snowden exposed some
things the government would
rather we didn’t know about.
They were “classified” by the
intelligence community. That’s
how they’re referred to. A
community. Nice word. What has
this community done to earn such
trust that we believe them when
they say they are acting for our
own good? Spying on us for our
own good.
Across the political spectrum
the opinion is that Edward
Snowden should come back to the
US and “face the music”. That
most Americans would agree
speaks well for state efficiency
but not for the state of mind of
a people “yearning to breathe
free”.
We breathe less free each time
the state claims the need to
defend us. The Constitution
points to but does not guarantee
the right to free speech. The
1st amendment is negatively
expressed: Congress shall make
no law abridging freedom of
speech, a much lower standard.
We do, however, each possess a
supra-Constitutional right. The
right to free thought. This
cannot be taken away. While
we’re alive.