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Welcome to the Insane Asylum or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Big Lie - Chapter 3

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Welcome to the Insane Asylum or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Big Lie

Chapter 3

 

For those who missed chapters 1 and 2 in this series of 5, may I suggest you click the links below and read from the beginning before moving forward to this chapter? As I said in chapter 1, this isn’t 5 individual articles but rather 1 article broken into 5 chapters for easier consumption. While I did make an effort to ensure some continuity between the sections, it’s minimal and inadequate. Your reading pleasure would be best served if you read the chapters in the order presented. Thank you.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/welcome-insane-asylum-%E2%80%93-our-collective-psychosis-chapter-one

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/welcome-insane-asylum-%E2%80%93-our-collective-psychosis-chapter-2

 

The Public Lie

Chapter 2 ended with us discussing how a lie unchallenged becomes by default the truth for those who wish to believe the lie, or at least not fight the lie. And the vast majority of us go along to get along, rationalizing or ignoring just about anything in order to go with the flow and not stick our necks out. Not only does this set up a continuous conflict within ourselves, but we become just another part of the herd we’re always complaining about. Let’s dive into what’s going on here while looking at an actual example of bucking the trend and getting results.

How wide spread is the practice of accepting public lies and of not being truthful? Answering that question would require a book, but let me offer just one small public example of the insane amusement ride. And in the next chapter we’ll explore one possible exit. Last year a friend attended a county commissioner’s meeting, something he does every month. At that meeting he witnessed the most astounding exhibition of collective dishonesty and cowardliness he’d ever seen in a group of people. Rather than back away and go with the flow, his small but courageous act turned the meeting around and pointed the group towards an exit from their collective dysfunction and insanity. All this resulted from sticking his neck out just a little bit to make a difference and lead the way.

One of the commissioners made a statement that flatly contradicted something she’d said the previous month and which was on the record. It was a bald faced blatant lie and was done to gain political advantage for certain favored business supporters by spreading additional tax revenue their way. Everyone in the room, including the other commissioners, knew this. It was a lie that would become truth if it went unchallenged. And yet no one said anything. My friend told me that as he looked around the room he saw a bunch of very uncomfortable people. Of note, this commissioner is quite combative and a known intimidator.

This wasn’t a trivial lie, the so called white lie that supposedly doesn’t harm anyone. It had to do with setting the local property tax rate and her lie would have increased the rate 4% more than the huge interim increase of 16% set the month before. Since he had the official transcript of the previous meeting in his hand (everyone did) he interrupted the proceeding and read it back to her. He was courageously challenging a statement he knew to be untruthful (better known as a lie) and he was doing it all alone. This meant sticking his neck out and it was going to be uncomfortable, scary even. But what followed was surprising and instructive for everyone.

Of the 30 or so taxpaying citizens in the room, at least a third were publicly hushing him, urging him to sit down and not make a “scene”, presumably by embarrassing the commissioner by outing her lie. They were hissing at him for at least 5 minutes while he read from the transcript. Think about that for a moment. The taxpayers did not want him to embarrass the liar. They wanted him to effectively enable the commissioner to feel comfortable in her lie by not calling the liar (her) to task for her lie.

Of course, what they were really saying is that they, meaning the taxpayers in the audience who’ll be paying the higher tax that results from the lie they weren’t challenging, didn’t want to be forced to publicly acknowledge and confront the lie they’d just heard. If the lie isn’t challenged, we can all pretend it’s the truth and not a lie. This is the process by which public pixie dust is used to turn a public lie into a truth. I shall repeatedly return to this county commissioners meeting for more insight.

 

Defending the Public Myth

What’s not well understood by many is that psychologically once we witness a known or suspected lie, particularly a public lie by an “official” or person of perceived “authority”, and we don’t challenge it, we become silent co-conspiratorial keepers of the lie. It’s now our shared lie and we must defend it as we would the truth. Or at least not attack it, because for all intents and purposes it’s become the accepted public truth. We in effect become public myth keepers. Of course, I’m talking about unpaid public myth keepers.

After the lie’s become an unchallenged part of the public myth for a while, if the lie is questioned by anyone and the challenge is upheld, we’d be exposed in our complicit support of the lie, even if the exposure is simply to ourselves. We hide our lies from ourselves, thus we can’t expose our lies to ourselves. This simple understanding is important to accept if we’re to begin healing. We must continuously remember that we’re always and forever first hiding from ourselves. Thus we often will defend the lie as the truth or at least remain non committal regarding its veracity. This is the power behind official propaganda (lies) that aren’t challenged. We empower the propaganda by not challenging it.

As the public lie ages and it becomes further embedded in the public myth, we often incorporate the lie into our own worldview. To continue to reject it internally in the face of our public acceptance would create the pain of cognitive dissonance, something we naturally wish to avoid. Better to accept the lie into our internal web of myths, truths and lies we call our worldview. Of course, this increases the need to defend it even more.

Even further down the line, our personal defense of the lie, along with its endless public repeating, sometimes serves to convince us it really is the truth. We begin to believe the lie, which is now our lie, and even adopt it as our own truth. For those of us who never believed the public lie or never accepted the lie as a truth, this process is extremely frustrating and even frightening. Our mind quickly grasps the power of this deceptive dynamic and how it could seriously hurt us if we stood in its way. The same realization settles over those who awaken later to the lie, further impeding those of us who wish to expose a well established and publically digested lie.

 

The BIG LIE

A perfect example of this dynamic in play is the manner in which many of us publically and privately resist any credible examination of what really happened on 9/11. This subject is a publicly (and for many a privately) closed door and cannot be opened at all, not even a smidgen. If the door is somehow forced open a crack, the governmental, public and private keepers of the myth rush in to apply damage control. And if we’re confronted with obvious contradictions of fact or common sense, while we might publicly say we support looking a little closer, secretly many of us are desperate for this door to be quickly slammed shut once again, for the implications are too disturbing to contemplate.

From my conversations over the last 3 years with at least 20 people who have slowly come to realize there are serious problems with the official 9/11 “conspiracy theory”, nearly everyone has admitted to me they’d always had problems with the official story. And while many suspected there was much more to it than they were being told, they didn’t want to think about the ramifications if their suspicions were true. The clincher for many to remain silent and in denial was that no one of public “authority”, be it on TV or newspapers or magazines, seemed to be questioning the official story. In essence, the leaders of the herd, the hive hierarchy, were (and are) not accepting any questioning of the 9/11 public myth under any circumstances. This had the effect of stifling questions from those who would normally be somewhat critical of the government.

Now combine this personal uncertainty and doubt with government and private myth keepers publicly and viciously attacking anyone who questioned the official story and we have what could reasonably be called a hot potato. Meaning no one who’s publicly certified as a “sane” person (meaning accepted by the hive) with anything to lose would possibly touch it. The myth keepers rarely attack public doubters on actual scientific or logical grounds, other than to hold up the disgraced NIST reports as proof. This is because the official conspiracy theory cannot withstand an unbiased and logically consistent examination without massive inconsistencies becoming readily apparent.

Instead, the preferred method used to “discredit” anyone asking questions when they can’t defend “facts” are extremely effective ad hominem attacks, which directly threaten a person’s status within the hive. For most people, particularly those in the public eye or of substantial wealth and privilege, but even middle class Joe and Jane who work in private or public companies and mingle daily with other hive members, it’s public suicide to invite these attacks by asking questions. Thus self censorship is alive and well in America, helped along by clear instructions from the hive authorities that it’s best not to ask questions.

The people with silent questions about the official conspiracy theory see the public beatings received by other doubters and quickly determine the softer easier way is just to shut up and whistle past the grave yard. These techniques have been used for thousands of years but have been refined over the past 100 years in an effort to maintain the illusion of a representative republic and “freedom”. In particular, this applies to the so-called freedom of the press, which is a farce any way you slice it. Any serious study of the main stream media will inform you of their consistent support of the hive hierarchy.

The powers that be who wish to squelch troublesome inquires can’t exactly move directly to outright jailing or even execution (at least not yet) so the myth of a benevolent government and freedom for all is maintained using other methods. These techniques include public browbeating and harassment as well as the psyops crowd favorite of ridicule, innuendo and rumor mongering spread close to home and work. And for the more persistent questioners, the tried and true outright verbal and physical threats, IRS “investigations” and so on are in the tool box ready to be used. Of course, “accidents” for those “terrorists” who are gaining real credibility can always be deployed. One only need spend some time reading up on this subject to become familiar with how this is done.

The herd quickly learns that to question the official myth(s) of the hive means immediate and extremely public excommunication or worse.  Since many people are already filled with conflicting lies that create continuous internal turmoil, most don’t have the internal stability and conviction to withstand this type of character assault. It’s extremely difficult to swim upstream when you’re all alone and you can’t trust yourself to overcome the current.

Moral courage to act against the herd and your government isn’t “found” within most people; it’s developed over time and begins with deep personal convictions which often include basic honest assessments of themselves and their world. To believe and then parrot what the herd believes or what the powers that be want you to believe is not defined in my book as moral courage, unless the belief itself is capable of standing on its own as independently provable and self evident. This is rarely the case.

If the only thing backing the moral courage is the ability to bash someone’s head in, meaning raw power, this is actually a demonstration of cowardliness masquerading as patriotism or courage. I’m not talking about rushing the machine gun nest type of courage; I’m talking about deep moral convictions based upon personal awareness and deep understanding of oneself and others. There is a shameful explosion of moral cowardliness these days from the very top all the way down to mom and pop.

 

The Herd Polices Itself

Following this dynamic down to a more personal level, when others would question the official conspiracy theory in their presence, many of the people I talked to who privately doubted the official story would actually defend the official story in public as a way of publicly declaring to the hive that they were on the correct side of the line in the sand. Others would just remain silent. Three of the people I talked to at length expressed deep shame and regret for actually attacking public questioners of the official myth with name calling and ridicule, precisely the techniques they feared would be used against them of they opened their mouths to question.

This is a perfect example of the herd policing itself after the conditioning and indoctrination has been set. When I asked them how they felt while they were attacking the questioners, two of them admitted they felt excited, almost like an adrenaline rush, even while they were feeling guilty or ashamed. I’ve talked before about the pain killing drugs and chemicals the brain releases into the blood stream when we hear, see or even speak information that confirms our biases and prejudices, even if we don’t really believe them.

This subject can and will divide families because the validity and believability of the questioner goes a long way to supporting the credibility of what they’re saying. Since it’s very important to attack credible sources to maintain the myth, and family members often have higher credibility, in order to stay in our denial or to protect our hive status, we will (viciously) attack family members if need be. One cannot over emphasize the lengths we’ll go to when trying to hide our fear of being rejected from the hive. As I’ve discussed in other articles, the fear we all have of standing alone against public opinion, even in a one on one basis, is often determined by our perception of the danger to our standing in the hive, not by any moral, ethical or legal grounds or factual correctness.

The public beatings tell each person who doesn’t wish to buck the trend exactly where they should stand on this subject. In effect, the master’s boss has told the slaves what their opinion should be regarding slavery’s benefits, not only to the economy, but to the slaves themselves. Here’s the story; slavery is good, poking your nose around 9/11 is very bad, not shut the hell up and get back to work. And don’t forget to spend and consume, which will help kill the pain of your voluntary servitude.

This dynamic plays out in many different ways depending on how well the person is coping with life in general. There’s no average or normal way for people to deal with this type of personal dishonesty so that leaves everyone an out, saying to themselves that they’re special, that it doesn’t apply to them, that since things appear to be normal it can’t be that bad, whatever. The excuse isn’t important and doesn’t even need to be believable. And it applies to all public and most corporate policy, not just 9/11.

Some common methods I’ve personally seen used by people to avoid the entire mess and disown responsibility for “it” is to say “Look I’m really busy right now with a lot on my plate so I’m not going to deal with this.” Or my favorite “I’m not an expert on these things so I’d prefer to leave it to the people who know” which of course completely repudiates any personal responsibility to make any effort to know what’s going on. Once we accept and then begin to assimilate the lie, it takes on a life of its own. And in order to continue to lie to ourselves, we must defend the lie to others. Obviously, this level of public and private deception cannot occur in a healthy nation or within healthy individuals.

When thinking about this subject, I’m constantly reminded of an old saying. “You can’t con an honest man” because the con requires self deception by the mark, the person being conned. In order for the con to work, the “victim” must participate in their own fleecing. By definition and design, there are no “innocent” victims in a successful con, just poor traders in a market of greed, lies and self deception.

 

Keeping Me, Myself and I Separated

When I talk about disclosure or exposure of the truth or lie, I’m not necessarily talking strictly about public exposure. I’m ultimately talking about exposure of the truth to our consciousness, to us, to the inner monologue. All information, all “facts”, are held in our sub consciousness which always knows everything. Uncomfortable truth or awareness can and does surface to the conscious level for a variety of reasons, where it’s often quickly suppressed by the ego.

How we actually react often depends upon the web of lies we’re carrying, along with our intellectual capacity to construct plausible alternative realities that will allow the lie to (co)exist with truths and other lies. In this way, high intelligence can actually work against us for it allows us to construct massively complex and convoluted stories, each containing layers of lies that support other lies with enough truth mixed in to remain plausible. The capacity to concoct lies is only limited by our imagination and desperation to avoid the truth. Jeez, sounds like the Ponzi, doesn’t it?

However, average or below average intelligence is more than adequate for the task of creating self deceptions. We’re all quite capable of creating our own alternative universe where everything makes sense, just as long as we never pull it all together into one big comprehensive package. To do so would be emotional suicide because all the contradictions would suddenly be readily apparent to us. The genius of the BIG LIE, personal or governmental, lay with both its plausibility and its ability to be understood and adopted by the lowest commoner. “The terrorists did it because they hate us. Now shut up and get back on the hamster wheel.”

Sometimes the ego creates what could be considered multiple split personalities (but isn’t exactly) in order to keep the various lies and self deceptions separated and away from our conscious mind. While the ego is constantly attempting to keep the truth buried, sometimes it can’t for various reasons. For example, maybe a truth must be present consciously in some more restricted form in order for us to function at work. So barriers are erected in our conscious mind that allows us to hide these truths in plain sight without acknowledging them.

When considering this dynamic, I often think of those porous Chinese Walls our friends on Wall Street construct as an example of this. The so-called Chinese Walls allow everyone to participate in the public myth that both sides aren’t talking to each other and neither side can see what the other’s doing. The exact same thing happens in our consciousness. We see examples of this on ZH and elsewhere where people leave nonsensical statements using contradictory information to “prove” a point. They really don’t see the problem with their declaration. They’re blind to these contradictions because in their mind, it all makes sense. Their “facts” aren’t connected to reality in the same way as others.

 

Ignore that Cognitive Dissonance

You may remember an earlier article of mine where I described how the ego uses a powerful but narrowly focused spotlight to illuminate small portions of our mind to our conscious awareness, but never all of it at the same time.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/end-empire-waking-zombie-nations-psychology-consciousness-and-egoic-mind

This allows for the continued existence of facts that contradict each other without causing a total collapse. But this can and often does create a great deal of instability which can be overcome by holding extremely strong black and white opinions and views. This allows one to hold unproven, nonsensical or contradictory opinions that can’t be challenged because they’re set in stone and thus secure. This is functionally equivalent to the infantile practice of covering one’s ears while hollering “Na na na na, I can’t hear you”, something we’re all guilty of from time to time. This is an important tool for the serial denier.

This occurs regardless of how ridiculous the opinions may be because the strong black and white opinion is not intended to be based upon irrefutable facts. Its real purpose is to act as a buffer from the truth or other lies and self deceptions. We can see this occur all the time in ourselves and in others if we honestly look. Just peruse any discussion board for examples of this on public display. This also allows for changing troublesome facts once the light’s been moved. If information comes to light that changes pieces or the entire picture, simply change the “facts”. This also provides for the use of one fact to “prove” contradictory points or multiple views.

This explains how people are able to contradict themselves numerous times during a 10 minute discussion or even in the same sentence. Since there’s no central clearing or ethical standards board within ourselves to prevent double counting or misuse of facts, anything goes in the mind that deceives. After all, if we’re lying to ourselves, aren’t we the ones who determine if we’re really lying or not? Don’t we determine what our own (internal) personal ethical standards are? Who’re you calling a liar?

We all do this. The real question is to what degree do we lie and how “flexible” are our internal controls or personal ethical standards? Is it really a lie if we believe what we’re saying is the truth? What if our ego is so strong and effective at suppressing the truth that we can’t consciously remember our own lies? Are they then lies? Were they once lies but no longer since I can’t remember them? Is it a lie if it can only be accessed through hypnotism? It really is amazing how much we lie to ourselves. The only solution I’ve ever found to this vicious circle is rigorous honesty, starting within.

When these artificial barriers that separate lies or self deceptions begin to slip or collapse, we experience a painful cognitive dissonance (created by our ego to provide “incentive” not to look too closely) which often manifests in the form of a disembodied fear or anxiety. We’re not exactly sure what’s bothering us because we still haven’t consciously acknowledged the issue that’s causing the conflict. But we’re extremely fearful and have a terrible sense of foreboding, which is created by our ego to compel us to reject whatever it is that’s upsetting our carefully constructed worldview. We become extremely anxious to rid ourselves of this feeling as quickly as possible. The fight or flight impulse kicks in.

After creating the pain of cognitive dissonance, our ego then rushes in to apply damage control in the same way the public keepers of the myth do. In the rush to alleviate the emotional pain we’re experiencing we’ll often grasp anything we can that will displace the cognitive dissonance and it’s accompanying pain, including more lies. Considering the landscape I just described, it’s a testament to our capacity for self deception and tolerance of accumulated pain that we can even make it through the day. Increasingly we can’t and this escalating collective dysfunction, our insanity, is being outwardly expressed through our public leaders, legislators, regulators and corporations.

 

Psychic Firewalls

The dynamic I just described, but only touched the surface of, is not well understood beyond the field of psychiatry and those who forge and manipulate public opinion, including government and Madison Avenue. Spend some time reading about Edward Bernays and the influence he had, and still has from the grave, on advertising and propaganda worldwide. Many things we think we know about ourselves and our world are myths we were told and now tell ourselves in order to avoid or soften the truth. We’re much more susceptible to manipulation than our ego is willing to admit. In fact, much of this manipulation depends upon our own egoic insistence that we aren’t that easily manipulated, thus leaving us wide open to the very manipulation we deny being susceptible to.

Because we remain willfully ignorant to the capacity of others to influence us, we spend our day wide open to subtle and not so subtle messages and influences. This is similar to how susceptible our computer would be to hackers and viruses if we turned off our firewall and antivirus and browsed the Internet. I’ve read articles describing how wide open computers are attacked within 30 minutes, swarmed like mosquitoes in the Bayou. Pull up the detailed log of the firewall activity on your computer and be ready to be shocked by what’s going on in the background.

Now consider how many TV commercials, billboards, radio spots, magazine advertisements, Internet messages and “placement advertising” inside the actual television programs you’re exposed to on a daily basis. Not to mention the wide use of subliminal messaging everyone denies using, but yet somehow it still finds its way into commercials and political advertising of all types. This is occurring psychically to all of us on a daily basis even as we insist it can’t and doesn’t happen.

We’re sitting ducks to daily psychological assaults, yet we’ve become so conditioned to it (or we simply deny it) that we passively assume the idea to purchase that yummy MacSnot burger is our own home grown idea. In 30 seconds, the TV tells us not only that we’re hungry but that the MacSnot burger with fries and a coke is precisely what we want…..now. It even tells us how to feel about it. “I’m Lovin’ it!” Watch the commercials closely because there’s an entire story played out in 30 to 60 seconds using images, voice, text and music.

As simplistic as this all sounds, imagine this message pounding away at your psyche 3 or 4 times a day for years. Now multiple this one message by the hundreds of large corporations and thousands of small companies scratching and clawing each other for 30 seconds of your ears and eyeballs and it’s no wonder we’re all zombies to some extent or another. Pull up some research reports on the fast food, automobile, soda, beer, and other Fortune 500 companies and take a look at their advertising budget. We are outnumbered and overwhelmed.

In fact, if you sit down with the family for an evening of TV viewing without a basic understanding of how your family is vulnerable to these influences, you’re in effect having unsafe psychic relations with every single slime ball advertiser and political or corporate propagandist the network can sell time to. And this doesn’t even take into consideration the social conditioning and predictive programming underway during the endless hours of mindless TV consumption we subject ourselves to each week.

And yet we convince ourselves its all good clean fun, harmless really. After all, we know the difference between fantasy and reality, right? Nobody is forcing us to buy those big screen TV’s and MacSnot burgers. I’m doing it of my own free will. Well, I contend we’re not. Consider spending some time reading about subliminal messaging and the advertising and propaganda industry and then we’ll have a discussion about free will. I promise you the average person will spend no more than half an hour reading about this manipulation before s/he throws the book out or clicks on another web page, declaring it too crazy or scary to be true. In fact, it’s a little too close to the truth for our comfort.

Our insanity is worrying about the PG-13 rated movie our 5 year old might catch a glimpse of while allowing his or her still forming mind to be assaulted and conditioned by everything else. Are we nuts? Well, funny we should ask because we are. And the movie rating system is brilliant reverse psychology because it infers that if something is rated G, it must be “good”. I know that’s not exactly what they say but that’s the psychological takeaway. I’ve always found it interesting that they don’t rate commercials. Which means all the commercials we see must be rated “G”, as in good and wholesome.

To sit down in front of the TV, radio, magazine, book or Internet without your psychic firewall fully engaged and updated is madness. And I contend that this continuous bombardment of conflicting subconscious messaging, social predictive programming and conditioning is contributing to our escalating insanity, which is reflected outward in the form of the Ponzi and the collective madness.

 

Stockholm Syndrome

The behavior displayed by the people at the commissioners meeting can’t be dismissed as on par with someone farting in public, with everyone hoping to ignore the stench so as not to embarrass the poor gaseous fellow or themselves. In my opinion, what was exhibited might be considered a form of slave mentality, that of a conditioned mind that doesn’t wish to confront a perceived superior for fear of being psychically or emotionally traumatized. And of course, always lurking in the background is the silent but implied physical threat, in this case by the armed sheriff standing guard next to the commissioners table.

As my friend told me how his fellow taxpayers urged him to protect the liar, I immediately thought about the Stockholm syndrome. This term was first (widely) introduced into the public consciousness (and then rapidly buried as too uncomfortable) when Patty Hearst was kidnapped and then allegedly conditioned by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). I’m not passing judgment on the SLA or Patty Hearst, just explaining the process and how we’re all subjected to the Stockholm syndrome.

Here was Hearst, who was forcibly taken against her will, and yet within two months had not only come to speak positively about her captives and their cause but then publically demonstrated her acceptance by robbing a bank with her captives. At least that was her defense at her later trial. Regardless, the Stockholm syndrome is very well understood by those who wish to use it against us.

Just look at the public’s reaction to the Ponzi for parallels. While many people are angry, many others believe what they’ve been conditioned to believe, that we can’t survive without the big banks. And there are quite a few people who can spout from memory the banking cabal’s talking points in an elevator minute.

The public’s behavior exhibited at the commissioners meeting also showed the characteristics of abused spouse syndrome or battered person syndrome, where the battered and abused spouse is desperate to avoid upsetting or angering the abuser for fear of receiving additional beatings. The battered spouse will not only suppress him or herself in order not to disturb or anger the abuser, but will also suppress or even attack others that threaten to disturb or anger the abuser, which was exactly what was happening in the commissioners meeting.

There are even strong parallels to the behavior exhibited by inmates in WW2 concentration camps. I’ve read easily a dozen books discussing the psychology of the people leading up to and including their internment and eventual execution. Most people don’t realize that many nationalities were sent to these camps and an in-depth reading shows a broad cross section of personalities, cultures and nationalities exhibiting the same symptoms in the face of systematic and calculated brutality.

It’s not a pretty subject to study and I’m in no way condemning or condoning their behavior. No one can ever say how they’ll ever truly react under any circumstances until they’re inside the madness. I was sickened by what I read, of man’s inhumanity to man, and I can only hope I’d be able to display the level of courage many exhibited leading up to and during their captivity and, for many, execution. But the sad fact is that these brave individuals and families were often fighting their fellow sufferers as much as the Nazis. And for those who believe it could never get this bad in America, that’s exactly what they (Germans, Jews, Polish, French, Russians etc) said to themselves right up to and past the point of no return.

We can also find examples of similar behavior in the terrible dysfunction evident in families of severe alcoholics or drug addicts, where enabling or calming behavior is repeatedly offered by the spouse and family. Lies and broken promises are frequently not (directly) challenged by the spouse and/or other family members in order not to upset the alcoholic or drug addict. This is done time and time again in the false hope that he or she won’t drink, drug or abuse if encouraged to behave.

Many times, family members will come to believe that they’re the ones causing or triggering the behavior of the abuser or addict rather than anything the abuser/addict is doing. They’re told this by their tormentor (the Ponzi says the consumer is saving instead of buying, the people aren’t borrowing, the unemployed don’t want to work, etc) sometimes followed by a verbal or physical beating (recession, bailouts with taxpayer money, obscene bonuses etc) to cement the conditioning. Unfortunately the victim often assumes responsibility for “fixing” the problem (higher taxes, less services, no cuts for military or the elites etc) yet they can’t fix something they have no control over. The victim’s effort to “fix” is intended to placate and defuse the situation, which simply enables all the parties involved to avoid confronting themselves and/or the abuser/addict.

This makes sense when we understand that the family believes they can control the situation by controlling their own behavior, since the addicted person is clearly out of control. No one wishes to admit that the addiction itself has total control over everyone. Many spouses of drug addicts or alcoholics will even go so far as to make sure there’s a supply of drugs or alcohol on hand at all times to placate the insanity. “I don’t want to upset my spouse or he (she) might beat the hell out of me. It’s better to keep him (or her) drugged or drunk so I can deal with the rest of the family.” I’m not mocking this type of behavior at all for I grew up in this type of dysfunctional family. I’m intimately aware of all the dynamics of this type of insanity, having suffered from its effects for decades.

Looking at the bigger picture of our economic system and our political leadership, we’re only participating in our own insanity if we won’t first recognize this dynamic and then talk about it. But to do so requires opening Pandora’s Box and we can’t do this because the first victim we must placate is ourselves. Many of these “ism” diseases are diseases of denial. The drugs, alcohol, food, abuse, sex etc are simply the outward symptoms of deep inner dysfunctions, many of which I suspect trace back to and are expressed as our larger social ills. We can’t separate our personal problems from our cultural and social problems. We are all co-dependent.

 

National Suicide by Suppressing the Natural Survival Instinct

Consider that the behavior outlined above is being exhibited by the general population with regard to Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary, the banking cartel, the nation’s corporations and the regulatory agencies. The list is endless. Like the battered and abused spouse or the spouse of the alcoholic or drug addict, we constantly and falsely embrace hope that our country and culture will get better despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

We as individuals and collectively as a nation cling to any false hope offered by our abusers rather than gather our courage, stand our ground and declare no more. Our thoroughly conditioned and abused (collective) mind is almost totally incapable of defending ourselves from the abuser as long as we remain in denial. In our mind, denial appears to be the “sane” (or the least insane) way to survive in exactly the same manner the Jews, Poles, Gypsies and Russians (to name just a few) of Europe denied it would ever get as bad it as did. This is a horrible illusion, albeit a persistent one.

The battered and abused spouse/person must either stand his/her ground or flee not only to survive but regain some measure of physical, emotional and spiritual health. Since we can never flee from ourselves we use denial to flee while still occupying our body. No wonder we’re so screwed up. We must ask ourselves what is it that’s compelling us to use denial to suppress our basic and ultimate instinct, that of survival? It doesn’t matter whether I’m talking about the battered spouse or the family and spouse of the alcoholic, drug or food addict (the list of addictions is endless) or the government and corporate abused citizen.

As far as I can tell, the mechanism used to defeat the survival instinct we should all be exhibiting NOW is centuries of conditioning of both the culture and the individual. And that conditioning is accelerating on an exponential curve because the body/mind/spirit is rapidly becoming unstable. Like a leaking quart container of oil that’s extremely slippery, our grip (and the conditioning) must grow stronger in order to maintain control. However, this additional force increases both the leak and the potential for a catastrophic loss of control. Without dealing with the leak, the end game is certain and inevitable.

We are the victims and the perpetrators of our own madness. This vicious and suffocating positive feedback circle of our insanity might simply exhaust itself like so many cycles before with only a few tens of millions dead if we didn’t also possess weapons of mass destruction, be they derivative or fusion. I’ll save that topic for another time. But I will say that only an absolutely and totally insane culture would not only produce these weapons in quantities dozens of times greater than needed to kill (again, be they derivative or fusion) but also produce a strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) or Too Big To Fail (TBTF) in order to protect ourselves from ourselves.

One of my favorite scenes in The Matrix, which was a wonderful examination of our individual and collective insanity, is when Cypher’s eating dinner in the restaurant with Mr. Smith at his table. Cypher is negotiating his re-assimilation into the hive, aka the Matrix. He says “You know….I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years you know what I realized? Ignorance is bliss.” Mr. Smith then states “Then we have a deal.” Cypher demands “I don’t want to remember nothing, NOTHING. You understand? And I want to be rich, you know, someone important….like an actor.” Mr. Smith, eager to please and seal the deal, replies “Whatever you want, Mr. Reagan.”

Sounds like the conversation we have with our ego and our leaders on a daily basis, doesn’t it? “I don’t want to remember nothing, nothing. You understand?” Our ego and our leaders are telling us whatever we wish to hear and believe. And the most important thing these lies create for us is the blissful ignorance we all crave in order to escape from our own insanity. So we fuss and cry a little until mommy brushes her nipple near our mouth. We know what to do from there, don’t we? And the selection of an actor as someone who’s important was priceless, since we’re all acting as sane individuals on our way deeper into our collective insanity.

Finally, one must laugh so as not to cry at the double dose of insanity of first demanding we not remember anything and yet requiring we “be someone important”. Even though we won’t remember if that order was actually fulfilled, even this final contradiction isn’t enough to prevent our willing embrace of the coming psychic numbness that ignorance will provide us during our suicide. Upon achieving blissful ignorance, Karma may place me in the bottom of a septic tank on clean out duty rather than playing second lead across from Marla Singer, but what does it matter because ignorance is bliss? You just can’t make this shit up because it wouldn’t be believable, a term which describes a measure of our intolerance for slices of the truth.

The standing of our ground must begin on an individual basis before it will ever materialize in the collective. The country/collective as a whole will not suddenly grow a set of balls overnight if we as individuals don’t posses them to begin with. Courage and power flows up from the individual, not down from the group. Just ask any military officer if this basic concept is true. Each soldier is conditioned to fight for his or her fellow soldier, not for him or herself.

This conditioned act of selflessness is what creates the collective consciousness of the fighting force and emboldens the group, which acts as a positive feedback loop that also feeds the individual. Each soldier willingly submits to the group, contributing to and feeding from the same source. But it all begins with the individual. Each individual must accept and surrender to the group in order to gain strength from the group, which in turn strengthens the individual.

 

Breaking the Conditioning

Breaking the conditioned mind is not as high a mountain to climb as you might think. Let me continue the story of the county commissioners because there’s more to be learned here. While my friend didn’t enjoy being ostracized by the hive members nor admonished by a few commissioners for daring to speak truth to power, he was able to “embarrass” the commissioners into upholding their sworn duty and talk about the lie.

And the tax rate wound up being set where it was supposed to be, at a 16% increase rather than 20%, admittedly a small but still vital victory. It wasn’t the ultimate tax rate that mattered; it was the fact that there was a fight for the truth that was of utmost importance. He had set a small but important precedent that could now be followed and hopefully repeated.

As he left the meeting, many of the very same people who had publicly shushed him inside stopped him and expressed their gratitude that he spoke out at the meeting. They were genuinely happy he’d stood his ground, despite their initial misgivings. Rather than be vindictive (and my friend assured me that his urge to verbally slap them was nearly overwhelming) he thanked them and then gently asked them for support the next time this happened.

These people weren’t country bumpkins or undereducated blue collar workers. He counted among them a lawyer, a professor at the state college, the local pediatrician and various business men and women mixed in among the “common” folk. And surprisingly the local county judge, along with other well dressed and obviously professional people he didn’t know or recognize. These were average to higher educated people who supposedly were well informed and highly motivated. This shows that we can’t hide in the myth that our problems are caused by the great unwashed and uneducated masses. It’s simply not true and shows our own unwillingness to speak truth to ourselves.

Many of my personal experiences are similar to my friend. I find that it’s the more highly educated and more financially well off (the middle to upper middle class) who perceive they have too much to lose by upsetting the apple cart and speaking truth to power. Thus they have a greater tendency to self censor, stuff their opinions and allow themselves to be intimidated by perceived higher powers. They are their own conflict of interest when protecting their own interest and will often bargain with themselves in order to keep what they have. Thus they willingly lose the small battles in the hope they’ll win the big battle, never considering that it will always be just small battles and they’re conceding every single one on the way down the slippery slope of denial.

While the poor and undereducated no doubt have their own delusions to contend with, for the most part they fully expect the better off to lie, cheat and steal and get away with it. They’re more realistic about their being victimized and thus they’re often less intimidated by power. I suspect some of this has to do with having very little to lose. I’ve said before that those with a great deal to lose will only act like they have nothing left to lose when they have lost it all.

 

Mother Nature’s Nose Candy

The poor and lower middle class are not the ones who are directly supporting the insanity in the same way as the middle and upper classes, which today might just mean anyone with a job. Zero Hedge readers must remember that we’re more likely to be the (small) exception to the rule merely because we’re visiting ZH trying to broaden our understanding. We can’t measure society based upon our views. But neither can we make broad and sweeping generalizations simply because we assume others are different, thus not as intelligent, motivated, aware etc.

I’ve made (and still make) this mistake myself and its seductive because it offers easy and compelling answers that conveniently mesh with my worldview. The solutions and answers I arrive at are telling me exactly what I want to hear. The endorphins and natural pain killers released by the brain when we hear or see what we want are dozens of times more powerful than that junk we can buy on the street corner or at the pharmacy.

No street pusher or head doctor could ever match Mother Nature’s selection of nose candy. And her “natural” high is mainlined directly into our blood stream faster than we can say Keynesian economics. Our insanity has made us natural junkies, wandering the intellectually barren streets for any information whore or economist pusher who’ll sell us anything that’ll confirm our perceived sanity, all so Mother Nature will release the good stuff. We blindly stumble back and forth from an arousing emotional high to an extremely painful cognitive dissonance to our next desperate fix to kill the pain. We’re no better than the filthy junkies we step over on our way to our hamster wheel in the corner office. Hold all my calls Martha; I’m getting high on Keynes.

 

Reinforcing Changed Behavior

Of course, at the very next commissioners meeting, a similar situation came up. But this time when my friend spoke up, a number of people immediately joined him in vocal opposition to the item on the table. Yes, he still had to go first but now he had some support. The abused had learned they could resist the powerful and live another day. And there was strength in numbers. My friend now reports that this flexing of citizen muscle has been growing for nearly a year and is to the point where people are engaging in other areas of the community.

It’s now spreading on its own and without his guidance. His fellow citizens found an exit from the madness of self censorship, of stuffing their objections and of feeling powerless. They escaped their subservience to their abuser and the self hate that comes from the groveling. And as an added bonus, the commissioners have been brought to heel. Everyone’s so intent on stopping the madness at the top that we never stop to consider that it all flows from the bottom, with ourselves on the first rung of the ladder. 

While he didn’t turn lambs into lions, the conditioned mind these people previously exhibited had been broken to a small degree. And every subsequent time they act against their conditioning, they become more confident in their ability to do so. They’ve begun to believe in themselves. They never liked being subservient but felt powerless to change their current condition because the herd, also known as the public collective consciousness, was acting the same way as they were and thus not supporting any desire they had to change.

We must remember that while we still retain the illusion we’re all free and independent thinkers and actors, in reality we’re highly codependent upon our masters for permission to do anything. This is why the conditioned mind will rarely break free on its own. It takes real courage for the abused mind to escape the psychological chains that bind. It’s not just the master that has control here but the entire cultural system and its psychological reference points that influence us, with all of them telling us we can’t fight back.

If you look critically at the messaging we’re receiving, we’re always told that it’s easier to go with the flow and to leave the driving to someone else. We’ve received no encouragement from the herd to overcome the risk of a lashing from the master if we resist. When my friend showed up and put his foot down, the others were at first frightened that blows were sure to follow, but then quickly became energized when they did not. He put an end (on a local scale) to an extremely powerful positive feedback loop that was acting negatively against the herd.

I’ve experienced similar results within my small community simply because I stepped forward and then asked others to help. The asking for help is extremely important because by doing so, we’re asking the others to invest in their future, to become active rather than passive, to be responsible participants and citizens rather than future victims. Asking for help also relieves us of the “oh oh, what did I get myself into now” buyer’s remorse of endless and thankless guard duty with no relief in sight. Finally, because we walk away with a sense of community healing and personal satisfaction, we’re more willing to stick our necks out again and again.

In Chapter 4 of this continuing examination of our collective insanity, we’ll look at the concept of control which leads to rethinking our perception of the problems and solutions, how fear is used to control us and how we use fear to control ourselves and how to make reality fresh every day. We examine the missing soldier dynamic, how it’s not what you have but how you use it and a visit with the Nailman, who explains that there’s no trying, just doing. You’re past the midway point so don’t stop now or you’ll miss the really good stuff.

 

Cognitive Dissonance - 06/07/2010

 

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Sun, 06/13/2010 - 15:54 | 410805 kevinearick
kevinearick's picture

Physics, Constitutions, & Ratings Systems

 

The laws of physics are the rules. Everything else is the symptoms. The prime age of physicists has fallen to the 12-14 year olds. The kids are playing the market like a pinball machine. Government and Corporation have primed the dead pump again, with NUMBERS IN COMPUTERS, and they have absolutely no idea what is going on inside those computers.

 

You can sum up the entire global digital economy with one line of code: shop and you will be promoted with more credit to shop, by the family law, banking and credit, HR surveillance system. As a result, Bank can no longer account for risk, leaving all institutions rudderless./In our world, the planet is the cause and human critters are the effect. Trying to plan an economy is like planning the weather 4 years from now, entertaining, but fruitless busy work. An economy is driven by effective adaptation, not efficient allocation of resources. Promote the former and the latter will largely take care of itself. Penalize the former, relative to shopping, and the latter crashes.

 

Agency is the capacitor in the dc bus. Corporation is the inductor, which shorted the capacitor system into a relativity armature, creating a relativity motor with no useful function, liquidating the system into a recursive, closed-loop system of series switches, delaying the day of reckoning with monetary expansion to feed credit monopoly. Labor turned that armature into a rotor, and locked it into rotation, creating the black hole.

 

Labor doesn’t have to do anything. It created government and corporation in earlier iterations, and it can do so again, at-will. Corporation removed all the regulatory fuses and disconnects to create an efficient global motor, and disconnected the belts to the real economy, leaving Corporation and Government inside a runaway motor, with no way out, which can only have one outcome, short of intervention by unprotected labor.

 

The only expert is the universe. Bet on human critters to be human critters. Expect the experts to put the cart before the horse every time. Many calling for BP’s head on a platter are standing in the cart, depending on the pension ponzi scheme, which includes BP, with blinders on, wondering what happened to the horse. The kids are not lost. They are up in the bleachers watching this s--- show, betting on how long it is going to take the experts to figure it out.

 

A constitution is an at-will agreement, granting government to corporation, with specifically enumerated powers, to serve the people. The Declaration of Independence made that absolutely clear. When Congress gave itself the right to choose its own voters, and the other branches concurred, to tax without representation, at the behest of corporation, they all broke the agreement. When they proclaimed the corporation to be a person and the individual to be a non-person, they were all done. They just didn’t know it until they spent themselves into bankruptcy.

 

We tell them what we want them to know. Invading our privacy, to deny our liberty and property rights in our own adaptive skills is certifiably insane, because individual liberty/responsibility is the current that turns the motor in the real economy. They violated the ongoing concern assumption, which is why that $500T load of promises is due and not payable, now./The dc bus is the simplest part of the system. Leave it to the experts to make it out to be rocket science, and pay themselves through the entitlement system, to produce economic slaves, to their own incompetence. KISS.

 

Their motto is “don’t let a good crisis go to waste; use it create another one”. Our motto is “don’t let gravity go to waste; employ it as a catapult”. They can get in front of the parade or be left behind. In either case, the launch has already occurred. Their remaining choice is whether or not they want to issue small business credit to those who have been locked out of the system to date. When all other options have been eliminated…or, when all else fails, try something different.

 

The current participants obviously cannot reset the system, so the next rating system must ask “who has not been granted credit?” and then “how can a market be made?” How is the physical currency circulating relative to the virtual currency? Credit is the line, and financial regulation is the cleat system. If either is lacking, the digital economy will fall into the rocks.

Sun, 06/13/2010 - 15:55 | 410807 kevinearick
kevinearick's picture

that should about cover it.

good luck.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 14:03 | 409763 kevinearick
kevinearick's picture

Cognitive Dissonance & Rating Systems

 

So, the digital economy is a recursive, closed-loop, series circuit, which is why only the efficiency of each switch may be increased. The I/O cannot be changed, which is why they say human critters only use 6% of their brain. As they age, the number of registers employed declines, and they are all codependent.

 

We needed geographic saturation to begin virtual analog operations. The analog market is going to dwarf the digital market, but potential market-makers cannot think in digital terms. The digital economy has gone as far as it can go, short of large-scale space exploration. Making the rating system more efficient will not work.

 

For a ratings system to work in an analog economy, it requires an open-loop parameter system, to energize the coil, with increasing diversity feeding off of quality of life. Each independently operating virtual market would define/choose its own quality of life parameters, from a ratings system table, toward the end of trading its particular surplus, after self-sufficiency needs, to create components in the global analog economy.

 

We are beginning to tap the analog circuit now, but the clock is ticking, because planetary momentum is pulling in the limit switches in response to the unbalanced digital economy, and the universe is shortly going to be checking the image table. If it checked today, it would find a relative 0, which would trigger planetary reset.

 

Conscious cognitive dissonance is measuring the neutral line, as the subconscious attempts to balance the fulcrum between humans and the rest of the food chain, with no tools to do so. Any failure in a large digital PLC, whether from operator error, planetary variability, or technology blowout, brings down the entire factory. Maintenance and troubleshooting is cost prohibitive in a disposable, closed-loop economy, making its participants obsolete over time.

 

The factory is already down. The internal participants are unaware because the capacitors are bleeding out, temporarily energizing their cubicles. The only change required in their programming is the line that says “destroy that which you do not understand”. That needs to be replaced with “take a break, go shopping, and the factory will be running better than when you left (because you went shopping).” Or better yet, let everyone in the digital economy go for regular shopping holidays, for maintenance, and pay the analog people to be on-call.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 05:02 | 407744 unbeing
unbeing's picture

This is truly beautiful stuff CD.  Thankyou.

Thu, 06/10/2010 - 14:39 | 406575 kevinearick
kevinearick's picture

The Show

 

So, the economic slaves are born in an electrical room, with every device emitting its own specific noise. The manufacturers don’t care, because they never go in the room. Their only concerns are maximizing power coming out of it, minimizing the cost of devices, and, above all, maintaining control.

 

Naturally, the economic slaves tune out the devices one by one, until they are only concerned about the maintenance of one particular device, which they get paid a subsistence rate to monitor. Otherwise, all that noise would be too painful. Over generations, nature takes its course, and the economic slaves are born with particular hearing frequencies …

 

Every so often, an individual is born that can hear all the devices, and builds the necessary endurance to the associated pain …

 

Pretty soon, a group of these individuals go build another electrical room, which purrs, feeding energy to another economy …

 

The manufacturers hunt them down …

 

In the next cycle, a group cuts down the power here and there, just to remind the manufacturers that the power can be redirected at will …

 

Over time, a fairly stable equilibrium results, but the descendents of the manufacturers, who grow up under the mythology that manufacturers are the masters of the universe, with no practical understanding of the agreement, have to be reminded …

 

It would be much easier to free all the economic slaves, but most human critters would prefer to do their 8 hours, pick up a six-pack, and watch tv, which is their entitlement …

 

To manage the electrical room, the manufacturers hire agency, to ensure just enough dissonance to keep all the economic slave groups separated. The only reason manufacturers complain about agency is cost, not the need. They could not survive without agency …

 

To reduce cost further, the manufacturers mass produce economic slaves, creating excess supply over demand, in viral production, threatening planetary diversity. The planet, which has the advantages of time, experience, and much more power, begins to respond …

 

The tv show is repeated with all the same actors, wearing different clothes, uttering all the same lines …

 

Social dissonance is a function of inserting the agency nexus between individuals and nature. Psychological dissonance is a function of social dissonance. Whether a new electrical room is required or not depends entirely upon the manufacturers, but you want to have one ready in any case …

 

China has already taken its foot off the brake, to temporarily catch Europe, to temporarily catch the US, but political dissent is rapidly rising. Should be an interesting summer over there, as its people feel the entire pressure of the global economy on their back …

 

You may want to have an Armageddon package ready to go, which has no cost if you understand electrical rooms, can read a map, and have no non-productive assets hanging around your neck. There are still plenty of assets to liquidate in the old digital economy for cash flow, and plenty of places to invest in the analog economy, which is mobile…

 

As always, stay ahead of the herd, and don’t get caught in the slaughter yard.

Thu, 06/10/2010 - 23:52 | 407539 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

speaking of china, an interesting little 'personal interest' story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100609/od_afp/chinapropertyrightsoffbeat;_...

"China has witnessed a surge of violent confrontations triggered by land seizures as officials and businesses seek to cash in on a nationwide property boom by evicting residents and developing their land."

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:00 | 408669 kevinearick
kevinearick's picture

Walmart winter of discontent in China.

Nothing like a hard-line, command and control system of a few billion to fall back on...

 

Thu, 06/10/2010 - 23:40 | 407527 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

always a cryptic pleasure kevin...rabbit ears tuned in

Thu, 06/10/2010 - 06:00 | 405480 blindman
blindman's picture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHF7b326ydg&feature=related

.

don'y forgerry thisu wummm''''

.

 

Thu, 06/10/2010 - 05:50 | 405472 blindman
blindman's picture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ueIweuUvo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ueIweuUvo&feature=related

.

"you're a ghost. la la la la la la la.

I'm the church and i've come to claim you with

my iron drum, lala lala la la la la."  j.cale.

Thu, 06/10/2010 - 03:03 | 405367 blindman
blindman's picture

speaking of the average man, or unpeople, this here too. 

the disintegration of the self as institutionally dictated and

accepted, casually, by the unknowing faithful.  read on.  here

is how it was accomplished. 

.

"we're already dead,  not yet in the ground".  john cale, "sane fear".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9TXH_zR7C8

.

keywords: "not yet in the ground"   

.

"1913 America between two worlds"

alan valentine, 1962.

ch. XV

The man in the middle

.

" For over a century the ordinary citizen had been called the common

man.  As the twentieth century opened, that phrase was no longer

acceptable in America.  It no longer seemed democratic.  The common man

became the average man, and the change was significant.

  Eighteenth century liberal thinkers had exalted the common man as

society's most promising unit of character and virtue.  The nineteenth century

accepted that tradition; but as its decades wore on, the common man lost his

special halo and found the chances for his personal advancement less infinite

than the theory had promised.  The phrase acquired an overtone of patronage

and an undertone of class distinction.  The common man was becoming too

much the proletarian to suit him.

  To call most men common was to imply that some were uncommon-

superior because of birth, education, ability, or wealth.  Early democratic

society had recognized superiority in men like Washington, and had accepted

Jefferson's principle that democratic society needed an aristocracy of talents

and virtues.  The Founding Fathers had said all men were created equal, but

they did not mean it literally.  They meant that talent and virtue could be

found and recognized among ordinary men as well as among the better born,

so the occasional common man would become an uncommon one.

Democracy had not yet become confused with egalitarianism;  even

Andrew Jackson, who professed to represent the common man, did not

regard himself as one.

  The theory that democracy would bring leadership by the ablest and

most unselfish had not worked out too well in practice.  Before 1840

some Americans were thinking that too much power had fallen into the hands

of a few rich men-that democracy was becoming plutocracy.  They began to

work toward popular democracy, and to insist that democracy meant equality

and that any man was, in matters of political judgment at least, as wise

as any other.  The common man still accepted leaders, but he declined to

regard them as inherently any better than himself- or if they were they had

no right to be.

  Another force was also changing the common man to the average man.

Standardization had become the accepted method of industrial production,

and the concept of standardization subtly crept into men's social thinking.

If the standard methods and products made manufacture more efficient,

then standard tastes and values should make democratic society more

efficient too.  Those who reached this casual conclusion did not consider

that standardization was achieved at a sacrifice of superior quality.

  The more Americans could be induced to want the same thing, the more

cheaply or profitably manufacturers could supply it, and they developed

ways to find out what the majority of the people wanted.  They introduced

the "science" of market research, and market analysis meant statistics and

statistics meant averages.  The man who fitted into the statistical majority,

the nation's greatest consumer, became the average American.  The change

added to the amour propre of middle-class Americans, for it was nicer to be

average than to be common.  But the common man had been esteemed for his

virtue and promise, while the average man was esteemed only as a

standardized purchasing unit.  The common man, under a new name, was in

the saddle, but it was a very common saddle.

  The next step of the manufacturer was to get the public to want what his

factory could most profitably make.  Advertising and sales promotion suddenly

became major industries, and the power and uses of propaganda multiplied.

Average men were not only being induced to want the same thing, but to think

they wanted what the manufacturer had to sell them.

  If the factory system and the new self - assertion by the lower classes had

not created the average man, the politicians would have done so.  The new

democracy was by definition run by the average.  Since popular sovereignty

meant the rule of the norm, the politicians who acted for the people must

first find out what the people wanted.  By 1913 the politicians, as well as

the press and the advertising men, were engaged in an all out effort to

make the average tastes the national ideal.  Having established the average

man on the throne, the next step was to influence him, by catering to him

they could rule him, politically as well as economically.

  The change went to the roots of American political and social philosophy,

and helped turn the older individualist affirmation into myth.  A people

whose traditions were nonconformist began to embrace conformity by welcoming

the impersonal anonymity of the average.  A society erected on the leadership of

the exceptional was deferring to the ordinary.  In its effort to maintain a classless

society,  American democracy was creating a new and faceless ruling class in

culture as well as politics-the statistical majority.

  The forces that brought about this change were not pursuing a political

or social idea but their private ends.  The politician praised the average man

in order to win his vote; the advertising man in order to sell him goods; the

manufacturer in order to simplify his production line; the labor leader because

class solidarity was the source of his power; the sociologist because generalizations

and statistics were the breath of life.  The procedure was not a new one, demagogues

had always sought the lowest common denominator and flattered the plebs to

gain power.  But never before had such universal deference to the average so

characterized a national society, or led to such enthusiastic acceptance of statistical

collectivism and the cultural mean level."

...

..

Wed, 06/09/2010 - 21:59 | 405014 blindman
blindman's picture

http://www.alternet.org/story/147144/a_warning_from_noam_chomsky_on_the_threat_posed_by_elites/?page=1

    Truthdig / By Fred Branfman A Warning From Noam Chomsky on the Threat Posed By Elites As America’s economy and politics continue to unravel, it is clear that the elite mentality and the system it has created will produce more and more victims in the years to come.

...

..

I recently sat with Chomsky, an intellectually uncompromising but personally kind, gentle and mild-mannered man, in his kitchen discussing such new U.S. elite horrors as the trend toward “1984”-like automated warfare, when it suddenly hit me.

What is it like, I found myself thinking, to know more than any other human being on Earth about the state-sponsored lies to which Americans are so constantly subjected? What is it like to so feel in your bones, hour after hour, day after day, the pain of millions of “unpeople” suffering hunger, poverty and death caused by U.S. elites who today also threaten both their own nation and all humanity? And what is it like, even though your writings are published, to have their lessons ignored by society at large, as the killing continues and U.S. war-making “on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at” has now become permanent?

.

“Noam,” I said, “I’ve just realized who you really represent to me. Do you remember how Winston Smith [the “1984” character] realized that his highest obligation to humanity and himself was just to try and remain sane, to somehow commit the truth to paper, and to hope against rational hope that somewhere, some time, future humans might come to understand and act on it? To me, at this point in time, you’re Winston Smith.”

I will never forget his reaction.

He just looked back at me.

And smiled sadly.

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDS0Ay_vcBk&feature=PlayList&p=448729708F7A2BF6&playnext_from=PL&playnext=2 

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyyGoPerzWc&feature=PlayList&p=6771D194A1B82546&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=21

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0GQUtYkxfY&feature=related

etc...

Wed, 06/09/2010 - 21:19 | 404937 ZerOhead
ZerOhead's picture

Two giant thumbs up my friend!

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 23:18 | 402863 Marley
Marley's picture

CD,

Thanks for another installment. Like Crab Cakes, I'm still digesting.  I must confess, I'm gun shy after posting on the last installment after I found your comment to Crab Cakes.  "It's gratifying to see that someone has read and understood my message. I've been a bit disappointed that so many wanted to discuss the details while ignoring the message." I found Miles' following statement more eloquent than my feelings could convey. "Gandhi was quite correct when he said that we must become the change we want to see."  Truth is a component of any relationship.  I will re-read your installments as many times as it takes to find out were I missed your thesis statement.  It's probably right in front of me but in my hast I over looked it.  You should know that I will not be a part of any violent revolution against the country that my family has lived in since the early 18th century, mostly as labor class.  My family has fought in almost every conflict since the revolution, including both sides of the civil war.  I also won't become part of it's destruction, again I have full belief and faith in entropy.

Two laws of physics were violated before my eyes on 9/11.  Not once, not twice, three time. Before the first tower finished it's free fall, I told my wife that it wasn't possible to happen that way.  My message was simple, entropy and conservation of momentum.  The fact speaks for itself.

I will respond again when I've the chance and most probably on you next installment.

Peace

edit: spelling error, probably more.

Wed, 06/09/2010 - 21:22 | 404942 ZerOhead
ZerOhead's picture

Mr Marley...

Thanks for the heads up on "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg"

It's now on my list of things to read!

Thu, 06/10/2010 - 00:53 | 405274 Marley
Marley's picture

Hope you enjoy it.  "Center of the Cyclone"  by John C. Lilly is a good one also.  He conducts sensory deprivation experiments.  I remember a movie that ripped off the concept, Altered States?

Wed, 06/09/2010 - 14:28 | 403858 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Marley,

Why are you including yourself among the unidentified group who I suggested were talking details rather than message? And I have not suggested, inferred or promoted a violent revolution as a solution.

People are assuming way too much considering the series isn't complete. I suspect very few are actually reading each section completely. Rather some (not all, not many) are reading until they either hit a cognitive trigger or they think they understand my "point" and then they comment. Or they go to the comment section, read other comments and assume the comments reflect the contents of the Chapter.

Whatever, I don't understand why you would include yourself in my response to Crab Cake.

Wed, 06/09/2010 - 22:53 | 405128 Marley
Marley's picture

"Please, I beg you, from one human being to another, please consider what your doing?  Why are you going to work tomorrow?  Are your actions really in the best interests of your family?  Why are you assisting a system that has all but enslaved you?  Please, stop, think, and take action.  We are at the point where the cost of doing nothing is too steep.  Please don't fear.  Please take action.  I love you all.  I don't fear death.  I fear the future that TPTB have in store for my family and I.  Please consider, please, again I beg you, please stand up for yourself.  This system of servitude and fraud doesn't survive if we don't play ball.  Don't play ball."

"Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst Of Evils." - General John Stark

First I've no excuse, I'll make that clear right now.  I owe you an apology.

I was wrong and in this case I deserve the "I don't know if your dick is so big because you pull it all the time or step on it all the time." award.  Your analysis is of great interest to me and very timely. For what it's worth, I've tried my best to live my beliefs as best I could with minimal compromises since the sixties.  Remember "the system"?  I obtained a highly technical degree and then rejected the best, most lucrative job offers out of college that were defense department related.  I watched the decline of our generation as they one by one went back into the fold.  I don't blame them, families and all are a powerful force. My brother even joined the Army in the 70's.  "Maggot infested, long haired, dope smoking hippies" was a battle cry that signaled the coming return to conservatism and corporate owned democracy.  Even "Leave it to Beaver" returned in the form of "Family Ties", which included Bud, the Reagan loving, money oriented, self serving tool.

It was the "I don't fear death" interpretation that appeared to me as a call to action, that and the quote from Stark.  I've always believed that those that want war should be at the leading edge of the charge physically.  I think there would be fewer war if that were the case.  I'm not afraid to die either, for the right cause.  I'd fight to the death any intruder threatening my children, wife, or family members.  For my country, if it was being invaded and by that I don't mean illegal aliens.  I mean the ones carrying guns and machines of war.  Definitely not for God.  Nor for the love of a modern day Der Fehrer.  Now I'm being the self serving self rightous fool.

Again, I'm sorry.  Please accept my apology.

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 16:29 | 402328 Carpet Pisser
Carpet Pisser's picture

Trifecta man,

1+++, you are so absolutely right that change starts with self. 

This fits perfectly with CD's explanation about how denial and cognitive dissonance at the individual level ultimately become manifested at family, community and societal levels.

I highly recommend that folks check out Charles Hugh Smith's book titled Survival+ as well as his blog oftwominds.com.

He is a deep thinker, with insights that parallel those of CD in this present excellent series of articles on ZH (great minds think alike?).

I am a relative newbie, but the community over at oftwominds.com appears to have moved beyond simply defining the denial/cognitive dissonance problems and are actively exchanging ideas about solutions.

Again, I am still on the learning curve, but it appears there is some consensus around the ideas of radical localization, self-sustaining communities, etc.

I'm reading the first few chapters of Survival+ right now and already gained many insights - one of which is the idea that the best way to lead to through quiet example (as Trifecta man states, if you use force, you will likely get bad results in the long run).

Nothing new here: be the change you want to see in the world, etc.

Anyway, I think Charles Hugh Smith's book can greatly inform this discussion here at ZH - IMHO it is a must read: 

http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Structuring-Prosperity-Yourself-Nation/dp/1449563449/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276028252&sr=1-1

Here's what reviewer had to say: 

"This book is hard to classify, but I know many people from economists to survivalists have read the original, but shorter, version. The "Survival +" philosophy is built upon many of Smith's popular and insightful essays which include "When Belief in the System Fades" and "The Art of Survival, Taoism and the Warring States". Smith uses a combination of short personal stories mixed with academic discourse and teachable moments to take the reader on a journey through his macro-level life philosophy.

Despite this book containing "Survival" in the title, it should not be considered in the same vein as all the other books on how to stockpile canned food and shotguns. Smith does not address those menial topics. His book is a "how to think" manual. Considering "mindset" is often cited as the most important aspect of "survival" by some other authors in the survival genre, Smith is the only one to have fully nailed it. Smith encourages the reader to think about a fully possible sustainable human future well within our reach without resorting to the safety of the usual sandbags filled with fear."

 

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 23:19 | 402982 Trifecta Man
Trifecta Man's picture

I am just starting to read some of his material for the first time now at that web site.  It strikes me as insane that someone named carpet pisser may be instrumental in teaching this old dog some new tricks.

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 13:47 | 401945 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

OT but relevant to the earlier discussion:

a victory for the native americans?

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/06/a-victory-for-native...

the comments are particularly enlightening imo
seems like less & less are buying into the bullshit

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 14:15 | 402006 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

"The story turns on theft and incompetence by the Interior and Treasury Departments, with culprits including Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the same Minerals Management Service now at the center of the BP oil spill fiasco. Over the past 100 years, government record systems lost track of more than 40 million acres and who owns them. The records simply vanished. Meanwhile, documents were lost in fires and floods, buried in salt mines or found in an Albuquerque storage facility covered by rat feces and a deadly Hantavirus. Government officials exploited computer systems with no audit trails to turn Indian proceeds into slush funds but maintain plausible deniability."

The greatest words in the English language for those who wish to lie, steal and bilk. "Plausible deniability."

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 01:02 | 401029 Trifecta Man
Trifecta Man's picture

I've been a truth seeker since I was 16.  That means I have been doing this for 43 years.

Basically the world tries to teach us a lot of crap to control us.  That includes family, businesses, religion, government, you name it.

The best kind of control people need is self control.  You have to believe in your own ability to control yourself.  You can do that by developing ethical standards to live by.  I'm sure most people can think of a few.

Another thing I learned is the truth is relative, not absolute.  It strongly depends on the assumptions you make.  Something can be true and untrue at the same time, depending on these assumptions.  Does the sun rise in the morning, or does the earth rotate?

So have a healthy skepticism about what you hear or read or see.

You can assert your own self control in numerous social encounters.  The more you differ from the "concensus", the tougher it will be to change it.

It comes down to believing in yourself, even when others may not.  I did that many times.  Usually you get no immediate results.  I just look at it as planting the seed of thought.  Over time, it helps some people to come around when you show them results.  Results is one of the best ways to determine whether you are thinking right.  But some people will never learn.

Yeah, it sucks when others don't see the errors of their ways.  (Hey, I made many myself.)  But change starts first from within.  The most lasting are voluntary.  If you use force, you will likely get bad results in the long run.  But you can change your actions to work outside a system.  If enough people do that, a faulty system may crumble on its own.  It's just a matter of time.

Our dishonest fiat money system is doomed.  So do what you can to protect yourself from dollar bills becoming worthless.  You have some control over those choices.  One of the best decisions would be to stay out of debt, so you don't lose what you have if they change the rules.

Generally CD appears to be giving you some useful insight into the problems we face, IMO.

Thu, 06/10/2010 - 02:46 | 405374 StychoKiller
StychoKiller's picture

"Is the surface of a planet the right place for an expanding
technological civilization?"  R.A. Wilson

Ask the right questions, get better answers.

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 23:03 | 400895 Count Floyd
Count Floyd's picture

An interesting and thought-provoking post.  Unfortunately, you taint it by introducing 9-11 "Truther" nonsense into the mix.

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 05:58 | 401146 brodix
brodix's picture

Count,

 It is hard to really fully consider any argument without examining the examples given, so the validity of questioning the 9/11 narrative does seem crucial to CD's point.

 As someone whose worldview would not be affected by whether it was simply political blowback, combined with monumental bad luck and overwhelming incompetence and bureaucratic cowardice distorting the investigation, or whether there was some unholy combination of an under utilized and over muscled military doing the bidding of a banking cartel determined to maintain the dollar peg and private oil industry truly pissed about too many natives going all socialistic over the oil their sand happens to be over, I am still curious about too many unanswered questions. Such as why the Pentagon would only release one ambiguous video. 

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 22:58 | 400888 Crab Cake
Crab Cake's picture

Hey CD.  I just finished my first skim, and here's what it made me think of...

Mad Season - River Of Deceit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvPIgZ0T01w

I need some time to digest, will be back. 

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:40 | 400801 KTV Escort
KTV Escort's picture

Like the battered and abused spouse or the spouse of the alcoholic or drug addict, we constantly and falsely embrace hope that our country and culture will get better despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

 

Perfect explanation (I used to be married to an alcoholic)

 

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:23 | 400779 brodix
brodix's picture

Something to consider might be how this is a function of natural processes. Reality is an illusion of polarities, fluctuating between equilibrium and disequilibrium. Order and chaos. Too much order and it's a flatline. Too much chaos and everything flies apart.

 What we are seeing is a divergence between the status quo and the underlaying process, which is a natural occurence, as the status quo become too inflexible to accommodate the process and starts breaking down. Obviously we all rely, to some extent or another, on this social mythos, but instinctively recognize its flaws and try to cover for them, until such time as they become overwhelming and suddenly the tide turns. 

 

 One of the big problems is we are conditioned to think of good and bad as moral polarities, but ignore the fact they are complementary. There can no more be a good without a bad, as there can be an up without a down, or left without a right. Birth is good, but it leads inexorably to death, which is bad. What is good for the fox, is bad for the chicken, yet there is no line where the chicken ands and the fox begins. The price we must pay for the fact of being able to feel in the first place is that much of what we feel is pain.

 Without the motion turning tomorrow into yesterday, we would not exist, but it will also consume us, as well.

 Yes, the economic model is about to implode, but that just means all those supporting it will have nothing left to support, as all that illusionary debt based wealth is defaulted on, so they will have to try something else.

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:06 | 400763 CHNOPS
CHNOPS's picture

Devaluation of applied capital, energy shortages, loss of jobs and deterioration of the social and natural environments will overshadow lies and wealth inequalities that currently exist.

 

People will thrive on more lies, not less. True understanding will be shunned in favor of hopeful beliefs promulgated by mass media pundits.

 

Intellectuals will be marginalized, as they have been throughout history.

 

The Fed, built upon the sands of time, will be no more able to withstand the full moon Spring tide of destruction than their indebted servants and nations.

 

Lies

 

Exponential growth can continue forever.

Work hard and grow rich.

Pray to God.

We’re going to fix this problem.

They’ll come up with something.

 

Truth

 

The technological system (A) will eat and degrade the biological system (B) until the imminent collapse of biological system results in warfare and self-annihilation of the human/technological system as a last ditch attempt to save the planet. It won't work. The complexity achieved by using vast amounts of energy in a very short period of time will never be repeated.

 

Are you repulsed? What do you believe?

 

That human dopamine receptors on both the profit and consuming sides are the best judges as to how we employ our capital? That Dopamine Democracy is the gold standard of human social development?  

 

 

CD thinks you might block such thoughts, or find something more soothing to believe. Is that true? Do you still believe in an unfettered capitalistic democracy as it now exists? Does it matter what you believe? Maybe you will just close your eyes, take another sip of whiskey and turn up the music. Sweet  dreams.

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 06:25 | 401160 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

truth

A is allowing you to share with us your warnings about the destruction of B right now.

i've personally learned/am learning quite a lot about B through A, at least all that can be learned about B through the original A, language.

1 good geomagnetic storm can take out much of the current A 7 minutes before the electromagnetic energy in the form of light ever hits the earth.  B can ride the waves of the same storm.

conjecture

enjoy A while it lasts, and don't mourn for B.  it's time again will come soon enough.

possibility

maybe change The Dopamine Democracy into The Serotonin Sociocracy?

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:29 | 400782 DisparityFlux
DisparityFlux's picture

 

The Age of Enlightenment:

http://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/542

That was then, this is now -- what happened to us?

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 20:23 | 400714 GeoffreyT
GeoffreyT's picture

This is an EXCEPTIONAL piece. I wish I could write that well.

 

One thing that doesn't surprise me though, is that the staunchly-middle-class, educated types were most ardent in their tut-tutting: a mechanic or a field labourer can 'arc up' 9as we say in Australia) but a judge or an accountant has to be 'pukkha': if they ever discuss atrocity they have to do so over canapes in muted voices.

 

One of the things for which I am eternally grateful is that my mentor (Professor Peter Dixon) had no qualms about using the 'f-bomb' annd actually cured me of a reluctance to do likewise. If that was the only thing he managed to get me to absorb it would have been enough... but of course nobody can associate with Dicko for any length of time without gaiing immeasurably as an economic thinker. (given that Dicko was a prof at Harvard after his PhD - supervised by Leontief - I find myself constantly wondering how his brand of abrasive conviviality would have gone down in those hallowed halls of Cambridge Mass.).

Again, exceptional... I will go back and read the rest of the series (and it's not because it jibes with my prejudices... promis)

Cheerio

 

 

GT

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:36 | 400797 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Please come back because there are two more chapters to go. And thank you for your kind praise.

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:36 | 400701 DisparityFlux
DisparityFlux's picture

Mr. CogDis.,

IF:

Humans have developed a behavioral sink of global scale and scope within which their efforts to cope and adapt are meeting resistance at personal and communal levels; thus exposing unmanageable social rifts.

THEN:

(1) In a greater society collapse, the influence of centralized governing bodies will diminish, replaced by lesser social constructs to preserve the functioning of smaller communities.

(2) In smaller communities, an individual's capabilities and motivations, not necessarily their possessions or projected self-image, will be important and easily observed and evaluated by others.  Actions speak louder than words; we will be valued for positive contributions -- whether acting individually or collectively.

(3) Prepare oneself to be productive for the holistic benefit of self, family and community. Although self-expression can produce beneficial creativity, participation in group-think and group-action which enforces holistic benefits may be valuable and sustainable.

SO:

If the tenents of (3) were observed, would not the current greater society be built on a firmer foundation? This is what appears to be missing from our techno-global-community social construct. Just because we can connect real-time to a knowledge store and information flow, it does not yet appear the available knowledge and presented information can be effectively utilized for the survival of the individual or society as a whole -- although both may reason it is.

We are in another period were systematic socioeconomic defaults are requiring restructuring of socioeconomic systems.  Historically, being the most advanced culture does not ensure guaranteed transitions under any government or monetary system yet devised by man.  Where is your chosen/assigned position in the developing 21st century ant-hill(s)?

Thoughts from an educated mule.

Looking forward to chapters 4 and 5.

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 19:54 | 400698 Greenbacks
Greenbacks's picture

CD, this is a must read.

The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465020690/ref=s9_newr_gw_ir03?pf_rd_m=...

 

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 19:26 | 400671 Marvin_M
Marvin_M's picture

I read today in utter dismay that the Army has arrested a young enlisted man on suspicion of "leaking" the Iraqi video which showed the wholesale slaughter of civilians, journalists and "suspected insurgents" by a trigger-happy helicoptor gun crew.  The Army is claiming that the young man violated "National Security Interests" by divulging "classified material".  I am not even sure that the outrageous act shown in the leaked video received any MSM coverage or even a comment in the hallowed halls of Congress.  The military is acting once again under its special privileges to cover up war crimes.

My point: I would deserately like to stand up and say something, do something, anything.  But I have to admit that I am scared to do so.  The lie of the middle east wars and the military's crimes is so big that one person or even a hundred thousand could not slow it down or change it.  Martyrdom in the form of ruin is what awaits those who dare to speak out against this and equally evil government crimes.  We are already far, far down the same road taken by the regimes you mention. 

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 23:51 | 400957 merehuman
merehuman's picture

And yet WE MUST speak out or die the slow death of guilt and weakness.

This is worth dying for so ours might live a REAL life. If we dont, we havent truly lived at all. My mate may be in her last days, at 89 its hard to say. Once she is gone i will feel free to act. My part is small as i am on the wrong coast and a bit aged. I can still toss a rock and long for the chance to do so.

Burn banksters bare balls better BP

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 20:34 | 400729 nhsadika
nhsadika's picture

Absolutely,

there is no way I would risk speaking out either.  Is there anyone on this  board who would go in front of the camera and say "this is wrong, we need to bring our troops home and stop these perennial wars which only serve to impoverish us spending money we don't have!"

I highly highly doubt 1 in 1000 would say anything like that, even if your first convinced them to the core that these wars are total nonsense. 

 

 

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 22:30 | 400836 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

Marvin - This is simply another case of little dick syndrome expressed by ineffectual persons in positions of responsibility.  This action follows a long line of similar actions throughout our society all designed to create narrative rather than simply report facts.  In this those that made the decision to charge/discipline this EM are simply reflecting a larger dissonance within the whole of society.  Precisely the subject under discussion.  Great example!

For everyone, there is a reason I chose the name Miles Kendig.  I have done those things, and more.  Then again, my career spanned the Defense & Justice Departments and while I would not recommend my personal "Hopscotch" journey to anyone else I would advise anyone to become their own version of Miles Kendig.  There are many ills that plague our current governing, economic, social & professional structures.  As CD commented earlier in this series, he could not have written this series without writing this series.  I agree that I could not have written my version of Hopscotch if I had not sat down to actually write it (vs slogging through the whole outline structure game first) as the process generates it own irresistible feedback loop.  I have found this process liberating in the extreme and would advise anyone else to try it.  How can we learn of the dysfunction that plagues other micro-intensive sectors of our surrounding professions unless someone from the inside clues the rest of us in?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hopscotchposter.jpg

I wouldn't go back now for any amount of money (or anything else) - Miles Kendig

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:58 | 400818 Winisk
Winisk's picture

C'mon now.  We gotta 'Support Our Troops'.  The banners on the main street of my town demand it.  Since when did supporting our troops (whatever that means)  get linked to supporting a stupid war?  I want our boys home.  I think they would support that.

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 22:25 | 400846 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

A vast majority of those who chose to wear the uniform do so because they believe such things as freedom of expression, assembly and the rest are vital.  Agree with your sentiment or not (personally I do) these members of our society stand and cheer those who choose to partake in these liberties such as they are with vigor. And there are few things that capture the ire of these same folks more than that expressed with false "yellow ribbon magnet" and bath towel flag patriotism.

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 01:47 | 401053 nhsadika
nhsadika's picture

Basically Miles is saying that when you meet a very patriotic family which bleeds red, white and blue, there is 0.0% chance that you would ever be able to make them think twice about their commitment and its purpose.

It is "all in" emotionally and all intellectual arguments cease at that point.

It doesn't matter that these same troops get disillusioned and that many falsify injuries or psychologicial disturbances (to get out of it) or are depressed and on strong medications to make them feel good about what they are doing.

You keep your mouth shut around people like that.

 

 

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 09:46 | 401416 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

Hardly.

recycle and try again.

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:33 | 400790 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

I have repeatedly (only once for the camera but many times for groups large and small including a few times in front of the "authorities" as they like to be called) and will again and again and again.

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 01:41 | 401050 nhsadika
nhsadika's picture

I think that is amazing (in all seriousness, and I suppose having people say it reinforces everyones ability to say it which is what you commented on previously.  

Now would you if you were an Arab living in the US with the impending new Consitutional rights those being

- the "right of return to some other place even if you are a citizen"

or

- the "right of imprisonment without consent"

?

 

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 18:15 | 400579 Chemba
Chemba's picture

What exactly is the "9/11 myth"?  is the "myth" that islamic jihadists were not responsible for 9/11, rather that it was "Bush" or "the Jews" or "America's policies"?  Give me a break.

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 23:44 | 400949 merehuman
merehuman's picture

please do the research, most of us have . There is strenght in numbers but we should come of our own will truh knowledge gained. google 9/11 , then come back and spend time with us. Good cheer to you Chemba

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 21:23 | 402818 zice
zice's picture

So you attest that evil resides at upper echelons but do you look in the mirror at your peers? If you read up the thread about the treatment of elderly via homes/ss/medicare etc do you see a similarity between the upper and lower. Where do the readers of ZH draw the line with their moral and ethical indignation? A group of bankers or the local 151's? Soccer moms or the PTA? How do you rate this banality of evil vs 911? Thread after thread filled with rage and frustration to try and connect the dots...let me help some of you: When the dots are connected its a picture of you.

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 22:10 | 402884 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

it's a picture of us.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!