Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains how her mother got radicalized watching Russia Today
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ต.ค. 2024
- Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author Anne Applebaum in conversation with historian and MSNBC opinion columnist Ruth Ben-Ghiat on the recent alarming rise of dictatorships across the world - and her new book, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World.
Recorded July 22, 2024 at 92nd Street Y, New York.
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Unfortunately we listened to the pundits who assure us Trump would never win. Never again! We won’t go back. Vote the whole ballot blue!
… we also didn’t realize Putler’s fingers were all over the 2016 election. The media, parties AND gov’t didn’t vet Chump!
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Can I just add that is an adorable baby. You absolutely right !
I experienced something similar. My late husband was born in Russia. Highly educated, had travelled and lived in several countries. He always mocked Putin, but he became sick, stayed home and watched RT and other Russian channels all day. He became slowly brainwashed to believe the propaganda and mistrust everyone around him. The development in 2014 made it very difficult to discuss any political topic with him. I watched this in disbelief, as it really was paranoid. He was convinced that all us Westerners were out to destroy Russia. All of this while being surrounded by very friendly, peaceful Westerners here in Denmark. It was scary and sad to see, but it made me understand what propaganda is able to do with people.
I feel your sadness... To watch someone you love become radicalized without being able to help them must be painful.
So sorry to read that
@@narniabusiness7810 Thank you very much. It was. He died August 19, 2014 in his sleep. There is so much I never said to him, because I could not reach him anymore.
@@marypylyp1636 thank you vey much.
I watch RT a lot from FTA satellite. There is little propaganda, less than sky news, fox but more than CNN.
Always appreciate both of You, sharing Your Knowledge & Wisdom.
I understand, & remember, tfg's *"American CARNAGE"* , the speech, his intentions, his actions & policies..
& the reality WE survived, & too many did not. 🕯
*WE WILL NOT GO BACK.*
Thank YOU again, please take Care.
✌🏼💙✊🏼💙🙏🏼💙🐾
Such a great coming together of two thoughtful and bright women.
Happy Birthday Anne! 🎉
Fascist theocracy is Project 2025
"Rock musician Frank Zappa said in 1986: “The biggest threat to America today is not communism, it’s moving America toward a fascist theocracy." Ziklag is a clear example that Frank was right."
" Yes he saw already what was coming. Frank even explained further what he meant by a fascist theocracy: "When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code derived from a certain religion and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view, and if that code happens to be very very right wing."
He already spelled it all out for us. The agenda for such a fascist theocracy is Project 2025."
I've been wanting a crossover like this for years. It's like the Infinity War event but for the critical thinkers of our time that we desperately need for people to hear. Thank you for posting this
Please Americans, do the right thing. The world depends on you no matter what position they take. The absence of America in world affairs would be a disaster whatever one's political leanings.
@martycrow
Yes, and we each need to address this same dynamic at home. People paying attention have been seeing this developing in Canada over the last (many) years.
@@lakerooster I feel I should agree, but not sure what you actually mean. Canadians are worried about polarisation in US politics?
@@martycrowRemember Pierre Trudeau’s famous quote? I’m paraphrasing, but he said when a mouse lies next to an elephant, he must be vigilant every time the elephant rolls over.🇨🇦
@@LovesLakes Yes, Terudeau was a quite a character, and witty too. What's also funny is that elephants are always depicted as being afraid of mice in cartoons. Wonder why? In this case, perhaps we should all be more nervous of the Republican elephant than the Democratic donkey, while deftly avoiding the mousetrap.
@@martycrow I'm saying that, while without doubt it's worth paying attention to US politics, Canadians can't afford to ignore our own dumpster-fire politics
This must have been part of a much longer conversation.... I hope it gets posted here. Two together are wonderful.
Yes Optimism, Hope,change PROGRESS... EXUBERANCE 🎉
Anne Applebaum and Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Now there's a dream team
I sincerely agree.
And yet too many White women (like that 53%) with Stockholm syndrome wouldn't vote for them.
for russo-phobes and liberal zionist hypocrites 🤣
This conversation is important and the points Ms Applebaum is making are basic enough that they are good talking points for conversations with like-minded people & those who think they are diametrically different from ‘those people.’
Toddlers with Lego blocks get so easily frustrated and just knock all the blocks down. So much easier than constructing something new or revising something already established.
My mom was Part of radical republican group John Birch Society as well as maga-churches and "Name it, Claim it" and "god wants you to be rich" televangelists. When trump came along, she was pre-conditioned for his grift. It was so bad, our family couldn't stand to be around her. Well, she got pancreatic cancer, diagnosed in February, she died Apr 27, 2024. The last week of her life we were all with her. She never mentioned trump or anything maga. She died in peace, thank God.
Sorry for your loss and pleased she didn't spend her last moments wasting time on maga.
Not to be a dick, but she died in the future? Best edit the date.
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@@Saturday8pm april 27, 2024 ... thanks 😊
@@sumiland6445
It sucks losing a parent.
@@Saturday8pm it really does 🥺💔
Two gorgeously intelligent women. love them
Fantastic! Women, Men, all Americans should listen to this snippet. AMERICA wake up! Vote 💙👏🎉
Exactly, Anne. My massive beef with the Women's March, you have to have it BEFORE THE ELECTION! They waited until after the INAUGURATION. FFS. It was a great day, but such a huge mistake in timing. I hope they've learned, who ever the organizers were.
Unfortunately we never believed Trump could be elected, we listened to the polls and that was a big mistake
@@elizabethwilkerson5434 I feel like the same principle is at work now - Democrats believe Kamala will magically become a compelling speaker and a dynamic personality.
Get a new march organized NOW.. When does the pre vote start. The day after the March.
@samantha-eu3cc But she is still running against a grifter wanna be dictator.
All the kind and smart ppl in the world should stand together to stop hate and stop fascism !
Americans, pls do the right thing, we won't go back !! 💙 💙 💙
It does go back to Murdoch. I used to read the Wall Street Journal every day. It was the most reliable news source I knew of. When Murdoch bought it up, like a lot of people, I said, "Let's give him a chance and see how he does." But don't take my word for it. Read David Carr's article, "Under Murdoch, Tilting Rightward at The Journal," in the New York Times. He described the WSJ story, “A President as Micromanager: How Much Detail Is Enough?” Carr wrote, "The original article included a contrast between President Jimmy Carter’s tendency to go deep in the weeds of every issue with President George W. Bush’s predilection for minimal involvement... By the time the article ran, it included only the swipe at Mr. Carter." Do you have a problem with a foreigner coming to America, buying up our news media, and using it to drive our political debate far to the right? Isn't that what you're accusing the Russians of trying to do?
Same thing with people watching AlJazeera.
That's terrible. So very similar to what my family's gone through though with faux news and other sites :(
I'd like to hear a lecture at the Y, "How I betrayed my principles and advanced my career."
I love these two ladies! I've learned so much from them. Anne, I am not an optimist, either, but I do like people who are and need them to bring me up. Both are needed. The optimists invented the airplane. The pessimists invented the parachute. 😊
Great talk, but too short. Perhaps they could do another soon?
"its about the narrative, not the provenance"
Endlessly criticizing Western institutions is "postmodernism". It's inherently conflictual, and made palatable by rebranding.
"Intersectionality" for example, rebrands (and expands) "equity" into a new word.
The 92nd St. Y is a peculiar place to discuss media bias. In October, they cancelled a reading by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen, because he signed an open letter condemning Israel's "indiscriminate violence" against Palestinians in Gaza. Several other speakers cancelled their own readings at the Y, out of protest or discomfort. It's disappointing that big financial contributors can order institutions like the Y and Columbia University to betray their commitment to freedom of ideas and justice, and protest against killing of innocent civilians.
Saint Anne
Does 92nd Street y have a function that allows one to view these sorts of talks in full retroactively? (I would be willing to pay)
Look at the website. I think I remember seeing replays lilisted there.
You mean that billionaires could send out their minions to surround a simple minded grifter and fill his head with visions of being all powerful.??
Where can you watch the whole conversation?
If Chris Hedges and Lee Camp are too radical then I’m a radical and I miss their shows that were on RT America.
Once in the while, the New York Times has a great story. I think you would enjoy reading "What It Was Like to Work for Russian State Television" By Cecilia Kang. Kang interviewed a dozen or so reporters from RT, including Abby Martin, who stressed that they were free to say whatever they wanted, and during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many of them criticized Russia on the air. It sounds like the kind of situation that a lot of NYT reporters would envy. RT was proof that America has the free speech it brags about. RT's absence is proof that America doesn't have the free speech it brags about.
(Later, Abby Martin was prevented from giving a lecture at a Georgia university because she refused to sign a statement that she agreed not to boycott Israel. She sued, but the courts finally held that Georgia had sovereign immunity.)
You might also enjoy reading the Supreme Court cases Dennis v. United States and Yates v. United States, particularly the dissents.
I’ve never understood this very common phenomenon of the liberal child and the Fox News watching parent. Don’t these children have a responsibility to educate their parents ?
You can’t educate parents who aren’t willing to listen to their children
The point of dialog is to listen to each other, not attempt to "educate"😮
@@hinahinananoha7783 hope all turns out well for you. Dictatorships can be ‘uncomfortable’
We try and try to educate them. To vote in the best interests of their grandchildren but the right wing media continues to spout propaganda. Very sad. I will try again this election cycle.
@@momoftwom8343 Left wing is hardly an example of facts. When Fox news becomes more trustworthy than NYT etc then what are people supposed to watch?
The only Show I liked on RT (Russia Today) was On Contact with Chris Hedges
He became a sellout himself
'Radicalized' meaning being open to another point of view. Anyone who has followed truly independent media, including freelancers, knows how much propaganda comes from Western media. Sometimes it isn't even propaganda it is just lack of reporting. Mariupol was taken, including the city center and the port and the port was working, for two weeks before the Western media admitted that Azov was no longer 'defending the city'.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat could be Meryl Streep's sister.
Yeah, it's amazing how easy that can happen, even among intelligent otherwise decent people, with a lifetime of cultural conditioning and propaganda to think of one's self as having a "manifest destiny" and/or thinking of other humans as "untermenchen" who are in the way of you and your "labensraum"....
I believe much of the support for Trump is reactionary. My mother used to watch NBC / MSNBC...and when Imus in the morning [kind of an unwatchable, slow moving Morning Joe at the time] was cancelled (he--IMUS-- made some "these are thugs, ghetto" comment about WNBA players, which seemed almost all too prescient when we've seen WNBA players assaulting that new player out of some rages of resentment and jealousy, let's ignore that racial aspect), then years later she is watching FOX, so forth......I believe now it was a reaction against that what she considered probably an overreaction by the elitist left.
So, basically your mother is a racist
For a moment the algorithm was feeding me Russian propaganda really hard. I was getting videos of Putin petting a dog, or doing one of those strongman machismo things like a riding a damn bear. And being that it's an election year here in the US we see Russian trolls and bots all over political forums and channels. It's pretty strong
God sovereignty before and over human choice / free will
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Political radicalization by state-sponsored media is certainly real, but, I must admit, it sounds totally out of touch, even if it's tongue in cheek, to say her mother is now safely back with Murdoch. Murdoch has radicalized far more Americans than RT has, and with much more worrying and globally discrediting implications. It's not that I think we shouldn't talk about Russia and China (I live in Taiwan; the threat is very real to me), but some perspective would be nice.
You didn't notice her resigned irony when she made that remark?
Is sarcasm a foreign concept in Taiwan?
Russia will always be Russia. And that’s a good thing. Dump these Humps and give America back !
Russia Today was a legit network during the late 00s. They actually had some good shows with good journalists and commentators. Then, they let their crazy out.
Polly Boiko. She’s working for the FT now, trying to hide.
Like a counterfeit handbag....
I have just never understood how people can be so stupid. It makes my head hurt. All this from a man who is not smart by anyone's terminology. The very ones who will be hurt the most latch on two him like marine grade glue.
This is a misuse of the word, radical. I understand the intended meaning, but radical is not equivalent to ant democratic. 🗽
Why, the pains are more fed levered st home in blighty. Jts more iften no one blames lovsl crimnals who are criming locally. The issue to use a senator the above is yo not sfjust ti ehat tge doeajers are been fed. The line is hold thats nit the sndwe it is taxes
Sounds like some kind of Portnoy's Complaint.
Never forget when talking to someone who continues to disagree with you even after you attempt to show them the truth: you’re smart, they’re stupid. That’s my takeaway here.
Uhmmm Voice of America…. BBC…. The lack of self awareness is really funny and unsurprising
I don't
watch Russia Today and I think Biden sucks.
Bad art is corruption of feeling. This is a large factor in the irrationalism which dictators and demagogues exploit
Art, for Langer, was one way to express one’s freedom, not, as we will see, in terms of
human self-expression or cultural elevation, but in terms of the education of feeling. As she was to put it in Problems of Art, Art education is the education of feeling, and a society that neglects it gives itself up to formless emotion. Bad art is corruption of feeling. This is a large factor in the irrationalism which dictators and demagogues exploit.121
Dengerink Chaplin, Adrienne. The Philosophy of Susanne Langer: Embodied Meaning in Logic, Art and Feeling (p. 91). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Right to vote should be for everyone, however the Republican Party needs to be completely dissolved and laws put in place so politicians like them or parties like them can never hold or run for office again.
Fantasy, the preparation for thought
It is interesting to note that the animals nearest to man in the evolutionary scale, the great apes, are much more easily frenzied or reduced to cataleptic collapse by emotional stimuli than human beings. Are they at the end of their tether in the realm of animal mentation? There are indications in their behavior that they may be near the threshold of fantasy, the preparation for thought. But this thought may be too close to fantasy itself; so perhaps it had better be left alone.
Langer k. Susanne,philosphical sketches, p.74 1964
They banned RT news to protect the people, is that why they banned it Ruth?
Searching for enemies.
Forty winks in the lobby, make mine a G&T Then to our favorite hobby, searching for an enemy" Nik Kershaw Lyrics "I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me"
I like this line in this song, so i thought i would add some more.
Forty winks in the lobby, make mine a G&T, then to their favorite hobby of searching for an enemy.
so who's the enemy this week then, the gays, the jews, the blacks, the unemployed, the disabled, single mums, who is everyone supposed to hate on this week then,...oh, it's the Russians,the Russians are back as the "bad guys" again, like they were in the 1950's and 1980's' and now they are back as the "bad guys" again"?
so why is everyone suppose to hate on the Russians then?
Is it because they won't allow Nato to expand into their territory and stick nuclear weapons in Ukraine, is that why they are the "bad guys" and everyone is suppose to hate on them again, is it?
The Ministry of truth will tell everyone what they can and can't think and what they can and can't believe, and who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are, because they have such a track record of trustworthiness, don't they?
It's what the papers say
You know it's right
It's down there written in black and white for you
It's what the papers say
You know it's true
They're responsible citizens and would they lie to you?
(would they, would they lie to the public, would they? lol)
I saw it on the newsstand
It shouted at me
It said "we are all good and they are all bad"
Well drive me to the clinic 'cos it's driving me mad
It's what the papers say, you know it's true, because it's down in black and white for you, as Nik Kershaw said in his song It's what the papers say.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. Abraham Lincoln
Who are you Americans voting for, tweedle-dee or tweedle-dum.?
That's dumb. Russia is a dictatorship that wants to grab other countries. People like you criticize the USA for wars like Iraq, but defend other countries when they do such wars (and: The USA didn't even annex Iraq or Afghanistan).
This is a schizopost, no one can convince me otherwise.
Ruth, you shouldn't mindlessly believe everything Richard Dawkins says.
"She rejects Darwin-based teleological terminology that suggests hidden mythical agents such as 'nature' or 'the environment' as reflected in popular phrases such as 'Mother Nature designed it this way' or 'evolution solved this problem so-and-so. Even the notion of natural selection itself inclines to
the assumption that there is something like a 'selector' even though, as she points
out, 'the factory manager is discretely left nameless' But she also critiques genetic
theories that place the body's genes at the sole centre. Humans are not, as Richard
Dawkins was to put it later, 'survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to
preserve the selfish molecules known as genes'.' Finally, Langer also rejects computer
based cybernetic models of personhood such as that proposed by Norbert Wiener, in
which the central nervous system serves as the main coordinating centre. That, for
her, reduces the human nervous system to a mechanically modelled communication
system more suited to a computer than to humans.'"
p248 The Philosophy of Susanne Langer
Without symbolism, Cassirer claimed, `man's life would be confined within the limits
of his biological needs and his practical interests; it could find no access to the "ideal
world" which is opened to him from different sides by religion, art, philosophy,
science:
For Langer, too, symbolic activity is the defining mark of humanity.' Symbols, for
her, cover a wide range of phenomena from simple perceptual Gestalten and words
to works of art and scientific theories. Even so, symbolization is not primarily about
products but about processes. It is an activity done by an agent: the human organism
with all its diverse needs and responsibilities. She rejects Darwin-based teleological
terminology that suggests hidden mythical agents such as 'nature' or 'the environment'
as reflected in popular phrases such as 'Mother Nature designed it this way' or 'evolution
solved this problem so-and-so. Even the notion of natural selection itself inclines to
the assumption that there is something like a 'selector' even though, as she points
out, 'the factory manager is discretely left nameless'P But she also critiques genetic
theories that place the body's genes at the sole centre. Humans are not, as Richard
Dawkins was to put it later, 'survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to
preserve the selfish molecules known as genes'.' Finally, Langer also rejects computer
based cybernetic models of personhood such as that proposed by Norbert Wiener, in
which the central nervous system serves as the main coordinating centre. That, for
her, reduces the human nervous system to a mechanically modelled communication
system more suited to a computer than to humans.'
Langer's anti-dualist stance discards, on the one hand, any theory that explains
personhood in terms of a separate entity or agency. But she also rejects any monist
solutions, whether materialist or idealist, that select a physical or metaphysical
principle as the sole origin of personhood. For Langer, agents 'cannot figure as ultimate
unanalysable entities, like the "metaphysical Subject", the Mover of "his" arms and
legs, completely self-identical, "implied" by the occurrence of acts, but not accessible
to empirical or historical study'. For her, the only agent of life is the organism or
embodied human being itself. Such an agent is chiefly determined by its biological
`individuation'. More specifically, it is the pattern of the smallest biological unit, that is,
the biological 'act, with its enfolded precoded potential which determines the outcome
as a whole. This applies from the earliest signs of life, in the isolation of protoplasmic
units by a surrounding membrane, to the highest forms of individuation, the evolution
of human beings. The way such an organism develops is the result of the chance
interactions between its genetically coded impulses and the impacts of its ambient.
Even so, every stock contains countless unexpressed genes which will only actualize
their potential when external conditions enable them to do so.'" According to Langer,
`man is probably as full of unrealized potentialities as the lower creatures'.
In view of the developments in neuroscience since Langer, it is no longer
controversial - indeed it has become commonplace - to accept that mental phenomena
are part of the brain's embodied natural history. Langer, however, was one of the first
philosophers to develop a comprehensive account of the mind's biological roots and
to recognize its importance for understanding human perception and cognition.
An oversimplified way of looking at the relationship between the first kind of intelligence
(roughly, IQ) and the second kind of intelligence (Wisdom Quotient, WQ) could be set out as follows: People with a high IQ and WQ have a good understanding of themselves and other people and the world they live in. Unless they are very careful, they are persecuted. People with a medium IQ and a high WQ have a fair understanding of themselves and other people. Unless they are careful, they are persecuted. People with a low IQ and a high WQ (quite common among people with learning difficulties, since they have not had their minds cluttered with ‘expert’ theories) have a very simple and direct understanding of the people around them, but, as they cannot marry this understanding to more intellectual matters, and since they are often treated with disregard by the ‘normal’ people around them, they are often hurt and frustrated. People with a high IQ and a medium WQ try to do good, and this can be useful and effective, but if they are convinced that they know what is best for other people, they become dangerous. People with a medium IQ and a medium WQ mean well, but they do not see issues clearly and can be used by those with a medium IQ and WQ and those with a high IQ and low WQ. People with a low IQ and medium WQ can be very caring, but they are also likely to be confused, prejudiced and dogmatic. People with a high IQ and a low WQ are powerful and cruel, very dangerous people.
People with a medium IQ and a low WQ are also dangerous, for they support power and cruelty. People with a low IQ and a low WQ have little understanding of what goes on around them. So they are thoughtlessly destructive and are easily led and used by those with a high or medium IQ and low WQ.
Rowe, Dorothy. Wanting Everything . HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Great comment 👍. I would further say that I believe WQ is spiritual development, it's how much experience the individual Soul has from repeated lives here, making certain mistakes over and over. You won't fall for propaganda if you already fell for it in the past, 20 times
Cannibalism is an early step in humanization
This very freedom, however, may have been a dangerous advantage;
for it let any dominant hereditary trait of the forming population run to its
full expansion without being limited and modified in normal cultural
competition with peoples of other stock and mentality. Consequently an
outstanding talent could-and did-throw their cultural advance out of
balance, letting the exercise of that special gift become a prime value
which entrained or else smothered all other interests.
The Amerindians possessed a veritable genius for military organization
and political mastery. Most of them must have reached the New
World at a very early date in their history, for they were evidently completely
savage, being at the stage of evolution which seems to be universally
marked by successive forms of cannibalism, from simple manslaughter
for meat to solemn religious ritual. Cannibalism is an early step
in humanization; not the very first, which probably occurred with the
beginning of speech, but perhaps the next, for it belongs to the breaking
up of the empathetic bonds which unite wolves in packs and once united
prehuman primates and held them safe against each other in a horde.
The amazing thing is how long an evolutionary transition can take, how
late it may have set in, and what atavisms can persist even for millennia,
protected by religious dread and cherished as mysteries while a new
imaginative activity, still deeply unconscious, is preparing a new feeling
of human beings toward each other: sympathy.
The transition, in the case of the long-established primitive life of
American humanity, was very irregularly achieved due to the immigrants’
peculiar phyletic history, which seems to go back to a time when
successive droves of the Asiatic population, still in the semi-social condition
known to anthropologists as the “band” state (i.e., before tribal
organization), were pushed out of their homelands by changing natural
conditions or possibly demographic pressure. That does not mean that all
the earliest migrants were at the same cultural stage (or pre-cultural, if
that is possible for genuine hominids) whenever and wherever they entered
the New World. But after their entry their further history was
extraordinary.
This term, which has found acceptance by many anthropologists, seems to me a good
designation to distinguish the American “Indian” from the inhabitants of India, especially
since today the latter have come into their own again on the demographic map of the
world. Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language gives the word as
“Amerind”; I prefer the more widely used “Amerindian” because of its obvious reference
to the traditional “Indian.”
Susanne Langer
Crisis of democracy
That's nice that Travis Hipp (Silent Generation 1928 to 1945) thought that the so-called Generation X were infesting "our Republic".
Nik Kershaw in his song Radio Musicola called Generation X the lost Generation, the older Generation always gives a kicking to the young Generation, don't they? lol
A lot of the so-called baby boomers like to give a kicking to the younger gen-x it would seem. lol
In the 1970s, I simply did not recognize the extent to which the 1960s “youth revolution” had terrified our ruling Elite, or that they would try to prevent future upsurges of radical Utopianism by deliberately “dumbing down” the educational system. What they have produced, the so-called Generation X, must rank as not only the most ignorant but also the most paranoid and depressive kids ever to *infest our Republic. I agree with outlaw radio star Travis Hipp that the paranoia and depression result inevitably from the ignorance. These kids not only don’t know anything; they don’t even want to know.
They only realize, vaguely, that somebody has screwed them out of something, but they don’t have enough zest or bile
to try to find out who screwed them and what they were screwed out of. Fortunately, this Age of Stupidity cannot last very long. Already, most people know that if you want a good TV or VCR, you buy Japanese; for a good car, Japanese or German, etc. Eventually, in order to compete, the Elite will have to allow a bit more education for American youth, before we sink fully to the level of a Third World nation.
Wilson, Robert Anton Prometheus Rising . Hilaritas Press, LLC.. Kindle Edition.
* infest is a interesting word to use, they seem to be personifying people as viruses or biological contaminants.
Crisis of democracy
Michael Tsarion with David Whitehead on American Freedom Radio 05/20/2013
1:27:55
it looked like man might free himself at this point because he I mean what I mean is free himself commercially and if you free yourself financially and commercially then you free yourself intellectually and that's what they were worrying about at the American experiment they tried to bring in the troops that didn't work so they had to find other ways to dumb down the population and they bloody well succeeded but it can be turned around it absolutely can be turned to a round
Progressive Radio News Hour - Dennis Rancourt - 2-8-14
a new paradigm.
They've understood something, they understood that with that, you know, economic freedom came freedom of thought and independence, of action and choice and democracy.
And so and it gave rise to the sixties and seventies,
where people revolutionised the structures of their institutions and so on.
Universities became more liberal and so on and so on all the workplaces and unionism
and so on.
And they realised that they could lose control and that they had largely lost
some control and they needed to regain it and the way to do it.
They called it a crisis in democracy.
And the way to do it was to squeeze down economically
and also make gut universities so that you're not teaching
thought and real knowledge.
And instead you're teaching, you're doing obedience, training and indoctrination.
Democracy was regarded as entering into a crisis in the 1960s. The crisis was that large segments of the population were becoming organized and active and trying to participate in the political arena. p32,Excerpted from Media Control, 2002
the prisoner - fall out "
This session is called in a matter of democratic crisis.... opens the president.
banging down his gavel to bring the assembly to order."
The status quo wouldn't want a democratic crisis or a crisis of democracy like they had in 1968, would they?
control, control ,control. lol
All people below the upper classes have much more in common with one another then those below upper class they set people against one another with their divide and a rules tactics.
"Throughout British history British subjects without power and wealth - the poor, the working and lower-middle classes, the Scots, Irish and Welsh, the colonials, the colonized - have been used by the wealthy, powerful and privileged to establish, maintain and increase their wealth, power and privilege."
Our bamboozlers want us to see the world in ways which are simple.
To get a large, diverse group of people to see their world in the same way requires the teaching of a few very simple ideas. In England the ideas of ‘our island race’, the monarchy, and the myths of British history give the illusion of a shared unity and purpose to a people with very different backgrounds and interests. It is an illusion of unity and shared purpose, not a real unity and purpose,because throughout British history British subjects without power and wealth - the poor, the working and lower-middle classes, the Scots, Irish and Welsh, the colonials, the colonized - have been used by the wealthy, powerful and privileged to establish, maintain and increase their wealth, power and privilege. The huge spaces of America and the immensely diverse groups of immigrants required even simpler ideas to hold Americans together as a group with a common picture of the world. These simple ideas are God, family and the flag. The idea of God is used in the way that the Russians use the concept of the State - something which overarches everything, which explains in general everything but in particular nothing (to say that God causes everything does not explain how, say, lightning is caused), and which cannot be questioned. Surveys of religious belief in the USA show that around 96 percent of people profess a belief in God, a much higher percentage than that in Britain.30 The concept of the family is honoured in the breach. The number of single-parent families is significant and increasing.31 Just as British television promotes the myth of unity in a society divided by class by telling many sentimental stories about the aristocracy, so does American television tell many sentimental stories about families.
We watch many stories about the lives of amiable dukes and lovable parents and children, but very few stories, sentimental or otherwise, about single black women struggling to bring up their children in poverty, or about teenagers abandoned by their families and struggling to survive. The British can understand and share the American simple notions of God and the family, but they find it hard to understand how the American flag, the Stars and Stripes, is treated by Americans as an icon. Simon Hoggart, writing in the Observer, tried to explain this to the English when the burning of the Stars and Stripes became such an issue: Unlike ‘LA Law’, hamburgers and pop music, American patriotism doesn’t really export. Which is why the current flap over the flag is so puzzling to us foreigners. If you’ve not been keeping up, the trouble began in 1984 when a young man called Gregory Johnson was arrested for burning an American flag outside the Republican convention in Dallas, the while shouting, ‘America, I spit on you.’ (Even his defenders describe Mr Johnson as a contemptible worm, presumably to demonstrate their own patriotism …) Anyhow, he took the case up to the Supreme Court, which ruled last month that flag-burning was a form of free expression and so protected by the First Amendment.
You’d have thought the Court had just declared matricide legal. Other decisions, which diluted equality laws and allowed juveniles and mental incompetents to be executed, were forgotten as the horror sank in. George Bush, with his famous tin ear, said he accepted the Court’s ruling, then after lunch with his vicious little campaign manager, Lee Atwater, changed his mind, declaring that his love of the American flag was ‘visceral’ (though, to extend the metaphor, presumably in need of an artificial laxative). He has proposed an amendment - the first ever - to the Bill of Rights, making ‘desecration’ of the flag an offence. The Bill of Rights may be the noblest document ever used to govern a country, and one wonders why this political time-server, with his wretched consultants and sheaves of opinion-poll print-outs, thinks he has any right to change it. A few brave folk argued that a First Amendment which gives the untrammelled right of free speech - unless it upsets someone - isn’t worth the parchment it’s written on. Others pointed out that flag-burning laws are most popular with the kind of regimes which always need fresh reasons to lock people up. But they’ve been pretty well howled down, led by Congressmen who spoke through the night, desperate to get their ersatz outrage on the record. Few will dare to vote against the amendment. This extraordinary, emotional attachment to the flag is hard for us to understand. We’re used to seeing the Union Jack on shopping bags, underwear, smirched on football hooligans’faces, even on Reebok shoes which are made in Korea by a US firm.
Americans address the flag when they recite the pledge of allegiance. (I once saw a six-foot-high Californian raisin clad in brown polyester pledging, while trying to put his hand over where his heart ought to be.) Their national anthem is all about the flag. On a beach last year I watched a family pitch camp with deckchairs and a cooler - then solemnly take out a flag on a telescopic pole and stick it in the sand, perhaps as a guide to confused submariners.
Commerce and the flag are unfailingly united. No shopping mall is complete without one. And the bigger the flag, the more likely it’s to be found flying bravely over a used-car lot. Every schoolchild is taught elaborate rules for handling the flag, which mustn’t touch the ground or fly at night. Even the old Confederate flag, the ‘Stars and Bars’, is revered in the South, where it flutters over two state houses, to the anger of black people who see it as an emblem of slavery.
The flag isn’t just a symbol of America but its embodiment which of course is what made it worth Gregory Johnson’s while to burn it. Thanks to all the fuss, flag immolation has now become quite fashionable in some circles.
This year, our last Fourth of July, it rained most of the day. But the kids went to the parade, and waved little flags kindly provided, in the interests of trade, by the local estate agents. In the evening, we had friends around for the traditional barbecued spare ribs, and saw the wonderful fireworks at the Washington Monument from the roof of our house. That seems to me to be a celebration of America’s virtues, pleasanter and healthier than frothing over a flag.
The furore about the burning of the flag epitomizes how the State bamboozles us by denying us the expression of our own truth, and, indeed, denying that we have a truth. Yet for all of us our own truth is that we have a dilemma from which we cannot escape. This is that we need some sort of government, some sort of organization, which will deal with the affairs of the group to which we belong and provide the services which we, both as a group and as an individual, need, yet, whatever form of government we have, that government will, at times, fail us and, through its laws and inadequacy, frustrate and inhibit us and consequently anger us. Good governments, like good parents, accept the truth and legitimacy of our anger. They let us express our anger (freedom of speech) and they take what we say seriously. Bad governments, like bad parents, refuse to accept that we have any right to be angry and they show us that they regard our anger as proof that we are mad and bad. We are punished and silenced. Unfortunately, most governments are bad governments, but what else could they be, for the people who comprise such governments have little of the second kind of intelligence, the wisdom of understanding themselves and other people. They were brought up by parents and teachers who, in showing them that they could not have everything, educated them according to the principles of containment and moulding, that is, bamboozled them.
Rowe, Dorothy. Wanting Everything . HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.