So That's How They Do It!

I was always curious how a Letter to the Editor could be written to every newspaper using exactly the same words by hundreds of different people. I finally found out how it works. This post from way back scared the crap out of me, still does but for different reasons now. Instead of the collusion of all the newspapers to spread propaganda on tainted beef turned out to be the unintentional collusion of the sheep to spread the anti-meat message.

This is what I found, interesting link that makes it easy to spread your spoon fed thoughts on a subject you appearantly have all the facts on and very strong convictions. Please try it out, enter your zip code, then choose a paper and see what pops up. Oooohhhhhh, that's how they do that.

Now I am scared that this has become a powerful tool when combined with tv programing the sheep have no choice but to give up meat or nuclear power. Reading the letter will leave little impact but that seed is still planted. Once subjected to tv broadcasts that seed begins to grow and before you know it it's ready for harvest. Off to the voting booth they go.

It's 'Bin' A While

Well yes it has, just wanted to give NaSA something new to track. So apparently the heavily sprayed sky is falling and no one seems to notice. I know this because the TV tells me so.
Patrice O'Neil points out the very Carlin'esq TerribleSecurityAbuses to train us how to willfully give away our remaining small amount of dignity all to make us feel safer. The comedy non-Christmas poster girl shows us how consumerism runs our lives, as the late Carlin also pointed out for...oh the past 30 years. I guess his material is now public domain because he made the right choice and exited before the 'media' hits the fan.
There has been a small amount of talk about the 700 billion, which in a country of roughly 300 million is a woppin' 2300 bucks. It may pay a couple months rent or maybe a house payment but it is pocket change. What passed right after this very well marketed bill? I know the sheep brain has troubles with all those zeros, but why does this gain attention over everything else. It almost seems like they intended to 'create' a crisis, not that it would be something new.
It seems that world market crashes occurred before the popular wars. This appears the to be deja-vuie, except the war came first this go around (thinking outside the box, wonder if Tom Barnett came up with that one all on his own) and the momentarily system has reached a breaking point. Time has come to get medieval which will be managed with the UNited method.
The wonderful global solution is coming quick, so get in line for your GlobalPeopleSolutionCreditIdentificationModule. It amazes me the sheep do not yet understand that the only thing they have to fear is fear itself. FearExistsAfterReality, we live in a virtual world, therefore we respond to the commands of the joystick. Just start asking who is playing the game?

Because I Can't Articulate Like Fred

I read his blog all the time, read most of them. This one could not be said any better. Fred accept my apologies, I'm stealing it.

Plumbing the Depths
How the Gears Turn

March 9, 2008

Common delusions notwithstanding, the United States, I submit, is not a democracy—by which is meant a system in which the will of the people prevails. Rather it is a curious mechanism artfully designed to circumvent the will of the people while appearing to be democratic. Several mechanisms accomplish this.
First, we have two identical parties which, when elected, do very much the same things. Thus the election determines not policy but only the division of spoils. Nothing really changes. The Democrats will never seriously reduce military spending, nor the Republicans, entitlements.
Second, the two parties determine on which questions we are allowed to vote. They simply refuse to engage the questions that matter most to many people. If you are against affirmative action, for whom do you vote? If you regard the schools as abominations? If you want to end the president’s hobbyist wars?
Third, there is the effect of large jurisdictions. Suppose that you lived in a very small (and independent) school district and didn’t like the curriculum. You could buttonhole the head of the school board, whom you would probably know, and say, “Look, Jack, I really think….” He would listen.
But suppose that you live in a suburban jurisdiction of 300,000. You as an individual mean nothing. To affect policy, you would have to form an organization, canvass for votes, solicit contributions, and place ads in newspapers. This is a fulltime job, prohibitively burdensome.
The larger the jurisdiction, the harder it is to exert influence. Much policy today is set at the state level. Now you need a statewide campaign to change the curriculum. Practically speaking, it isn’t practical.
Fourth are impenetrable bureaucracies. A lot of policy is set by making regulations at some department or other, often federal. How do you call the Department of Education to protest a rule which is in fact a policy? The Department has thousands of telephones, few of them listed, all of which will brush you off. There is nothing the public can do to influence these goiterous, armored, unaccountable centers of power.
Yes, you can write your senator, and get a letter written by computer, “I thank you for your valuable insights, and assure you that I am doing all….”
Fifth is the invisible bureaucracy (which is also impenetrable). A few federal departments get at least a bit of attention from the press, chiefly State and Defense (sic). Most of the government gets no attention at all—HUD, for example. Nobody knows who the Secretary of HUD is, or what the department is doing. Similarly, the textbook publishers have some committee whose name I don’t remember (See? It works) that decides what words can be used in texts, how women and Indians must be portrayed, what can be said about them, and so on. Such a group amounts to an unelected ministry of propaganda and, almost certainly, you have never heard of it.
Sixth, there is the illusion of journalism. The newspapers and networks encourage us to think of them as a vast web of hard-hitting, no-holds-barred, chips-where-they-may inquisitors of government: You can run, but you can’t hide. In fact federal malefactors don’t have to run or hide. The press isn’t really looking.
Most of press coverage is only apparent. Television isn’t journalism, but a service that translates into video stories found in the Washington Post and New York Times (really). Few newspapers have bureaus in Washington; the rest follow the lead of a small number of major outlets. These don’t really cover things either.
When I was reporting on the military, there were (if memory serves) many hundreds of reporters accredited to the Pentagon, or at least writing about the armed services. It sounds impressive: All those gimlet eyes.
What invariably happened though was that some story would break—a toilet seat alleged to cost too much, or the failure of this or that. All the reporters would chase the toilet seat, fearful that their competitors might get some detail they didn’t. Thus you had one story covered six hundred times. In any event the stories were often dishonest and almost always ignorant because reporters, apparently bound by some natural law, are obligate technical illiterates. This includes the reporters for the Post and the Times.
Seventh, and a bit more subtle, is the lack of centers of demographic power in competition with the official government. The Catholic Church, for example, once influentially represented a large part of the population. It has been brought to heel. We are left with government by lobby—the weapons industry, big pharma, AIPAC, the teachers unions—whose representatives pay Congress to do things against the public interest.
Eighth, we are ruled not by a government but by a class. Here the media are crucial. Unless you spend time outside of America, you may not realize to what extent the press is controlled. The press is largely free, yes, but it is also largely owned by a small number of corporations which, in turn, are run by people from the same pool from which are drawn high-level pols and their advisers. They are rich people who know each other and have the same interests. It is very nearly correct to say that these people are the government of the United States, and that the federal apparatus merely a useful theatrical manifestation.
Finally, though it may not be deliberate, the schools produce a pitiably ignorant population that can’t vote wisely. Just as trial lawyers don’t want intelligent jurors, as they are harder to manipulate, so political parties don’t want educated voters. The existence of a puzzled mass gawping at Oprah reduces elections to popularity contests modulated by the state of the economy. One party may win, yes, or the other. But a TV-besotted electorate doesn’t meddle in matters important to its rulers. It has never heard of them.
To disguise all of this, elections provide the excitement and intellectual content of a football game, without the importance. They allow a sense of Participation. In bars across the land, in high-school gymns become forums, people become heated about what they imagine to be decisions of great import: This candidate or that? It keeps them from feeling left out while denying them power.
It is fraud. In a sense, the candidates do not even exist. A presidential candidate consists of two speechwriters, a makeup man, a gestures coach, ad agency, two pollsters and an interpreter of focus groups. Depending on his numbers, the handlers may suggest a more fixed stare to crank up his decisiveness quotient for male or Republican voters, or dial in a bit of compassion for a Democratic or female audience. The newspapers will report this calculated transformation. Yet it works. You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.
When people sense this and decline to vote, we cluck like disturbed hens and speak of apathy. Nope. Just common sense.

This first appeared in shorter form in The American Conservative