A dilemma in communications...

[thingfish]

You know how they say that if you lined up all the people in China and marched them into the ocean, it would take forever? The same applies when trying to explain the nefarious perfidy of the Bush administration to information-starved friends. The moral and ethical transgressions of this blood-soaked cabal are so multifarious, so brazen, so vast in scope and scale that merely attempting to list them makes you sound like a paranoid lunatic.

Making things immeasurably more difficult is the near-total befoulment of the mainstream (corporate) press. I don't mean Fox News, here, either. In fact, CNN is worse than Fox, because while most people can easly recognize Fox's propagandistic intentions, CNN still passes for a moderate, centrist news source. In truth, CNN differs from Fox only in tone and target demographic.

Tuning in to the news these days feels like being swept out to sea on a rogue tide of illogic and denial. These so-called "journalists" seem to be broadcasting from an alternate universe where insanity is logical, the impossible is reasonable, and the obvious is totally invisible. They create mountains out of molehills to obscure the horizon and blind us to the future. They distract us from the present by spinning us so hard we can't tell up from down. They rob us of our past by polluting the very waters of history with official lies.

How do they do it? It's simple, really. Upper management engineers the "message" according to blueprints that flutter down from the Commanding Heights, where dwell the Invisible Exalted Elect upon whom has been bestowed the distinct and relatively anonymous privilege of serving among the Powers That Be.

Sounds crazy, but I have a sneaking suspicion that's exactly how it works.

[displacedtexan]

1. Excellent analysis!

Several times during each 24 hr news cycle, managing editors (and TV producers) decide which stories to cover. It's pretty obvious that most of them choose to go with the BFEE talking points.

[sweetheart]

2. orders of magnitude larger i'm afraid

The entire operation was set up several decades ago, to destroy the robber barons who've controlled the US government for a century, veiled behind a thin veneer of democratic heresay and tripe.

Given that opposition does not work, as the cellular body under threat launches protection, rather, the mechanism deployed was 2 fold, a cancerous virus was released inside american business republicanism, and the environment in which they live was also poisoned. The virus manifests as an institutional insanity, all fed by greed. The environment was poisoned by releasing some technologies that are socially-radioactive. That this is working so perfectly to destroy what was the USA speaks to the magnitude of intelligence of opposition, far far beyond what these petty cockroaches conceive of.

Firstly, the virus. Agents deployed a greed-virus in to american business during the 1990's that has completely destroyed all goodwill in business in 1 decade. Impossible? Well, simply take a tremendous amount of power, the kind that the neocons seek to grab and usurp, yet, launch this power in to american business to make money. To do this, drop in 1000 reincarnate agents, who take jobs in companies across the USA, and have them do nothing but work for the most money. Empower them to the utmost level of greed. Every person who comes near one of these agents is taken over by this ethicless greed, and in a decade, not a single drop of goodwill is left in business except merciless cutthroat kleptocracy. The boardrooms of which ever companies employ the agents notice a rise in profits and themselves attach further to the greed. Soon, no stone is left unturned, and every company is hollowed out and its soul gone to the demonic craving of more more more profits, marketshare and resources. As the businesses who partake of the virus become vastly more successful, the other ones all mutate to copy those ones, and the system is completely corrupted. The business schools take advise from this, and teach it as religion and soon, there is not an organization related to american business that is not completley hollowed out by selfish greed. The agents make good money, and themselves are special forces of decline and empire breaking using raw power. Normally such power is never released near such unevolved gorillas as those in american business, but to destroy the organism, the gorillas cannot but grasp at what they themselves could never earn, and in the process, hollow out their very souls.

Prior to this, other LURPS (long range reconnasance patrols) have been reincarnated in previously to create technologies to poison the public goodwill and collective conscience. This was done starting in the 1900's and has resulted in television, film, mass communications/telecoms/computer science (ICT) and nuclear power. These were actually invented by a small number of people who were charged by greater powers, on incarnation with releasing a potential poison. Like all poisons, they are not deadly in small amounts, properly used, and can be medicines to society properly used... however, this is where the virus meets the poison.

Greed perverts using television merely to gain maximum viewership, and goodwill is poor for ratings, so fear, hatred, and war are maximized on the television. Greed then puts these in every household, and sees them as a means of population control and political power.

It does not matter now, as its all done. The society is already toppled. The republicans themselves have taken the religion of greed, hatred and social decay as their very soul, and with the technology poisons, have used this sickness to completley hollow out the soul of america. The result, is with a small set of reincarnate agents, the whole nation is destroyed and the ground set for a post imperial future where the other nations of the earth learn from the mistake.

The biggest danger now, is that the other nations knowing the USA, have themselves taken the virus as their own soul, and the poisons also, and themselves puruse a similar path to self annihilation. Osama is wrong in his approach. Engagement works much better. If he were 1000 times smarter than he is, he would have done what the agents of this past century have already pulled off.

With less than 10,000 special forces troops, america has been irreparably destroyed. Victory to enlightenment and justice for all human kind. The new USSR evil empire will collapse shortly, and nonviolently in the madness of the king and the greed interests that have completely taken over the nation from top to bottom.

Sounds crazy, but the best way to get gorillas to destroy themselves is to give them handguns and teach them how to use them and then to spread fear in the society that all other gorillas are a threat, to use your gun to take the most before the others do. Then its all over but the cryin'.

Shiva Ram. Kalki's work is done.

[Jose Diablo]

3. What is described is an accurate

description of the interplay of ideas (meme) in the matrix of human societies.

An interesting read is Robert Pirsig's "Lila, an inquiry into morality". I think this is the name of the title. Pirsig also wrote "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance", thus you may be more familiar with that title.

Pirsig postulated the existence of layers and boundaries of reality: Chaos, physical, chemical, biological, social or intellectual. Each layer had its own set of moral principles defining interaction.

At the top layer, intellectual, ideas flow and interact within the matrix of human activity. Even to the point of defining how humans interact with each other on the social level.

What you describe as self-interest greed (idea) is in conflict with the altruism or mutual support (another meme).

What I am wondering is if this is 'natural'? Is this the mechanism of birth, growth, decay and death of cultures or societies. Do the interplay of conflicting meme's cause cultures to mimic our own cycle of birth, growth, decay and death? Are we witnessing a super-organism's cycle of life or impending death if you will?

[sweetheart]

4. variables of decay

I think that the interplay between memes is governed by some, very powerful enlightened people, behind the mirage that is culture. The entropy of a civilization would then be controlled by the rate of decay of the greed/altruism ratio, and its acceleration which i think is a sort of metaphysical variable.

Yes and that complex system of memes has rules, especially regarding the very very awakened souls amongst us, those that the corporate media denies exist, those like jesus christ, buddha and others, are living today, and are living embodyments of the altruism meme. GIven few people believe these exist, say "if" such exists, then the treatment of the embodied meme can alter the rate of decay. I see DU as the most enlightened of all american political writer's voices... and themselves closer to that embodyment. The human goodwill amongst the souls here is really very light, and yet in our culture, this meme is targeted for assassination.

If the decay were inevitable, then there would be no free will. Rather i see it as not inevitable at all, but the moment to moment choice in how the embodied meme is treated... so a simple test is to ask or observe the lights at DU, and whether or not they find, in their 24x7 existance in america, whether they find that meme in themselves engaged and supported, or trod on and destroyed. Sadly it appears the latter... and yet still, i think there are more core invisible powers.

There is a luminous christ-like enlightened woman in america, and every nuance of consciousness that touches her reflects back in to the network of sustainability. That the cutlure does not even believe in enlightenment, let alone living enlightenment is a sign that this is not going very well.

DOes it mean that all the culture is "one" organism? In the one sense yes, that nation-state organism, yes; in another sense not at all, rather a collection of various cells of people, themselves in radically different orbits of the decay. Clearly in a world that does not respect enlightenment at all, then the cells where it exist go retrograde and drop off the orbit of the cancerous social collective.

I think america is dying from cancer, a huge malignancy which has eaten the souls of most americans. It is an individual choice and each one reflects in the whole, sort of like Ray Bradbury's butterfly. The rate of decay is set in every moment by freewill, yet only a very small few, exercise that free will by the collapsing interia of the cancerous decay itself.

It is why Dennis Kucinich is so incredibly precious in this election, as he represents and embodies the free radical of goodwill that is otherwise lost in the gray cancerous death throws of the cancer patient. It does not matter to any cell around dennis that the patient is dying (outside of obvious caring) rather inself interest terms... as those folks have found their hearts and by living in them, knowing their free will, that these folks embody the meme of altruism. They have discovered eternal life, and in that very discovery transcend the entire system. A free radical could explode and totally transform america overnight, as though it appears that all the goodwill is dead, the power of the opposing radical is orders of magnitude weaker... and a small few can change the world if they hold true their hearts.

So much depends on Bradbury's butterfly.

[lostnfound]

6. Re: the free radical of goodwill

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" - Martin Luther King

[Jose Diablo]

9. I think it is non-linear

in the sense it does not take an overpowering influence to change an outcome.

It is more like there is a tension between the selfish-altruistic views. The tension is high and if there is a small influence in one direction the output is far higher than the input influence.

For example, we are bombarded by memes that say consume, get to the top, compete, get more, be better than everyone else. What I call the materialistic/selfish/me meme. In tension against this is the altruistic. The "we" meme. A more or less balance is maintained.

The resulting action a person takes is a balancing test. Today, most outcomes of the test would be the "me" meme.

However, if the "we" meme is amplified slightly, then the resulting action would go that direction. Thus small inputs can be amplified in the human matrix.

The message below about "Beehive Art" could be one such mechanism. Communications is indeed the key to the whole thing.

[lostnfound]

10. Definitely not linear -- chaos theory.

In fact, when you mentioned Bradbury's butterfly, I immediately was thinking instead of Lorenz's butterfly -- the flap of a butterfly's wings creating tornadoes in Texas.

Only after a second read did I notice that it was Bradbury (whom I had never read until this fall, "Dandelion Wine". In which book did he write about a butterfly?)

Yes, on the Beehive Art comment. As I left after that evening, I imagined how dramatic the effect could be simply to touch the lives of thousands with the story that they had to tell. A unifying vision.

[Jose Diablo]

12. A month or so back

Ductapefatwah wrote a series of articles in DU about what it is like to be homeless. Our world view, reality, is determined by what we 'see' as true.

I doubt many of us really know the reality of what it is like to be in poverty. It is not the same as being a little short on Thursday, so skipping lunch.

To not even be qualified to certain jobs because you have missing front teeth. Not being able to even apply for other jobs because of lack of telephone or address. How can one dig themselves out of situations like these. You got to have an address to get a job to have an address. Whats wrong with this picture?

Thing we take for granted like being dry and warm is not guaranteed when you are homeless. Are the homeless deserving of what they have to endure or should being dry and warm be something that is a minimum guarantee? Do we expect the homeless to just disappear?

These are powerful memes that touch a persons sense of humanity.

I am not making a case for support of homeless people, just pointing out how the "me" meme must have people in the homeless condition. It is inevitable.

[Jose Diablo]

16. One more concept in this vein

To do an act of charity creates that humanity within the giver. The act is more for the giver than the receiver. Without humanity, we are little more than intelligent biological machines.

Dissect a human and try to find that ethereal soul. You cannot find it because that soul is the humanity that is expressed in those altruistic memes.

Without the altruism, there is no soul.

[sweetheart]

20. The trap of the quanta

There is an age old tendency to define spirituality by ones great mother-teresa humanity, and though karma yoga and good works are a path towards energizing the altruistic meme, it is, when all is said and done, a meme, and not the soul.

The church's of the world have used this as a theological trap for centuries and millenia, that you can't be saved unless you feed the poor and yada yada yada. As noble and heartfelt as i might agree with the sympathies, and as good as the world might be were people to embrace them, it is propaganda.

To discover the soul, do nothing. Meditate. Stop. Surrender the impulse to "do" or "save" anyone. Just right now, if you really want to awaken to the soul, let the inertia of the body die, as the body itself will die one day. Explore death before death, by neither trying to do something or not-trying, or not not trying. Simply stop. "But what about..." (NO!) Stop. There's plenty of time for that, as has been the whole of human life.

The greatest fear of humanity is death. By going to the core of what death is, by letting yourself be dead, and like you will do one day, surrendering your ownership over all things on this earth. There is a peaceful light awareness everpresent when you put it all down; It is "I am". "I am spiritual" is owning something. "I am altruistic" is also an assertion of the ego, however refined. Spiritual is something else entirely. The soul "is", and can only be known by "is'ness". It is what meditation really is. One does not have to stop forever, and certainly everything "restarts" all the time. But in the willingness to see all the momentum of survival for what it is, and extension of the body-biological form, your true soul gets the space to be known.

As that soul is ever present, and in every moment equally, it of course can be realized in all activities, altruistic and selfish, in all moments of nobility as well as stupidity and defeat. The soul is not a state of mind. It is what knows the state of mind. It listens within you, and IS right now. It is eternal as it has always been there, is there now and will always be there, whether you ever put down your busy activities of self to notice. One day you will. Doing it before death can lead to more profound realization of that soul. It is the very core of your self, but it is not "selfish" rather beneath that ephemeral meme and awake to it. It does not reincarnate every moment with a new thought and a new state of activity. Certainly those things can lead you to be inspired to awaken, and they may indeed inspire, but it is mistaken discrimination to percieve the experience as the experience'er. The car is not its driver.

[sweetheart]

14. Ray Bradbury's Butterfly

The entire short story is here at this link... truly worth a read... the allusion is completely appearant.

Totally cool that his work is online. :)

A Sound of Thunder
Ray Bradbury

http://www.sba.muohio.edu/snavely/415/thunder.htm

[sweetheart]

15. Quantum theory

I think it works in quantums.

Firstly there is the survival quantum. (1s,2s) If you can't survive, nothing else matters. There is an entire operating system around survival. When it is in question, as in starvation, homelessness, war.

Then a social quantum. In numerology, a 4 can collapse in to a 1... very similar to how a person engaged in the "we" quantum can be dumped back in to survival on becoming homeless... and how people can forget the intense nature of homelessness.

Lastly a spiritual quantum where you transcend self and all concepts of self.

It takes tremendous power to jump quantums, and just because you are not orbiting at a "social" quantum does not mean it is not there, rather similar to an atom... just add an electron, and "voila" the orbital it falls in to is "already there" by nature.

Naturally, the outer quantums have more power and can help uplift the collapsed quantums, much as a parent helps lift a child from the pure "me" phase of life in to a greater awakening of what life can be about. The meme, of selfishness/me, i think is better percieved as the lowest quantum... the lowest state of energy... early childhood. me me me me... republicanism.

The human organism is designed to jump quantums, and 1 adult can uplift many children in to greater awareness of community, love and communion with the sacredness of life... not if they're starving however.

It is sorta like a benzene ring. This ring of 6 (i think?) carbon atoms where they share 2 orbitals of electrons. There, a collective of atomic units forms a community and between them have a greater whole than the atoms individually. Methinks that the altruism meme is similar, and how 1 martin luther king can uplift 1000's of people... by sharing an electron, and how some truly great men and women in life synergize to bring others UP out of their navel gazing selfishness.

The tax collector met christ, and realized on instantaneous uplift, that his entire life was about survival, and also realized that he had no alternative to collapse back to that state. Uplift is spiritual in a sense, just as any parent who has ever deeply loved their child understands.

What causes quantum jumps is not linear, certainly, and i would call it energy, yet not in the electromagnetic sense, more in the carlos castaneda, or kundalini yoga sense rather... "power". Power has 2 uses, to survive ones self and to teach and nurture others.

The republicans, by dropping everyone's quantum to the lowest level SUCK the power out of the society, just like they steal the money and goodwill from the treasury. They are feeding on america, in a sick sort of vampire-like way. To come up a quantum is mostly just a matter of staking the vampire, and yet for that to take place is the inertia of quantums.. and that is what i was on about... there is inertia, and activation energy of a sorts to react people outside of themselves, yet as in a nuclear reaction, once it happens, the freed energy affects many many people. Give a homeless woman a job and a place to live, and suddenly she rejoins the community, votes and volunteers at the school. Uplift is a matter of intent, and the 3rd and 4th derivatives of activation, impulse and things where the metaphor breaks down... which is why i was rambling about enlightened people, as they are the embodyment of these higher order transitions... the keys that unlock mass reaction.

The enlightened folks in america are gonna unlock a tremendous current for change this year. Whether anyone uses their free will to make the current alter their meme quantums remains to be seen. Dennis Kucinich is the political manifestation of the higher order nature of this.

:-) This is fun to try to talk about, understanding the folly of trying to describe something indescribable.

[HFishbine]

5. You are correct. Fox News producer spills the beans.

The fact is, daily life at FNC is all about management politics. I say this having served six years there - as producer of the media criticism show, News Watch, as a writer/producer of specials and (for the last year of my stay) as a newsroom copy editor. Not once in the 20+ years I had worked in broadcast journalism prior to Fox - including lengthy stays at The Associated Press, CBS Radio and ABC/Good Morning America - did I feel any pressure to toe a management line. But at Fox, if my boss wasn't warning me to "be careful" how I handled the writing of a special about Ronald Reagan ("You know how Roger feels about him."), he was telling me how the environmental special I was to produce should lean ("You can give both sides, but make sure the pro-environmentalists don't get the last word.")

Editorially, the FNC newsroom is under the constant control and vigilance of management. The pressure ranges from subtle to direct. First of all, it's a news network run by one of the most high-profile political operatives of recent times. Everyone there understands that FNC is, to a large extent, "Roger's Revenge" - against what he considers a liberal, pro-Democrat media establishment that has shunned him for decades. For the staffers, many of whom are too young to have come up through the ranks of objective journalism, and all of whom are non-union, with no protections regarding what they can be made to do, there is undue motivation to please the big boss.

Sometimes, this eagerness to serve Fox's ideological interests goes even beyond what management expects. For example, in June of last year, when a California judge ruled the Pledge of Allegiance's "Under God" wording unconstitutional, FNC's newsroom chief ordered the judge's mailing address and phone number put on the screen. The anchor, reading from the Teleprompter, found himself explaining that Fox was taking this unusual step so viewers could go directly to the judge and get "as much information as possible" about his decision. To their credit, the big bosses recognized that their underling's transparent attempt to serve their political interests might well threaten the judge's physical safety and ordered the offending information removed from the screen as soon as they saw it. A few months later, this same eager-to-please newsroom chief ordered the removal of a graphic quoting UN weapons inspector Hans Blix as saying his team had not yet found WMDs in Iraq. Fortunately, the electronic equipment was quicker on the uptake (and less susceptible to office politics) than the toady and displayed the graphic before his order could be obeyed.

But the roots of FNC's day-to-day on-air bias are actual and direct. They come in the form of an executive memo distributed electronically each morning, addressing what stories will be covered and, often, suggesting how they should be covered. To the newsroom personnel responsible for the channel's daytime programming, The Memo is the bible. If, on any given day, you notice that the Fox anchors seem to be trying to drive a particular point home, you can bet The Memo is behind it./CONTINUED BELOW

http://poynter.org/forum/?id=thememo

[lostnfound]

7. A Solution that we can use: The Beehive Collective

A while back I posted a message about "an innovative way to convey an entire universe of complicated issues to ordinary people" and "HOW TO GET THE FACTS OUT (i.e., slimming a firehose down to an absorbable trickle)". I ran across The Beehive Collective on a whim and found their method to be transforming. (There was also a recent article about them in either Zmag or In These Times.)

Making sense out of our world is a natural activity for human beings. Mainstream media does NOT help us do that anymore. Most people face anxiety when they try to think too much about their world, because it seems a confusing mass of unrelated stuff with a lot of white noise.

The Beehive Collective approach is to use a single piece of allegorical art within the context of what is almost a relaxing social occasion to explain to people the overall relationships within the body of a complex situation -- i.e., free trade, Plan Colombia, biodevestation. For every ugly reality shown, there is a parallel world depicted by its side, where people work together in sustainable ways, or work to counteract the corrupt world.

Someone needs to create one of these -- a piece of allegorical art -- on the political system or the power structure in the U.S. Progressive movements, alterative media, etc. can be part of the 'parallel world'.

Give them a vision -- not in words, but in pictures -- of the whole, and people have a chance of absorbing it. People need to learn the relationships more than the specific facts to retain the vision. It is still overwhelming, but it is no longer simply a black hole without limits.

[sweetheart]

8. thinking in pictures

I agree with you. I wish there was a way to publish a visio picture on du without having a website. I like the idea, and its worth shot... visio's not perfect, but it is a visual medium... and myself i see images better than i can describe them... picture's a 1000 words and all that.

[lostnfound]

11. Me too..but person-to-person is much more effective anyway.

That's what was especially great about the Beehive Collective -- the human touch was ever-present, a constant reminder of the concept of community and of our basic strength and humanity.

It made me want to hold some similar evenings at my house and invite friends and semi-strangers to hear it. I still might do it..even though I'm not exactly a social butterfly.

[info being]

13. Yes, that's exactly how it works

I've been saying for years that I think the purpose of CNN and the like is to confuse people. My grandmother watches the mainstream news constantly, and all it does is confuse her. I used to think it was just my cute old grandma not able to follow along...but now I realize that too much mainstream news DOES confuse...intentionally. They report both "official" sides of the story when there is a clear truth...and one-liners when the story is complex enough to warrant a book.

But try telling someone that you look to the underground media because it provides a clearer picture of events...what will you get: "Sure, everything makes sense when they tell you what you want to hear...when you only consider one side of the story." And so what I'm describing just seems to be something we each have to learn on our own.

[donco6]

19. One of the best stories I saw lately was . . .

Paul O'Neill on 60 Minutes, believe it or not. What an incredibly damning piece. I'm surprised more hasn't come out about it, and even more surprised that a national network aired it.

What was especially interesting was that it's obvious there are more people inside the WH who are talking - and they have to be high ups to be able to secure transcripts of Security Council meetings - which O'Neill didn't provide.

A legion of Deep Throats?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

17. very good analysis. 1 point i disagree with "journalist" they are...

really only infotainers :beer:

[thingfish]

21. You'll get no argument from me on that point.

.

[donco6]

18. And I thought it was just me.

I can hardly watch the national news progs without screaming. When I iron my shirt in the a.m., with Katie C. in the background, I'm actually talking to myself, "Well, what the hell, we already knew that three years ago . . . oh, so NOW he wants to blame Clinton for that as well . . . <steam steam> . . . WHAT!!!??? . . . what a crock of s- . . . "

I've become my father.