How To Escape The Age Of Mass Delusion

Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 6 months ago to Politics
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An interesting piece by Stella Morabito which claims (I believe correctly) that Americans are all being brainwashed by their rulers.

Your comments are welcome.
SOURCE URL: http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/08/how-to-escape-the-age-of-mass-delusion/


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  • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 6 months ago
    "American conservatives are by and large clueless about propaganda methods and tactics. And it shows."

    The evidence is indisputable. The GOP still exists and most conservatives consider the GOP to represent conservatives and continue to vote for GOP candidates. Clueless.
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    • Posted by RobertFl 9 years, 6 months ago
      I think its a matter of holding out hope that the GOP will change.
      The options are D or R. A diehard R will not vote D, it isn't an option.
      Not voting isn't an option either.
      I'm a recovering Republican. I am a card carrying Libertarian now. However, come November, if my choices are R or D, I will pull R. Not voting is the same as voting D.
      In this case, it's not a matter or brainwashed - it's a matter of voting for the devil I know, and not for for the other devil I know.
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      • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 6 months ago
        After 50 years of voting and hoping, use your ability to think rationally. Examine the promises of the GOP and the actions of the GOP. Examine the results of GOP control. The GOP has done MORE damage than the Democrats because when the GOP is in power there is no opposition to bigger government.

        "it's not a matter or brainwashed - it's a matter of voting for the devil I know"
        No offense intended, but you don't recognise the brainwashing when it has control.
        There is NO LESSER of two evils to choose between.
        Vote for DemReps = Vote for statists, looters, and dictatorship
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        • Posted by RobertFl 9 years, 6 months ago
          I agree.
          The question is, if your only choices are R or D, what do you do?
          Relative to our principles, a "no vote" is a D vote.
          If D=R, then yes, not voting is an option. I hold out hope that R is still better than D.
          We have not witnessed a full GOP control, so it's hard to say what their actions would truly be. We've seen their compromises with the democrats.
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          • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 6 months ago
            Your choices are not limited to R or D.
            Stop hoping and think rationally.
            "Hope" is all the DemReps ever offer, and they never deliver on their promises to the people because that would mean not delivering on the private promises made to banksters et al. As long as you keep on voting and hoping, nothing will change for the better because politicians have no fear of the electorate.
            GOP had total control after the Civil War. That kept the south voting Democrat for 100 years, just as you are voting GOP now, on hope alone.
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            • Posted by RobertFl 9 years, 6 months ago
              I'm sorry, did I miss something? where does your magical 3rd party candidate come from?
              We are not going to "think a more rational candidate" into the White House or Congress.

              Come November, that is usually the only choices R-D. That's what I've been referring to.
              I'm supporting Rand, the probability is, he will not be on the ballot in November.
              That's what we're talking about.
              Tell me where your mythical third party candidate comes from and I'll vote for them as long as they aren't a nut. Then I have to weigh whose ticket do they split, and could that lead to someone getting elected I don't want (Ross Perot - who I voted for - how'd that turn out)

              The end of day (first Tuesday in November) we only get to choose who's on the ballet. A write in candidate won't win. So either it doesn't matter so there is no reason to vote anyway (that's a quitter), or you can at least choose the likely, hopefully, better candidate.
              Because if you don't vote, you forfeit your bitchin' rights.

              I'm supporting Rand. If he gets the nomination he will be on the ballot as an R. Would you not for him?...over the Crypt Keeper?
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              • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 6 months ago
                There have been independent candidates on the ballot in every POTUS election since 1900.
                Libertarians have had candidates on the ballot in 1972, 1980, 1988-2012. There is nothing mythical about it. The mythical part comes from the DemReps who only have to make promises to keep you in their thrall, and because you don't punish them for not delivering they NEVER will. I conclude based upon history that there will not be a GOP candidate that deserves any vote. Rand Paul will be just as successful as Ron Paul was regarding running for POTUS.
                Stop making excuses to agree with the DemRep propaganda and look at the record of betrayal. You have decided to vote for bigger more powerful government and no individual liberty. You choose to waste your vote in exactly the way that the DemReps tell you. You even believe the tale about not voting means you can't complain. Total propaganda in a free society.
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                • Posted by mdant 9 years, 6 months ago
                  Sorry, but voting for an independent is a vote for the worst of two evils (D). The only real option is to continue to push on the Republican party so that the candidate you want wins that primary. Then you can legitimately vote fore the good rather than the devil.

                  I generally prefer libertarians but they frustrate me and greatly disappoint me by running their own candidates. They do far more harm than good. If they really want to do good they need to devote all their resources into actually making a difference by voting in and influencing the Republican party. If they did that I would actually be a dues paying member of their organization. It may not be a good solution but it is the only one I have ever seen that has a chance in H... Even Rush Limbaugh says the same thing. You may or may not like him but he is very sharp with his political understanding. When Libertarians call he is polite and sympathetic with them but he tries to get them to understand their cause is hopeless as a third party.
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      • Posted by edweaver 9 years, 6 months ago
        I have a different view. When you vote for someone and they are elected, they have become enabled to do as they want, with our permission. Holding out hope will not make change. If we vote for it, we get what they told us they were going to do and if it does not meet our values then we are voting for our own demise.

        Also I agree, not voting R will likely elect a D. Why does it matter if voting for R will accomplish the exact same thing, maybe at a slower pace, than voting for D? The outcome is still the same. Slow death or fast death doesn't matter, still dead! IMHO until we quit voting for people on the R side that do no better than the D's nothing will ever change. We hold the cards but keep playing the wrong one's. Of course that is my 2 cents.
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        • Posted by RobertFl 9 years, 6 months ago
          I agree, what difference does it matter (OMG, did I just say that?)
          Slow death - because it's worth fighting for?? If it buys one more day to achieve change.
          I dunno.
          A younger generation of Republicans could change all this. Maybe we don't get a national Libertarian party, but a changed Republican one.
          Where the GOP is getting older, so are the democrats - the hippies of the 60's, don't trust anyone over 30.
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          • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 6 months ago
            A younger generation of the GOP doesn't even know what liberty is. They have never lived it. The younger "kinder, gentler" GOP are liberals, socialists, looters who favor a bigger government, little privacy, and have no clue about individual liberty. The GOP has been vile since the day it was formed from the failed wreckage of the Whigs. Examine the actions against the promises. Stop being conned by the clever lies.
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  • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 6 months ago
    This is something of an odd article. The first half of it seems to say that if you believe in [list topics] then you are mind controlled. But there is no evidence to suggest that this is so other than the writer's bias that [list topics] are innately objectionable...and therefore if you believe in them you must have been psychologically conditioned to do so.

    What about a person who believes in those topics on their own? This does not seem to be included in the writer's universe.

    About halfway through, some good points are made about the freedom to be politically incorrect without legal repercussions. I agree that one should be able to express that one does not agree with transgenderism (to use one of her examples) without having gym membership revoked or being fired from your job. But I also am aware that someone who is transgender has had a lifetime of being rejected in those respects, and that is not right either. Freedom is freedom.

    I do not agree that a person who expresses a particular belief or opinion should be immune to shunning or rejection as a personal and individual choice of the people around them. You opens your mouth; you takes your chances.

    Jan
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    • Posted by $ jdg 9 years, 6 months ago
      I agree on both counts. The notion that anyone who disagrees with you "must be brainwashed" is both insulting and stupid no matter who says it, or who is the target.

      But it wouldn't surprise me at all if someone has already developed real mind control in the lab, and is awaiting a chance to use it on his opponents. Such a thing would need to be suppressed.

      In the meantime let us refrain from the hyperbole and/or paranoia of calling anything else "mind control".
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    • Posted by Maritimus 9 years, 6 months ago
      Hello J,

      I would like to emphatically assert my right to reject anybody I wish to reject.

      It is, to me, the same right as the right to say what I think, uncensored and unpunished.

      I am willing to take the risk of being wrong and thus loose respect of good people. But, if I am honest, I must believe that good people will agree with me.

      It takes courage to stand alone. All great leaders have that experience in their background, I believe.

      Stay well.
      Sincerely,
      Maritimus

      P.S. My parents, within a communist tyranny, always told me: "Use your own head!"
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      • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 6 months ago
        Martimus -

        I think that this is closely linked to the concept of self-worth. If you have a solid sense of self, then it gives you a good foundation to say, "I just don't like you. Go away."

        You had great parents.

        Jan
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        • Posted by Maritimus 9 years, 6 months ago
          Hello Jan,
          Thank you. You are right. In fact, since early adulthood, when I first realized it, I have consistently maintained that the smartest decision I ever made, bar none, is when I chose my parents. ;-)

          Stay well.
          Sincerely,
          Maritimus
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    • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 6 months ago
      I agree completely.

      She says maybe people have been brainwashed with a "fast-talking sales pitch" to accept those ideas, but maybe we really believe them of our reason and volition. I know I do.

      My guess as to why those things are accepted is that they are consistent with reason and reality. In an industrial and post-industrial economy, reason delivers the goods. Reason gets us more cool smartphones, plane trips, ways to share our music and writing, etc; so we embrace it. In pre-industrial times, the means of production were arable land, and there was only so much of it. A feudal protection racket delivered the goods to people on the stealing side of it. Giving people who were different a hard time was more profitable in those days. Now we leave each other alone, and the weird Roarks of the world design cool new weird stuff that people want to buy.

      We still have the protection-racket-like problems, e.g. income taxes going from almost zero to half our income, but I hope we'll keep moving toward liberty because it's right and it's helped along by the fact that it delivers the things people want.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 6 months ago
    Yes, and everyone thinks that it's someone else that's brainwashed, never considering the brainwashing affects everyone.
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    • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 6 months ago
      "Brainwashing affects everyone" is as true as "no one is perfect."
      We all possess our own level of susceptibility to manipulation.
      If you don't believe that, learn it from working at a state prison for 21 years.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 9 years, 6 months ago
    Nicely put, I write on similar perspectives. We could say that propaganda is a necessary extension of the Hegelian Dialectic. We have many to thank for trying to make us aware. I myself was awakened by Ayn Rand, reading The Naked Communist of 1958 and Mark Hamilton; but I always harbored doubts about any authoritarian figures, but still willing to recognize those mentors of value.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 6 months ago
    ‘The totalitarian mind does not observe and verify its impressions of reality; it dictates to reality how it shall behave, it compels reality to conform to its fantasies.’

    And you still want to give them just ... one ... more ...chance...

    Change that to 'have been brainwashed and recall you only have to make fools of most of the people some of the time and a few for all of the time and the rest only on voting day - is there still such a date on calendar?
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 9 years, 6 months ago
    Look at what people are afraid of these days. With little sarcasm I can say that the public is afraid of babies, brown men in far away caves, jet contrails, diseases that have been eradicated, global warming, the rising of the seas...

    The process is entering its completion stage. The people are ready to accept anything - any form of safety promised from their elected saviors.

    ...LOL
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 6 months ago
    Propaganda is used to move large groups of people toward an agenda being promulgated by its originators. The reason many people fall for it is varied, but there are a few that stand out. They are: too lazy to research it, too dumb to research it, it corresponds with their own agenda, the person hearing it is a follower with a need to be led. I'm sure Gulchers can come up with a pot-load more. Low information voters are the bane of anything to the right of center because that side relies more on thought than emotion. There are usually two things that get Republicans elected. 1. Things are so bad that even the above mentioned voters recognize it 2. The candidate is good-looking and can speak forcefully.
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  • Posted by NealS 9 years, 6 months ago
    Interesting article, no, it's much more than just interesting to me. It's more or less what I've been feeling but unable to express. Let's just hope that there are more people out there that are uninformed about anything anymore that will wake up and help take back our freedom. Most of the left is already gone, they worked it extremely effectively on themselves before they tried it on the right. There is little that can be done to make them see the light so we need to concentrate on the truly ignorant, those that just say, "Ahh, I vote democrat", and have no reasons to backup why. Or have I just been brainwashed into believing this?
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  • Posted by waytodude 9 years, 6 months ago
    I just watched "America what would we do without her" by Dinesh D'Souza. If you haven't seen it or read the book it's very interesting and talks about this. Last night was my third time watching it I wanted my dad to see it. Good stuff.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 9 years, 6 months ago
    "...he stated that an elite would always be responsible for making the public aware of “new ideas” which the public would then act upon as the elite nudged them into it. "

    Yes, this is what's happening.

    When one turns off the tv, and starts reading books so much of this becomes so clear. It did for me.
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 6 months ago
    Interesting essay, particularly because I see so many mis-understandings within our own conversations on this site of, how could this have happened to us, to this country of the free, where did this nonsense come from, etc. I think I read the referenced book many years ago, I'll have to go check.

    Txs for posting.
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