edit: CIA+bribe trial+Clark/Perle+ Oil = BORAT!

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Postby robert d reed » Tue Nov 28, 2006 9:49 pm

Hugh, you completely overwork this stuff, to the detriment of a case that, in my opinion, has considerable merit in some very important respects. But you don't impress anyone but a fraction of the already convinced with observations that more often thean not sound as if they skirt the cliffside of Paranoia, and occasionally shuffle only two or three slipshod steps from that long last hurtle into Word Salad Hebephrenia.

The tendency to over-focus is an occupational hazard of the counterintelligence game. It's important to step away occasionally...sometimes, an extended sabbatical is indicated. Not that I'm in any position to recommend one to you. That's a decision best made in the first person.

But this shit can drive you nuts. It's possible to spend so much time panning for the gold of authentically valuable information that the eyes go funny, leading to grasping at every little sparkle of pyrite....meanwhile overlooking the real deal. Perhaps it's that the pyrite tends to show up as the gaudy nuggets, while the gold is a finer and much more elusive quantity.

As for your often dogmatically phrased, lead-biscuit pronouncements about social philosophy...you're no Guy DeBord http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/.

I've read enough of your posts to know that you don't lack for a sense of humor. I think you should employ it more often, particularly as a way of not taking yourself and your observations so heavily. I've found that contemplating the Heisenberg Principle is a good place to start...always plenty of comic material to be mined there.
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Re: Straw manatees< funny! "Oh the..

Postby professorpan » Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:24 pm

Publishers pay for the featured spots at Borders. Fact. I checked.
CIA has a long history with publishers, influencing and BEING them.


It's not nearly that simple. Yes, publishers buy premium space for books and dvds. But marketers at the bookstore chains also have a lot of leeway in placement of the products, what they order, and so forth. The world is a lot messier and complex than your simplistic model.

And yes, the CIA has had its hands in publishing. But again, your evidence that they micromanage product placement is hardly persuasive. You take a known fact -- that the CIA has had its tentacles in some publishing houses -- and extrapolate it to a level that is not supported by evidence. From "the CIA has had involvement in publishing" you jump to "so they engineer the placement of dog-themed dvds to hijack the trial of an Abu Ghraib dog handler from the public consciousness." That, my friend, is an absurd leap. And there is *zero* evidence that it is correct, and a lot of evidence that it is very unlikely.

Same with 'mainstream' news outlets. Only a few editors-in-chief can determine headlines. Fact. I checked.


Checked what? I doubt you talked to people who work at newspapers, because there are people whose job it is to write headlines. Editors-in-chief might occasionally influence a headline, but most of the time they leave the job to those who do it every day.

And when people who work in the trenches correct you -- as I and others have done regarding the film industry, news media, and web sites -- you refuse to believe us. That is the sign of a closed mind.

Nothing "nebulous" about Operation Mockinbird which started over 50 years ago.
A CIA director confirmed it to a Senate committee in 1976 and even the NYTimes had to print some of the expose to keep their cover on 12/25/77.


Of course it existed. But how large is it now? How much influence does the CIA wield? Undoubtedly some, but as much as you assert? The evidence is sorely lacking to back up your theories -- and the wealth of evidence suggests you are wrong. Yet you are convinced -- and desire to convince others -- that the Agency has a stranglehold on nearly all media outlets. You may believe that is true, but I see no evidence that it is (and you can say "means, motive, opportunity, precedent" a hundred more times, but that is not evidence by any stretch).

When myself and others ask you for evidence to support your examples, you either suggest the controllers are too savvy to leave clues (i.e. no evidence is evidence) or point to books and documents that have no bearing on your examples. At best, your "evidence" is guilt-by-association and innuendo. At worse, it is cherry-picked data that ignores all contrary evidence.


No, I point to means-motive-opportunity-precedent- as clues and you say "no evidence."
Do covert operations only exist when they are documented over at smokinggun.com?


Again, citing MMOP as a mantra does not qualify as objective, verifiable evidence -- or even suggestive evidence. But of course covert operations take place. How do we know? From evidence.

Ad hominum attacks are not 'criticism.' More 'you don't like people like me who are reasonable' narrative. I address legitimate questions. Nothing "fantastic" about propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, and social engineering. It's standard procedure by military governments since WWII (called the Revolution in Military Affairs) with texts on the subjects right out in the open. I've read them. And posted them here for as many as possible to see. Thus not "confabulation" either.


Suggesting I'm a disinfo agent, however slyly, is an ad hominem attack. You ignore my criticism, and that of others -- a clear sign that you are emotionally invested in your theories.

And the texts are interesting, to be sure. I also study propaganda. But just because a text exists doesn't mean all of its ideas have merit, have been implemented, or have become standard operating procedure. Again, you take an idea and stretch it past the breaking point. That is the issue -- not that media are manipulated, but to what extent.

I spend hours a day pouring over every discipline I can think of with "rigor and objectivity." Having learned some things isn't "bias." More 'you don't like people like me who are reasonable' narrative.


Au contraire. I think your ideas are unreasonable and are not supported by empirical evidence. You are often reasonable, but the very definition of bias means it is not visible to you. I have suggested that you attack your theories in order to verify them -- that's the way to discover bias. You won't do it. If you did, I'm convinced you'd quickly discover that you've been barking up the wrong tree.

There really is a link between CIA/DIA/CFR and media, though. Isn't there, PP?
Or is it just too enigmatic and ineffective and to be ignored?


There are many links, many interconnecting and opposing agendas, and a complex web of interactions. It should not be ignored, and I've never suggested that. But I do believe baseless speculation is not the way to get to the truth.

Why Cohen 'picked Kazakhstan' is irrelevant. (sp.) The movie phenomenon exists and has an effect in context. But that is something you don't address, rather like the argument that an arrow keeps halving the distance to a target infinitely and thus can never reach the target.
I see that the Borat arrow has reached the target. Do you? How? Why?
You've never heard of using unwitting assets by greasing the rails for them?


It's not irrelevant that Cohen picked Kazakhstan. What "target" has he reached? Making Kazakhstan more known than it ever was? And you're saying he was unwitting? So, then, do you believe some CIA puppetmasters decided "Hey, this comic guy is providing us with a kickass keyword hijacking opportunity -- let's make sure the movie gets a ton of press and becomes a huge hit!"

I keep pointing at the top of the food chain where decisions like If-Yes or No-How-When -By Who are made to discern of there is a Why other than mere commerce and you keep pointing at the lowest point in the food chain as if there was no such thing as plausible deniability, patsies, stooges, useful geniuses, useful idiots, useful whatever.


No, I'm saying that for your ginormous control scenario to be true, it would require a number of patsies, stooges, useful geniuses/idiots that strains credulity past the breaking point. It would require a level of management that is logically and factually unsupported. And the payoff would be miniscule for all the effort and coordination required. After all, do you really think a bunch of dog dvds kept anyone from thinking about the fairly obscure trial of an Abu Ghraib dog handler? And can you imagine that you might be wrong about one of these scenarios -- ever?

Spook media management skill lies in the ability to find, nurture, and disperse Units of Meaning to create psycho-political events that influence perception. There are an awful lot of UM lying around. Like old movies and VHS releases which can be cherry-picked for rerelease with the excuse of a new format, DVD. Hence all the cute dog movies I noted when that Abu Ghraib dog-handler was finally prosecuted, something that took forever to come to trial and thus could easily be accompanied by checking stock for keywords/themes and paying to have it out on the 'Featured' shelves at Borders.


The trial was barely a blip on the press radar -- and that has nothing to do with dog movies at Borders. Again, here is an issue that has merit -- why were some of the Abu Ghraib trials relegated to the back pages? -- that is lost in your convoluted mental detours into fantasyland.

Gee, why go to the bother? Because so many American households have a dog and it would be politically-damaging to have all those people think of Abu Ghraib everytime they looked at Fido.


That is just plain silly. (Note: it's not ad hominem to say something is silly).

I also think that preventing possible catchphrases and nicknames with pre-emptive generation of them is used. Like 'Nacho Libre' and 'Backwards Jenny.'


More evidence that you are a creative thinker, but not evidence of actual real-world existence of your examples.

I have a 1976 book by a former USAID film propagandist who was working for Nixon when he was crucified for Watergate and the author for partisan purposes to defend Nixon explains how the TV network news shows (CIA) skewed their reporting to make Nixon the maximum villain for months. Using catch phrases is one of those tactics.
'The Candor Project' to imply that Nixon's efforts at openness with journalists weere a manipulation, for instance.

Now we have Fox TV and their bogus 'War on Christmas.'

Simple. If I can think of this, professional mass mind managers sure can.
(Hope they aren't checking my hypotheses for 'good ideas.' gulp. nawww...)

Just because you can think something up does not make it real.


Don't confuse the processes of deduction and reverse-engineering with 'confirmation bias.'
You can take something apart to see how it works and deduce who might have made it without knowing every single detail which you call 'evidence.'


Don't confuse creative thinking with reasoned, evidence-based, logical thinking.

As I said above, we share goals if not tactics. :idea:


That has always been apparent. I know we share the same goals, and that you are sincere (though you seem to suggest I'm not with increasing regularity). That's why I hate to see you getting so caught up in a grand theory that doesn't hold water.

Take the challenge -- attempt to disprove your theories. That is the key to establishing their validity. C'mon, Hugh -- I double dare you!
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Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:55 pm

robert d reed wrote:Hugh, you completely overwork this stuff, to the detriment of a case that, in my opinion, has considerable merit in some very important respects. But you don't impress anyone but a fraction of the already convinced with observations that more often thean not sound as if they skirt the cliffside of Paranoia, and occasionally shuffle only two or three slipshod steps from that long last hurtle into Word Salad Hebephrenia.

The tendency to over-focus is an occupational hazard of the counterintelligence game. It's important to step away occasionally...sometimes, an extended sabbatical is indicated. Not that I'm in any position to recommend one to you. That's a decision best made in the first person.

But this shit can drive you nuts. It's possible to spend so much time panning for the gold of authentically valuable information that the eyes go funny, leading to grasping at every little sparkle of pyrite....meanwhile overlooking the real deal. Perhaps it's that the pyrite tends to show up as the gaudy nuggets, while the gold is a finer and much more elusive quantity.

As for your often dogmatically phrased, lead-biscuit pronouncements about social philosophy...you're no Guy DeBord http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/.

I've read enough of your posts to know that you don't lack for a sense of humor. I think you should employ it more often, particularly as a way of not taking yourself and your observations so heavily. I've found that contemplating the Heisenberg Principle is a good place to start...always plenty of comic material to be mined there.


RDR, thanks for your thoughtful comments.

I agree that looking too hard can skew one's focus. Yes, I look very hard and sometimes try connections that don't work. Musicians say that if you don't make mistakes, you're not really playing. And when you make that mistake everyone hears it so just own it and keep at it.

But like watching for submarines in the dark, sometimes looking long enough lets your eyes adapt and maybe a periscope will be just little too high in the water. Or an 'inverted Jenny' pops right up in your face like a scene out of 'Jaws.'

I knew what I was looking at before I knew its name. Then I accidentally found 'mutual exclusivity' as a legitimate cognitive phenomenon. So I have to admit that I'm more inclined to perseverance than periodic 'resensitization.' Detecting a covert cultural force is looking for patterns that are camoflaged as random events. Or non-events. That's going to lead to some false alarms. "Oops. Sorry, lady. Don't get up."

Word Salad Hebephrenia?
A type of schizophrenia characterized by foolish mannerisms, senseless laughter, delusions, hallucinations, and regressive behavior.


Cool word Maybe the root of 'hebie-jeebies.'
Yeah, our brains are prone to finding patterns as a survival device even if they are there or not. Phantoms appear. In audio when two sources are of equal volume on left and right the brain synthesizes a 'phantom center' which we call mono. The same conceptual dynamic can fool us, too.

As for my "lead bisquit pronouncements about social philosophy," I can recommend-
http://despair.com/viewall.html

Too serious much of the time? Guilty. My writing tends to not reflect the mirth I have in knowing that evolution is inevitable and the Stupid Fascist Tricks are weak and barely holding on to a few of us.

Thanks for the Guy DeBord link. I sure ain't him.
He's on it but even more vague than Chomsky in ways while detailing somethings down to their very atomic weight.
I want specificity, examples of the 'there goes one now!'-type which leads to intellectual and moral certainty, not philosophical abstraction.

DeBord well describes how our things own us instead of the other way around.
And I know from digging that the research has been done into how to make 'our things' condition us, especially our entertainment narratives and images which are even more effective when we 'choose' them.

But I reject DeBord's detached language about "the system" as though it were an astronomical phenomenon because that is "only two or three slipshod steps" from astrology.

Listen to how Debord and I are hunting in the same woods albeit with different priorities-

http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/3.htm

The dictatorship of the bureaucratic economy cannot leave the exploited masses any significant margin of choice because it has had to make all the choices itself, and any choice made independently of it, whether regarding food or music or anything else, thus amounts to a declaration of war against it. This dictatorship must be enforced by permanent violence. Its spectacle imposes an image of the good which subsumes everything that officially exists, an image which is usually concentrated in a single individual, the guarantor of the system’s totalitarian cohesion. Everyone must magically identify with this absolute star or disappear. This master of everyone else’s nonconsumption is the heroic image that disguises the absolute exploitation entailed by the system of primitive accumulation accelerated by terror. If the entire Chinese population has to study Mao to the point of identifying with Mao, this is because there is nothing else they can be. The dominion of the concentrated spectacle is a police state.


65

The diffuse spectacle is associated with commodity abundance, with the undisturbed development of modern capitalism. Here each individual commodity is justified in the name of the grandeur of the total commodity production, of which the spectacle is a laudatory catalog. Irreconcilable claims jockey for position on the stage of the affluent economy’s unified spectacle, and different star commodities simultaneously promote conflicting social policies. The automobile spectacle, for example, strives for a perfect traffic flow entailing the destruction of old urban districts, while the city spectacle needs to preserve those districts as tourist attractions. The already dubious satisfaction alleged to be obtained from the consumption of the whole is thus constantly being disappointed because the actual consumer can directly access only a succession of fragments of this commodity heaven, fragments which invariably lack the quality attributed to the whole.


66

Each individual commodity fights for itself. It avoids acknowledging the others and strives to impose itself everywhere as if it were the only one in existence. The spectacle is the epic poem of this struggle, a struggle that no fall of Troy can bring to an end. The spectacle does not sing of men and their arms, but of commodities and their passions. In this blind struggle each commodity, by pursuing its own passion, unconsciously generates something beyond itself: the globalization of the commodity (which also amounts to the commodification of the globe). Thus, as a result of the cunning of the commodity, while each particular manifestation of the commodity eventually falls in battle, the general commodity-form continues onward toward its absolute realization.


67

The satisfaction that no longer comes from using the commodities produced in abundance is now sought through recognition of their value as commodities. Consumers are filled with religious fervor for the sovereign freedom of commodities whose use has become an end in itself. Waves of enthusiasm for particular products are propagated by all the communications media. A film sparks a fashion craze; a magazine publicizes night spots which in turn spin off different lines of products. The proliferation of faddish gadgets reflects the fact that as the mass of commodities becomes increasingly absurd, absurdity itself becomes a commodity. Trinkets such as key chains which come as free bonuses with the purchase of some luxury product, but which end up being traded back and forth as valued collectibles in their own right, reflect a mystical self-abandonment to commodity transcendence. Those who collect the trinkets that have been manufactured for the sole purpose of being collected are accumulating commodity indulgences — glorious tokens of the commodity’s real presence among the faithful. Reified people proudly display the proofs of their intimacy with the commodity. Like the old religious fetishism, with its convulsionary raptures and miraculous cures, the fetishism of commodities generates its own moments of fervent exaltation. All this is useful for only one purpose: producing habitual submission.


68

The pseudoneeds imposed by modern consumerism cannot be opposed by any genuine needs or desires that are not themselves also shaped by society and its history. But commodity abundance represents a total break in the organic development of social needs. Its mechanical accumulation unleashes an unlimited artificiality which overpowers any living desire. The cumulative power of this autonomous artificiality ends up by falsifying all social life.
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Postby robert d reed » Wed Nov 29, 2006 12:47 am

It reads better in the original French, no doubt.

I think DeBord is especially valuable because, even though his language is dense and difficult, he really boils it down. If thoughtful people have the patience to grapple with his writing style, they can find at least one insight that speaks to them. And once they get that first spark, it's fairly easy to get what he's driving at. And once you get DeBord, it's a very liberating thing. You can examine your own attitudes in terms of how they've been shaped by the Glamour and Illusion of that merchandising world that just wants to own you, for instance by doing things like selling you "hipness" as a commodity, or similar appeals to values governed by commodification, like "status."

DeBord is out of the 60s, when much of the youth was smoking pot and catching on to the corniness and obviousness of the advertising psyops appeals of television commercials pitched at their elders. DeBord was simply distilling the inchoate insights of rebellious middle-class-bourgeoius 60s youth into how phony and manipulated the society created by the adult Establishment actually was.

By the time of MTV in the 1980s, the advertisers had gotten quicker, they started incorporating imagery and altered states surrealism into their ad-making, to mimic the "hip, insider" perspective. That made it much tougher for the youth to figure out, since they were being exposed to commodified "youth culture", that simulacrum of vitality and heightened awareness, from an early age.

Of course, "underground, free-form radio", that multicultural, politically independent, culturally alternative medium, had to be brought under control first...read former FM DJ Jim Ladd's interview about his experiences in radio as related in his book Radio Waves and the Pink Floyd record Radio KAOS, and you'll realize that motive for the growth of controlled playlists and stereotype narrowcasting that began taking over FM music radio stations along about 1975 can't be explained by simply claiming that it was done for ratings, as a response to public demand for increased musical apartheid, "heavy rotation" and restricted playlists...whether or not you buy the idea that there was a "war on rock" and the "counterculture" that included assassinations of frock stars- I'm dubious- the takeover, formatting, and dumbing down of radio stations by corporate consolidation really happened. Including popular ones, with high ratings and loyal audiences. That much is indisputable. http://www.rogerwaters.org/laddint.html )

What is hipness? Heightened awareness- wide bandwidth, fast processing speed. If you can fake that, you've got it made...

Make no mistake, it's much tougher for young people to see through what they're being fed nowadays. It used to be much more obvious to see the con.

But if you have the reading skills to contend with reading Society Of The Spectacle, it can really help drop the scales from your eyes.
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Postby judasdisney » Wed Nov 29, 2006 2:28 am

I had the same thought about Kazakhstan when I read about "Borat."

Clouding the issue is not an unfamiliar tactic, and the method potentially used in "Borat" would not be the first time.

As for Professorpan, "Operation Mockingbird" is the evidence. It is evidence enough that "Operation Mockingbird" -- even though exposed by a journalistic "legend" such as Carl Bernstein, and exposed in as mainstream a publication as Rolling Stone -- was afterwards buried and ignored and disregarded en masse.

It's as if the knowledge of "Operation Mockingbird" never happened.

And if there's a media figure or pundit or talk show out there which omits any and all knowledge or discussion of Operation Mockingbird, then de facto they are contributing, if not collaborating, with the goals of Mockingbird.

Doesn't Professorpan (and others) find it strange that such a news bombshell as Operation Mockingbird could have such far-ranging implications and potential consequences, only to be 100% never discussed or 100% never heard about again?

Surely 100% of this "100% vacuum of silence" cannot be without design or intent. Why never a single utterance about a piece of history so explosive?
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Postby judasdisney » Wed Nov 29, 2006 2:37 am

Incidentally, I went to see "Casino Royale," the new James Bond entertainment, and lo and behold, within the space of 60 seconds during one scene, both RFID is implanted into Bond's forearm & the 9/11 Put Options trading & CIA knowledge of it is discussed (without any insider dealing being alluded to, but rather terrorist profiting being implied).

Just a part of the military/industrial/entertainment complex?

Whether Ian Fleming would be sympathetic to the propoganda, or whether it's just another mass-entertainment vehicle that's been hijacked, there's a subtext roiling in the waves that's positively going somewhere.
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Borat redux

Postby professorpan » Wed Nov 29, 2006 11:23 am

judasdisney wrote:I had the same thought about Kazakhstan when I read about "Borat."

Clouding the issue is not an unfamiliar tactic, and the method potentially used in "Borat" would not be the first time.

As for Professorpan, "Operation Mockingbird" is the evidence. It is evidence enough that "Operation Mockingbird" -- even though exposed by a journalistic "legend" such as Carl Bernstein, and exposed in as mainstream a publication as Rolling Stone -- was afterwards buried and ignored and disregarded en masse.

It's as if the knowledge of "Operation Mockingbird" never happened.

And if there's a media figure or pundit or talk show out there which omits any and all knowledge or discussion of Operation Mockingbird, then de facto they are contributing, if not collaborating, with the goals of Mockingbird.

Doesn't Professorpan (and others) find it strange that such a news bombshell as Operation Mockingbird could have such far-ranging implications and potential consequences, only to be 100% never discussed or 100% never heard about again?

Surely 100% of this "100% vacuum of silence" cannot be without design or intent. Why never a single utterance about a piece of history so explosive?


Good points, but I still disagree. Even if Mockingbird has grown and its power has increased, extrapolating to the level of HMW's theory is an enormous, unsupported leap. Mockingbird was aimed primarily at influencing public opinion via news -- not entertainment (though admittedly the line between the two has blurred).

Jumping to unsupported conclusions (i.e. Borat is a psyop) distracts from getting at the real issues -- what influence do intelligence agencies wield over the increasingly consoliated news media? How deep and effective is their penetration?

Again, my aim is not to stifle speculation on this crucial topic. But when we veer way off course, into pure speculation not based in fact, our energies are wasted. In the meantime, the real corruption of our press continues full speed-ahead.

And when people come to believe that the Intel agencies wield more power than the evidence indicates, it elevates them -- and that is surely what they want. If people begin to believe they orchestrate all movies, tv shows, and books -- right down to the placement of dvds on store shelves -- that plays right into their hands. They surely must be laughing because the perception of power is enough to discourage and deflate those seeking to expose them.

To expose them, we must be rigorous and analytical in our investigations. Real investigation must be based on facts, not farfetched speculation.
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Postby orz » Wed Nov 29, 2006 2:41 pm

I knew what I was looking at before I knew its name.

Hugh, for me that consisely sums up where i think you're going wrong. :roll:
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Postby hiddenite » Wed Nov 29, 2006 7:54 pm

orz wrote:
I knew what I was looking at before I knew its name.

Hugh, for me that consisely sums up where i think you're going wrong. :roll:


I disagree orz ..it's what Hegel called the "shock of recognition".
(Plus the man has lips that can untie knots. :D )

On the keyjacking thing I don't know if any of you have ever seen or heard of "morris-dancing" :cry: in England ? I have always found it excruciatingly fey so I was delighted to hear that the whole thing is totally made up nonsense .
Cecil Sharp went around collecting folk music and "preserving" it ...or so were told. But apparently what he was involved in doing was the complete subversion of an existing and more antagonistic/oppositional music that he discovered and ...prettifying and cleaning it up to make it more suitable for the Victorian parlour.
Proir to the Industrial revolution there existed in the countryside in England a tradidtion of Ploughman's theatre .This was actually not so much "theatre" as demmanding money with menaces , by the peasants, from the landowners. On a particular day of the year men would dress up outlandishly ,often as women ,and arrive at a dignitaries house and ask for alms in return for their performance. Rapidly the performance became standing about looking threatening armed with implements and refusing to leave until they were given their reward.
Anyway the men doing the performing were in some parts known as Molly dancers. There was a whole thing about turning the status of things upside-down ..hence men as women , rich giving money to the poor etc etc. And , so in fear of this behaviour and it's possible consequences should it be translated into the new urban settings brought about by the Industrial revolution were "they", that the whole dance and the music was hijacked into pantomine and sedate warbling (Cecil Sharp stylee)and the awful morris-dancers. :cry:
O and the music had to be altered because the new urban class was fond of gathering to sing their old songs and remaking them with the new rhythms of the machines that they were tied to 6 days a week.and singing about the new conditions of their lives. Their gatherings were becoming alarming and needed softening and neutering. So all that hey nonny no fol der lol was substituted and presented as their music that they were permitted to sing at gatherings organised by their new masters.

And their success was such that not a lot of peple know that :shock:
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Postby robert d reed » Wed Nov 29, 2006 9:20 pm

Sounds like more Bolshie over-analysis to me. I can only imagine the interpretation of what Stephen Foster was up to...getting directives from a secret council of the Planter Aristocracy of the American South, I suppose.

My major problem with Hugh isn't his focus on Project Mockingbird, psychological warfare, and media manipulations...it's more with the spurious "examples" he so often points out. To me, all to often it looks like "wolf-crying"...

If you're familiar with that particular parable, I hope that you'll recall the moral- raise a false alarm too often, and after a while you'll find that no one responds or even reacts when the wolf really does show up, and the alarm is genuine.

The real irony in this case is that with a bit more rigor, there are all sorts of examples to bring up that pack a lot more punch than the claim that Borat comprises part of a wider plot by the Cryptocracy to sanitize the present regime in Kazakhstan for the American public (most of whom don't know Kazakhstan from Freedonia, Borat or no Borat, and couldn't care less...you could probably poll the audiences coming out of the movie about Borat's nationality, and most of them wouldn't get the name right. Which in turn points to a problem that goes a lot deeper than the conjectured subversion of the American movie industry by CIA semiotics specialists...like, you know, the elimination of the subject of geography from most American school curriculums, including at the college level. )
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Mental geography lessons.

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:31 am

robert d reed wrote:
Sounds like more Bolshie over-analysis to me. I can only imagine the interpretation of what Stephen Foster was up to...getting directives from a secret council of the Planter Aristocracy of the American South, I suppose.


Wry, but illustrates how important stereotypes and iconic images are to creating or just sustaining social ills. Children are conditioned and then given reinforcement as adults.

My major problem with Hugh isn't his focus on Project Mockingbird, psychological warfare, and media manipulations...it's more with the spurious "examples" he so often points out. To me, all to often it looks like "wolf-crying"...

If you're familiar with that particular parable, I hope that you'll recall the moral- raise a false alarm too often, and after a while you'll find that no one responds or even reacts when the wolf really does show up, and the alarm is genuine.


I don't think many of my examples are spurious, of course. I see many more than I cite here.

Vocabulary word: NESTING
Weekend shows on NPR have had entire scripts fabricated with double-entendre keywords and phrases embedded in overarching subliminal themes nested in overt themes. Yet listeners heard what purported to be a spontaneous dialogue or interview.

This is a VERY HIGH level of psycho-theatrical construct performed almost flawlessly.
I just didn't know how to post that one here.

So, RDR, you ain't heard nothin' yet from me.
I see a wolf culture created over the last 50 years and institutionalized with sheep's clothing. When big furry tails and claws poke out I try to point. And when there is just the smell of wolfy breath I try to pointl

The real irony in this case is that with a bit more rigor, there are all sorts of examples to bring up that pack a lot more punch


Yeah, there's mass murder and torture and looting and poverty and poisoning and...
but people are either not aware
or accept justifications
or turn away to avoidist entertainment
...which is still boobytrapped with material designed to prevent an appropriate reaction should one SEE those big obvious crimes.

Since Americans are being drugged by the images they consume, I do the psycho-chemical analysis to find it. Like finding carcinogens in the town's drinking water.

>When it is suspected to me or obvious to others in specific examples, we learn what to reject and warn others away from.

>We also learn to what extent our media is controlled and poisoned. Many don't know the basics unlike some regulars here who say 'ho-hum quit repeating yourself.'

>We also learn from bad example what humane media messages to instead support and reinforce by finding out what fascists want us to see and believe.

than the claim that Borat comprises part of a wider plot by the Cryptocracy to sanitize the present regime in Kazakhstan for the American public (most of whom don't know Kazakhstan from Freedonia, Borat or no Borat, and couldn't care less...you could probably poll the audiences coming out of the movie about Borat's nationality, and most of them wouldn't get the name right.


People on the street I ask about the reasons for US war in Iraq have said 'oh,...religious war. Terrorism.' This is a very common view and few know of the Big Prize of Caspian Sea oil and gas and Kazakhstan's role in getting at it.

This is already a long war and going to be longer so the pre-emptive diversion using linguistic principles of Mutual Exclusivity was no doubt approved in the psy-ops beaurocracy that looks ahead to ward off trouble with planning.

Hammering the unfamiliar keyword home is why it is in the title:
'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'

Hammering the keyword home is why there is viral marketing through controversy as lawsuits and discussions of anti-semitism vs entrapment etc. etc.
(The next film is going to be worse agit prop. Cohen's character will be gay. Think this will create resistance to Democratic initiatives next year? Ask Bill Clinton.)

Which in turn points to a problem that goes a lot deeper than the conjectured subversion of the American movie industry by CIA semiotics specialists...like, you know, the elimination of the subject of geography from most American school curriculums, including at the college level. )


I know teachers. Their students can't concentrate on things like geography when they've grown up with entertainment culture of shiny sexy things blowing up.

RDR, all these problems are linked, not seperate.
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Postby Skye » Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:29 pm

Judasdisney wrote:
As for Professorpan, "Operation Mockingbird" is the evidence. It is evidence enough that "Operation Mockingbird" -- even though exposed by a journalistic "legend" such as Carl Bernstein, and exposed in as mainstream a publication as Rolling Stone -- was afterwards buried and ignored and disregarded en masse.

It's as if the knowledge of "Operation Mockingbird" never happened.

And if there's a media figure or pundit or talk show out there which omits any and all knowledge or discussion of Operation Mockingbird, then de facto they are contributing, if not collaborating, with the goals of Mockingbird.

Doesn't Professorpan (and others) find it strange that such a news bombshell as Operation Mockingbird could have such far-ranging implications and potential consequences, only to be 100% never discussed or 100% never heard about again?

Surely 100% of this "100% vacuum of silence" cannot be without design or intent. Why never a single utterance about a piece of history so explosive?

**********************************
Throughout this discussion, I reflected to what great extent the CIA (and its interlocking alliance with the energy/oil/crime/military-industrial rackets) is GUILTY of terrible frauds, abuses, killings, wars, influence-peddling, bribery, subversion, propaganda etc., and how this points to continued and increasingly sophisticated subversion of domestic and global society, to the ends of imposing an ordered, directed, controlled sociopolitical-economic system, DIRECTLY contrary to the ideals and goals of an authenticly democratic society.

DeBord's thesis complements Hugh Manatee's often brilliant, persistant insights and speculations, esp. in exposing some overreaching organizing principles and key motivations and processes re: HOW such a high degree of seeming coordination can be acheived by the various corporate/institutional entities from the Alphabet agencies to Publishing Houses, Mafia-connected Hollywood Glam/Adventure/Spectacle industry, mass-media, news, Madison Ave. PR/Marketting Agencies, to Pentagon Mind Warriors, Political Focus/Organizing Interests and sundry OTHER participant/actors.

Perhaps Hugh DOES reach to allegedly preposterous lengths sometimes to connect seemingly disparate, infinitely complex/labour-intensive events and circumstances necessary to shape and direct public attitudes/beliefs helpful to perpetuate the Captive Consumer Syndrome in the context of a psychologized Police State and a multinational Imperialistic status quo -- but like he said, one can't learn nor master difficult and demanding subjects w/o making mistakes. In this endeaver (distilling HOW this massive social-programming function is carried out) it's necessary to make reasonable guesses about the continued development of expertise based on the past evidence of specialization and organization vis-a-vis the CIA's infliltration and cooption of leading mass media vehicles/channels/companies (ie., Mockingbird).

Alex Constantine:



Who Controls the Media?

Soulless corporations do, of course. Corporations with grinning,
double-breasted executives, interlocking directorates, labor squabbles
and flying capital. Dow. General Electric. Coca-Cola. Disney.
Newspapers should have mastheads that mirror the world: The
Westinghouse Evening Scimitar, The Atlantic-Richfield Intelligentser .
It is beginning to dawn on a growing number of armchair ombudsmen that
the public print reports news from a parallel universe - one that has
never heard of politically-motivated assassinations, CIA-Mafia banking
thefts, mind control, death squads or even federal agencies with
secret budgets fattened by cocaine sales - a place overrun by lone
gunmen, where the CIA and Mafia are usually on their best behavior. In
this idyllic land, the most serious infraction an official can commit
__is a the employment of a domestic servant with (shudder) no
residency status.

This unlikely land of enchantment is the creation of MOCKINGBIRD.

It was conceived in the late 1940s, the most frigid period of the cold
war, when the CIA began a systematic infiltration of the corporate
media, a process that often included direct takeover of major news
outlets.
...

"By the early 1950s," writes formerVillage Voice reporter Deborah
Davis in Katharine the Great, "Wisner 'owned' respected members of the
New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles, plus
stringers, four to six hundred in all, according to a former CIA
analyst." The network was overseen by Allen Dulles, a templar for
German and American corporations who wanted their points of view
represented in the public print. Early MOCKINGBIRD influenced 25
newspapers and wire agencies consenting to act as organs of CIA
propaganda. Many of these were already run by men with reactionary
views, among them William Paley (CBS), C.D. Jackson (Fortune), Henry
Luce (Time) and Arthur Hays Sulzberger (N.Y. Times).

Activists curious about the workings of MOCKINGBIRD have since been
appalled to f__ind in FOIA documents that agents boasting in CIA
office memos of their pride in having placed "important assets" inside
every major news publication in the country. It was not until 1982
that the Agency openly admitted that reporters on the CIA payroll have
acted as case officers to agents in the field.
...

The commercialization of television, coinciding with Reagan's
recruitment by the Crusade for Freedom, a CIA front, presented the
intelligence world with unprecedented potential for sowing propaganda
and even prying in the age of Big Brother. George Orwell glimpsed the
possibilities when he installed omniscient video surveillance
technology in 1948, a novel rechristened 1984 for the first edition
published in the U.S. by Harcourt, Brace. Operation Octopus, according
to federal files, was in full swing by 1948, a surveillance program
that turned any television set with tubes into a broadcast
transmitter. Agents of Octopus could pick up audio and visual images
with the equipment as far as 25 miles away.

*****

In the intervening years since, it's to be expected that the CIA et al. would have developed, perfected and coordinated new technology, techniques and methods to 'better' accomplish the PTB's agenda. We sure know 'their' power and influence hasn't been reigned-in or placed under responsible, wise citizen oversight, eh?

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Mockingbird

Postby professorpan » Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:47 pm

In the intervening years since, it's to be expected that the CIA et al. would have developed, perfected and coordinated new technology, techniques and methods to 'better' accomplish the PTB's agenda. We sure know 'their' power and influence hasn't been reigned-in or placed under responsible, wise citizen oversight, eh?


It's a big jump from stating "The CIA has a strong influence on the news media" to "The CIA controls and micromanages all aspects of the entertainment industry."

And really, we don't know the full extent of the CIA's influence. Assuming it is all-powerful and wields enormous control may not be correct. I suspect, based upon reasonable evidence, that it is indeed quite powerful in steering the issues and planting disinformation at many major news organizations. I have seen no evidence to support Hugh's conception of a massive orchestration of the entertainment media, however, and plenty of evidence contradicts his theory.
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Postby Telexx » Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:28 pm

But most important to me -- stopping the assault of global corporatocracies/plutocracies on the biosphere. If we don't get our asses in gear, it won't matter who rules, what people watch on TV, or if the Masons are drinking the blood of infants. We'll all be fucked-diddly-ucked.


Well said. Amusing & sad at the same time...

HMW: The examples you cite (e.g. the positioning of a news story on Yahoo) would require a high degree of micro-managing of the media (in all of its various formats.)

That level of micro-management would require a level of control over TV/FILM/RADIO/PRINT & the WEB near to the point of omnipotence.

The apparatus of that control would by necessity take the form of large, embedded teams of agents and/or assets charged with manipulating things according to some centralised, orchestrated grand design.

Clearly the flow of news stories is manipulated by people with intel. links, but I think you overstate their power when you get into Borat, the positioning of books in a store, or the bizarre dog/abu ghraib thing? Woof, woof...

I think the battle to control our minds relates more to the market economy in the state. In broad terms the state certainly gains benefits in keeping the masses scared & stupid, but I am more concerned with the current drive being undertaken to mold us into standardised, pay-as-you-live consumers there to be milked endlessly by the Mega corporations...
Thanks,

Telexx
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Postby Skye » Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:31 pm

Judasdisney wrote:
As for Professorpan, "Operation Mockingbird" is the evidence. It is evidence enough that "Operation Mockingbird" -- even though exposed by a journalistic "legend" such as Carl Bernstein, and exposed in as mainstream a publication as Rolling Stone -- was afterwards buried and ignored and disregarded en masse.

It's as if the knowledge of "Operation Mockingbird" never happened.

And if there's a media figure or pundit or talk show out there which omits any and all knowledge or discussion of Operation Mockingbird, then de facto they are contributing, if not collaborating, with the goals of Mockingbird.

Doesn't Professorpan (and others) find it strange that such a news bombshell as Operation Mockingbird could have such far-ranging implications and potential consequences, only to be 100% never discussed or 100% never heard about again?

Surely 100% of this "100% vacuum of silence" cannot be without design or intent. Why never a single utterance about a piece of history so explosive?

**********************************
Throughout this discussion, I reflected to what great extent the CIA (and its interlocking alliance with the energy/oil/crime/military-industrial rackets) is GUILTY of terrible frauds, abuses, killings, wars, influence-peddling, bribery, subversion, propaganda etc., and how this points to continued and increasingly sophisticated subversion of domestic and global society, to the ends of imposing an ordered, directed, controlled sociopolitical-economic system, DIRECTLY contrary to the ideals and goals of an authenticly democratic society.

DeBord's thesis complements Hugh Manatee's often brilliant, persistant insights and speculations, esp. in exposing some overreaching organizing principles and key motivations and processes re: HOW such a high degree of seeming coordination can be acheived by the various corporate/institutional entities from the Alphabet agencies to Publishing Houses, Mafia-connected Hollywood Glam/Adventure/Spectacle industry, mass-media, news, Madison Ave. PR/Marketting Agencies, to Pentagon Mind Warriors, Political Focus/Organizing Interests and sundry OTHER participant/actors.

Perhaps Hugh DOES reach to allegedly preposterous lengths sometimes to connect seemingly disparate, infinitely complex/labour-intensive events and circumstances necessary to shape and direct public attitudes/beliefs helpful to perpetuate the Captive Consumer Syndrome in the context of a psychologized Police State and a multinational Imperialistic status quo -- but like he said, one can't learn nor master difficult and demanding subjects w/o making mistakes. In this endeaver (distilling HOW this massive social-programming function is carried out) it's necessary to make reasonable guesses about the continued development of expertise based on the past evidence of specialization and organization vis-a-vis the CIA's infliltration and cooption of leading mass media vehicles/channels/companies (ie., Mockingbird).

Alex Constantine:



Who Controls the Media?

Soulless corporations do, of course. Corporations with grinning,
double-breasted executives, interlocking directorates, labor squabbles
and flying capital. Dow. General Electric. Coca-Cola. Disney.
Newspapers should have mastheads that mirror the world: The
Westinghouse Evening Scimitar, The Atlantic-Richfield Intelligentser .
It is beginning to dawn on a growing number of armchair ombudsmen that
the public print reports news from a parallel universe - one that has
never heard of politically-motivated assassinations, CIA-Mafia banking
thefts, mind control, death squads or even federal agencies with
secret budgets fattened by cocaine sales - a place overrun by lone
gunmen, where the CIA and Mafia are usually on their best behavior. In
this idyllic land, the most serious infraction an official can commit
__is a the employment of a domestic servant with (shudder) no
residency status.

This unlikely land of enchantment is the creation of MOCKINGBIRD.

It was conceived in the late 1940s, the most frigid period of the cold
war, when the CIA began a systematic infiltration of the corporate
media, a process that often included direct takeover of major news
outlets.
...

"By the early 1950s," writes formerVillage Voice reporter Deborah
Davis in Katharine the Great, "Wisner 'owned' respected members of the
New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles, plus
stringers, four to six hundred in all, according to a former CIA
analyst." The network was overseen by Allen Dulles, a templar for
German and American corporations who wanted their points of view
represented in the public print. Early MOCKINGBIRD influenced 25
newspapers and wire agencies consenting to act as organs of CIA
propaganda. Many of these were already run by men with reactionary
views, among them William Paley (CBS), C.D. Jackson (Fortune), Henry
Luce (Time) and Arthur Hays Sulzberger (N.Y. Times).

Activists curious about the workings of MOCKINGBIRD have since been
appalled to f__ind in FOIA documents that agents boasting in CIA
office memos of their pride in having placed "important assets" inside
every major news publication in the country. It was not until 1982
that the Agency openly admitted that reporters on the CIA payroll have
acted as case officers to agents in the field.
...

The commercialization of television, coinciding with Reagan's
recruitment by the Crusade for Freedom, a CIA front, presented the
intelligence world with unprecedented potential for sowing propaganda
and even prying in the age of Big Brother. George Orwell glimpsed the
possibilities when he installed omniscient video surveillance
technology in 1948, a novel rechristened 1984 for the first edition
published in the U.S. by Harcourt, Brace. Operation Octopus, according
to federal files, was in full swing by 1948, a surveillance program
that turned any television set with tubes into a broadcast
transmitter. Agents of Octopus could pick up audio and visual images
with the equipment as far as 25 miles away.

*****

In the intervening years since, it's to be expected that the CIA et al. would have developed, perfected and coordinated new technology, techniques and methods to 'better' accomplish the PTB's agenda. We sure know 'their' power and influence hasn't been reigned-in or placed under responsible, wise citizen oversight, eh?

Starman aka Skye
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