One of the themes that Chomsky returns to habitually is that of the power of repressive systems. The Soviet Union, during its heyday, had legions of spies and informers, but the undercurrent of humor was always present. People living there knew they were in a totalitarian system, and never really bought in. They were told what to believe, and most pretended to believe. (The intellectual classes, true believers, glommed on to power just as they do here.) The threat to the power system there was extant throughout – not that people would learn of their condition, but rather that they would organize. Consequently, the repression of the Soviet state was most effective in spying on its own people.

What brought them down? It was not Ronald Reagan, for sure. I have no special insight, but have heard others say that mere knowledge of life outside the USSR had a large role. Kids knew about music, cars and consumer products, and were restive. The Soviet Union collapsed with hardly a whimper. The people, wise to their leaders, were also unified. No government can survive long without popular support. In other places like Prague and Budapest, similar uprisings made it clear that unless they were willing to engage in massacres of historic proportions, the game was up. (Similarly, in Iraq, the US was forced to withdraw its troops and close down its bases, as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were in the streets telling them to go away.)
Continue reading “The key that could unlock our cells” →

Yes, he is that Michael Brown.

Michael Brown here. It’s FRIDAY! Another Caption This Contest. Considering that Hugo Chavez is still dead, and his funeral is being held today, here’s today’s photo. May the best – or worst – caption win. The winner gets…a pair of passes to Ski Loveland! Have fun!

Contest entries follow by the dozen, a few examples:

Michael J. Titera Book Title: “How To Fake Your Own Death”
Continue reading “Stay out of my Facebook exchange” →

Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.” (John Derbyshire)

Swede brought the above quote to me in a comment in another post. I’m a little concerned about that man, as his intellect is locked away in a steel trap, sealed off by hatred and inaccessible to him. He reads some, has exposure to a wide array of YouTube videos. That speaks of long obsessive hours online. The way the Internet is constructed now, post-Google, allows each of us to follow our own passion without exposure to the uncomfortable, even sane, reasoning of others. Google suits our fancies.

I did a quick Wiki-hit on Derbyshire, hardly fair to the man. There’s obviously been some furious back-and-forth editing going on there, and as Bryan Schweitzer reminds us, we should never judge a man when he is at his worst. Derbyshire did work for National Review, after all.
Continue reading “A challenging puzzle” →

A concept that is very useful in understanding politics is this: Individuals behave in one way, but groups of individuals in another. A group has characteristics quite apart from the individuals that make up that group. The key understanding that came out of group dynamics in the early twentieth century was that group behavior could be manipulated even as the individuals within the group were not aware of it.

That’s a large part of what advertising does – to identify groups and manipulate them. Political advertising is no different – group manipulation. When you hear a phrase like “soccer mom” or “NASCAR dad,” you are hearing the results of intense study of our society so that the advertising agencies that work for candidates know how to fine-tune their work. Advertising works, and the most discouraging part for me is that there is no connection between behavior of office holders once elected and the advertising that got them elected. Once the campaign is over, the office holders go back to work for their employers, the people who financed their campaigns. The public goes back to sleep.

Group dynamics is so advanced now that anything can be sold to us under the right conditions. 9/11 was an orchestrated event, a self-inflicted wound. It induced a mass psychosis, and thereafter any poison could be sold to us to salve our wound. Without knowing the inside wisdom, it is easy to see that never-ending war was a big part of the objective, as was passage of the USAPATRIOT ACT, which essentially repealed the Bill of Rights.
Continue reading “Why are we having this discussion?” →

But it seems the good they die young. (Dick Holler, Abraham, Martin and John)

It’s the quality and not the length of a man’s life that counts. If a man is assassinated while he is fighting to save the soul of a nation, his death contributes more than anything else to its redemption. (Martin Luther King)

I’m not going to look this up, as I understand the sentiment well enough that it stands without citation. Fidel Castro warned Hugo Chavez early in his career to be careful, that the United States would use democracy to bring him down. If you stop reading there, the message will be lost. Castro was not saying that our shadow leadership lurking behind our symbols of democracy actually believes in any of that stuff. Get real. He was saying that Chavez would have to play by the rules, while the US would not. He would have to fight fire with fire, and in so doing would be at a disadvantage. His every move would be publicized while those of the US would be kept secret.
Continue reading “Hugo Chavez, a job well done. Rest in peace” →