Tag: Noam chomsky

Necessary Illusions

Necessary Illusions is a 1989 book by Noam Chomsky which I most likely read in 1990 or so, long before I was capable of grasping the message delivered by the book. It is subtitled “Thought Control in Democratic Societies.” I could see at that time that propaganda was a major industry, but thought we had escape chutes to exit, exist and think for ourselves. I had no idea of the degree, in 1990, of control that already existed. I would be fated to indulge in partisan politics, voting, and permitted exit chutes, Ralph Nader and Chomsky himself, for example.

I don’t have the book anymore, but won’t go looking for it. Wikipedia does a short blurb on it, comparing the phrase “necessary illusions,” which I understand to have originated with the Canadian cleric Reinhold Niebuhr, with the works of others: “noble lies” (Plato), “public relations” (Edward Bernays), and “myth making” (Machiavelli). All for our own good. We’re sheep, and need to be herded.

Continue reading “Necessary Illusions” →

The true art of lying

One of the most ink-consuming episodes in recent American history involved a man named Daniel Ellsberg and a 7,000 page document called the “Pentagon Papers.” The entire affair was highly instructive.

ellsbergEllsberg was an insider, and is to this day called out to perform in public when other rebels, like Edward Snowden, need an imprimatur of genuineness. His role as an actor was readily apparent when, faced with a prison sentence, he was remarkably set free due to “bungling” by the Nixon Administration group called the “White House Plumbers, who left a driver’s license … excuse me, left easily discovered evidence of the burglary of the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. This in turn caused the court to set Ellsberg free. This sort of play-acting is sometimes called a “Kabuki Dance,” or an ” … event that is designed to create the appearance of conflict or of an uncertain outcome, when in fact the actors have worked together to determine the outcome beforehand.” (Wikipedia, my favorite source of lies.)

Continue reading “The true art of lying” →

Climate change exists … only between our ears

GoreNote: As with everything I write here, it is only my studied opinion that follows. It is my view that we currently have the technology to get us off oil, but it is withheld from us. If indeed global warming were real, technology would not be withheld. Even oligarchs have to live on this planet with us.

__________________________

I have written a lot about what I call “public hoaxes,” which are quite common. Because television has such a hold on Americans, I am automatically disbelieved by “reasonable” people. But what I tell you is true, and what television tells you is lies.

I understand why people do not believe me. Our opinions are not our own, but rather a result of our suggestibility. People are not “reasoned in” to beliefs, and so cannot be reasoned out. Our egos steps to the fore. When I say that John Lennon’s death was faked or that Zika is a hoax, reason and logic go out the window, and defense mechanisms take over.

I am really saying that you have been fooled, and badly, and as a matter of policy. What we are experiencing around us is called, behind the curtain, “public mythology.” It is serious and studied policy, and is deliberately fostered to keep us dazed and confused and under control.

I write about public myths and hoaxes. You do not like that, and react angrily. It is a personal affront for me to say that you are not on top of things. But you are not. You are being snookered and manipulated, right and left. Sorry to be the bearer of such news.

Just to demonstrate how the process works, let’s take a controversial subject, global warming, or “climate change.” It doesn’t exist. It is completely made up. It has merely been suggested to us, and we have supplied our own evidence.

Where is the homework? Where is the rigorous science behind it? Climategate gave away that game. There was shown to be a uniform pattern of deliberate lies behind climate statistics.

But that does not matter, because we have done our own homework. Once it was suggested to us that we are involved in catastrophic climate change, by authority figures no less, we began to look around for verification. And we found it! We have droughts, forest fires, receding glaciers, ocean temperatures that are (might be) changing, disappearing islands … and all of that causes us to worry, keeps us in a state of tension.

We never get to relax, do we.

None of that matters, as the planet is always in a state of flux. We’ll be fine. Just as the Millerites were wrong about the year 1843 (but are still trying to get it right), so too will current climate science be shelved as the planet and its population go on and on and on without catastrophic end.

Climate change exists between our ears, passed on to us courtesy of our state/oligarchic-controlled media. It is a hoax.

Why? Good question. For that we have to look for proposed solutions.

  • Do they want to curtail use of oil? No.
  • Do they want us to stop buying cheap disposable consumer goods that take immense energy to produce, only to be tossed? No.
  • Do they want us to expect a lower standard of living? Yes.
  • Do they advance bogus and useless technology (solar panels, electric cars and windmills)? Yes.
  • Do they advance crazy and manipulative economic schemes like cap-and-trade? Yes.

Do they really want to solve the so-called problem with real solutions that hold real promise, like Tesla technology, tidal energy and hydrogen? No. The current system is built on oil. We should have transitioned off oil decades ago, but it is not allowed. Too much money is tied up in current technology to allow change.

So relax, everyone. We’re OK, the planet is OK. We could all stand to live a more simple existence, as resources are finite. Those are problems we need to deal with. We have the technology, but it is hidden away from us at this time. If we have a real problem, the technology will be made available by necessity.

But the end is not near. Not hardly.

The long-awaited solution

One of the more interesting criticisms that I have gotten over the years is that I don’t offer “solutions” to our problems. It is an accurate one.

I see people, close and distant, who are beyond reach. For example, they imagine themselves insightful as they invest in Trump or Sanders or Clinton, thinking that an important activity, even good citizenship. They imagine they are active participants in a vibrant democracy. They do not begin to understand the levels of deception built into our lives. But dammit, they vote.

The key to managing the American population is to marginalize the dumb ones via sports and entertainment, stage elections for the slightly less dumb ones, and offer false leaders for the smarter ones. Those who can overcome state-controlled media and brain-deadening education will find that once outside the matrix, others are there to mislead them.

The very brightest among us were drawn for years to Noam Chomsky. He happens to work for an institution, MIT, that only exists on Pentagon largess. He is a fixture, and has been supported by the military for decades. He has for years offered up volumes of seemingly useful information, but ultimately leaves us high and dry. (I just quoted him extensively in a post about Zika two days ago. I cringed, but it was a vital link.) Among his more enlightening revelations are that the Federal Reserve is as useful as our own government in managing our economy, that 9/11 happened just like we are told,  and that JFK was a war hawk intent on invading Southeast Asia. (As it turns out, he is right about that last one, but his object is not to demean JFK, but rather steer his followers away from a path of inquiry that can ultimately lead to intellectual emancipation.)

Even the brightest among us are under state management. Chomsky is there in O’Brien fashion* to take us nowhere.

So the a healthy percentage of us (40%?) are inundated with entertainment and sports, and so dumbed down by the education system that they cannot think their way out of a can of tomato soup. They don’t matter. A level above that (50%?) are those who pay attention to managed news (FOX and NPR being two different packages with the same content), and are vaguely aware of some of the wedge issues and vote in the elections. They don’t matter. A level above (7%?) that read books and newspapers, even watch congressional hearings and attend lectures, maybe even watch CSPAN**. They don’t matter.

And one level above that (3%) are those bright enough to figure out part or all of the game. They usually don’t vote. They are effectively marginalized by a thought control meme called “conspiracy theorist.” The other 97% are sure that the 3% who are actually somewhat on top of things are mentally ill. So they don’t matter either.

It is fucking brilliant.

So, why do I not propose a solution? There do not appear to be any solutions. I am living my life, doing the things I love doing, and having a nice laugh now and then. And traveling.

_____________

*O’Brien is the chacter in 1984, a sinister false leader who greeted Winston Smith as he made his escape.

**Nah. Nobody watches CSPAN. I kid.

The paper caper

EllsbergTo have been young, in my twenties, during the time of Watergate, was fortunate. Of course I did not understand it – very few did then, and possibly fewer now. The obvious object was removal of a president, replacement by a cardboard cutout. But the psychological aspects are far more intriguing than the outcome. For a period of two years we were hit with a barrage of false news, false hearings, liars telling liars about other liars, and the news media positioning itself as an investigative body.

It takes years to understand such mechanizations, and of course it is ever ongoing. That is why I say I was fortunate to be young.

Prior to  that time we had a distraction within a distraction, the strange episode called the “Pentagon Papers.” Has anyone read them? Of course not. Did anyone read them then? Of course not. And to do so then or now would be a waste of time. Their content was not the issue. They were lies meant to cover even bigger lies. Their existence was the issue, however. It was a wild game played by a few low-level operatives designed to distract us** from some of the more seedy goings on in Vietnam, but also to enhance the notion that we have a news media that seeks truth.

There are indeed secrets, but those secrets are kept. They are never released, even by accident. But some broomstick cowboys got to play spies. Some newspapers got to play pretend journalism. The most important man, appointed for the role, was Daniel Ellsberg. He’s a fake, top to bottom, beginning to end. He was hired as an actor to pay the part he played, and does so to this day. (His support of Edward Snowden is, in poker terms, a “tell,” alerting us that Snowden too is fake.)

How do I know this? Again, he enjoys prominence, and has paid no price for his “crime,”

Daniel_Ellsberg_psychiatrist_filing_cabinetObserve the scene, August, 1971, when five CIA operatives broke in to the office of Lewis Fielding, Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Set aside for the moment the strange notion of a man of such high intellect and position needing a shrink. That was probably an invention. The important thing was the break-in. It was sloppy, meant to be discovered, and its discovery got Ellsberg off the hook. As was intended from the beginning. Like a TV sitcom, it was the last-minute wrap-up that resolved all the problems.*

Of course, one question leads to another, one spook to another, and from here we discover that other men were playing the spy game at the same time, running around to motels, using primitive photocopy technology of the day, trying against time to get these very important papers released. Did Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn believe in their cause? Were they duped? Were they, like Ellsberg, low-level operatives?

Good question.

Daniel Ellsberg, false leader.
___________________
*For those unfamiliar with the history of that era, Ellsberg was on trial and facing life imprisonment for his “crime,” and the break-in resulted in his case being tossed out of court and his being set free.

**In January of 1971, Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, removing the legal underpinnings for the Vietnam War. From that day forward, Nixon would claim the war was being fought by legitimate presidential authority alone, negating any balance of power. Since so few people know about the repeal, it might be a safe bet to suggest that the purpose of the paper caper, which commenced in February of 1971,  was to distract from the illegality of the war, which would go in for four more years.

On second thought

In the post below I suggested to readers that they read Chomsky’s 1967 essay The Responsibility if Intellectuals. I realized, of course, that no one would read a 13,000 word essay, as it smacks of a homework assignment. We are not a reading culture. So I will capsulize the essay:

“It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.”

If you know of any American intellectuals who are actually doing this here in our Empire of Lies, please alert your local authorities. The consequences of speaking truth in this land are severe, usually loss of job, sometimes jail, often enough death.