Effective Resistance is Impossible
Until we recognize that we have been duped by propaganda
Maybe you’ve heard this joke before:
A Russian and an American get on a plane in Moscow and get to talking. The Russian says he works for the Kremlin and he's on his way to go learn American propaganda techniques. "What American propaganda techniques?" asks the American. "Exactly," the Russian replies.
If you are an American, and you think this joke doesn’t apply to you, because you believe that you recognize propaganda when you see it, you are being duped. And, you are far from alone, so no need to feel stupid.
What is stupid is not even trying to learn about the many ways that propaganda invades our daily lives, but instead insisting that your education and your worldliness somehow make you superior to those ignorant saps who fall for all the lies.
From John Taylor Gatto, Confederacy of Dunces, The Tyranny of Compulsory Schooling, December, 1992 (ellipsis my own):
Let me speak to you about dumbness because that is what our schools teach best. Old-fashioned dumbness used to be simple ignorance: you didn’t know something, but there were ways to find out if you wanted to. . . Now dumb people aren’t just ignorant, they are the victims of the non-thought of secondhand ideas. Dumb people are now well-informed about the opinions of Time magazine and CBS, The New York Times, and the President; their job is to chose which pre-thought thoughts, which received opinions, they like best. The elite in this new empire of ignorance are those who know the most pre-thought thoughts.
The new dumbness is particularly deadly to middle- and upper-middle-class people, who have already been made shallow by the multiple requirements to conform. Too many people, uneasily convinced that they must know something because of a degree, diploma, or license, remain so convinced until a brutal divorce, alienation from their children, loss of employment, or periodic fits of meaningless manage to tip the precarious mental balance of their incomplete humanity, their stillborn adult lives.
The new dumbness — the non-thought of received ideas — is much more dangerous than simple ignorance, because it’s really about thought control.
I’ve been there. I’ve been duped. Those who can’t admit that they, too, have been duped, may as well stop reading now. This article is not about changing minds, but about spreading awareness of the many ways that propaganda invades our daily lives, so that we can find effective ways to form a resistance against the ruling elite who employ top PR firms and think tanks to skew our thinking.
Caitlin Johnstone captures the complete control that American-style propaganda has over us in this article (shown in video form below):
Can you set aside pre-conceived notions of what America stands for, and entertain the thought that America behaves like an empire, and always has?
This interview with Cornel West was conducted by Eduardo Mendieta at Cornel West’s Office at Princeton University on April 6, 2004: [brackets inserted by me]
Q: Is the United States a republic or an empire?
A: It’s both. We’re in the moment where the American empire is devouring American democracy and we have to fight it. But it’s both. The United States has 650 [750 in 2023] military facilities in 132 countries, a ship in every major ocean, a presence on every major continent other than Antarctica, and 1,450,000 soldiers around the globe. It is the uncontested military power and the cultural mover in terms of shaping people’s utopian desires and ideals and so on. Starbucks and Wal-Mart and McDonalds, you go right across the board because the dollar is the currency other nations invest their financial resources in for security. It is an uncontested empire and yet, at the same time, domestically, there are democratic procedures and processes that are not dead. They’ve been deeply assaulted, but they’re not dead. And so we’ve got this simultaneity: Democratic practices constituting still a kind of republic representative government and at the same time this empire.Q: Do you think that the present Bush administration [Trump administration] is an example of very bad political luck, or is it indicative of something much more endemic to America?
A: Oh, no, it’s endemic because America has always had this deep battle between imperialist strands and democratic strands. America was born as an empire on indigenous people’s lands and on indigenous people’s backs, with the use of African labor constituting a slave, not just class, but a slave foundation—an economic foundation of the nation. The same would be true for Mexican laborers with the moving border. There is the American manifest destiny, which is nothing but imperialist ideology to justify expansionism for resources and for land and so forth. The same would be true for Asian workers being brought in and ordered to perform certain kinds of cheap labor and then sent out. So you have this long history of American imperial expansion and alongside that you have what I call a deep democratic tradition.
Maybe you’ve never thought about the United States this way. Maybe you’ve never read Howard Zinn’s A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. Are you willing to hear views that are alternative to the status quo, and then make up your own mind?
My perspectives have evolved and continue to evolve, as I open my mind to viewpoints that may make me uncomfortable, but that at the same time make so much sense that I can no longer hold onto opinions that I once held dear.
I’ve found Project Censored to be very helpful in learning to recognize propaganda.
Stop allowing yourself to be dumbed down by those who keep you enslaved in a system that depends on your compliance.
Mass dumbness is vital to modern society. The dumb person is wonderfully flexible clay for psychological shaping by market research, government policy makers, public-opinion leader, and any other interest group. The more pre-thought thoughts a person has memorized, the easier it is to predict what choices he or she will make. (link)
Swallow your pride, admit that you (like the rest of us) have been duped, stop blaming your neighbors for how they voted or didn’t vote, and realize that freedom is only possible when you learn how to think for yourself.
So duped, so coned! Aunty is correct it all depends on how we are trained to attend to the world as consumers in fact factories. We consume "facts"-assumptions but never learn how to unpackage them.
Matt Stroller: "Solicitor General and MSNC icon Neal Katyal makes millions of dollars representing corporate clients. He shocked his liberal fans last week when his law firm signed a deal with Trump to offer $100 million in pro bono services that Trump likes, though really it’s just kissing the ring. Similarly, a few months ago, Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, joined giant corporate law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, to help them with crisis management. This week, the firm bent the knee to Trump so that its private equity clients don’t scurry away."
Making money-maintaining and gaining status trumps everything for corporate Democrats.
Americans know that Democratic policies ensured poverty, the growth of grotesque inequality, the furthering of the concentration of wealth. The likes of Bill Clinton and Obama became rich off the presidency. They are sitting on their wealth not rallying resistance against oligarchy or plutarchy. Their stories and actions are the opposite of Bernie Sanders as are their core values. Corporate Democrats operate a con that Americans see through. Trump's con is more blatant and less hypocritical, more "refreshing" as he does not pretend to care about equity, inclusiveness or fair sharing. In fact, Trump rails against it because Americans associate equity and inclusiveness with the lies the corporate Democrats told about seeking equity and inclusiveness. The likes of Obama ensured the grievances and the resentments that fueled the rise of Trump.
As a Canadian I've been saying for years, Americans are the most brainwashed, indoctrinated Societiey on Earth on a par with Israelis!