The Triumph of Propaganda

It is difficult anymore to avoid a most uncomfortable truth. Everywhere one looks, propaganda is strongly and stridently present -- and even more disturbing -- apparently accepted as a valid representation of reality.

Propaganda masquerades as television news channels and taints other sources of news regularly and pervasively. It floods the airwaves around us and consumes large amounts of bandwidth on the internet in the form of commercial advertising. It is practiced by governments, churches, corporations, and individuals with agendas of every stripe. It is present in newspapers, magazines, textbooks, ancient religious works and even apparently innocuous handouts at national parks.

From the moment we are born, the neutrally-named activity called "socialization" seeks to strongly imprint a common vision of reality into our brains whether that vision is particularly functional or not. In other words, propaganda has triumphed, and it triumphed long ago.

People in the U.S. have been psychologically conditioned to vote against their own interests while fearfully denouncing "socialism", a form of government about which they truly know very little. They have been taught to despise unions even though functional unions are a necessary counter-balance to overbearing corporations. The government's highest court advocates for the rights of corporations to unduly influence what was supposedly a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people".

Perhaps it is no surprise, in such a dysfunctional and distorted atmosphere, that the people turn to "entertainment" for distraction. Ironically, they can find no relief there -- for the entertainment industry is as corporate as any other corporation and an industry that produces extraordinarily powerful propaganda according to the whims of directors whose own dedication to truthful exposition is highly suspect. Beyond the content of entertainment, it is also produced in large quantities and multifaceted forms whose sole apparent purpose is to endlessly distract the bulk of the population for significant periods of their waking lives.

We look upon a country in which the housing model is collapsing, in which energy for transport and heating is increasingly scarce and expensive, in which the economy was deliberately weakened in the name of a specious concept referred to as globalism, in which the public school system is at once failing to provide its students with critical thinking skills and under sustained assault by radical agendas, in which the infrastructure has been allowed to dangerously deteriorate, and in which a war economy has been maintained for 65 years much to the detriment of other sectors, some of which are mentioned above.

Yet, the most amazing aspect of it all is the lack of vigorous questioning, the lack of vigorous reporting by journalists, or rather, a general lack of vigor, not to mention rigor, by anyone, at all. People are more concerned with Oprah's personal life or with which (corporate-sponsored) team will win the football game than they are with the terribly important challenges facing their nation, and in fact, all nations. Propaganda has conditioned us to function in certain ways, even as it becomes ever more apparent that these modes of function are nonsensical in terms of the environments we face.

At some point, the terrible challenges facing us will no longer have their reality denied. It will be likely shaky, or nonexistent, sources of energy that will deal the death blow to the fantasy world in which we have placed so much stock thanks to the endless propaganda that pervades our existence. For at some point, there will be too much cold, too much hunger, too much violence, and too little shelter and stability for the propaganda not to be overwhelmingly rejected, even if such happens for only a few precious moments before, as Carlos Castenada might have phrased it, we face our own deaths.

At the moment, though, propaganda has triumphed. Even when we recognize it for the mental feces that it is, our victories in this regard are often short-lived and we rarely attempt to maintain serious vigilance against further assaults on our capacity for critical thinking ... because it easier to succumb, because "life" keeps us on the run from situation to situation, and because everywhere we look, there is no shortage of meaningless distraction to keep us from seriously considering what is really going on.

Veritas vos liberabit.

And the denial goes on . . .

It seems since men wrote their first books, there was mention - of others among us. Some of the stories - of demons, of angels, of half-human creatures, or more recently, of UFOs and the entities associated with them - seem obviously made up to illustrate a point or sometimes, simply to tell a wild tale. But other stories are harder to categorize, for example the mention of Ezekiel and the wheel in the Bible.

I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north--an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal - Ezekiel 1:4

This is one of those stories that is plainly odd and out of place in the context of the Bible. Obviously, someone thought this story was so important that it needed to be preserved in a widely-read book, whether it fit with the overall purpose of the book or not.

Reports continued through history. Some sort of extraordinary event occurred in the skies over Nürnberg, Germany, on April 14, 1561 (see image above), as documented in a woodcut made five years later. Witnesses claimed to have seen all manner of odd objects in the sky, and this in an era when the only things that commonly flew through the sky were birds and insects.

Before the "flying saucer" reports of 1947, Allied and Axis technical intelligence specialists were trying to make sense out of reports of "Foo Fighters" that manifested as balls of apparent pure energy or - metallic disks (report of the Robertson Panel) - that accompanied, outmaneuvered, and sometimes even passed through the aircraft of both sides over the skies of Nazi Germany and the Pacific Ocean during the Second World War. Both sides suspected the other had deployed a new secret weapon. Today, any unknown phenomena encountered by military aircrew is likely immediately classified as a potential threat to national security. We have the Foo Fighter reports only because a systematic system of official denial had not yet begun.

A report by the Air Force in 1947 that it had recovered a crashed "flying disk" near Roswell, New Mexico, was quickly retracted. The government's unfortunate handling of whatever occurred at Roswell has spawned conspiracy theories for decades. The government then made a clumsy public show of interest in the phenomenon for a couple of decades before sponsoring a disinformation exercise called Project Blue Book.

The phenomena, however, continued to manifest. Reports poured in every year from practically every corner of the world concerning odd aerial phenomena and even encounters with entities of every description. These reports spawned large groups of believers with varied ideas of what the phenomena was and equally large groups of deniers, whose logic in far too many cases was just as specious as that of believers who claimed to know the "secret" of the phenomena.

Because of the government's official disinterest in the phenomena, the western press, ever the enthusiastic cheerleaders for power centers of any kind, engaged in decades of ridicule and satire aimed at both the idea of the phenomena and those who claimed to have encountered it. The ad-naseum repeated meme of this reporting was that this is really all nonsense and nothing to worry our pretty little heads about. At times, politicians and the press colluded in a kind of grotesque spectacle meant to defuse blatant "flaps", such as a press conference called in Phoenix with city employees dressed in alien get-ups in order to distract public attention from the odd lights repeatedly observed over the city in 1997.

The problem with the press and the debunkers is that neither have anything to say. Once one seriously surveys the literature, it is very plain that *something* very odd is going on, if only because of the sheafs of reports about the phenomena that have been submitted by thousands of earnest people whose careers often require keen powers of observation or accurate reporting of events -- take your pick from pilots, Royal Air Force air marshals, physicists, law enforcement personnel and so forth. All the denial in the world won't bury this, although it may make insecure individuals feel better about themselves.

Of late, more sinister directions have been taken with the phenomena. Apparently, there are people who are, or are posing as, intelligence personnel on UFO discussion boards. It is known that the U.S. armed forces considered the phenomena a sort of object lesson in the creation of entire belief systems that could be used to destabilize other nations or to demoralize their populations. In these days of widespread conflict, I would hope our intelligence operatives have more useful activities to pursue than playing mind-games with UFO enthusiasts.

The cynical manipulation of public interest in the phenomenon is perhaps the most infuriating aspect of it all. Instead of publicly funded and supervised projects to try to get real answers, the public has been lied to and manipulated to serve dubious purposes. Thousands of witnesses have felt shamed by the treatment they received for daring to report an encounter with the unknown, and likely thousands of others have declined to make a report because of the media's mania for discrediting anyone who reports odd or unusual events. What the phenomena ultimately is may never be satisfactorily answered; but, once again, the public has been propagandized by an establishment that apparently knows no other way of addressing reports or events that challenge the common view of how things are.

Goebbels-a-Million

When the World Wide Web emerged in the 1990's, it had the impressive promise of becoming a tool that mankind had never really known before -- a truly mass international and instantaneous communications forum. A kind of realized 1950's-style prediction of the technological future, potentially billions of people could use the web to engage in earnest discussion and vastly improve inter-cultural communication and understanding.

Sadly, this is not the direction the web has gone, and at the rate at which communication on the web has socially developed, there is no "going back" and starting over.

The web is not the first technology that has allowed people all over the world to communicate with each other over an open channel that many others can monitor. Ham radio, for example, has been around for decades. But technologies like ham radio were specialized, and in general, ham radio was not a mass phenomenon as there were only a few ham operators per good-sized town. Being a form of radio communications, ham operators were familiar with radio procedure and tended to be geeks in the sense that they understood a lot about radios and wave propagation.

Pre-web computer bulletin boards were looser than ham radio, but also tended to be those who were technologically literate. Again, while the boards were more common than ham radio, they were still not something the masses took part in.

The web, though, is a mass phenomenon. By the time the web arrived, personal computers had graphics-based operating systems that made their operation considerably simpler than their command-line operated predecessors. And so, the masses jumped on the bandwagon and began interacting. Interest groups formed on the premise that information could be exchanged and those who genuinely knew a lot about a topic could pass it onto those who desired to learn.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. While there are certainly many people presenting themselves legitimately on the web, casual use of the web will indicate many "hot zones" where information is -not- exchanged, but which are battlegrounds of ideological confrontation. Because, you see, the web allows us to hide behind a persona if we wish to do so. And it seems that many do, ceaselessly striving to one-up that other voice they find so irritating, or to discredit ideas they find dangerous or which make them feel insecure.

In point of fact, the web has become a vehicle for all sorts of propaganda -- political, religious, commercial -- if a particular theme deserves the propaganda moniker, then the web is carrying it, and very often with no substantive dissenting opinion. Equally as dangerous, the propagandistic bombast and its accompanying attacks have become a form of spectacle for many web users. The masses see the attacks on well-meaning (and other) users, and sit back to watch the fireworks. They casually observe behavior that wouldn't be tolerated for even an instant in face-to-face communication. Even in cases where the attacks are completely outrageous, it is quite rare to actually see the masses join in and call the attacker to account. For it is simply more fun to watch others be slandered, and to see them slip on the slimy filth of the attacker's propaganda. It is the web as mud-wrestling match rather than the web as a medium for information exchange. It is the web as distraction.

A particularly infuriating aspect of any propaganda is that it presents a simple idea that can be communicated in minutes, but which may take hours, days, or even weeks of research to substantially refute. Thus, most of the web propaganda is allowed to be presented to an audience of hundreds of millions without even the barest of dissenting thoughts. This situation would have been a dream come true for a Goebbels or a Molotov. And radical elements are well aware of this situation. One unfortunate consequence of mass networked computing is that nutcases the world over can now commune with each other very easily. It is no longer the single screwball in a town who everybody else thinks is a misguided fool, no, now the screwball knows there are plenty of others who think just like him. For them, the web is an ideal medium for the propagation of party platforms and recruitment of new members. Not pleasant to think about, but in the wake of attacks like that in Oklahoma City, it is something to bear in mind.

And, of course, the entire concept of the web has to an extent been propagandized. It is always sold as a fun, "get to know others like you!" technology. Rarely is it presented as a means of learning, although schools now stress its use as a research tool. Why would we want to meet others like ourselves? Don't we already know who we think we are? Or is that the point -- most of us would rather view the web the way we gaze into a mirror, seeing comfortably familiar images, and reading words that echo our own thoughts. But, then, there is the propaganda that one can easily find on the web. As the critical thinking skills of western civilization atrophy, we can always hop on the web and let our thinking be done by the deeply dishonest and hypocritical political and religious operatives whose poison pens suffocate enlightened discussion.

Spasibo Rossija!

The coming of the summer solstice always reminds me of a seminal date in history that is now 65 years past.

On the 22nd of June, 1941, under the direction of Adolf Hitler, the armies of Nazi Germany invaded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Some 120 divisions strong, the Germans made deep inroads as they commenced the most titanic struggle of history.

Slightly less than four years later, Berlin lay in ruins and was under the absolute control of the Red Army. Hitler's lunatic dreams had been violently collapsed at an appalling cost. Soviet military deaths alone during the period 1941-1945 have been reckoned as over eleven million. Hundreds of German and German allied divisions had been ripped apart by the Red Army, thousands of Luftwaffe aircraft shot down on the eastern front. Immense areas of land were lost, and reconquered, by ultimately victorious Soviet rifle divisions and tank corps. Regions that had been historically German for hundreds of years had been torn away, forcibly evacuated, and taken as the spoils for the communist victors. It was no small affair.

And yet, the history of the war as presented in the west, particularly in public schools, could lead one to the conclusion that the eastern front is barely worth of mention, much less study. Americans often believe the U.S. practically won the war alone, a conclusion reinforced by the dramatic use of atomic weapons to force the end of the War in the Pacific. But the truth about the war in Europe is this: The credit for the defeat of the Nazi regime by and large goes to the U.S.S.R.

While the U.S.S.R. grappled to the death with the Nazis for four full years, the western allies had significant forces on the continent of Europe for only one of those years. Even then, the Western allies confronted only some 35 per cent of the German ground forces. While western allied operations were generally successful and even marked by occasional brilliance, it is a bald-faced lie to claim that the western Allies or the United States won the struggle against Germany. At best, the western Allies can claim to have been significant contributors to the defeat of Germany.

The Soviet victory banished German dreams of militarily dominating the continent and established Moscow as the preeminent European power for 45 years. A thoroughly chastised Germany finally realized that cooperation with neighbors was, indeed, the wiser path. And the U.S., happy to hail their Red Army allies while Germany was still a dangerous foe, quickly played down the extent of the Soviet triumph after the war was over.

If you have a moment to spare on 22 June, perhaps you may wish to heft a glass of your finest in the direction of the east, and to recall the unsung soldiers of the Red Army whose herculean efforts brought a close to one the most violent chapters of history.

Spasibo, Rossija.

Leadership

Pictured is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, presidents of the United States: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

President Roosevelt's record is hard to match: He led the USA out of the Great Depression and was a principal architect of the allied victory in the Second World War. Those two achievements alone tower far above anything American citizens have seen since 1945.

But FDR, in the eyes of the rich elite, committed a cardinal sin: he made the rich of the land share their wealth with those who were less privileged. For this sin, FDR's acts had to be undone, his legacy largely forgotten.

Since the 1980's, Americans have been bombarded with a particularly obnoxious and volatile form of propaganda that is an admixture of ultra-conservative politics and religious fundamentalism. The first well-known cheerleader for this witch's brew of irrationalism was none other than the failed Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan. He led the charge against FDR's legacy and has been followed by other, less talented men of like political persuasion, whose chief goal has been the re-establishment of a tremendous economic gulf between the rich and the poor in the USA. Sadly, these lesser men, with the connivance of a bought-out mass media, succeeded in selling the USA on the idea that the rule of market forces was a boon for all. Daily, the bitter fruit of this short-sighted harvest becomes ever more apparent.

It has only been some 61 years since Victory in Europe Day. President Roosevelt was already dead on that date, but his leadership had brought the United States through the greatest challenge that ever confronted it. Faced in 1941 by two apparently undefeatable empires, President Roosevelt's confident leadership mobilized the resources of the land and tapped a will to victory in the American people of a magnitude never seen since. In the time of his presidency, the country went from a severe economic state to being the powerhouse of the world. If anyone today wants to see what real leadership is all about, as compared to the contemptible posturing that passes for leadership today, they are commended to study FDR's record.

Those running the USA today would do very well to take FDR's advice to heart:

. . . the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

And they would do very well to rectify the grave social injustices that plague America. President Roosevelt, himself wealthy, had no qualms about sharing wealth with a people in dire need of assistance. This outlook alone sets him apart, or rather, places him on a pedestal far above those who have since labored in his far-reaching shadow. For this, other wealthy men continue to hate him and strive to undo every aspect of his awesome legacy.

We miss you, President Roosevelt. Our fatigued and wary nation casts its troubled eyes about, wondering what has become of men of your caliber.

Throwing out Baby with the Bathwater, Part 2

There has to be an external structure driving this attitude, or perhaps more tellingly, society's approval of it. To identify this structure, the old advice of "follow the money" could be aptly translated into "who benefits by this?" The turned-out children certainly don't -- yes, some of them may learn hard lessons, avoid catastrophic incidents, and somehow pull themselves up by their bootstraps (which has never happened quite as much as some would have you believe -- we ALL need other people most of the time). Even if the parents do get a small thrill out of having more pocket money available by turning out a child, it is hard to imagine that in the psychological long run, a parent is really going to feel good about the situation, particularly if the child doesn't turn out better or comes to a bad end.

Employers. Now here's a class who can really benefit from this practice. Herds of kids with few skills turned out every year and very ripe for economic exploitation. Interestingly, republicans and other American conservatives are the ones who most often trumpet the need for tossing the children out of the house. The republicans . . . the political best friend of American big business, also known as practically unrestrained capitalism.

Honestly, it is hard to imagine other parties who benefit from the practice of expelling children from the house at a given age. Having come to this conclusion, one must of necessity begin to wake up and smell the propaganda -- a propaganda that has been successfully foisted onto American society for decades -- a propaganda that tells parents it is okay to ignore their deepest instincts and to turn their backs on their own flesh and blood. All in the name of a specious "self-sufficiency" (how many people are really self-sufficient, for crying out loud, we all draw various services and products from other people), a "self-sufficiency" that in fact makes the child dependent on employers and other strangers.

But then, if the powers that be want control, the inherent strengths of that society must first be defeated. The most basic strength a society has is the family structure. It is our true tribe, and in a functional family, the members know that they can always rely on one another. Break that tribe up, and its members are at the mercy of practically everything. And there is nothing good about that.

Yes, this practice stinks. Through vile propaganda, families have been duped into a form of self-destruction and the provision of their own children, in distinctly unfavorable circumstances, to employers who think nothing of exploiting the children to the hilt. As anyone who has looked for work knows, the best way to find decent work is through the influence of colleagues -- but this practice almost completely rules out such influence. This practice throws the kids to the wolves, and we are told this is good. As most kids are given notice by their parents around the age of 12 or 13 that they will have to earn their own income after age 18, one also wonders if that does not tremendously corrupt the children's sense of security and feelings of trust in their parents -- with a nice five to six-year period for the kid to think it over, and likely not to have anyone with whom they can share their angst about the coming change.

This practice might be good for a capitalist economy, but it is poison for families and ultimately, society itself. Don't be misled by the propaganda. Know this practice for what it is, and arm yourself with the knowledge. Your children may benefit from it.

Throwing out Baby with the Bathwater, Part 1

In the USA, there is a widespread belief that a child should be turned out of the house at the legally (and arbitrarily) defined age of majority, i.e., 18. This author has heard the sentiment often expressed, and while it seems to cut across economic lines, the sentiment is most often expressed regarding sons. One supposes that daughters are expected to get married and thus relieve the parents of an economic burden in a different fashion.

Is this a harsh assessment of these sentiments? Well, considering the following comments pulled from the internet, there appears to be a definite financial aspect to the mentality:

Then, from the onset, make sure that each child understands that when he turns 18, he is responsible for his own life, including earning his own tuition for college through loans or scholarships, and all other living expenses. There can be no free ride for children once they reach their majority.

Yes, as if "18" is some magic age whereby every child instantly realizes their role in life, and knows how they are going to financially hack the incredible expenses involved with attending college.

If the child fails to get a job, don't let them back into the house. A few nights spent sleeping on a cold park bench is likely to provide a lot of motivation. ( And in the long run, is likely to be better for the child than continued coddling.)

Wow! Let's put them on the park benches, that'll teach those lazy young-un's! Hopefully, they won't get raped, robbed, or murdered while learning what street life is like. Depending on the police attitude of a locality, they may even be jailed for vagrancy. Certainly, there are many fine things for a young person to learn in jail, especially from the more experienced inmates.

Along these lines, why not make a MySpace account dedicated to your slacker kid and post his sad life for all to see?

Ah, humiliation. Well, a big red A is certainly better than pointing to a park bench.

Sheesh, looking at these comments, one would be hard put to believe that people are talking about their children. But then, this is the USA we're looking at in these instances. Not that Americans are particularly bad parents, but I have to believe that American society has been propagandized on this point. Let's consider a couple of facts:

Fact: No wealthy family would EVER adopt any of the proposals quoted above. Okay, the wealthy have money, so financial pressure isn't a real issue. But there is more than meets the eye here -- as many middle-class families could also support their children longer, but have been socially trained that it is inappropriate to do so. And yet, it IS appropriate for the wealthy to shelter their children as long as necessary?

Fact: Other modern societies do not advocate turning children out of the house at some magic age, to the contrary, children tend to stay much longer in their family's houses in these countries -- causing no apparent damage to their societies. In some of these countries, multiple generations live together quite happily in the same house -- might one dare suggest these are healthy, functional families?

Well, it is apparent that parental money and who gets it is a driver in this attitude, leading one to conclude that there is some personal greed involved. Greed is certainly nothing new, but what is interesting in the "boot them out" attitude is that this attitude, while destructive to society's most basic unit (the family), is generally approved by society when it is applied to middle- and lower-class children. Call me skeptical, but historically, societies that have engaged in self-destructive behavior haven't been long for this world. Conversely, those societies that have treasured the family above all else tend to be around for a long time, even if they aren't the king of the hill all of the time.

(Continues in Part 2)

A Fascist Masterpiece

(Pictured: Polish 18th Uhlan Regiment)

Of all the nations that fought in the Second World War, Poland has perhaps had the most lies told and pervasive myths spread about it. The bare facts of Poland's participation in the war are grim: Over six million dead (more or less evenly split between Jews and Christians) and the highest per capita civilian losses of the war. The various Polish armies of the war hold the distinction of being the sole allied force to have fought on every major front in Europe.

How is it, then, that in popular western memory, the Poles are remembered as romantic (or worse) fools whose most memorable action of the war were the cavalry charges against German tanks in 1939?

In fact, horse cavalry troops were used by every army (yes, even the Germans had horse cavalry divisions) on the eastern front during the Second World War. Indeed, the Soviets did not disband their horse cavalry units until the 1950s! There is no mystery, incompetence, or misplaced romanticism here. The use of mounted troops was driven by the vastness of the land on the eastern front, and the relative lack of good roads in the region. Put another way, horse mounted troops were exceedingly useful to all combatants in eastern Europe. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that the Polish army of 1939 counted several brigades of horse cavalry.

The legend of the Polish cavalry charges against the German tanks is just that: a legend. It is a legend that had its birth in the foul practice of wartime propaganda, and as such, it has represented an enduring triumph of fascist propaganda since so many people continue to believe what is essentially a lie.

A good description of the battle that led to the propaganda can be found here, but the essence of the action follows.

On the first day of the war, German infantry of the 20th Motorised Division paused near the village of Krojanty to rest in a nearby wood. The Germans made the mistake of letting their guard down, and were surprised and routed by a mounted cavalry charge of the Polish 18th Uhlan Regiment. Here is an essential clue that what we have heard all along is wrong somehow -- the Poles are initially victors, not hapless fools better suited to an earlier era. But, as the Polish cavalry completed their charge against the German infantry (cavalry charges can't be stopped at a moment's notice), German armored vehicles entered the battlefield. Before the Poles could get their horses out of the area, the German armored vehicles fired on them using machine-guns, causing predictably high casualties given the high profile of the mounted troops. There was no cavalry charge against tanks. The resulting Polish casualties laid the foundation for the propaganda blitz that followed.

German and Italian journalists were brought to the scene of the battle and shown the German armored vehicles and the fallen Polish cavalrymen and their horses. Reports to the press soon followed that described a mythical battle in which the Polish cavalry heroically but stupidly charged German tanks with lances and sabers. According to the site mentioned above, the Soviets continued to fan the flames of this particular bit of propaganda after the war, as they wished to make the prewar (republican) Polish army look ridiculous in the eyes of a people who still mourned for their dead and honored in particular those who had fallen in 1939.

Ironically, in 1945, the 1st Army of the Polish People's Armed Forces counted among its major units the 1st Cavalry Brigade. Among its more famous actions was a horse-mounted charge near Berlin that stormed and overran a German antitank gun position near Schönefeld, proving that the era of horse-mounted troops was not yet quite over. Another irony is that though the fascists made much (falsified) hay of the Krojanty battle, there is no shortage of modern Nazi sympathizers who adore the horse-mounted troops of the 8. SS-Kavallerie-Division.

Yes, even the notorious SS had horse cavalry troops. My, how the myths of World War II collapse when given even only a cursory examination . . .