Tripple post to kill the thread: GO

To Erik:


No, 80% of the people do realize it. Look at the polls that come out all the time (just a few recent off hand examples)

>90% of American’s believe that the media only tells them the truth their corporate sponsors want them to know or de-emphasis and omits facts that said sponsors don’t want them to know.
74% of American’s believe that the media and their government is outright lying to them on a regular basis.
<12% of American’s say they trust their government
<2% of American’s say they trust corporations

Although several polls have said approximately 45% of American’s believe Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and/or Al-Queda, that at least goes to show more than half know better – which is pretty good, given what the media and government throw at us. Several polls also say more than 70% of American’s believe we are occupying the country for reasons that have nothing to do with the war on terror, and are indeed there for oil and/or domination of the region – and in many polls that includes the majority of troops we have stationed there.

A good portion of American’s believe in one 9/11 conspiracy or another, and even the majority of those that don’t, believe our government took advantage of the situation to cease more power in a criminal fashion.

As for that 1-30% minority who claim they trust the government or corporate/military/media complex implicitly, who claim they believe that the “war on terror” is a noble and just cause, that the effort at world peace that our government depicts it to be: I’m more than willing to bet such claims spawn from the desire to be part of the machine rather than the thing it rolls over, and that they know at their core, it’s more about denial, or wanting to believe, than anything else. This is probably, especially true amongst the most vocal of them. (I realize this argument is impossible to support, but I’m just speaking from experience with people I’ve known.)

We all knew, on one level or another, the first time we heard the words, “This is a war on terror.” none of our children were going to know peace in their lifetime. Not that any of us really saw our country at peace in our lifetime either, but it was easier for us to pretend.

…and pretending, in the end, is what it’s really about. It’s not that people don’t know this stuff – it’s that they choose to look the other way. The information is out there, and even in the main stream corporate media, it’s blaring between the lines. There are few, if any people who do not know what’s going on at some level, just those who ignore it either by conscious choice or by unconscious complicity through willful exercise of denial, or who actually revel in it.

If it doesn’t affect their daily lives, they won’t do anything about it. So long as they are left alone, in their little boxes – it doesn’t matter how much they know – they can ignore it all. The only ones who can’t ignore it, are being trampled upon by it.



No… It HAS ALWAYS been like this. It’s been this way since the beginning of civilization – since man first plowed the land. It’s been this way on a global scale since the Roman Empire, since Alexander before that, and since Persia before that, on a local scale in every recorded civilization in history before that, as well as, more importantly, in every civilization since. The few have always had power over the many, and that power increases over time, and fear, and war, and nationalism expand and consolidate that power exponentially which inevitably leads to indentured servitude of the masses through a feeling of powerlessness and of the need to belong. That is the core of civilization.

What you had in the American Revolution, isn’t even a real revolution in the terms you are describing. That was a couple of aristocrats over here, breaking free of a bunch of aristocrats over there. There was no incident of the repressed many, rising up, shaking free of their chains, donning a new consciousness, and tearing down their oppressors, just another shuffling of the PtB that worked itself out within the century.

…and insomuch as it was a revolution, even just in terms of restoring a monetary standard, as this film so oft harps upon – how long did that last? Within 30 years the banks were consolidating, within 50 most all the money was controlled by a handful of powerful national banks, and within 100, you have the foundations of the modern Fed that makes the old central bank of England look like a monument of justice. Not too long after that, the world bank comes to the stage, and we won’t even go into the genocidal machine of oppression that thing is.

For a real revolution, you can turn to France, where they started killing their aristocrats and royalty en-mass. Even there, they were back to a variance of their old power structure in less than half the time.

Communist revolutions all went similarly, for all their talk of everyone sharing wealth equally, inevitably it all concentrated in the hands of a few – pretty much overnight – if any shuffling happened at all. The few remaining are held up by force of personality more than anything else. And this was the force the PtB’s feared more than anything?

Revolutions happen – they don’t last. Mankind inevitably sinks back into the comfort of letting a select few rule their lives, fooling themselves into believing these people are better suited for the job than they, save in those few lucid moments of reality when they realize, yes, the PtB’s are humans as lost and as incompetent as they. For most, that’s too horrible a thought to think on for long.

It’s not a modern problem – it’s not a problem of government, or society – it is simply a problem of human nature.

The only scary thing about the inevitable (really, already in place) one world order, that the conspiracy nuts go on about, is that it could conceivably put an end to the heartbeat of history that is revolution. There are no more frontiers to drive out upon and declare independence, to strike out upon and try new ideas free from the establishment that is. There’s no place for man to try to start anew. And so long as such a civilization never has an eye towards the stars, and only to its own internal struggles, history will end, and humanity will end, in a stalemate of equilibrium with no external influences to sponsor any true revolution. The experiment of man will end, and all life on Earth will have to turn to some other savior or perish to the next cosmic golf ball that goes wandering by.

If things were ideal, such a civilization would turn in on itself, and seek production through public works, or through some effort of expanding the horizons of mankind beyond the blue marble – but mankind always turns towards what’s expedient. War is expedient; fear is expedient. Nothing is more efficient, more productive, more self-perpetuating. So through enemies, real or imagined, most likely, would such a world maintain its deadlock and its eternal slumber. Sadly, in the end, it wouldn’t be all that much different from what humanity has been doing for the past ten thousand years.

So what are you going to do about it?

Seriously, I’d like to know. I’m all ears for ideas.

You can save yourself to your own spiritual satisfaction. You can make yourself wholly awake and aware – you can watch democracynow and gather underground media; you can track the wheels of power; you can try to see very facet in every event, try to see who’s doing what and why, who’s trying to gobble up who (I really recommend it, it’s an entertaining pastime). You can maintain your integrity at all cost to your sanity and wallow in the cold hard truth humanity tries so hard to ignore. You can pass that philosophy on to your children, and they may even not hate you for it, and perhaps they may find some happy equilibrium that slipped through your own fingers… But can you really save anyone but yourself? Can you really change anything? Anything at all?
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"History is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace, and revolution continue on forever." - Mariemaya Kushrenada – such an innocent
Thothie

To: Spaz


I was on about the general principle, mind you – not the various conspiracy details. I too have a distaste for these things that make people more or less than human. The only real conspiracy is the gravity of human nature, in this case.


Oh, such as? One that doesn’t have a material goal of power at it’s end? Do tell. Just because you’re battling for the hearts and minds of the people, doesn’t put you out of the scope of the material world, or out of the scope, in the end, of money. Besides, in the end money is the right to live, and to chose who lives and who dies Without life, nothing else much matters in this world.


Oh I’d never suggest that the PtB’s all get along, but the rules of engagement become more and more uniform as the world is becoming smaller and smaller. They do control just about everything of consequence – everything that can be owned, or killed – and it won’t be long before there are even fewer families, with even more stuff under their control – it’s inevitable progression that nothing can stop. It’s true, there’s far too much stuff to micromanage. Which is why, none of this has any impact of most of our daily lives, and is so easy to ignore. On the other hand, it has also gotten to the point where entire civilizations can be wiped out, and hundreds of millions killed, on the basis that one or two families felt threatened, but the only thing really new about that is the numbers.
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"Motivation is provided by greed, but terror drives men into action. Are these not the forces behind the progress of human history?" - Gasaraki
Thothie

To Defendah:



Yeah, I guess you skipped the happy yogurt stories in the old testament. Granted, there’s a lot of parable masking a lot of those stories – but that one is in there, just, not Jesus, and, not in so many words.

I’d say ya missed the point – but I think the movie kinda missed the point on that mark too.

For one, if yer going to make an ultra-leftist anti-capitalism movie, starting out attacking the most ultra-leftist radical Jew of all time (Jesus), is probably not the way to go. I mean, that man’s teachings run against the right-wing line more than any on Earth, and more than anything, his teachings are what make the religious right (which is what they are really attacking) so bloody wrong. Certainly, that particular Lord and Savior would not approve of much of anything we’ve been doing in the middle east as of late.

The other thing wrong with it – is the attack is weak … And indeed, the respect I have for the Christian religion comes FROM the fact that it shares and perpetuates the stories of all the previous religion in new guise, just as all those religions did before it. That’s the mark of a true and legitimate religion – one that carries that ancient collective Jungian consciousness from one age to the next. That story that changes guise, but never dies, and forms the thousand masks of God (or what have you). It’s true, there’s nothing original in Christianity – it’s also true there’s nothing original under the sun – but the tales of Christianity preserve some of the finest parables that ever saw its light. (Even if people inevitably pervert them to their own ends – but this too – is nothing new.)

Really, the only people who should find the fact that Christianity has so many pagan influences to its detriment, are hate filled fundamentalist Christians who want to burn witches to begin with – so that angle is completely self defeating as such individuals aren’t going to get past the first five minutes of the film anyways. Proving a lack of pagan influence – proving it a religion built on air with no foundation - would be another thing entirely – but of course, you couldn’t.

As for the anti-capitalist theme… I don’t think it would happen, as there’s no practical way to act of the philosophies of these films, but I do occasionally worry that maybe something spectacular will happen to cause the fall of capitalist philosophy, and I worry, a bit, that as a result we could have blind anti-capitalism in the way that we have blind anti-communism now. Anything in an extreme is bad, be it avoidance or embracing there of. We American’s, especially, tend to forget this, almost as a matter of principle.
------------------------

And last but not least, to t3h Skele:


Anti-trust? What’s that? Sounds like communism to me!
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"When compared with all the non-Christian (false) deities, Jesus is the most ripped, except for perhaps Thor, but he's all about muscle mass while Jesus is about being toned." - Colbert - Wikiality
Thothie

PS. 5am + 30 miles from nearest known Steam-capable computer + Insomnia = Bad news for Jigglyforums

Thoth, you are what I would call an enlightened person.

Society as a whole, is growing more such people as time goes on. We ARE progressing, albeit against basic human nature to dominate and control - but we ARE doing it.

Your entire post, your ability to realize and categorize these things in a coherent and organized manner inside your mind is indicative of how we as a species are moving forward.

In effect, your entire post is contradictory to itself - simply because it is above the things you're claiming everyone in the world is dragged down by.


Society is slowly but surely churning toward enlightenment.


We are no longer worshiping kings and queens as Gods. Our society is less focused on the few ruling the many, and here in America we can affect the flow of things. Perhaps not drastically - we don't have a gun to the government's head - but we do have a voice, and people hear us, whether they understand and remember or not.

We have entire organizations dedicated to fixing things - helping the poor, mentally disabled, feeding the starving, disaster relief - ALL of these things are a result of the terrible lessons we've learned as a species. All of these things are because enlightened people helped enlighten others, and all of these things were done in spite of our nature to seek power and control.


We have advanced leaps and bounds technologically, which in turn has forced us to learn and adapt and become even more intelligent than we were: Do your grandparents know what the internet is? Do they understand the difference between streaming media and a DVD? Have they gotten a hold of a cell phone long enough to know how to program custom rings into it? Do they know what a forum is? Or maybe the difference between instant messaging and email?

My point is this: Society has demands that are much greater than what they were 100 years ago. There are subtleties that you and I take for granted because we have learned and adapted to them already. You must master all of these things to socially survive in present-day Earth.

We literally have training facilities dedicated to preparing you to be minimally functional in society. The first 18 years of your life are spent in learning institutions, burning the skills and tools you will need to survive into your brain.


As a whole - we're smarter, we're more compassionate, and we've moved beyond scratching out a living on the face of this planet. For better or for worse, we are human beings.


Things definitely suck Thoth. I'm not arguing that. What I am arguing is that there is hope, and it is evident by our progress through the ages. We are moving forward, the question is, is it fast enough to avoid our own extinction?








Whew that was a lot of effort. I'm gonna go masturbate now.


--Locane

I'm just gonna quote your main points cause 1) on a tight schedule, and 2) I don't really disagree with what you are saying

I think there is a big difference between acknowledging that the media/government are manipulated by corporations/money and that the truth is no obstacle to that, and realizing the effect that has on the future. I'm an engineer, so when faced with a certain aspect of something, I ask "Does it matter? Does this affect my goal in any significant way?" Here I would ask, does it matter if somewhere inside most people think 'yeah the media is a corporate whore, yeah the gov't lies to us, etc', or would even answer it in a poll, when it doesn't change what they do?

I don't care that X% of people have good hindsight and are intelligent enough to realize something after 4-6 years of mulling it over and seeing the results and repercussions and waiting for the lies to unfold. Guess what, ITS TOO LATE! Where was their critical thinking when the gov't wouldn't reveal this information about 9/11, or that file, or when news reporters say entirely different things when they aren't doing live in-the-moment commentary, or at any other critical juncture in the past forever? People dont 'trust' their government NOW, because they have clear immediate examples. but they still trust their government to control their lives!

What I'm saying is that no matter what people might say or think about their opinions or mistrusts of the media/govt, if they still turn to those sources for everything, for news, for protection, if they still allow those people to control potentially every aspect of their lives . . . it sounds to me like they still trust them

Thats all I'm saying.

I'm talking on a different time scale. Yes, these elements have always been present in some form or another, and this HAS been happening since the beginning of time, but it hasn't ALWAYS been that way.

A revolution is nothing more than casting off someone else's shackles and instituting your own, improved ones. they were never meant to last, they were never meant to be perfect, and indeed they will never last or be perfect. The point of a revolution isnt to fix the world permanently, its to bring a glimmer of hope back for as long as you can. The fatalistic idea that a revolution(however small/large) is going to inevitably lead back to the same place is HORRIBLE. Its about postponing the inevitable, its about sharing your ideals, and giving up something of yourself to preserve those ideals.

We have gotten where we are because of many many men and women who fight the establishment because they can conceive of something better (be it scientifically, politically, etc). After every scientific revolution we fall into the same sort of trap, where the status quo is vigorously defended and creativity and individuality are stifled, until a few people who question what they are told and dream of something more rise up, and when the revolution occurs scientific knowledge takes leaps and bounds, until it sinks in to the same trap.

This is nothing different. Just like we will never know absolute or objective truth about the universe, we will never defeat the more nefarious portions of human nature, we will never contstruct the perfect society, we will never be completely happy. But every time we stand up and say "I'M NOT SATISFIED" we get closer. Progress cannot be measured by reaching a goal, but by making changes in pursuit of that goal. They might not even be changes in the "right direction" persay (as in the correct path ultimately), but they were better than what came before them.

Yeah, revolutions "happen." But they don't just "happen," people make them happen.

And to top it all off, like you said, this whole 1WO deal is what to our present knowledge would be essentially insurmountable. You can't revolt against something that controls EVERYTHING, actually everything (assuming we know what "everything" is). I would actually prefer a global holocaust at this point, I think we'd be a lot better off in the long term if 95% of us were dead. Space is not a viable frontier because it is impossible (as we know it) for us to survive au natural anywhere but here.

What am I going to do? For now, I think the system isn't entirely broken yet. I think it could entirely break in <5 years, but for now I'm doing what I can to support change in the best way possible. I think ron paul is probably the only presidential candidate that isnt a massive tool, I know he's the only candidate who wants to guide our country AWAY from totalitarianism, and I think those two facts are infinitely more important than whatever his specific politics are.

And honestly, I'm not the man to start any real revolution. Unless someone is gonna force a chip into me or my (future) family. If it comes down to it and the system fails entirely, I will evaluate the current global alternatives, and if there is nowhere I can live out my life unmolested (with a good promise for my progeny), then ill start blowing shit up.

I do think, however, a lot could be done with a little counterintelligence, a lot of planning, several .50 caliber rifles with thermal/IR scopes, and lots of dead PTBs.


Yes. "WILL you change anything?" is a much different question with a less heartening answer, but yes you can change things.

I think we have a miscommunication - I was under the impression you meant that power itself is manifested in monetary forms. I was then referring to "material" in the economics sense of an input to production. Thus, I was stating that power does not necessarily manifest in any "material" sense - a Palestinian could, for example, create a messianic cult for the sole purpose of gaining "power" to use to revenge former mistreatment by Israelis. The forms and manifestations of the influence are not directly tied to money or raw goods.





I think it's important to note the difference between relative and absolute values.

I would argue that, at least compared to the High Middle Ages on, there has been a steady decline in the relative control / micromanageability, influence, control of life and death, etc, attributable to a small (elite) portion of the population. An example would be that kings had significantly more (relative to the total population) control over the right to life and death within their kingdom than even the most insane (democratic) leaders do today. However, in absolute terms, things are far worse now. Whereas a royal family could really control the lives of (maybe) a couple million people before, a single family can now control the hopes for life and death of tens or hundreds of millions. Whereas a high middle ages king could truthfully hope to directly control a half dozen states, a PotUS has >50% control in dozens.

The exception to this trend are WMDs.

But, in general, this is a reason for both optimism and pessimism. The ability for a single family to control EVERYTHING is constantly decreasing, but the number of lives potentially under the influence of one family is constantly increasing. This distinction seems to be a source of contention in your posts.

Anyways...



The number of truly top tier families/organizations seems to be decreasing, but the number of simply powerful ones is increasing. Fewer true moguls, but more and more folks with the ability to send seismic shockwaves through society. It's not really that bad a situation, since the many can generally dethrone the few, if united. A side effect of "progress", really, since it's harder and harder to reach the top, but the folks below have more and more potential to be a pain in the tush.



This is new how? We've lost a lot of civilizations.



People have always been able to influence their immediate surroundings, though. However, you really have almost no influence over the course of the nation, and that's how it's always been. I'm not sure whether you have more or less influence over the equivalent number of people, though.

Anyways, the main advantage to representative democracy isn't so much real control as a) the sensation of control and b) far subtler domination from on high. I'd much rather folks get their way through media control than mass slaughter.



For most individuals, it hasn't so much been an improvement inability or capacity as a change in contents. As a civilization, we certainly possess more total knowledge, but as individuals - I really don't know whether the average person is more intelligent (though, I guess if you factor in the decrease in premature death...)



The length of time spent has increased, but such "facilities" have always existed. It may have been the home, town, army, apprenticeship, whatever, but despite the name, the purpose was the same. Anyways, most institutions today are more inundated with ideological propaganda than anything else. Sedition is still the key to thought.



Standard of living, life expectancy, stability, these things have increased for the majority of people very extensively. In that sense, things have definitely improved (and if I didn't see hope for progress, I wouldn't be working on research). That said, the core nature of the concentration of power hasn't shifted nearly so drastically (at least on the large scale, because it does seem to have improved in the local scale). It's not something we deal with on a daily basis (unless we're powerbrokers), but it hasn't changed much and it probably never will, for a variety of reasons...

A reasonable model of the accumulation of power might be this... imagine setting out n cups, numbered 0 through n-1. These represent people/families/groups. Generate a random number between 0<=number<1, and multiply it by n. The integer part of that number is i. Put another cup with the ith cup, and repeat for n+1 instead of n.

If you do that long enough, you'll end up with a badly skewed distribution - I forget exactly which distribution this procedure approximates, but, it will get you a skewed one. And that distribution is roughly akin to the accumulation of power in a power vacuum.



It normally makes things worse, but when it makes things better, the positive revolution tends to be worth many negative revolutions. Somewhat cyclical, really. Break that cycle and you'll have made real progress (though, really, you've probably just prolonged the period of a still periodic function).

Thoth, your thread assassination failed.

--Locane

The political spectrum is like a Möbius strip - go far enough left or right, and you're right back where you started!

except you have to go around twice

hax! omgban.

Skeletor: the REAL thread murderer. Seriously, I wish there was an easy way to search the threads to see who is most often the last poster.

However...

@ erik: I'm too lazy to quote, but I agree, especially about replacing shackles with new ones, at least in regards to replacing knowledge paradigms with new ones. You should read up on some of Paul Feyerabend's views on the Philosophy of Science - great stuff along this vein of thought. One of his essays compares current Science to Christianity in the Middle Ages. When asked to look to which group of people best embodied "Truth", the average person pointed to clergy in the Middle Ages. Now, we generally point to a scientist. Why is that? Why should Science be put on a pedestal, and be declared the "best" path to this mysterious entity known as "Truth"? It's just another set of shackles waiting to be overthrown by the next big thing.

How to Defend Society Against Science

EDIT: Reread for fun. My favorite part (which I forgot! gah!) is where he calls for a formal separation of science and state, just like we do for church and state.

i love how this response came one minute after thoth's statement.

i was afraid ud never change. damn u, just go away before i call heman on u.

i did some reading up on u:
Skeletor is a fictional character in the Masters of the Universe franchise, where he is the arch-enemy and main antagonist of He-Man. Tagged "The Evil Lord of Destruction" he is the greatest threat to present day Eternia. He seeks to conquer Castle Grayskull so he can learn all of Eternia's ancient secrets, which would make him unstoppable, and enable him to conquer and rule all of Eternia. In the original minicomics, Skeletor is said to be an evil demon from the dimension of Infinita. In the later minicomics and Filmation series, Skeletor's origin is unknown, though a Mattel minicomic implies that he was once Keldor, the brother of King Randor. In the Mike Young Productions series, he is revealed to have once been a man named Keldor, though no familial connection to Randor is ever established.


so ur secret identity is keldor?? how long did u think u could hide this? im tellin heman on u.

^ Did I mentioned humanity is doomed by its very nature and there's not a damned thing you can do about it?
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"^ Case & Point / Check & mate."
Thothie

Because science only focuses on what we observe and logic.

Which would be a good thing, except that most people don't have enough science background or critical reasoning to tell the difference. There's too much bad science out there, and it's sad that it seems to fool the masses.

Also, organizations promote certain scientific studies while downplaying others in order to further there agenda. Take global warming for example: There are scientists on all sides of this issue, yet the "conventional" wisdom seems to think that all scientists believe one way and if you don't you're a moron. Simply isn't true.