"Totalitarian regimes of the future won't be based on terror... they have brainwashing & propaganda"

[omega minimo]

Happy New Year, All. A time of celebrations and withdrawal; hope for the future and return of the growing season;
reflection on the past and regrouping for a new year's efforts.

This OP is not an appeal to reflect on the realities of this topic or regrouping to move forward more effectiviely;
only to recognize that Nader is DU's Goldstein, as worthwhile and useful as 1984's image of Goldstein during the Two Minutes Hate.

Who's yanking yer chain?


"It is possible to make people to be contented with their servitude. I think this can be done, I think it has been done in the past. It could be done much more effectively now as you can provide them withd bread and circuses and you can provide them with endless amounts of distractions and propaganda." -- Aldous Huxley

http://www.profbob.com/images/0%20Ralph%20Nader%202008%20photo+++.jpg
"It looks as thought the totalitarian regimes of the future will not be based upon terror because they will have other means ... these means now present such as brainwashing and propaganda, which will be be much more efficient and much more economical and more pleasurable to those who undergo them. There are techniques available at present which do seem to duplicate some of the techniques I invented." -- Aldous Huxley


Propaganda in a Democratic Society
by Aldous Huxley
http://deoxy.org/huxley1.htm

"Fifty years ago, when I was a boy, it seemed completely self-evident that the bad old days were over, that torture and massacre, slavery, and the persecution of heretics, were things of the past. Among people who wore top hats, traveled in trains, and took a bath every morning such horrors were simply out of the question. After all, we were living in the twentieth century. A few years later these people who took daily baths and went to church in top hats were committing atrocities on a scale undreamed of by the benighted Africans and Asiatics. In the light of recent history it would be foolish to suppose that this sort of thing cannot happen again. It can and, no doubt, it will. But in the immediate future there is some reason to believe that the punitive measures of 1984 will give place to the reinforcements and manipulations of Brave New World."

Aldous Huxley talking about "Brave New World" and "1984"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7_YFKyhQMI&feature=PlayList&p=914AB711524658CB&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=54

[Donnachaidh]

1. K&R. n/t

[Cleita]

2. Actually, they still work on fear.

Limbaugh is really good at this. His latest is about how he got fabulous health care in America. (The hidden message is that if everyone gets the same health care he gets, then everyone will be waiting in line forever.) He does the same about picket fences. (If you let THEM in then your neighborhood will be trash.) His way of propagandizing every one with fear of those you don't want to mix with is classic.

[omega minimo]

4. classic and very skilled at pretending to talk to the little guy

while speaking to and for the uber rich.

[timeforpeace]

3. Their mosques utilize brainwashing and propaganda to encourage their minions to commit terror acts.

[LoZoccolo]

5. Lame.

Goldstein was an absent figure who could not speak for or defend himself and thus the Ingsoc regime could project anything they wanted on to him. No one - not even me - is forcing people to collectively hate what Nader did or how Nader lied; the contempt is genuine and individual. And he continues to do it, drawing more ire.

[omega minimo]

9. The hatred is automatic. The logic is hollow. Same irrational projection at a scapegoat

[LoZoccolo]

19. "The logic is hollow."

Nader spread and continues to spread a verifiably false claim that the two parties do not differ in any appreciable manner. For the most part, the Nader voters from 2000 themselves disagree with the big green lie as the overwhelming majority chose not to repeat their mistake in 2004 and 2008. His bullshit also leaves one baffled as to why the Republicans and conservative political groups spend so much to fight the Democrats, and why Republican donors chose to assist in bankrolling his campaign. Ignoring these glaring rebuttals of Nader's propaganda is what's hollow.

[Luminous Animal]

22. Nader has claimed and continues to claim

that the two parties do not differ in any appreciable manner has to how they will kowtow to their corporate masters. And this is a verifiable fact. There are not many Nader voters today who do not believe that abandoning their principles for a lesser evil was buying a pig in a poke.

Your bullshit leaves one baffled as to why the Democrats spend millions to keep Nader off of state ballots and deprive citizens of "the greatest democracy in the world" of the right to vote for the candidate of their choice.

[LoZoccolo]

24. Then go verify it.

I've already verified my claim. You might also wanna point out any statement by him where he qualifies his "little difference" remark with as much of a disclaimer as you've added to it here.

[omega minimo]

25. That's not "a disclaimer as you're added to it here," it was the point all along.

Lots of Dems didn't want to hear it when there still was a chance of doing something about it. Now that it's official and many of those Dems are now blase in accepting corporate government, I'm surprised anyone tries to attack Nader for being right all along.

Unless, as in your case, it seems you bought some oversimplistic version of the "no difference" meme, without understanding that in a corporate government served by two parties, there is no appreciable difference. Without acknowledging that THAT is what Nader and others were warning about all along.

[LoZoccolo]

35. So to you it's OK to dismiss abortion and gay rights as "gonadal politics"? (his term) n/t

[Luminous Animal]

28. You've verified nothing

You're standard of verification is typing the word "verified."

[omega minimo]

30. He's verified that some spout the mean meme without knowing what Nader was talking about ....

like, ever? :shrug:

[LoZoccolo]

36. I've shown that a great many people have called bullshit on his prime claim.

The entirety of the Republican Party, and the vast majority of 2000 Nader voters, feel that there is indeed a difference between the two parties.

[omega minimo]

40. by pretending to, or not actually understanding what the claim was.

"The entirety of the Republican Party, and the vast majority of 2000 Nader voters, feel that there is indeed a difference between the two parties"

is appropriate in a thread about brainwashing. The corporate government connection has been raised, yet you come back with your meme and don't address the concept or the question:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7375890&mesg_id=7376733

It would help understand your point if you show how you work that out. Both parties now serve their corporate masters.

[LoZoccolo]

44. If there is any difference, there is no reason to vote for Nader.

Even if you could prove that Nader's message was what you say it was, and then prove that what he said was true, it doesn't erase the fact that a Nader vote works against how one feels about all other issues and does nothing to resolve the issues you say he campaigned on. Most people know that and the two parties have spent respectable sums of money whether or not the equivalence is confined to the issues you say it is, proving that the differences between the parties was appreciable to over 90% of the voters during the general election.

[Luminous Animal]

17. The contempt is based on propaganda and lies.

No Democrat had a problem with Perot running for office. An nobody, for some odd reason, has a problem with the millions of Democrats who voted for Bush in 2004.

[LoZoccolo]

20. The contempt is based on the arguments I advance in reply #19, among others. n/t

[omega minimo]

26. "Nader spread and continues to spread a verifiably false claim that the two parties do not differ"

"Nader spread and continues to spread a verifiably false claim that the two parties do not differ in any appreciable manner."

Given recent events: bankster bailout, public option sellout, violating women's reproductive health/privacy rights, War Is Peace Nobel speech, Afghanistan surge, no accountability for Bushco's crimes, etc., how do you identify the "appreciable" differences?

[LoZoccolo]

37. They're appreciable if a majority of people appreciate them.

And they do.

[omega minimo]

41. Appreciable, miniscule, arbitrary. Yet people know now that both parties serve corporate power, not

them.

[Better Today]

6. Propaganda and brainwashing don't work without fear of death,

torture, or other debilitating consequence for those that aren't brainwashable and see through propaganda.

[omega minimo]

10. They don't?

Who is not brainwashable (aside from you and me, of course) and who consistently sees through propaganda?

[Better Today]

15. Really, you want a list? I would start with at least 80% of DU, add RM, KO, ES,

all from MSNBC, JS and SC from Comedy Central, shall I go on, or are you beginning to recognize the meme of the OP is historically and realistically unlikely. Propaganda and brainwashing are a huge part of it, but silencing those that don't fall in line is an inevitable add-on.

[Hannah Bell]

18. you don't know how funny that is.

[omega minimo]

31. I'll give you at least 2 from Comedy Central.

The "besides you and me" was a joke, but I guess that didn't get your notice........

Jon Stewart would not have had a career simply pointing to the absurdities of our time, if there were more people like him that can do so. There are some. Most who are really good at it grew up BEFORE the Reagan era of complete and total bullshit and Big Lies and campaign to dumb down the populace and gut public education.

The 2 stolen elections and the farce of an explanation for 9/11 are two examples -- with the year end media reviews of news stories there will be other glaring omissions -- of successful brainwashing in verboten topics, discussed only under certain terms or not at all. The War Is Peace speech was a bizarre bit of theater. Maybe Jon or Colbert can make something of that.

[Luminous Animal]

23. Then explain the billions of dollars advertising industry.

Certainly advertising works or it would be extant and certainly we do not choose our deodorant on the threat of pain of death.

[Better Today]

38. No but many of us don't buy based on advertising either. I'm not saying

these two things, propaganda and brainwashing, are not useful and powerful, but they will not bring totalitarian regimes to long term power without fear, of violence or incarceration or other pressures, brought upon those that are immune to advertising and propaganda...those of us as children who drove our adults nuts with constant, "yes, but"s and "why"s and mulish stubbornness about believing the BS we were being fed by teachers, parents, and spiritual leaders.

[Luminous Animal]

43. We incarerate

more of our citizens, per capita, than any other country on earth. Our media reports barely nothing but crimes which enforces that we live our lives in a state of fear. Since 9/11, most liberal protests and actions against our government or actions against corporations are characterized as terrorist actions. We reserve the right to, and do, disappear any human being on earth. The majority of Americans agree that torture, one of the most despicable violation of human rights and contrary to the Constitution and every human rights treaty that we have signed, is a-okay.

I have been arrested many times for peaceful civil disobedience. Every time, I was 75% certain that I'd be let out on my own recognizance and that 25% doubt led me to set up alternatives if I remained incarcerated (rent, job, etc.) Now, it is the opposite.

Tell me, in this George Bush's America (as Principle Skinner said on The Simpsons - and we do still live in George Bush's America) would you be comfortable being arrested for peaceful civil disobedience?

[anonymous171]

33. Or simply fear of social isolation. nt

[Better Today]

39. I don't see social isolation, unless forced as in a jail cell, being

a likely tool because there are too many of "us" to imagine we wouldn't find ways to group together unless we were forced into individual isolation.

[pscot]

7. Yeah. Like that's working so well in Iran

n/t

[snagglepuss]

8. Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death argues that we are now living

in Huxley's Brave New World. Control through pleasure. Postman's son did a forward in the new edition and rightfully says that Amusing Ourselves to Death is even more applicable now than when the book was first published in the 80's.

[omega minimo]

11. Thanks, I need to read that.

:toast: Happy New Year

[snagglepuss]

16. Your welcome.

Happy New Year.

:toast:

[Odin2005]

12. K&R Bread and Circuses

[vixengrl]

13. 15 minutes of outlawdom.

Ralph Nader isn't a perpetual outlaw in the Emmanuel Goldstein sense, exactly, but I do think the dominating voices that direct group-think can create temporary outlaws to minimize or marginalize a given argument. After Warhol, I'll call it "15 minutes of outlawdom". Not enough time to elevate a person to any meaningful status (because even outlaws have their cults), just long enough to let them know they aren't "in with the in-crowd". So Nader sees 15 minutes of outlawdom (unless he wants back in the penalty box) and then Howard Dean gets his fifteen minutes, and maybe Dennis Kucinich gets his and so it goes.

[Initech]

14. Fux Noise = your 24/7 GOP minister of propaganda channel.

[moondust]

21. John Birch Society making a comeback?

'Rachel Maddow Show' for Wednesday, December 30, 2009

~snip~

MADDOW: When we found out that the John Birch Society would be cosponsoring the marquee conservative conference of the year, the CPAC conference, the Conservative Political Action Conference this year in Washington, we decided it would be useful to talk about who exactly the John Birch Society is.

~snip~

MADDOW: In 1962, the editor of the “Santa Barbara News Press” won the Pulitzer Prize for editorials that he wrote against the John Birch Society after his paper did an expose of that group‘s disruptive would-be secretive efforts to find commies under every rock in Santa Barbara.

Thomas M. Stork wrote about his editorials and his local paper‘s decision to give exposure to them by saying this, quote, “In the end, the only protection against such aberrations as the John Birch Society and such ridiculous leaders as Robert Welch lies in the informed good sense of the people. Air the ideas of the radical extremists and you will find in a hurry, as we did in Santa Barbara, that the moderates - conservative and liberal - are in control.”

~more~

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/34642971/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/

Of course in 1962 there was no Fox News or RW radio supporting RW nutjobs on a daily basis and I'm not aware of RW moderates being "Scozzafava'd" back then. So what is there to protect us from "such aberrations" now? The "informed good sense of the people?"

:shrug:

[omega minimo]

29. Back in '62, not everyone had TV.

"Such aberrations" now own the media.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

27. Nader is DU's very own Great Satan to some here. K&R

[omega minimo]

32. .

:rofl:

[Vidar]

34. K&R.

[G_j]

42. great post

happy new year OM!