Rob Schneider, Cackling Kamala, my latest budding conspiracy theory, “weird” J.D. Vance, a Grizzly Bear in Central Park and some of my favorite cheers of all time.
The thing that started my (kinda short) journey to "Nope. Not getting jabbed" was finding something on I think the CDC website, that said the CDC had paid an ad agency or agencies to come up with a list of ways to convince or coerce people into getting jabbed. Guilt, celebrities, herd instincts, etc. None of which would have worked on me. My thought was - why do they need this list? From there, everything seemed skeevy or suspect, then for a while I explained that hey, I can always get jabbed, but can never get un-jabbed, and then that solidified into just plain nope.
I have a whole list of reasons, but they all boil down to Nope. And this was before the damage started showing up. I honestly never ever felt conflicted at all. More like a long string of WTF?
Vulcan-like logic there. You saw all the machinations behind the scenes to manipulate public opinion - multi-faceted campaigns involving "influencers" and huge money - all to create comformity of action or fear of going against the herd.
The "Mad Men" on Madison Avenue no doubt created all these programs and strategies. And they are still doing this.
Some things I noticed - the Dems/Biden created a Covid response team that was really all just about campaigning. And the Dems screamed don't take the shot because Trump said to! right up until they screamed take the shot because Biden said to! The Dems politicized Covid. Like they do everything else. And then, lessee, Zeke Emanuel was involved, Mr. no-life-saving-medical-attention-after-75. I was over 75. He worked on the triage protocol, and said since it was kind of Draconian, he would send teams out to enforce it, to spare hospitals' feelings. Hospitals were being paid $39,000 to shove ventilators down people's throats. Which led to me telling my family to not take me to a hospital, no matter what. I am now 78. I will decide what happens to me. A Nobel-prize winning medication, Ivermectin, prize was for human use - horse paste. A failure to comprehend that celebrities are paid to read stuff other people write. My favorite was being told that Jennifer Anniston had cut any friends who did not get jabbed. Oh dear.
The injuries being reported make my heart ache. Honestly.
The coordination is beyond anything we could probably imagine. It's not just the vaccine program - it's "world health" and fighting climate change. It's everything that requires more authoritarian control ... and less human or citizen freedom.
One program begets another necessary program.
The Mad Men might not have come up with these programs (their clients did), but they write all the storylines and come up with the campaigns and how to roll them out. They run the campaigns.
They know who to disseminate these marching orders to.
My NOPE moment had its seed planted when kids started getting vaccinated for chicken pox. Not being aware of the poisons in vaccines back then I just thought of it as misguided over-protectiveness for the sake of pharma profiteering, trading superior naturally acquired immunity from a very mild childhood disease to a typically far more serious adult disease for inferior vaccine immunity that requires shot after profitable shot to maintain. This grasshopper had a lot to learn, but that was the first hop, one might say.
In reality, I am a former believer vaccine skeptic who is flat-out against some vaccines the evidence indicates have zero efficacy, and only a down side, such as the polio vaccine, which is for a condition that is evidently not even infectious, and due to poisoning.
Likewise, any of the COVID and mRNA jabs, the risks associated with which so far exceed potential benefits. How brilliant to genetically engineer production in one's body of the most uniquely dangerous feature of an engineerred bioweapon. (scratches chin)
But I applaud embracing the term, am definitely anti-vax for myself; and it is evident all of them pose greater risks than benefits for a vast majority of perople. When it comes to vaccines, the more I learn, the more I "NO!
Exactly my journey. Only I listened to Geert first, then saw the CDC doing backflips to get everyone on board. Free stuff? Yeah, no thanks. And you can never get UNJABBED. That nailed it. Just NO. I lost a lot of respect for people who did no research, or even critically thought about the issue of forever health. "I did it to travel...go to a concert" "Oh, I did it for my mom, she is older you know". I told my kids if they EVER got some shot so they could be around me I would knock their blocks off. Let nobody guilt them using ME. They are such a-holes.
BTW, that cheerleading photo was taken at a summer cheerleading camp hosted by the UCA organization on the campus of Troy University. The photo was taken inside Trojan Arena, Troy University's beautiful basketball arena.
I still can't believe little Troy has an arena that nice. There were more parents who came to watch their junior high and varsity cheerleading children do their final cheer routines at this four-day camp than attend most basketball games. The venue is great for the local economy (although, for some reason, it's never hosted a concert. I need to find out why).
In Australia, most every tiny town, even in the outback has a beautiful, well-maintained 50m lap pool. It is usually a result of money laundering and election season pork barreling. Yet, the pools are always enjoyed by the communities and create jobs so who am I to judge?
Your daughter is a cutie and definitely takes after her father. She looks like you.
I loved cheerleading. I was one from 8th grade to sophomore year in college. I loved the HS basketball games and miss that community camaraderie. So much energy and fun! College was for football and it was a lot different. I quit my sophomore year because of the politics, and because twice one of the football players got away with rape and assault and battery. That’s when I first learned about the true politics and how ugly it is, and the self-interests of those at the very top in sports and college administration. I was so naive up until that point. It was much better at the high school community level. Enjoy it while you are there! I’m not sure it can be found anywhere else. Heck I don’t even know if it’s the same in 2024 as it was in the early 80s!
Politicians, Big Media and Big Pharma/Health tell us who they are. But we want them to be who we want them to be. So we pretend they have our interests in mind:
Don't ask questions. Forget what you know about how you locked down the world for a flu, destroyed businesses, child development, suicides, vaccine injuries, deaths, swing states shutting down counting overnight, assassination attempts, dementia presidents, laptops from hell, entrapment "insurrections," supporting Ukrainian Nazi's, hand chosen unelected presidential candidates, mostly peaceful riots, etc. Get out of here. Move forward:
These are just repurposed existing memes from a Mad Men search. With some creative input and time much better, more applicable ones to illuminate concept are waiting to be made.
Edward Bernays was the father of both consumer advertising and government propaganda. It works. At least on a majority. Those of us who want to pretend that people in positions of authority have our interests in mind. That's who we *want* them to be. So they are! Just. Like. That.
Thanks. I might be in touch as I continue to develop my "Mad Men" thread. All of these programs and campaigns run through them ... or are created and rolled out by them.
Who's their client? Mad Men don't do it on their own just to do it. They have no autonomous authority, no guns, no courts, no prisons. They're hired by the corporations - or criminal syndicates (aka, "government") - to sell their product, their narrative. They're pros at it. But they aren't the point of origination. They serve whoever pays them. Their work product is then disseminated through Big Media, Big Tech, Entertainment, Corporate Compliance offices, Public officials, etc. They are the Merlin's, sorcerers, in service to Kings. Not the Kings themselves.
They are hired hands doing the bidding of the people and organizations paying them.
However, I think the Mad Men have been working on these projects so long, they now "get" the program better than their clients ... so they are probably pitching new ideas and refinements back to their employers. Essentially, they have become partners in these initiatives. They can pitch their new programs and increase their billable hours.
"A lot of people learned lessons from the capacity to control the public mind, as they put it — slogan of the public relations industry. One of the people who came out of the Creel Commission was a man named Edward Bernays, who became the patron saint of the public relations industry. That’s a big, substantial industry which is actually an American creation, though it’s since spread throughout other parts of the world. It’s dedicated to controlling the public mind, again quoting it’s publications, to educate the American people about the economic facts of life to ensure a favorable climate for business, and, of course, a proper understanding of the common interests.
Bernays developed the concept of engineering of consent, which, he said, is the essence of democracy. That’s- and of course he didn’t bother saying that there are only some groups who are in a position to carry out the engineering of consent — those who have the power and the resources."
...
"If you go back to the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences published in 1933 — days when people were a little more open and honest in what they said — there’s an article on propaganda, and it’s well worth reading. There’s an entry under propaganda. The entry is written by a leading- one- maybe the leading American political scientist, Harold Lasswell, who was very influential, particularly in this area, communications, and so on. And in this entry in the International Encyclopedia on propaganda he says, we should not succumb to democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests. They’re not, he said. Even with the rise of mass education- doesn’t mean that people can judge their own interests. They can’t. The best judges of their interests are elites — the specialized class, the cool observers, the people who have rationality — and therefore they must be granted the means to impose their will. Notice, for the common good. Because, again, because- well, he says, because of the ignorance and superstition of the masses, he said it’s necessary to have a whole new technique of control, largely through propaganda. Propaganda, he says, we shouldn’t have a negative connotation about, it’s neutral. Propaganda, he says, is as neutral as a pump handle. You can use it for good, you can use it for bad; since were good people, obviously, — that’s sort of true by definition — we’ll use it for good purposes, and there should be no negative connotations about that. In fact, it’s moral to use it, because that’s the only way that you can save the ignorant and stupid masses of the population from their own errors. You don’t let a three year old run across the street, and you don’t let ordinary people make their own decisions. You have to control them."
...
"So in a- as a society becomes more free — that is, there’s less capacity to coerce — it simply needs more sophisticated indoctrination and propaganda. For the public good.
The similarity between this and Leninist ideology is very striking. According to Leninist ideology, the cool observers, the radical intelligentsia, will be the vanguard who will lead the stupid and ignorant masses on to, you know, communist utopia, because they’re too stupid to work it out by themselves.
And in fact there’s been a very easy transition over these years between one and the other position. You know, it’s very striking that continually people move from one position to the other, very easily. And I think the reason for the ease is partly because they’re sort of the same position. So you can be either a Marxist-Leninist commissar, or you can be somebody celebrating the magnificence of State capitalism, and you can serve those guys. It’s more or less the same position. You pick one or the other depending on your estimate of where power is, and that can change."
FF - This is who they are. And why they are employed. Being used for bad. By people who believe, are convinced, they are good. Using it for good purposes. Which feeds into this CS Lewis quote:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
A very powerful tool in the hands of fools is just as deadly as when it's used as a weapon in the hands of evil. We are led today by a combination of fools and evil.
This is a deep analysis and, I suspect, spot on. I didn't know a silly "random observations" column would get me/us thinking about how the sheep are all being led off the cliff.
They think of and treat us like sheep, they actually declare themselves our "stewards." Just like Chomsky wrote of Lasswell, like we're three year old's...who they can't let run across the street.
And that's just the do-gooder's.
And then there's the eugenicist's we know are pulling many strings, hiring the propagandists...who's ideas of serving a collective good falls under an inverted utilitarian system of ethics - sacrifice of the many for the good of the few.
I think leaving the communications to the doctors - that is not going to work for me any more. Doctors and hospitals worked in concert with Pharma and the government. I will always wonder, when given advice from a doctor - is he paid to say that? Is he saying that because the insurance company directs him? Has he been ordered to say that by the government and/or the practice he works for? Where does he get his information from? And so on. The Covid event has had, and will have, more far-reaching consequences than just Covid, for a lot of people. The trust is gone. For me - forever.
What struck me in that item is how explicit the researcher is: don't admit to any mistakes; just launder your messaging through the trusted personal doctors!
The final quote from him is: "focus more on letting individual physicians be the ones to disseminate agency recommendations to patients."
Two years ago I saw a new primary doctor - excellent reviews. I have a knee problem from an old operation. He said oh, don't worry, we give new knees to people in their 90's, and you are only 76 and in excellent health! I don't even take any prescriptions. For anything. Two weeks later (after running his plan by the insurance company) - oh, even being in a hospital is very iffy for people your age.
Not that I was thinking I would get a new knee that quickly, it was just the complete turnaround.
No one is ever going to take responsibility or apologize. Ever.
Never underestimate comedy for getting across the message. Think Lenny Bruce, and later George Carlin and many more. They arrested Bruce. I could only imagine what George would have to say about this shit going on today. Stand up comedy is a Live Meme for people with long attention spans.
I've thought about that. It's the perfect place to make the points you think someone needs to make. Since few stand-up comedians today have the guts of Carlin and Bruce, you wouldn't have as much competition.
I could do silly routines on every-day observations and/or biting, cutting edge political humor.
We can do tag-team routines. One night I'll be your opening act; the next night you can open for me. We can then hang around and watch the other person's act - and give some fake laughs and applause to help get the crowd moving in the right direction.
New idea: Since there's few if any comedy clubs in Alabama - none that let amateurs take a stab at this - maybe I can start one? Nah.
Thanks, Frank. I found the term New Abnormal from a reader comment ... and I've been using it ever since. It certainly describes our surreal times, which are becoming "curiouser and curiouser."
... I'll never run out of topics to write about that's for sure.
Don't tell my wife. The catch is I don't know of any place in Alabama that has an "amateur night" where people like me can just go up on stage and start practicing. I would like to try it. I wouldn't tell anybody and wouldn't want anyone who knows me to watch my first efforts.
Speaking of the "Ron Paul Revolution" (and the authentic "Tea Party Movement"), I remember that Matt Drudge used to run many pro-Ron Paul headlines and polls at his website.
This told me that Drudge must lean hard to the libertarian side of the political spectrum. Today, the site is all the way on the far left of the same political spectrum. How did Drudge turn so dramatically and suddenly? We've never really learned the answer to this question - which is kind of significant IMO.
Basically, I think someone on Madison Avenue is running all these myriad campaigns. These Mad Men have "clients," but they are crafting all the daily and weekly narratives and helped come up with the five and 10-year plans.
So happy for your Substack success Bill! You are a wonderful writer (even if it doesn't come easy according to you) and I look forward to your columns with great anticipation. Regarding the "Mad Men" analogy you made concerning politics, I was under the impression that was confirmed as fact years ago. The soundbite, the memes, the political cartoons - all of it is a form of Cold War waged by those of one political persuasion trying to make another look bad. What is really amazing is that Right can't do a better job painting the current administration as "communication dodging cowards" which is what they are. When was the last time an imbecile sat in the Oval Office cloaked from the world? Reminds me of one of those English Kings that was so damaged from inbreeding that he ruled in name only. Who the hell is really running the country? Does this not bother anyone but me?
Hi Bill, I'm new to your stack and enjoyed your musings here. If you don't mind may I offer some unsolicited advice? I was an actor in a previous life. There was a student in my acting class who wanted to do stand up. He was hopeless at first, no one believed he could ever be funny. Over a few months he was absolutely transformed by our acting coach. I encourage you to find a good coach and give it a go!
A cheer passed along by a subscriber in a direct message:
I read once about a famous business college (don’t remember which) with a chant used when the other team would score:
That’s alright
That’s OK
You’re gonna work for us someday.
Ok that's hilarious.
The thing that started my (kinda short) journey to "Nope. Not getting jabbed" was finding something on I think the CDC website, that said the CDC had paid an ad agency or agencies to come up with a list of ways to convince or coerce people into getting jabbed. Guilt, celebrities, herd instincts, etc. None of which would have worked on me. My thought was - why do they need this list? From there, everything seemed skeevy or suspect, then for a while I explained that hey, I can always get jabbed, but can never get un-jabbed, and then that solidified into just plain nope.
I have a whole list of reasons, but they all boil down to Nope. And this was before the damage started showing up. I honestly never ever felt conflicted at all. More like a long string of WTF?
Vulcan-like logic there. You saw all the machinations behind the scenes to manipulate public opinion - multi-faceted campaigns involving "influencers" and huge money - all to create comformity of action or fear of going against the herd.
The "Mad Men" on Madison Avenue no doubt created all these programs and strategies. And they are still doing this.
Some things I noticed - the Dems/Biden created a Covid response team that was really all just about campaigning. And the Dems screamed don't take the shot because Trump said to! right up until they screamed take the shot because Biden said to! The Dems politicized Covid. Like they do everything else. And then, lessee, Zeke Emanuel was involved, Mr. no-life-saving-medical-attention-after-75. I was over 75. He worked on the triage protocol, and said since it was kind of Draconian, he would send teams out to enforce it, to spare hospitals' feelings. Hospitals were being paid $39,000 to shove ventilators down people's throats. Which led to me telling my family to not take me to a hospital, no matter what. I am now 78. I will decide what happens to me. A Nobel-prize winning medication, Ivermectin, prize was for human use - horse paste. A failure to comprehend that celebrities are paid to read stuff other people write. My favorite was being told that Jennifer Anniston had cut any friends who did not get jabbed. Oh dear.
The injuries being reported make my heart ache. Honestly.
The coordination is beyond anything we could probably imagine. It's not just the vaccine program - it's "world health" and fighting climate change. It's everything that requires more authoritarian control ... and less human or citizen freedom.
One program begets another necessary program.
The Mad Men might not have come up with these programs (their clients did), but they write all the storylines and come up with the campaigns and how to roll them out. They run the campaigns.
They know who to disseminate these marching orders to.
My NOPE moment had its seed planted when kids started getting vaccinated for chicken pox. Not being aware of the poisons in vaccines back then I just thought of it as misguided over-protectiveness for the sake of pharma profiteering, trading superior naturally acquired immunity from a very mild childhood disease to a typically far more serious adult disease for inferior vaccine immunity that requires shot after profitable shot to maintain. This grasshopper had a lot to learn, but that was the first hop, one might say.
I once told people I was not an "anti-vaxxer." I was just suspicious of the new mRNA shots (plus, I've always thought the flu shots were a scam).
However, I am now definitely an anti-vaxxer. I question every one of them. I hope more people - especially parents - do as well.
I like to say I’m an ex-vaxxer.
I like that.
In reality, I am a former believer vaccine skeptic who is flat-out against some vaccines the evidence indicates have zero efficacy, and only a down side, such as the polio vaccine, which is for a condition that is evidently not even infectious, and due to poisoning.
Likewise, any of the COVID and mRNA jabs, the risks associated with which so far exceed potential benefits. How brilliant to genetically engineer production in one's body of the most uniquely dangerous feature of an engineerred bioweapon. (scratches chin)
But I applaud embracing the term, am definitely anti-vax for myself; and it is evident all of them pose greater risks than benefits for a vast majority of perople. When it comes to vaccines, the more I learn, the more I "NO!
Exactly my journey. Only I listened to Geert first, then saw the CDC doing backflips to get everyone on board. Free stuff? Yeah, no thanks. And you can never get UNJABBED. That nailed it. Just NO. I lost a lot of respect for people who did no research, or even critically thought about the issue of forever health. "I did it to travel...go to a concert" "Oh, I did it for my mom, she is older you know". I told my kids if they EVER got some shot so they could be around me I would knock their blocks off. Let nobody guilt them using ME. They are such a-holes.
BTW, that cheerleading photo was taken at a summer cheerleading camp hosted by the UCA organization on the campus of Troy University. The photo was taken inside Trojan Arena, Troy University's beautiful basketball arena.
I still can't believe little Troy has an arena that nice. There were more parents who came to watch their junior high and varsity cheerleading children do their final cheer routines at this four-day camp than attend most basketball games. The venue is great for the local economy (although, for some reason, it's never hosted a concert. I need to find out why).
They are just waiting for the perfect stand-up comedian to come along!
In Australia, most every tiny town, even in the outback has a beautiful, well-maintained 50m lap pool. It is usually a result of money laundering and election season pork barreling. Yet, the pools are always enjoyed by the communities and create jobs so who am I to judge?
Your daughter is a cutie and definitely takes after her father. She looks like you.
I loved cheerleading. I was one from 8th grade to sophomore year in college. I loved the HS basketball games and miss that community camaraderie. So much energy and fun! College was for football and it was a lot different. I quit my sophomore year because of the politics, and because twice one of the football players got away with rape and assault and battery. That’s when I first learned about the true politics and how ugly it is, and the self-interests of those at the very top in sports and college administration. I was so naive up until that point. It was much better at the high school community level. Enjoy it while you are there! I’m not sure it can be found anywhere else. Heck I don’t even know if it’s the same in 2024 as it was in the early 80s!
Thank you, Juju. Maggie really looks just like her mother and my 8-year-old son looks like the spitting image of me when I was 8.
I had the same experience where high school in the 1980s was very fun and there was town and school spirit.
It sounds like you had some world-view changing experiences in college with those rapes. I've heard of similar stories and cover-ups.
"Let's get this party started."
What if you had a Reader Comments shin-dig and nobody showed up and posted?
I wonder if the cheers all my classmates enjoyed in Troy in 1983 were not being done in Peoria.
Politicians, Big Media and Big Pharma/Health tell us who they are. But we want them to be who we want them to be. So we pretend they have our interests in mind:
https://www.barnorama.com/wp-content/images/2015/06/mad_men_don_draper/02-mad_men_don_draper.jpg
Cars. Cosmetics. Candidates. Pandemics. Masks. Vaccines. Climate. Carbon. Gender. Cash. CBDC. Racism. Sexism. The Narrative campaigns start as blank pages:
https://preview.redd.it/dew2o23kttez.png?auto=webp&s=6d7225618bf59a868065bc4ca5173e1b1c6ed49d
Umm...yes...just like this. For realz:
https://i.redd.it/20pax9kmz6861.jpg
"Woohoo!! DOD/CISA/FBI/CIA/USAID/WHO/UN/DNC/RNC Approved our PsyOps Narrative!":
https://digitalsynopsis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mad-men-don-draper-modern-digital-integrated-gifs.jpg
It's not just burgers...it's ideas, narratives our clients want us to sell:
https://s.abcnews.com/images/GMA/170314_gma_pop5_0807_16x9_1600.jpg
https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/mad-men-pass-the-heinz-ads.jpg?resize=300
Here's our concept!:
https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Don-does-a-presentation-for-Kodaks-Carousel-Mad-Men.jpg
Sometimes it's just like this:
https://i.imgflip.com/2tjng0.jpg
Don't ask questions. Forget what you know about how you locked down the world for a flu, destroyed businesses, child development, suicides, vaccine injuries, deaths, swing states shutting down counting overnight, assassination attempts, dementia presidents, laptops from hell, entrapment "insurrections," supporting Ukrainian Nazi's, hand chosen unelected presidential candidates, mostly peaceful riots, etc. Get out of here. Move forward:
https://piximus.net/media2/43502/the-greatest-don-draper-quotes-from-mad-men-20.jpg
These are just repurposed existing memes from a Mad Men search. With some creative input and time much better, more applicable ones to illuminate concept are waiting to be made.
Edward Bernays was the father of both consumer advertising and government propaganda. It works. At least on a majority. Those of us who want to pretend that people in positions of authority have our interests in mind. That's who we *want* them to be. So they are! Just. Like. That.
Thanks. I might be in touch as I continue to develop my "Mad Men" thread. All of these programs and campaigns run through them ... or are created and rolled out by them.
Who's their client? Mad Men don't do it on their own just to do it. They have no autonomous authority, no guns, no courts, no prisons. They're hired by the corporations - or criminal syndicates (aka, "government") - to sell their product, their narrative. They're pros at it. But they aren't the point of origination. They serve whoever pays them. Their work product is then disseminated through Big Media, Big Tech, Entertainment, Corporate Compliance offices, Public officials, etc. They are the Merlin's, sorcerers, in service to Kings. Not the Kings themselves.
They are hired hands doing the bidding of the people and organizations paying them.
However, I think the Mad Men have been working on these projects so long, they now "get" the program better than their clients ... so they are probably pitching new ideas and refinements back to their employers. Essentially, they have become partners in these initiatives. They can pitch their new programs and increase their billable hours.
Chomsky described them in Manufacturing Consent
https://chomsky.info/19890315/
"A lot of people learned lessons from the capacity to control the public mind, as they put it — slogan of the public relations industry. One of the people who came out of the Creel Commission was a man named Edward Bernays, who became the patron saint of the public relations industry. That’s a big, substantial industry which is actually an American creation, though it’s since spread throughout other parts of the world. It’s dedicated to controlling the public mind, again quoting it’s publications, to educate the American people about the economic facts of life to ensure a favorable climate for business, and, of course, a proper understanding of the common interests.
Bernays developed the concept of engineering of consent, which, he said, is the essence of democracy. That’s- and of course he didn’t bother saying that there are only some groups who are in a position to carry out the engineering of consent — those who have the power and the resources."
...
"If you go back to the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences published in 1933 — days when people were a little more open and honest in what they said — there’s an article on propaganda, and it’s well worth reading. There’s an entry under propaganda. The entry is written by a leading- one- maybe the leading American political scientist, Harold Lasswell, who was very influential, particularly in this area, communications, and so on. And in this entry in the International Encyclopedia on propaganda he says, we should not succumb to democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests. They’re not, he said. Even with the rise of mass education- doesn’t mean that people can judge their own interests. They can’t. The best judges of their interests are elites — the specialized class, the cool observers, the people who have rationality — and therefore they must be granted the means to impose their will. Notice, for the common good. Because, again, because- well, he says, because of the ignorance and superstition of the masses, he said it’s necessary to have a whole new technique of control, largely through propaganda. Propaganda, he says, we shouldn’t have a negative connotation about, it’s neutral. Propaganda, he says, is as neutral as a pump handle. You can use it for good, you can use it for bad; since were good people, obviously, — that’s sort of true by definition — we’ll use it for good purposes, and there should be no negative connotations about that. In fact, it’s moral to use it, because that’s the only way that you can save the ignorant and stupid masses of the population from their own errors. You don’t let a three year old run across the street, and you don’t let ordinary people make their own decisions. You have to control them."
...
"So in a- as a society becomes more free — that is, there’s less capacity to coerce — it simply needs more sophisticated indoctrination and propaganda. For the public good.
The similarity between this and Leninist ideology is very striking. According to Leninist ideology, the cool observers, the radical intelligentsia, will be the vanguard who will lead the stupid and ignorant masses on to, you know, communist utopia, because they’re too stupid to work it out by themselves.
And in fact there’s been a very easy transition over these years between one and the other position. You know, it’s very striking that continually people move from one position to the other, very easily. And I think the reason for the ease is partly because they’re sort of the same position. So you can be either a Marxist-Leninist commissar, or you can be somebody celebrating the magnificence of State capitalism, and you can serve those guys. It’s more or less the same position. You pick one or the other depending on your estimate of where power is, and that can change."
FF - This is who they are. And why they are employed. Being used for bad. By people who believe, are convinced, they are good. Using it for good purposes. Which feeds into this CS Lewis quote:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
A very powerful tool in the hands of fools is just as deadly as when it's used as a weapon in the hands of evil. We are led today by a combination of fools and evil.
This is a deep analysis and, I suspect, spot on. I didn't know a silly "random observations" column would get me/us thinking about how the sheep are all being led off the cliff.
They think of and treat us like sheep, they actually declare themselves our "stewards." Just like Chomsky wrote of Lasswell, like we're three year old's...who they can't let run across the street.
And that's just the do-gooder's.
And then there's the eugenicist's we know are pulling many strings, hiring the propagandists...who's ideas of serving a collective good falls under an inverted utilitarian system of ethics - sacrifice of the many for the good of the few.
I couldn't read the Mad Men reference and not bite! :D
This is from a few weeks ago. "UF Health research shows perceived discord in health recommendations saps public confidence": https://alachuachronicle.com/uf-health-research-shows-perceived-discord-in-health-recommendations-saps-public-confidence/
I think leaving the communications to the doctors - that is not going to work for me any more. Doctors and hospitals worked in concert with Pharma and the government. I will always wonder, when given advice from a doctor - is he paid to say that? Is he saying that because the insurance company directs him? Has he been ordered to say that by the government and/or the practice he works for? Where does he get his information from? And so on. The Covid event has had, and will have, more far-reaching consequences than just Covid, for a lot of people. The trust is gone. For me - forever.
What struck me in that item is how explicit the researcher is: don't admit to any mistakes; just launder your messaging through the trusted personal doctors!
The final quote from him is: "focus more on letting individual physicians be the ones to disseminate agency recommendations to patients."
Two years ago I saw a new primary doctor - excellent reviews. I have a knee problem from an old operation. He said oh, don't worry, we give new knees to people in their 90's, and you are only 76 and in excellent health! I don't even take any prescriptions. For anything. Two weeks later (after running his plan by the insurance company) - oh, even being in a hospital is very iffy for people your age.
Not that I was thinking I would get a new knee that quickly, it was just the complete turnaround.
No one is ever going to take responsibility or apologize. Ever.
Never underestimate comedy for getting across the message. Think Lenny Bruce, and later George Carlin and many more. They arrested Bruce. I could only imagine what George would have to say about this shit going on today. Stand up comedy is a Live Meme for people with long attention spans.
I've thought about that. It's the perfect place to make the points you think someone needs to make. Since few stand-up comedians today have the guts of Carlin and Bruce, you wouldn't have as much competition.
I could do silly routines on every-day observations and/or biting, cutting edge political humor.
Joe Rogan does it and he's doing pretty well.
I will join you. I have been told I should do comedy. Sarcastic, dry and a little bit of a potty mouth.
We can do tag-team routines. One night I'll be your opening act; the next night you can open for me. We can then hang around and watch the other person's act - and give some fake laughs and applause to help get the crowd moving in the right direction.
New idea: Since there's few if any comedy clubs in Alabama - none that let amateurs take a stab at this - maybe I can start one? Nah.
Alabama would be a good place to start. Did you ever watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? It was pretty good.
No. It's a movie? I'll add it to my list. Thanks for the suggestion.
It's a mini-series on Amazon with a few seasons, which is always nice. I thought it would be really lame, but surprise! It wasn't.
Props to your adorable little 'un, and congrats on how your Substack is gaining traction.
Keep up the great work, both of you.
The New Abnormal is putting is mildly. Weird and weirder is the trend. It requires quite the mental gymnastics to get one's head around it.
Thanks, Frank. I found the term New Abnormal from a reader comment ... and I've been using it ever since. It certainly describes our surreal times, which are becoming "curiouser and curiouser."
... I'll never run out of topics to write about that's for sure.
Bill, I definitely think you could do stand-up.
Don't tell my wife. The catch is I don't know of any place in Alabama that has an "amateur night" where people like me can just go up on stage and start practicing. I would like to try it. I wouldn't tell anybody and wouldn't want anyone who knows me to watch my first efforts.
Just doing it would be funny ... to me.
Bingo bango
We are always looking for new talent! Please email a 5-10 minute clip...
https://levitylive.com/
Speaking of the "Ron Paul Revolution" (and the authentic "Tea Party Movement"), I remember that Matt Drudge used to run many pro-Ron Paul headlines and polls at his website.
This told me that Drudge must lean hard to the libertarian side of the political spectrum. Today, the site is all the way on the far left of the same political spectrum. How did Drudge turn so dramatically and suddenly? We've never really learned the answer to this question - which is kind of significant IMO.
Basically, I think someone on Madison Avenue is running all these myriad campaigns. These Mad Men have "clients," but they are crafting all the daily and weekly narratives and helped come up with the five and 10-year plans.
So happy for your Substack success Bill! You are a wonderful writer (even if it doesn't come easy according to you) and I look forward to your columns with great anticipation. Regarding the "Mad Men" analogy you made concerning politics, I was under the impression that was confirmed as fact years ago. The soundbite, the memes, the political cartoons - all of it is a form of Cold War waged by those of one political persuasion trying to make another look bad. What is really amazing is that Right can't do a better job painting the current administration as "communication dodging cowards" which is what they are. When was the last time an imbecile sat in the Oval Office cloaked from the world? Reminds me of one of those English Kings that was so damaged from inbreeding that he ruled in name only. Who the hell is really running the country? Does this not bother anyone but me?
Hi Bill, I'm new to your stack and enjoyed your musings here. If you don't mind may I offer some unsolicited advice? I was an actor in a previous life. There was a student in my acting class who wanted to do stand up. He was hopeless at first, no one believed he could ever be funny. Over a few months he was absolutely transformed by our acting coach. I encourage you to find a good coach and give it a go!
Do I ever remember the great cheerleaders in JV and V H.S. football. Everyone was enthralled with their poise and grace.
Like another poster said, the people doing this work off of deceit, delusion and depravity. I would add malevolence and hate.