11

We live in an electronic concentration camp.

Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 12 months ago to Philosophy
40 comments | Share | Flag

"The purpose of the evil that masquerades as a government in Washington is to prevent those few Americans who do have a clue from informing the rest of the population. Whistleblowers are arrested and falsely prosecuted and imprisoned. Journalists have been intimidated into silence.
...
Whitehead says that the mass of the citizenry cannot be assassinated. If citizens simply stop cooperating by listening to the lies on TV, by purchasing the devices used to control them, by amusing themselves in front of propaganda screens, by learning again how to think, how to be human, how to be moral, the American police state can be defeated.

It worked in the past, and possibly it can work again. If not, Washington will remain the home of Sauron, a threat to every American citizen and to the entire world."
SOURCE URL: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/04/03/can-evil-defeated/


Add Comment

FORMATTING HELP

All Comments Hide marked as read Mark all as read

  • Posted by $ jbrenner 8 years, 12 months ago
    A comparison of Washington to the home of Sauron (i.e. Mordor) deserves a +1. If DC were to suffer a cataclysm, I would not rebuild it.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 8 years, 11 months ago
      Once a swamp, always a swamp?
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by $ jbrenner 8 years, 11 months ago
        DC is too infested with looters.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by woodlema 8 years, 11 months ago
          Agree. Only they see themselves as Robin Hood, and really believe they are doing good, when in fact they are not. We all know what the road to hell is paved with.

          Ayn Rand certainly nailed Robin Hood for what he was.
          Robin Hood is Evil
          Ragnar Danneskjold: "But I’ve chosen a special mission of my own. I’m after a man whom I want to destroy. He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men’s minds, we will not have a decent world to live in."

          Hank Rearden: "What man?"

          Ragnar: "Robin Hood."

          Ragnar: ". . . [Robin Hood] is not remembered as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became a symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, had demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures – the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich – whom men have come to regard as the moral idea." ". . . Do you wonder why the world is collapsing around us? That is what I am fighting, Mr. Rearden. Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive."

          The Pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld
          From Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 11 months ago
    I found the article 'over the top'. I look out my window at the cul de sac at the end of which our office is located: there are no police teams searching the buildings, there are no bullet holes in the walls. I am not accosted by police when I go to the store to buy groceries.

    How is a normal person with a normal job going to react to such an article? By distancing themselves from the writer and his cause, I think. This is not what we need.

    Insofar as the presentation of facts in the article is concerned, please note that they were just 'statements' - no discussion, few statistics. There was an equation drawn between people watching TV and people being reduced to mindless droids. How many times have we heard that argument? How much TV have you watched in your lives?

    I think that the Internet has brought about an unprecedented distribution of minority views and that we have access to much more varied information than ever before in history. Our information is not filtered through a gatekeeper any more - we can go and see 'what the other side said'.

    We do need to limit government and the police. There are laws on the books that are terrible and which need to be challenged and repealed (eg civil forfeiture). There is lots of stuff that needs to be done, but this article is not the way to achieve that goal.

    Jan
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 8 years, 11 months ago
      Well, Jan, it is a book review although it doesn't read like a normal one. I agree that it doesn't get into confirming details; his other articles (and I presume the book) cover the details behind the statements. A rational person reacts by asking questions as you did, and will likely do some research. A sheep will still be watching idiots screaming at each other on the tube. I have watched a lot of tv, but I also observed how tv has changed over the years. The majority of the tv I watched bears little resemblance to what people subject themselves to now. TV today is hideous irrational propaganda with hidden and sometimes subliminal messages. There is a stark difference between the propaganda on tv and the reality of local, state, and federal police. That vast divide was not the case in the past except in a very few cases.
      I do agree with your conclusions.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by Flootus5 8 years, 11 months ago
        Indeed, the level of TV propaganda has changed over the years. And hardly for the better. I'd hate to be a millenial or younger trying to sort anything out. But it can be done. What is on TV is hugely responsible for our current Age of Cognitive Dissonance.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 11 months ago
        Book Review? That was a Book Review?!

        I expect a book review (no caps - calming down, now) to indicate 'the author says' more than 'This Is the Truth'. I am afraid to read the book, now - though I should at least look it up on Amazon and preview a few pages to get the sense of it.

        I watched TV when I was a kid, but have not had one in 30+ years. Most of my friends have a TV, though, and they are far from sheep.

        Jan
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by 8 years, 11 months ago
          Heheheh.
          No tv for about 20 years, although I look in just to observe the current state of propaganda regularly. I think the obvious bias of the news chased me away more than program content propaganda. That makes the propaganda so much more obvious to me now.
          I recall watching Boston Legal on occasion starting just after 9/11. Their Bush hating was so obvious and conclusions so hypocritical. I was really wondering what they would do when a Dem was elected and he/she didn't change anything they had criticized.
          The answer? Although their ranking hadn't changed in 4 years, suddenly the demographic was wrong and they cancelled the show although a strike of union workers was also used as an excuse. Clever using a socialist problem to cancel a socialist leaning show just before it might be exposed as hypocritical by conservatives.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by plusaf 8 years, 11 months ago
            Oh, come on... Shatner and his bud looked great in drag (at least his buddy did) and I suspect that's why they did the show... for those kinds of opportunities... The show was a fun watch for most of the situations encountered, but if you let the politics scare you away, you would have also missed some great acting and characters in shows like The West Wing.

            At least on TWW, the Prez had balls and occasionally sensible reactions to events, unlike 'what's his name' who's in the Big Oval today.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • Posted by 8 years, 11 months ago
              Your last statement is why I stopped watching TWW before the first episode was over. Just a propaganda tool to give the impression that the POTUS and his minions are concerned public servants. Their only concerns are increasing their own power and loot. All decisions of consequence are politicised in the real WW.
              (Shatner's bud, James Spader, is still doing well as Red in the Blacklist, another weird wealthy character. He's been doing off the wall characters well his entire career, from Daniel Jackson in Stargate movie to (shades of) Grey in Secretary.)
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • Posted by plusaf 8 years, 11 months ago
                Yeah, lots of folks do that (stop watching after part of the pilot or first episode.

                As a non-Democrat/non-Republican, I enjoyed the writing and acting by just about everyone in the cast, and was sorry when the program ended.

                I could tell the propaganda from the writing and would often make comments about what came out of the cast members' mouths (to my quite-liberal (relatively) wife) but the show was, imnsho, quite well-done.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • Posted by 8 years, 11 months ago
                  there is something to be said for understanding the enemy's methods by observing him. The better they do it, the more dangerous it is as propaganda. So I remove myself from the audience. If everyone did that, the ratings would drop and the enemy would be stuck with a white elephant and a drain on his resources.
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by plusaf 8 years, 11 months ago
      I, too, agree, Jan... it's what I've referred to as the "Catastrophization of America", where anything and everything is first 'extrapolated to infinity' and then 'reacted to as if the extrapolation has actually occurred already.'

      I first noticed this kind of reaction in my first wife in the 1970s, so I think the roots may be that deep or deeper.

      Today, the MainScream Media carries the banner, making every non-event seem as if it directly will affect everyone's life, and that's simply not the case.

      My (new) wife and I love the mysteries and situationals and sci-fi series on TV and rarely, if ever, watch the Talking News Heads such as "Woof Blister."

      Life's too short for that shit.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by Flootus5 8 years, 11 months ago
      I agree. Over the top. While giving voice to many legitimate concerns, there are just too many unsubstantiated claims that erode credibility.

      "It is now routine for a traffic stop, whether justified or not, to result in the confiscation of your cash, other possessions, and your car itself. You can be robbed by police on the basis of their assumptions without being ticketed or charged with a crime."

      Routine? In Northern Nevada it has come to light there has been a rogue cop out of Winnemucca that was abusing civil forfeiture procedures and confiscating cash from Interstate drivers he was stopping. That cop is under investigation now.

      "It is now routine for police to amuse themselves by carrying out strip searches and vaginal searches of women." Really? Routine?

      Then how can the following statement be true?

      "In my opinion, as I so often write, Americans are distracted by sex, entertainment, the difficulty of providing for themselves and for families. Americans simply have no clue."

      I really don't think a distracted populace would ignore such "routine" searches.

      There is a strange underlying negativity to this article and some of the others written by the same guy. The other article about the Dying Oceans is primarily predicated on climate change, plastic debris, and overfishing. While there may be some issues that need addressing, buying into the climate change rigmarole is problematic, but, there is more in there:

      "From my perspective the human destruction of the oceans is yet more evidence of the ruinous nature of private capitalism."

      Alarm Bells! And then the Titles of some of his books: "The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism" and "How America Was Lost".

      Something is off here.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 11 months ago
        Thanks for the additional info and analysis. Yes, I think you have put words to my hunch.

        Jan
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by 8 years, 11 months ago
          So they are words that agree with your hunch.
          Sometimes people who have made points in articles repeatedly get lazy and forget that the reader may not have seen the other 75 times details were included. I can much easier forgive the statements in this review than recent statements from Penn Jillete, but that's because I have more experience with Paul Craig Roberts. Others will give Penn a pass because of familiarity with his work, too.

          I understand your reticence and I have that sort of response to some sources, for example, rantings from Alex Jones. That said, if you just assume someone wearing a tinfoil hat is always wrong you may find yourself eating margarine for decades unnecessarily.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 11 months ago
            Ha! I LIKE my tinfoil hat - it keeps the alien thought waves out of my brain. (But I do not eat margarine...I think that was an alien thought wave from the beginning.)

            I suspect that I might agree with Paul Craig Roberts on many of his conclusions: Certainly I agree that government needs to be limited and that police actions need to be constrained by the Bill of Rights. By using examples that are contrary to our daily experience, the article distances us from the subject matter, which is not its purpose. I think we need to keep a heightened awareness of this factor when we write for publication.

            Jan, no margarine
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 12 months ago
    The really awful realization is that I often feel as if I've failed my sons, leaving them such a terrible set of problems to live with.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 11 months ago
    Such incidents as quoted are very much the exception. However, the atrocities illustrated are new to our recognition. Such actions were unheard of 20 years ago. If they did occur, they were so rare that they never became an object of public attention. It is my judgment that we are living in a changing world -- changing not for the better. It is a coarser, less empathic world, where everything from humor to drama is set out in language and action that would have disgusted the generation before mine, and does so to the generation I represent. This uncaring embrace of what was said under one's breath 20 years ago, is not only said, but acted upon. And even the police have become a part of it.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 8 years, 11 months ago
    Hello freedomforall,
    A truly interesting, but also terrifying article.
    Now how to start a nonviolent nationwide strike, while the masses are addicted to bread and circuses?
    Regards,
    O.A.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 8 years, 11 months ago
      Umm, who is John Galt?

      If the only addiction was bread and circuses we'd have a better chance.
      Make our circus more appealing than their circus, and include those little tasty canapes?
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by NealS 8 years, 11 months ago
    When does the movie come out so the mainstream can understand what's happening?

    Did you see video of college students that had no idea who won the Civil War? Most of them didn't even know what it was or who fought it. And only one of them could name our vice president.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 8 years, 11 months ago
      Even the ones who know about the civil war haven't a clue because everything was taught at the victor's government school.
      But I do get your point.
      The movie would be harder to make appealing to "modern" people than AS.
      Let's see, vice president, thats a touchy feely job, right?
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by wiggys 8 years, 11 months ago
    Many of us here and a surprisingly large number of people out there who are not objectivists also know that this is going on. The only way to stop it is to get the people who are charged with doing all of the leg work. That is not about to happen since they are being paid a lot of money and they are unfortunately poorly educated. They think that everybody is the enemy so they just do things like sending swat teams to peoples houses with out any regard for the people. They have been told that this address has bad guys in it without having any knowledge. This situation will continue to become worse and worse until there is an up rising. welcome to america.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden by post owner or admin, or due to low comment or member score. View Comment
  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 11 months ago
    No TV since 1997. No land line phone since 1998. No Newspaper subscription or have I bought one off the rack since then.

    I don't answer the cell phone just because it rings. I do take the battery out when the rest of my life desires no interruptions. I don't answer anything that isn't identified by more than a telephone or cell radio phone number,

    Social Media? I think of it as half waste of time and half block wardens.

    It's called freedom of choice. Al it takes is the will power to use the off switch.

    Especially easy as I now have to make an effort to go find a wifi or cell signal..

    Which makes this forum one of the favored few.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Owlsrayne 8 years, 11 months ago
    I only see Revolution as the only alternative! Even if half of what the author is saying is true, organized mass violence will waked up the rest of the pathetic citizens living in their electronic propagandized limbo. There will come a time that those who wish to be free will see no other alternative but to physically clash with the paranoid government. I'm afraid it will be our children and their children to rebuild this country after their parents have brought it to it's knees.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  

FORMATTING HELP

  • Comment hidden. Undo