How does Bush maintain support amidst such colossal failures?

[Jara sang]

I have tried and I can only think of maybe one or two things that he has done as President that haven't been to his and his cronies benefit and I can't think of any policy that didn't just outright fail. How in the midst of such a colossal failure does this man keep his job and still garner support? For get about the stupidity and selfishness of the average Bush supporter for a moment, there are some people that will support Bush regardless of how horrible he is. First of all, there is the trick of blaming everybody else. You can apparently ride that for a long, long, long time. Another one of his tricks is outright deception, "dirty tricks" and lies. The list of these Bush tactics is far to long but we all know the biggest one: WMDs in Iraq. Another reason is Bush's favorite two numbers: 9/11. Bush has pounded 9/11 into the moment when the paradigm shifted in the nation's psyche. The reality of living in a dangerous global community slammed into the financial center of the country. The event was a traumatic shock to the nation's nervous system. Bush is playing the card that "all bets are off" in this "new global environment." He merely has to conjure up images of the horror and people start to cower and look to him for some sort of leadership, even though that leadership is never there. He uses September 11th as his carte blanche to do whatever it is that he wants. He also knows that the American peoples memories are short, that is why he invokes September 11th 2001, 9/11, September the eleventh, et. al. so many times in his speeches, lest we forget that "things have changed". "I'm a wartime President" Bush says, transferring responsibility onto the citizen's, for we all know "one must make sacrifices during times of war" The sacrifice Bush wants us to make is the call for responsibility to our leadership. Bush's contempt for democracy and the American people is blatant. He doesn't try to hide it. Why does this man still occupy the Oval office?

[demgrrrll]

1. The media. If they reported truthfully the only support he would have

would be his lunatic base. Even today they are trumpeting some supposed rise in the polls that might easily be explained as a slight variation due to margin of error. The media have become fat and complacent and do not want to rock the boat. When their corporate masters cease to need the Bush administration this may change but I am not counting on it.

[Trevelyan]

8. Google Brainwashing - It is what the MK-ULTRA mind control experiments

were about. Bush does not write his own speeches.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=3699
http://www.psywarrior.com/ ~~Psychological Operations

"Capture their minds and their hearts and souls will follow"

Psychological Operations (PSYOP) and Psychological Warfare (PSYWAR), these words generate thoughts of North Vietnam's "Hanoi Hanna", Japan's "Tokyo Rose" and more recently the Iraq's infamous "Baghdad Betty" of Desert Storm. To others the words psychological operations and psychological warfare conjure up images of our military playing mind games with the enemy.

PSYOP is all this and much more, for you see there are essentially two great forces in warfare:-the physical and the moral. These two forces suggest two distinct approaches to warfare. One a "direct" approach, concentrating on the opponent's physical forces, and the other an "indirect" approach, focusing on moral forces.

Both of these approaches have been tried throughout history, with a noted lack of emphasis on the indirect approach until more recent times. This website will attempt to give new emphasis to the indirect approach by conveying a better appreciation for the application of psychological operations. So sit back and join me on a tour of the history of Psychological Operations, and what PSYOP is today.

- The Life and Times of the "Psywarrior" Symbol Literacy – Part II
Michael Tsarion

The Subversive Use of Sacred Symbolism in the Media

Kids won’t even find out how much their values have been perverted until they hit high school - Esquire Magazine

We have come to expect hidden messages in our kids’ TV - Douglas Rushkoff (Media Virus)

Due to chronic symbol illiteracy we tend to be unaware of a great poison in our midst, something that has a profound effect, negatively, on our conscious and unconscious selves. This is the use of subliminal persuasion in media and advertising. This persuasion constitutes nothing less than a psychic dictatorship.

It involves the conscious subversive manipulation, and public purveyance, of words, images, numbers, colors, rhythms and symbols which are then directed, via the ubiquitous media oracles, toward the limbic areas of the human brain. The artifice of the Persuaders produces an elaborate and insidious cryptic language specifically designed to stimulate fantasy versus reality dichotomy, compulsive urges of the lower appetites, and a plethora of mundane and dissonant drives which conflict with an individual's higher conscious nature and intentions.

Constant exposure to such subliminal content serves to undermine the healthy drives. It subverts the natural moral sensibility and ultimately arrests human spiritual maturation. The devastating effects of such subversion on our selves, and on our children, has rarely been explored to any great depth and has yet to be recognized by the public at large who, being victims of chronic “symbol illiteracy” are un-shielded against the constant barrage of subliminal information entering their minds causing, over time, a nightmare list of physical and psychic disorders.

There can be, in the mind of this author, no question of positive social change, no question of either national or global healing until human beings, particularly those in the western world, become lucidly cognizant and profoundly educated concerning the power of symbols, not only as transcendental portals, or mathematical devices, but as weapons in the hands of plutocratic elites, with occult agendas, laboring to arrest the mental, emotional, and spiritual maturation of the under-classes. The alarming existential chaos which the young presently endure, though mostly deplored and ignored, serves as a direct indictment to the existence of the symbolic subversion I mention.

The young are, by definition, closer to the creative force than the average adult. They are also more influenced by the drives of the limbic brain and, therefore, respond with greater zeal to the erotic and even perverse symbolic messages which are becoming more and more pervasive in their life- and think-space. The invasive, clandestinely directed content has been adroitly designed to bypass their moral conscience and rational filter...

[kaneko]

2. I am asking myself

the same question every day. By the way , not to forget the gigantic failure in New Orleans and the Gulf coast.

[The Whiskey Priest]

3. What in his whole life has he accomplished other than

to emerge from the birth canal

[MissMarple]

6. He destroys things.

So, I guess one could say he accomplishes destruction. Hmm...that would make him a destructionator. ;)

[Trevelyan]

4. Some say its best to keep the masses illiterate

Some say its best to keep the masses illiterate, all the easier to manipulate them. Some would say this illiteracy is intentional. Some say....

Support WWOZ In Exilea bit of support from england

i only want to say that there are many people like me who are thinking about you all and what you have gone through. your music has lifted us for ages. i/we send you love and hope for the future.
blessings,

6:04 pm New Orleans Time (CSThttp://www.wwoz.org/cgi-bin/message/message.pl)


http://www.millionphonemarch.com/habeas.htm

[deutsey]

5. Who ever controls TV controls our perceptions of reality

Our culture, and hence, our views of reality, is shaped by television. I think it's pretty safe to say that the Bush junta has had the MSM, through its corporate owners, on a very tight leash for some time now. For the most part, the political discourse permitted on our media goes from far right to center/right. Add to that diversionary "news" obsessions (missing dead white girls) and infotainment, and it doesn't surprise me that a lot of people are clueless about what's really going on. And, for the most part, many of them like it that way.

[Jara sang]

10. Indeed

I like your summary of the discourse "from far right to center/right". That is dead on.

[MissMarple]

11. Moyers on C-SPAN talked about print ,TV and cable news reporting .

Ownership by major corporation has ruined journalism that most people have access to. It is not in their interests to report the truth, to fund investigative journalism.

It was a good program. The panel following Moyers was good, as well. Two policy wonks, mostly apolitical, talked about the situation in Iraq, the conduct of the war, their views for Iraq's future and our success there. It was pretty dark but not totally unfortunate or completely hopeless. Their thought on George...not so good.

It was sponsored by the National Security Archives, I believe. What a bunch of liberal librarians. ;)

[Jara sang]

14. Is that the National Security Archives at George Washington University?

[ReadTomPaine]

7. Simple. He has plenty of inside help, and he cheats. n/t

[supernova]

9. I this it's fear

But thrives on fear and ignorance.

So he does anything he can to keep the american people fearful: 9/11, War on Terra, 9/11, you'll be highjacked, 9/11 Bad countires must be invaded, 9/11, War on Christmas....

They enjoy this because they think it will keep them safe. So because of the fear, they willingly accept ignorance.

[Danascot]

12. We need to keep repeating our talking points

until everyone (not just DUers) who hears the word "Bush" thinks:

"Worst president ever"

"Everything he's ever touched turns to shit."

... many others

[ThingsGottaChange]

13. I don't think it's what he's done (how could it be???)

It's what he says.
I'll bet the majority of his supporters are the overly religious folks that are against abortion (just like him) and just hear certain words he spews. Like, family values, morality, gawd, hard work, etc. They can't be bothered to look any further. He's saying exactly what those people want to hear. Doesn't matter to them what he does. And let's not forget all the folks that just loooove a good war!

[Jara sang]

15. Good point.