Voltaire: Those who can make people believe absurdities can make them commit atrocities.

[Turborama]

Very apt quote borrowed from the most highly rated comment in response to this excellent piece by Rachel where she http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBxzMMCokpI">Explores The Right Wing Lying Echo Chamber

[Chipper Chat]

1. The twilight Zone episode "The Monsters on Maple Street" comes to mind.

[proteus_lives]

11. One of the best fictional examples of human behavior ever.

[RandomThoughts]

2. The trick to avoid buying into those things.

Is to try and remember most people are mostly good, and if any of those big conspiracies were happening someone would be stopping them.

Although I notice that there is gaps from reality and what is on tv and the internet. So I like Sci Fi stories, at least it is fun to talk about.

Like the Hal becoming Real :D
Just a funny,
I don't Really think like that :D


On a side note, an open source search engine open to civilian review would help in that situation. Since if not open to review, some of the search algorithms could create control issues, or be used for control. Especially when they are consolidated with a few companies.

Or you can just have fun with words, like.

October backwards.
RE bot co. :D

(Just joking around, but figured it goes good with the post in this thread)

[Turborama]

4. Re: Open source search engines

That's a great idea which I hadn't thought of until you mentioned it. I just had a look (using the GOOGLES, ironically) and found that there's a fairly long list of them in Wikipedia, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines#Open_source_search_engines

Regarding this suggestion: "most people are mostly good, and if any of those big conspiracies were happening someone would be stopping them"

As I am a glass half full kind of guy myself, it would be nice to think that's true but history tells us otherwise...

(edited to fix typo)

[RandomThoughts]

6. You make a good point there.

Guess it is all messed up then.

I really think transparency and lack of consolidations of information or any system that has any influence on society can help stop conspiracies, but you are correct about the history comment.

Maybe why educating people on how things like fear move from person to person, and how other thoughts can break those spells is so important. And education on marketing, and systems that spread untrue stories.

I figure it will work out, but then again, haven't observed those corrections. I do think most people are more good then bad, and from tells and reads (poker like) on many people in public and private sector, I think they really are more good then bad.

[Turborama]

7. If you're a science fiction fan, you might know this quote

From the Bene Gesserit's litany against fear in Dune: "Fear is the mind-killer."

Fear is the most powerful tool of the darkside and they have become experts at using it. Also, to use yet another quote to emphasize the use their other extremely powerful tool, as Goebbels famously said: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

I went into how pertinent that quote is to how today's media operates at length http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4516566&mesg_id=4516657">here & http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9018714&mesg_id=9020555">here.

If you haven't seen it yet, I thoroughly recommend watching this, as well: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x405536">BBC's "The Nazis - A Warning From History"

[RandomThoughts]

8. Yes I know the Dune Saga well.

There are some great learnings in that book.

It is unfortunate that a group took the 'blue eyes' as a racial comment, that filter ruins that comment for many people.

I have quoted from that film before, and I agree fear is the mind killer.


Also the slow knife penetrates the shield, most don't understand that comment either. It is part of Entish lore also, and being prepared.

[veganlush]

3. I've heard the expression used in connection

with factory farming and meat consumption

[Turborama]

5. I can see how that would work

What with all the deceptive terms and pictures they use. Have you seen Food Inc. yet?

[veganlush]

16. Yes! great movie. everyone should see it.

[Mimosa]

9. What a great and relevant quotation. n/t

[sabrina 1]

10. "How do you ever talk to those people"

This was one of Rachels classics. It should be repeated over and over again as a deprogramming tool for the indoctrinated.

Her question at the end was aimed at Jon Stewart I am certain. Her rant against Fox being so different from what she and Keith et al do on MSNBC was also aimed, subtly again, at Jon Stewart who lumped them together.

He never should have done that, and I think it has really bothered Rachel but unlike Keith, she is sending subtle but powerful messages to those who might have believed Stewart.

Thanks for posting this Turborama, I saw it last night and felt like applauding her. It was well worth watching again.

But funny as some of it is (O'Donnell claiming that they mixing humans and animals and producing mice with powerful brains???) as Rachel pointed out, that these gullible people who believe these things are now moving into powerful positions. Like Bachman who sounds to me like a person who is either on something, or seriously mentally impaired, yet she is in Congress. The U.S. is falling apart. The future looks very bleak because there are so many of them.

[Turborama]

12. The only trouble is that deprogramming tools for the indoctrinated...

...can only be used by family and/or friends who are able to do an intervention, and who's going to be able to do that when they're all into it? :shrug:

I was predicting during the 2008 election that when it was over there was going to be a great need for a lot of interventions & deprogramming because these nutjobs have been brainwashed in exact the same way cult members have. Facts do not come into their thought processes at all, they believe what they WANT, and have been programmed, to believe.

It gets worse, there was a fascinating paper that came out in 2008 which goes into detail about how this mental illness isn't just psychological, it's also physiological.

The abstract alone gives a good explanation why Faux news' viewers could actually be described as victims...

Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits

Although political views have been thought to arise largely from individuals' experiences, recent research suggests that they may have a biological basis. We present evidence that variations in political attitudes correlate with physiological traits. In a group of 46 adult participants with strong political beliefs, individuals with measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden noises and threatening visual images were more likely to support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism, and gun control, whereas individuals displaying measurably higher physiological reactions to those same stimuli were more likely to favor defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism, and the Iraq War. Thus, the degree to which individuals are physiologically responsive to threat appears to indicate the degree to which they advocate policies that protect the existing social structure from both external (outgroup) and internal (norm-violator) threats.

Full paper: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=poliscifacpub

There was another paper that came out that year about cognitive dissonance and Republicans but I can't remember the title of it.

BTW I've found the transcript for Rachel's show which is linked to in the OP, if you think it could be of use: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40027383/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/

Also, I've recently posted a clip of Bill Maher saying the same sort of thing you did about Stewart but, unlike Rachel, he didn't mince his words: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9497478

I like both Maher and Stewart a great deal and have a lot of admiration for the work they do but I don't uncritically agree with everything either of them say.

[sabrina 1]

13. Wow, very interesting about the physiological aspect of

this. It makes sense though. I often, when frustrated with them telling me 'you don't care about National Security but wait until YOU are a victim THEN you'll understand' would ask them why they are so easily frightened? Pointing out that living in fear of terrorists doesn't make sense, since it is the least likely threat we have to worry about every day. Driving, flying, getting sick with no health insurance are all far more imminent threats to safety, IF we want to live in fear. But logic doesn't work on them. I spent several years interacting with them online, and even if you produce absolute proof of something that goes against their beliefs, they will either change the subject or resort to name-calling, but they will not address anything that shakes their faith in what they believe.

This makes sense. They actually are frightened people, and could be called victims as their fears are being exploited. But so many of them? Armed to the teeth, spouting all that hate. I guess it would be hard to deprogram them as in many cases it is a family affair.

Yes, I like Stewart also and credit him with spreading news, under the radar, to college age people for years when it was practically banned on regular TV. But sometimes he works too hard not to appear biased, which is fine, there's plenty to criticize about our side too. But what he said that day was simply wrong. There is simply no comparison and he's way too smart not to know that. So, I am puzzled by it more than anything.

I would have expected him to point out the differences. Eg, show a clip of Hannity saying something outrageous, as Rachel did, look at the audience with disbelief the way he does, then show Rachel or Keith debunking it. That would have been easy to do, but he chose to insult Keith and Ed Schultz and imply that MSNBC's lineup is comparable to Fox.

Rachel I think, is worried about being tagged like that. I'm glad Maher mentioned it too. It got a lot of negative reaction and spoiled an otherwise great event.

I just wonder if the bosses at MSNBC took Stewart's insult as a sort of green light to go after Keith, thinking tht Stewart's fans would not be very upset about it.

I hope they are finding out that is not the case and it only made people angry at Stewart. We are not Fox veiwers, we can discern facts from fiction. They should know that by now.

Thanks for the transcrip. I will bookmark it as it will come in handy sometimes.

[felix_numinous]

14. K&R To lose the ability to think critically is to lose

free will. People become dependent on others to think for them-which is exactly how cults work. I have been disturbed for many years by the support, pandering and enabling of religious extremism in this country (never mind around the world)--and the millions poured into it. Unfortunately encouraging massive ignorance only makes sense from the context of crowd control.

I think it would really help for someone to expose religious extremists as cults and call them out of the shadows, as well as all the propaganda techniques being used today.

[Turborama]

15. Agree 100%!

With everything you say.

Frank Schaeffer has been doing some great work on this, as can be seen on http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Frank+Schaeffer&aq=f">these videos on YouTube, but he seems to be a lone voice and, apart from appearances on Rachel's show, he doesn't get nearly enough airtime on the Mainstream Media.

Unfortunately, his excellent blog only has 566 followers, too... http://frank-schaeffer.blogspot.com/

[felix_numinous]

18. Late on this response-

I have heard him too, he is a true man of conscience and a very important voice. It is so sad he is almost a lone voice in the wilderness. I think there are many others out there, the left needs them to be more vocal explaining their process of leaving these religions. People who have left scientology are an interesting bunch too, the internet is full of them.

I am deeply disappointed in religious leaders, some for their hate speech, and others for their lack of outrage. They have so much influence and it is being squandered. On the one hand you have ministers telling people how to vote which is what they should stay silent about, while on the other hand they stay silent on moral issues of which they should be vocal. I know many good voices never make the mainstream, but they are definitely negligent here.

I think exposing extremist groups as cults is one key that could turn this country around. But it has to be done in a way that does not insult their religion or it would come to bite us bad, and turn into some religious war. That is probably why everyone avoids it.

[mmonk]

17. I have that as a bumper sticker.

[Arugula Latte]

19. Thus the danger of religion.