Suppression/Propaganda in Media

[drstrangelove]

Education has become frameworks and best practise. All knowledge no understanding. The only time i ever wanted to kill myself was at University, and even then it wasn't even me i wanted to kill, but the eight hundred modules of project management cycles i had been infected with.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Are you mad? This would be the end of the teaching profession. Seriously.

Now I'm rethinking my opposition to these laws; you make a tempting case.

I'm not big on education -- to the point of being skeptical it actually happens -- but that's largely shaped by my own childhood, like so many of my other dipshit opinions. I'm an outlier. If people say they benefited from it, I will believe them, no matter how high my eyebrows will sometimes arch.

Rufo, an experienced PR flack with a quick mind and a broad toolkit, is making great professional hay in terms of his own brand and in terms of giving frustrated parents something to organize around, but his actual program is Tea Party type doomed Ghost Dance shit. It's a flashpoint for sure but he has nothing to actually accomplish in mind. While I'm not sympathetic to the argument that the racial literacy industry isn't "real" critical race theory when it's obviously downstream of it, anyone viewing this cultural phenomenon has to concede that "CRT" isn't a useful descriptor of what is going on.

Many Americans are frustrated that public school teachers are predominantly progressives who view their work as political activism.

This is not altogether accurate. Such specimens surely exist, broadly distributed, which is unfortunate since their own politics are shaped largely by the same pop culture trash as anyone else in America and limited largely to "going to protests and voting for Democrats." If they had more than slogans they'd be much more of a threat.

And it's also surely true that there are more educators on Team Blue than Team Red, by volume or bulk weight. But that long march through the institutions is hardly won, and the current flap is a small correction in that larger drama.

Importantly: the further you go up the ladder of credentialism, the fewer conservatives you find. Team Marx can comfortably claim the postgraduate sphere for now, despite the painful cognitive dissonance of how such intellectual endeavors get, you know, funded. (Then again, Engels led the way on making peace with such inner conflict, I suppose.)

But: the most credentialed are the most politically monoculture. This has downstream effects that working class Americans can clearly perceive but cannot clearly articulate. In this case, while little Timmy's fourth grade instructor might not be a Team Blue doctrinaire, the administrators who run that school very likely are. So are the men and women who set educational policy at the state and federal level. So are the lobbyists in the education space, and, specific to this issue, so are the women -- and it's mostly women -- who are doing these trainings about the dangers and evils of whiteness for little Timmy's fourth grade teacher and everyone else on staff.

I think an important factor that gets overlooked by pundits on both sides of this tribal conflict is that all this is set against an education system that is very expensive without being very effective. Many urban and rural school districts have essentially collapsed, in terms of the results they are able to deliver for their students. Many evangelicals are outraged about LGBTQ content in school but many more centrists are concerned about LGBTQ content in schools that are not giving their kids adequate preparation in terms of more fundamental subjects that far more important to their future.

Ultimately, the racial literacy / justice types are their own worst enemies, seized by triumphal zeal and far too comfortable "saying the quiet part out loud," especially in terms of their feelings about white people. They are often nothing short of caricatures. And ultimately, that is what drives the backlash, not Tucker Carlson or Christopher Rufo. Tucker is a cynical blowhard who is very much a part of the "elite" he makes a living disdaining and Rufo is building himself a similar career, if not eyeing a future in political office. Fuck 'em both, fuck 'em all, but note that the source material that animates these parents so much is coming from the actual training slides, actual recordings of these sessions, and the actual books people like DiAngelo and Kendi have written.

Yet it's not like the utterly reactionary response that local and state governments are attempting will fare much better. These laws may get a lot of momentum and attention but they are going to get little traction; there is too much precedent to strike them down at the appeals level. And while it is outright gaslighting for progs to pursue these kinds of ideological crusades while insisting they're not actually ideological crusades, it is accurate and fair to point out that most of the Americans on Team Red who are angry about this shit do not have enough of a grasp on it to explain why it's wrong.

I also don't think they should have to. Bullshit is bullshit and their horse sense here is correct. But it's not enough, because you do have to understand the goals and motivations of your opponents in order to actually defeat them, which Team Red is not organized enough to do. This is just another tired spectacle; fundraising, polarization, in-group cohesion, shit testing. Rufo has made it clear that he does not view his job as helping these parents understand it better, he just wants to agitate and mobilize.

America will never transcend their racist past and America will never escape their even more racist future, as more and more immigrants bring more and more ancient disputes and blood feuds into the shooting range. The real National Conversation on Race is well-intentioned crackers realizing that the world is considerably bigger than black people and white people, and all of them have strong feelings about each other and bear a list of complaints thousands of years long.

In the meantime, there's a lot of demand for the protection from liability that these trainings provide and that means there's a lot of money to be made. Nobody wants to grapple with these issues in a meaningful way, aside from scapegoating "whiteness," which is safe (until it's suddenly very dangerous, but enjoy that plot twist when it comes). There are too many cans of worms surrounding race, too many landmines behind every question, so the focus is on anodyne Diversity cheerleading and endless repetitions about "having difficult conversations." But: everybody has to be seen as Doing Something. So, call up a consultant and book some dates. You outsource. This is how America works.

Still, as hustles go, it's better than selling heroin or fracking. Or whatever sad hack bullshit Dinesh D'Souza is up to this week.

And besides, it's not really about public schools, or Universities: it's about New York and Los Angeles. It's about Americans feeling like their pop culture has been completely hijacked by ideologies they don't recognize. And, it has. Little Timmy isn't being taught by his fourth grade teacher, he's being taught by iPhones, by Netflix, by cartoons, by pop music. That battle was lost a long, long time ago.

[Harvey]

I'm not familiar with quite a few of the references, nevertheless, a very enjoyable analysis. Thanks.

[Joe Hillshoist]

The CRT bans are of course ridiculous, but I don't see all of these proposed measures as problematic, particularly the ones to ensure that parents know what their children are being taught and allow in-class recordings (unless doing so would violate two-party consent laws in the jurisdiction). For whatever ways those measures can be misused to "punish" teachers who defy problematic policies, they can also be used to hold accountable teachers who are problematic themselves.

Are you mad? This would be the end of the teaching profession. Seriously. And you know that's what is desired by the worst people in the world, the 'administrators' and 'reformers' (Gates, Zuckerberg, et al.) and tech contractors (Google etc.) of the educational sector. They envision having a handful of teachers who are more performers than anything else on video play-acting for several hundred students at a time, with the grading and 'evaluation' outsourced to Lithuanians and Indians at minimum wage, as a stage before it is (sooner or later) completely surrendered to The Algorithm. Surveillance of the teachers will one-hundred-percent go together with total surveillance of the students.

Zoom during Covid times is already a disaster, and threatens to destroy whatever was left functioning in the school system. But are you seriously saying that cameras and audio should be set up in physical classrooms, perforce? And the feed made available to all? Oh, my god! Everyone's going to have some kind of problem with the teacher! Every neurotic parent, every parent who plays Future Success Manager, every fucking religious nut is going to terrorize them or hound them out of the job. They could completely erase the CRT laws (which are EXTREME violations of educational integrity and speech rights) and just the camera and recording alone would guarantee that everyone would self-censor themselves to the point of saying NOTHING ANYMORE. The good news is, there will be major grade inflation. Ha. But that will last only as long as there are any actual teachers left. It will end up as I'm describing above. Trump was totally on board with this, this is what DeVos was all about, this is what's aimed at with 'Phoenix University' and most of the 'remote teaching' models.

Please rethink this. The trope of the bad teacher is used to demolish the system, not to actually eliminate bad teachers. Mostly it is used to crush teachers' unions and lower the number of teachers overall, and replace them with more administrators and consultancy-fakers. In the final stage, even most of the latter will be replaced with thinking machines.

Of course there should be no automatic recording in classrooms. The faculty are the rightful sovereigns of educational institutions. They should be electing their chairs and principals, or have co-principals (let's say, with one appointed by the municipality) and fewer administrators. All administrators should be required to teach a minimum of one course or class per week. (This is what my ideal dictatorship would force immediately, mwa ha ha.) Teachers should be setting curricula locally in coordination with a parent board, but with the teachers having the final say and their positions and incomes secured from parent whims. It is absolutely not the total right of the parent to control every aspect of school education. I'm certainly glad mine didn't!

.

My mum was a teacher in the Catholic school system in Australia. Its not necessarily a bad system but at one time Cardinal George Pell (look him up if you want) was in charge.

Pell is a spymaster by nature and his ability to leverage intelligence networks around child abuse rings in the church saw him rise from the editor of rural Catholic Newsletter to some of the highest positions in the Vatican. Anyway my mum was a biology teacher with a PhD in plant genetics that she got in the 60s and early 70s so she would teach students to use condoms if they had sex. This was in 1985 I guess, so AIDS was a new thing and very few people understood the importance of safe sex at the time.

This was directly against Church policies at the time. But in her defence it was well within he requirements of her conscience. She couldn't not do it. That same conscience that was formed by being raised a decent catholic wouldn't let her obey the church in this specific case.

She came under alot of pressure to change what she was teaching and refused point blank to do so. To her credit obviously.

Mum had students who would report to their mum - Margaret Tighe, look her up if you want, she was head of Australia's right to life movement. She would talk to Pell regularly and she would report to him what mum taught. Her boss would then get an angry call from the Catholic Education Office in Melbourne. She taught at the same school (a Christian Brothers one) for years and they fully supported her thru this. To their credit.

Anyway it stressed her out, from what I saw at home, she has extraordinary strength of character tho so she stuck to her guns.

The context is encouraging teenage boys to use condoms not only for contraceptive purposes but because AIDS was an emerging threat and using condoms in sexual activity was the only sure fire way to lower risk besides abstinance. Teenage kids ... so that ain't gonna happen. So potentially a life and death issue for her students.

What you are talking about is this very thing but on nuclear powered steroids. Every fucken issue, not just what happened with mum, and she had really high motivation to stand her ground, it wouldn't be the case on every fucken issue.... every issue would be a shitfight.

everyone would self-censor themselves to the point of saying NOTHING ANYMORE.

This is exactly what would happen.

[elfismiles]

Lex Fridman and Joe Rogan Follow Up | DarkHorse Vs YouTube (from Livestream #85)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3Y2N_wJIhk

https://odysee.com/@DarkHorsePodcastClips
https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein

[Harvey]

everyone would self-censor themselves to the point of saying NOTHING ANYMORE.

Exactly. Look around.

[BenDhyan]

I think the prescience of Aldous Huxley wrt how he saw the direction the future of his time unfolding was remarkable. It also explains why there is no amount of individual wisdom that can prevent the governing elite of the planet from eventually enslaving all unentitled humanity. It's almost completed. The idea that leftist politics is going to liberate the minds and lot of its followers is as realistic as that of the right, it's a game of divide and rule, it gives everyone the sense that change is possible, something to fight for and look forward to. In the mean time the rulers can continue to relax, but as a precaution continue to look for any insightful trouble makers who may have sufficient perception to have seen through the facade, and end their dream.

[conniption]

off-guardian

Facebook goes full Big Brother with new “extremism” warnings
Pop-ups mark an all-time high for creepiness from the internet giant.

Jul 2, 2021

Have you been reading things you shouldn’t online? Have you found yourself feeling frustrated and angry at the corruption of the ruling class, wealth inequality or the general state of the world?

Well then, the chances are good you’ve accidentally been exposed to “misinformation” or “extremist content” spread by “violent groups” in order to manipulate you.

But don’t worry, Facebook is on the case. Simply report the offensive and upsetting materials to your local content controller, and then contact their pre-approved counsellors for immediate de-programming.



If it’s not you that’s been exposed to harmful content, but a loved one, and they’re proving resistant to the proper un-extreming methods, then Facebook is here to help there, too.

Simply confidentially report your friend or family member to the proper authorities, and they’ll take it from there.



Remember that divergence of opinion is dangerous. Under no circumstances consume content that differs from your state-mandated opinions.

Report all infractions, refuse to see harmful facts, be sure to distance yourself from those who refuse to be corrected, for their own good and yours.

And have a nice day.

comments

4 of many comments:

NikkiBop
Jul 3, 2021 3:45 AM
All I can say is OMG!!!

greenbadger
Jul 3, 2021 2:11 AM
Just as pathogens are communicable in inverse proportion to their lethality, so is the social media susceptible to irrelevancy.
As they turn malign, they repulse more users.

niko
Jul 3, 2021 1:37 AM
Canada’s Government Is Seeking to Silence Canadian Journalists at Home and Abroad with a Draconian Censorship Bill
https://www.globalresearch.ca/canada-go ... ll/5749036

Arby
Jul 3, 2021 1:32 AM
When we have to tell people to abandon Facebook, What’s the use? It’s as though we had to tell people to not eat their own poop. If you have to tell people to not eat their own poop, then I think it’s too late for those people.

https://off-guardian.org/2021/07/02/fac ... -warnings/

[Harvey]

It strikes me that the Oligarchs are beginning to panic. Their project is dangerously exposed and not enough people are buying it. Therefore it would not surprise me in the least if this is part of a precisely calibrated, cross-media build-up toward another big event, perhaps WEF's global web blackout, during which many independent sites, servers and organisations, as well as individual computers and devices will be purged of all harmful content, all of this laid at the door of white supremacists and 'environmentalist extremists', conflating these two separate but overlapping ideas and leading neatly to the next round of theft, oppression, repression and suppression. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if such a thing occurs in the early autumn this year, heralding their long promoted 'dark winter.'

[Belligerent Savant]

.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/a-case-of ... capture-on

A Case of "Intellectual Capture?" On YouTube's Demonetization of Bret Weinstein

YouTube's use of government guidelines to regulate speech raises serious questions, both about the First Amendment and regulatory capture

Just under three years ago, Infowars anchor Alex Jones was tossed off Facebook, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify, marking the unofficial launch of the “content moderation” era. The censorship envelope has since widened dramatically via a series of high-profile incidents: Facebook and Twitter suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, Donald Trump’s social media suspension, Apple and Amazon’s kneecapping of Parler, the removal of real raw footage from the January 6th riots, and others.

This week’s decision by YouTube to demonetize podcaster Bret Weinstein belongs on that list, and has a case to be to be put at or near the top, representing a different and perhaps more unnerving speech conundrum than those other episodes.

Profiled in this space two weeks ago, Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying — both biologists — host the podcast DarkHorse, which by any measure is among the more successful independent media operations in the country. They have two YouTube channels, a main channel featuring whole episodes and livestreams, and a “clips” channel featuring excerpts from those shows.

Between the two channels, they’ve been flagged 11 times in the last month or so. Specifically, YouTube has honed in on two areas of discussion it believes promote “medical misinformation.” The first is the potential efficacy of the repurposed drug ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment. The second is the third rail of third rails, i.e. the possible shortcomings of the mRNA vaccines produced by companies like Moderna and Pfizer.

Weinstein, who was also criticized for arguing the lab-leak theory before conventional wisdom shifted on that topic, says YouTube’s decision will result in the loss of “half” of his and Heying’s income. However, he says, YouTube told him he can reapply after a month.

YouTube’s notice put it as follows: “Edit your channel and reapply for monetization… Make changes to your channel based on our feedback. Changes can include editing or deleting videos and updating video details.”
“They want me to self-censor,” he says. “Unless I stop broadcasting information that runs afoul of their CDC-approved talking points, I’ll remain demonetized.”

Weinstein’s travails with YouTube sound like something out of a Star Trek episode, in which the Enterprise crew tries and fails to communicate with a malevolent AI attacking the ship. In the last two weeks, he emailed back and forth with the firm, at one point receiving an email from someone who identified himself only as “Christopher,” indicating a desire to set up a discussion between Weinstein and various parties at YouTube.

Over the course of these communications, Weinstein asked if he could nail down the name and contact number of the person with whom he was interacting. “I said, ‘Look, I need to know who you are first, whether you’re real, what your real first and last names are, what your phone number is, and so on,” Weinstein recounts. “But on asking what ‘Christopher’s’ real name and email was, they wouldn’t even go that far.” After this demand of his, instead of giving him an actual contact, YouTube sent him a pair of less personalized demonetization notices.

As has been noted in this space multiple times, this is a common theme in nearly all of these stories, but Weinstein’s tale is at once weirder and more involved, as most people in these dilemmas never get past the form-letter response stage. YouTube has responded throughout to media queries about Weinstein’s case, suggesting they take it seriously.

YouTube’s decision with regard to Weinstein and Heying seems part of an overall butterfly effect, as numerous other figures either connected to the topic or to DarkHorse have been censured by various platforms. Weinstein guest Dr. Robert Malone, a former Salk Institute researcher often credited with helping develop mRNA vaccine technology, has been suspended from LinkedIn, and Weinstein guest Dr. Pierre Kory of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) has had his appearances removed by YouTube. Even Satoshi Ōmura, who won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for his work on ivermectin, reportedly had a video removed by YouTube this week.

There are several factors that make the DarkHorse incident different from other major Silicon Valley moderation decisions, including the fact that the content in question doesn’t involve electoral politics, foreign intervention, or incitement. The main issue is the possible blurring of lines between public and private censorship.

When I contacted YouTube about Weinstein two weeks ago, I was told, “In general, we rely on guidance from local and global health authorities (FDA, CDC, WHO, NHS, etc) in developing our COVID-19 misinformation policies.”

The question is, how active is that “guidance”? Is YouTube acting in consultation with those bodies in developing those moderation policies? As Weinstein notes, an answer in the affirmative would likely make theirs a true First Amendment problem, with an agency like the CDC not only setting public health policy but also effectively setting guidelines for private discussion about those policies. “If it is in consultation with the government,” he says, “it’s an entirely different issue.”

Asked specifically after Weinstein’s demonetization if the “guidance” included consultation with authorities, YouTube essentially said yes, pointing to previous announcements that they consult other authorities, and adding, “When we develop our policies we consult outside experts and YouTube creators. In the case of our COVID-19 misinformation policies, it would be guidance from local and global health authorities.”

Weinstein and Heying might be the most prominent non-conservative media operation to fall this far afoul of a platform like YouTube. Unlike the case of, say, Alex Jones, the moves against the show’s content have not been roundly cheered. In fact, they’ve inspired blowback from across the media spectrum, with everyone from Bill Maher to Joe Rogan to Tucker Carlson taking notice.

“They threw Bret Weinstein off YouTube, or almost,” Maher said on Real Time last week. “YouTube should not be telling me what I can see about ivermectin. Ivermectin isn’t a registered Republican. It’s a drug!”



From YouTube’s perspective, the argument for “medical misinformation” in the DarkHorse videos probably comes down to a few themes in Weinstein’s shows. Take, for example, an exchange between Weinstein and Malone in a video about the mRNA vaccines produced by companies like Moderna and Pfizer:

Weinstein: The other problem is that what these vaccines do is they encode spike protein… but the spike protein itself we now know is very dangerous, it’s cytotoxic, is that a fair description?

Malone: More than fair, and I alerted the FDA about this risk months and months and months ago.

In another moment, entrepreneur and funder of fluvoxamine studies Steve Kirsch mentioned that his carpet cleaner had a heart attack minutes after taking the Pfizer vaccine, and cited Canadian viral immunologist Byram Bridle in saying that that the COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t stay localized at point of injection, but “goes throughout your entire body, it goes to your brain to your heart.”

Politifact rated the claim that spike protein is cytotoxic “false,” citing the CDC to describe the spike protein as “harmless.” As to the idea that the protein does damage to other parts of the body, including the heart, they quoted an FDA spokesperson who said there’s no evidence the spike protein “lingers at any toxic level in the body.”

Would many doctors argue that the 226 identified cases of myocarditis so far is tiny in the context of 130 million vaccine doses administered, and overall the danger of myocarditis associated with vaccine is far lower than the dangers of myocarditis in Covid-19 patients?

Absolutely. It’s also true that the CDC itself had a meeting on June 18th to discuss cases of heart inflammation reported among people who’d received the vaccine. The CDC, in other words, is simultaneously telling news outlets like Politifact that spike protein is “harmless,” and also having ad-hoc meetings to discuss the possibility, however remote from their point of view, that it is not harmless. Are only CDC officials allowed to discuss these matters?

The larger problem with YouTube’s action is that it relies upon those government guidelines, which in turn are significantly dependent upon information provided to them by pharmaceutical companies, which have long track records of being less than forthright with the public.

In the last decade, for instance, the U.S. government spent over $1.5 billion to stockpile Tamiflu, a drug produced by the Swiss pharma firm Roche. It later came out — thanks to the efforts of a Japanese pediatrician who left a comment on an online forum — that Roche had withheld crucial testing information from British and American buyers, leading to a massive fraud suit. Similar controversies involving the arthritis drug Vioxx and the diabetes drug Avandia were prompted by investigations by independent doctors and academics.

As with financial services, military contracting, environmental protection, and other fields, the phenomenon of regulatory capture is demonstrably real in the pharmaceutical world. This makes basing any moderation policy on official guidelines problematic. If the proper vaccine policy is X, but the actual policy ends up being X plus unknown commercial consideration Y, a policy like YouTube’s more or less automatically preempts discussion of Y.

Some of Weinstein’s broadcasts involve exactly such questions about whether or not it’s necessary to give Covid-19 vaccines to children, to pregnant women, and to people who’ve already had Covid-19, and whether or not the official stance on those matters is colored by profit considerations. Other issues, like whether or not boosters are going to be necessary, need a hard look in light of the commercial incentives.

These are legitimate discussions, as the WHOs own behavior shows. On April 8th, the WHO website said flatly: “Children should not be vaccinated for the moment.” A month and a half later, the WHO issued a new guidance, saying the Pfizer vaccine was “suitable for use by people aged 12 years and above.”

The WHO was clear that its early recommendation was based on a lack of data, and on uncertainty about whether or not children with a low likelihood of infection should be a “priority,” and not on any definite conviction that the vaccine was unsafe. And, again, a Politifact check on the notion that the WHO “reversed its stance” on children rated the claim false, saying that the WHO merely “updated” its guidance on children. Still, the whole drama over the WHO recommendation suggested it should at least be an allowable topic of discussion.

Certainly there are critics of Weinstein’s who blanch at the use of sci-fi terms like “red pill” (derived from worldview-altering truth pill in The Matrix), employing language like “very dangerous” to describe the mRNA vaccines, and descriptions of ivermectin as a drug that would “almost certainly make you better.”

Even to those critics, however, the larger issue Weinstein’s case highlights should be clear. If platforms like YouTube are basing speech regulation policies on government guidelines, and government agencies demonstrably can be captured by industry, the potential exists for a new brand of capture — intellectual capture, where corporate money can theoretically buy not just regulatory relief but the broader preemption of public criticism. It’s vaccines today, and that issue is important enough, but what if in the future the questions involve the performance of an expensive weapons program, or a finance company contracted to administer bailout funds, or health risks posed by a private polluter?

Weinstein believes capture plays a role in his case at some level. “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” he says. He hopes the pressure from the public and from the media will push platforms like YouTube to reveal exactly how, and with whom, they settle upon their speech guidelines. “There’s something industrial strength about the censorship,” he says, adding. “There needs to be a public campaign to reject it.”

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Robert Malone
• 2nd

4h • 4 hours ago

Hello world.

For any who may care.

My linkedin restriction (censorship) has been lifted.

No caveats or "education" provided.

Suffice to say, I will be migrating off of this platform now. Not powered for actual scientific discussion. I had migrated to my twitter account

...

For any who were wondering what the rationale provided for ghosting and deleting me was, please see this link

Typos and all.

Please see attached.

[stickdog99]

Michael Parenti on Conspiracy Theories

Journalist Michael Parenti has pointed out that politicians and corporate leaders naturally work to further their own monetary and power interests, often in a conspiratorial manner.

"To believe otherwise is to believe in Coincidence Theory, the truly nutty idea that the interests of the very wealthy are magically maintained by chance, year after year."

In his "Dirty Truths" (City Lights Books, 1996), Parenti points out that "conspiracy" can simply mean that ruling class individuals "are aware of their interests, know each other personally, meet together privately and off the record, and try to hammer out a consensus on how to anticipate and react to events and issues."

Michael Parenti offers the following “alternatives” to conspiracy theories:

Somnambulist Theory: The wealthiest 1 percent sleepwalk through life, never giving a thought to their vast wealth or how to keep it.

Coincidence Theory: Things repeatedly happen by chance in ways that magically maintain the interests of the very wealthy, year after year.

Stupidity Theory: The very rich are befuddled, incompetent and ineffectual. They just don’t know how they keep that power.

Spontaneity or Idiosyncrasy Theory: Stuff happens (in a way that keeps the system in place.) Again and again. Over long periods of time.

Aberration Theory: Dirty tricks of the CIA and so forth are “atypical departures” from the norm.[10]

The above theories would have us believe our inequitable tax system, corporate-owned media, unjust social conditions and other wrongful policies are momentary aberrations, isolated from the central goal of our political system. Again, that goal is protecting the money and power of the wealthiest 1%. Parenti points out that the wealthiest 1 percent naturally defend their interests, just as farmers or steelworkers defend theirs. He also notes that the CIA is by definition conspiratorial, “using covert actions and secret plans, many of which are of the most unsavory kind. What are covert operations if not conspiracies?”

[stickdog99]

Off-Guardian: On The Psychology Of The Conspiracy Denier

Why is it that otherwise perfectly intelligent, thoughtful and rationally minded people baulk at the suggestion that sociopaths are conspiring to manipulate and deceive them? And why will they defend this ill-founded position with such vehemence?

History catalogues the machinations of liars, thieves, bullies and narcissists and their devastating effects. In modern times too, evidence of corruption and extraordinary deceptions abound.

We know, without question, that politicians lie and hide their connections and that corporations routinely display utter contempt for moral norms – that corruption surrounds us.

We know that revolving doors between the corporate and political spheres, the lobbying system, corrupt regulators, the media and judiciary mean that wrongdoing is practically never brought to any semblance of genuine justice.

We know that the press makes noise about these matters occasionally but never pursues them with true vigour.

We know that in the intelligence services and law enforcement wrongdoing on a breathtaking scale is commonplace and that, again, justice is never forthcoming.

We know that governments repeatedly ignore or trample on the rights of the people, and actively abuse and mistreat the people. None of this is controversial.

So exactly what is it that conspiracy deniers refuse to acknowledge with such fervour, righteousness and condescension? Why, against all the evidence, do they sneeringly and contemptuously defend the crumbling illusion that ‘the great and good’ are up there somewhere, have everything in hand, have only our best interests at heart, and are scrupulous, wise and sincere? That the press serves the people and truth rather than the crooks? That injustice after injustice result from mistakes and oversights, and never from that dread word: conspiracy?

What reasonable person would continue to inhabit such a fantasy world?

The point of disagreement here is only on the matter of scale. Someone who is genuinely curious about the plans of powerful sociopaths won’t limit the scope of their curiosity to, for example, one corporation, or one nation. Why would they? Such a person assumes that the same patterns on display locally are likely to be found all the way up the power food chain. But the conspiracy denier insists this is preposterous.

Why?

It is painfully obvious that the pyramidical societal and legal structures that humanity has allowed to develop are exactly the kind of dominance hierarchies that undoubtedly favour the sociopath. A humane being operating with a normal and healthy cooperative mindset has little inclination to take part in the combat necessary to climb a corporate or political ladder.

So what do conspiracy deniers imagine the 70 million or more sociopaths in the world do all day, born into a ‘game’, in which all the wealth and power are at the top of the pyramid, while the most effective attributes for ‘winning’ are ruthlessness and amorality? Have they never played Monopoly?

[…]

I suggest the answer is simple, and that the evidence of this phenomenon and the havoc it is wreaking is all around us: the innate impulse to trust the mother never evolves, never encounters and engages with its counterbalance of reason (or mature faith), and remains forever on its ‘default’ infant setting.

While the immature psyche no longer depends on parents for its well-being, the powerful and motivating core tenet I have described remains intact: unchallenged, unconsidered and undeveloped. And, in a world in which stability and security are distant memories, these survival instincts, rather than being well-honed, considered, relevant, discerning and up to date, remain, quite literally, those of a baby. Trust is placed in the biggest, loudest, most present and undeniable force around, because instinct decrees that survival depends on it.

And, in this great ‘world nursery’, the most omnipresent force is the network of institutions which consistently project an unearned image of power, calm, expertise, concern and stability.

In my view, this is how conspiracy deniers are able to cling to and aggressively defend the utterly illogical fantasy that somehow – above a certain undefined level of the societal hierarchy – corruption, deceit, malevolence and narcissism mysteriously evaporate.

[JackRiddler]

Off-Guardian: On The Psychology Of The Conspiracy Denier

Why is it that otherwise perfectly intelligent, thoughtful and rationally minded people baulk at the suggestion that sociopaths are conspiring to manipulate and deceive them? And why will they defend this ill-founded position with such vehemence?

In the American context, the tell is in how many of those obsessed with 'conspiracy theory' as a central, causal evil -- e.g., who act as though QAnon is THE problem turning some Americans rightward, not the relatively minor symptom of a rightward turn that has other wellsprings -- nevertheless adopted the full #Russiagate grand conspiracy theory and accompanying Mueller Salvation Story, despite all the utter implausibilities of it, soon as it was fed to them by DNC, corporate media, and 'retired' spymasters.

I get that this is an ironic piece reversing the psychological argument against identified 'conspiracy theorists', but very little of these phenomena is about defects of perception or cognition.

It's about conformism, respect for power, determination to follow an authority once one has acknowledged and accepted it, group belonging and team vs. team logic; also, believing in accordance with what one perceives as one's interests (this is a big one and whether it's witting or unconscious becomes irrelevant at some point) ; and argumentative stubborness, a.k.a. a form of sunken cost fallacy.

It's emotional. The 'anti-conspiracist' argument I always found funniest of all was the idea that unwanted beliefs designated as 'conspiracy theory' are adopted by the weak-minded because they explain the inexplicable and are therefore comforting. I derive such comfort from the idea that human events are not always chaotic but usually the product of actions by a well-organized, well-networked, long-ensconced, mostly groomed-from-youth, super-wealthy, super-powerful and UTTERLY PREDATORY ruling class whose members and lackeys so evidently prefer genocide and eventual global extinction to deviating from the logic of maintaining class power, capital accumulation, and self-interest defined in the most vulgar and soulless terms.

But how the hell did we come back to this yet again, for the 10,000th time? Right, it's RI.

.

[stickdog99]

There's nothing new under the thumb.