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http://fatoldjewishguywholivesintheprojects.blogspot.com/2005/11/enough-with-broken-windows-already_29.html

November 29, 2005

Enough With The Broken Windows Already!

READ STARASIA'S NIGHTMARE

Back in the bad old days, not so long ago, Nicholas Scopetta, Rudolf Giuliani's child welfare honcho, declared : "I would like the caseworkers to err on the side of protecting the children,'' meaning, as spoken by many a child welfare supervisor, "when in doubt yank'em out." A panic wave of child removals (baby snatching) ensued, as Scopetta "got tough" under the lash of tabloid hysteria.

No visa for Australia despite proposed changes to asylum seeker rules – Sydney Morning Herald

 

This article in today’s Herald by Jane McAdam demonstrates that although the member’s bills are a sign in the right direction, Australia will remain the only country to use mandatory detention on Asylum seekers who arrive ‘illegally.’ The first bill will release all children and their families and all detainees who have stayed in detention for over a year. This is all subject to the expected health and security checks. The second bill will limit detention to 90 days and detention will be reviewable by the courts.

Propaganda requires the skillful use of language to illicit emotional responses. All propagandists know the amount of power that can be summoned up by emotionally charged messages. They understand that they must have a way to dampen and control what could become unfocused or out of control. Propagandists use euphemisms for this control. Euphemisms are word tools that use indirect, misleading, or soft adjectives to describe something. They make easier to think and talk about unpleasant subjects. They help us avoid reality and numb our emotions by adding abstractions to descriptions. Euphemisms are used to channel unpleasant realities into almost harmless non-issues. Because many euphemisms tend to be both wordy and abstract, many people who use them believe that there is an air of intellectualism attached to them.

If you are interested in analysis of the "peak oil phenomenon" from a progressive and academic perspective, check out The Oil Drum. (Note the new address!)

"Peak oil" is an important topic, and, depending on who you ask, it might be right around the corner. It's worth learning about.

(PS: forgive us for being complete blogwhores...we're just trying to get the word out on what we think is an important topic...and one we think is in line with the mission of the PBA.)

The first and one of the most effective tools of the propaganda trade is in the category of word games. “Name calling” is a powerful tool. A skillfully attached bad name can sometimes have nation changing consequences. If a negative emotional response can be attached or linked to a person or an idea in the form of a bad name, there is almost an unbreakable non-logical, non-intuitive association. It is almost impossible to remove the bad name attachment if it has been skillfully propagated. Skillful propaganda involves sustained repetition in the media. There must also be repetition that includes both the bad name and the events or circumstances that supposedly precipitated its creation. Once the link between the event or circumstance is established, the negative emotional association becomes part of the name itself. From that point forward it is only necessary to use the bad name and the negative emotional response is automatically activated. Repetition in the media then spreads the name to the point where it self-replicates itself through conversations and debates between ordinary citizens.

Propaganda
is designed to actively spread a philosophy or a point of view. What
separates propaganda from “normal” communication is the way the message
attempts to shape opinion. As opposed to “normal” communication,
propaganda is designed to induce an emotional response. This emotional
response becomes attached to the message. These emotionally charged
messages are designed to suggest non-logical or non-intuitive
relationships between concepts. Most adults have learned through life
experiences, education, cultural norms, and spiritual insight an
intuitive sense of right and wrong. As we grow older this intuitive
sense grows in us. It enables us (if we listen) to have an inner guide
to decision making and coping with the world around us. As we get
older, this intuitive sense can manifest itself to become wisdom. The

The ex-weapons inspector whose pre-Iraq war proclamations were all proven true had something new to say in a speech Saturday to Washington members of United for Peace and Justice.

On Iran, Ritter said that President George W. Bush has received and signed
off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its
purported goal is the destruction of Iran's alleged program to develop
nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration
also expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events
leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million -- a
possibility Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism.

The former Marine also said that the Jan. 30 elections, which George W.
Bush has called "a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in
the advance of freedom," were not so free after all. Ritter said that
U.S. authorities in Iraq had manipulated the results in order to reduce
the percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from
56% to 48%.

Hat tip to leveymg.

Crossposted from Comments From Left Field.

Kevin Hayden's blog needs your help. Drop by and kick in some Paypal bucks. It's worth it.http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/archives/2005/02/19/ad-plans-you-have-to-consider/

When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives. Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig. The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth.

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means. We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility.

Note: This was a remix of quotes by Albert Einstein

To understand the true nature of fascism, one must understand who the fascist is. Perhaps the best illustration of fascist thinking comes from the very founder of the term. Though, be warned, mussolini's doctrine of fascism is a piece of trash that was designed to turn its readers into slaves. It is advised that you read it thoughtfully and with caution.

By Benito Mussolini

Like all sound political conceptions, Fascism is action and it is thought; action in which doctrine is immanent, and doctrine arising from a given system of historical forces in which it is inserted, and working on them from within. It has therefore a form correlated to contingencies of time and space; but it has also an ideal content which makes it an expression of truth in the higher region of the history of thought . There is no way of exercising a spiritual influence in the world as a human will dominating the will of others, unless one has a conception both of the transient and the specific reality on which that action is to be exercised, and of the permanent and universal reality in which the transient dwells and has its being. To know men one must know man; and to know man one must be acquainted with reality and its laws. There can be no conception of the State which is not fundamentally a conception of life: philosophy or intuition, system of ideas evolving within the framework of logic or concentrated in a vision or a faith, but always, at least potentially, an organic conception of the world.

Howard Dean writes in his latest column:

Letting go of central control is what gives voters real power. When I used the phrase "you have the power" during the campaign, I meant that by working together, Americans could overcome the forces of the right wing and reassume their constitutional role in running the country. What I didn't understand was that "you have the power" was more than that. It didn't apply only to people's ability to change America, it also applied concretely to their ability to make everyday decisions about how they would cause that change.

...The idea of a decentralized campaign terrifies most politicians who have gotten used to putting out ideas and letting others respond. We discovered that the path to power, oddly enough, is to trust others with it.

Today, I spent a little time transferring some of the best posts from my old blog, Netpolitik. In the process, I stumbled on this gem from my second week of blogging. If you've forgotten why you hate George W. Bush, I suggest you take a quick read.

Excerpts by Robert S. McElvaine

History News Network

A recent informal, unscientific survey of historians conducted at my suggestion by George Mason University’s History News Network found that eight in ten historians responding rate the current presidency an overall failure.

Of 415 historians who expressed a view of President Bush’s administration to this point as a success or failure, 338 classified it as a failure and 77 as a success. (Moreover, it seems likely that at least eight of those who said it is a success were being sarcastic, since seven said Bush’s presidency is only the best since Clinton’s and one named Millard Fillmore.) Twelve percent of all the historians who responded rate the current presidency the worst in all of American history, not too far behind the 19 percent who see it at this point as an overall success.

Among the cautions that must be raised about the survey is just what “success” means. Some of the historians rightly pointed out that it would be hard to argue that the Bush presidency has not so far been a political success—or, for that matter that President Bush has not been remarkably successful in achieving his objectives in Congress. But those meanings of success are by no means incompatible with the assessment that the Bush presidency is a disaster. “His presidency has been remarkably successful,” one historian declared, “in its pursuit of disastrous policies.” “I think the Bush administration has been quite successful in achieving its political objectives,” another commented, “which makes it a disaster for us.”