harrystottle's favorite manufacturing-consent pages, page 1

Last login: 13 hours agoHarrystottle: Harry is a guy from Bristol, England, UK.; Likes 3,770 pages, 126 videos, 20 photos • 95 fans • Received 13 reviews; Member since Oct 03, 2005

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Review: The Dark Knight || kuro5hin.org: Aug 20, 3:06pm 2 reviews movies, terrorism, police-state, manufacturing-consent
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2008/8/3/151516/5693; Superb review of the Dark Knight. Still haven't seen the damn thing. Can't wait to judge for myself whether the message is supportive or subversive of the Police State...

The New York Times & Log In: Aug 20, 3:00pm 3 reviews multimedia, trolls, police-state, manufacturing-consent
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1; Excellent, well balanced analysis of the current state of Trolling.

Clearly, some of the more intelligent trolls will become extremely useful in the overarching battle against authority. Equally clearly, some of them are in imminent danger of being labelled "cyberterrorists".

I predict that the authorities will try this on, in order to see if anyone will leap to their defence. They already seem to be winning the battle - or at least making progress - against the paedophiles and, of course, no one was ever going to come to their rescue. It's time to ratchet up the control and see if we get away with criminalising the "killer trolls". Next we'll go for the spammers. And then we absolutely must have your names and ip addresses so that we can trace the source of those nasty little viruses.

How far down the line d'you suppose the average political dissenter or atheist will be? Think I'm exaggerating? What about:

"Representative Linda Sánchez, a Democrat from California, has introduced the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, which would make it a federal crime to send any communications with intent to cause "substantial emotional distress.""

I'm pretty damn sure that many Fundamentalists are deeply hurt by many of the attacks on their worldview. And I'm equally sure that many of those attacks are intended to cause that pain. A law like that would outlaw precisely those kind of attacks.

Why I changed my mind about water fluoridation: Aug 15, 3:08am 2 reviews dentistry, science, manufacturing-consent, fluoridisation
http://www.fluoride-journal.com/98-31-2/312103.htm; This story deserves the same prominence in the history of bad science as does the suppression of evidence for the link between tobacco and lung cancer; the attempts to rubbish the discovery of Helicobacter Pylori as the main cause of gastric ulcers and suppression of the negative (and positive) results of the American government's attempts to prove Cannabis causes harm.

The motives in each of these cases is different. The fluoride lobby seems to be a straightforward Academic ego problem, with the reputations of proponents on the line. The Tobacco distortion was nakedly profit related and the Helicobacter obstacles were a mixture of academic credulity and commercial "disinterest" (in a $20 permanent solution which would replace their $200 a year guaranteed ongoing drug sales). The suppression of both the failure to find bad news and the success in finding good news on the cannabis front are motivated by what I call Social Psychosis (in this case, a mixture of religious and political authoritarianism based on either ignorance or wilful denial of evidence).

What they all have in common is that they are all promoting their own interests in place of pursuing the Truth. They are all Corrupt and even criminal behaviour which has caused and continues to cause vast amounts of unnecessary suffering to We The People. They are part of the reason (along with disasters like the War on Terror and the resultant growth of Police States) why we desperately need to get rid of government and replace it with Democracy.

Pajamas Media Â» Kindergarten Cruelty: Not Child's Play: Aug 13, 4:14pm 1 review history, education, politics, manufacturing-consent
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/kindergarten-cruelty-not-childs-play/; Y'know what's missing here?

Dickens.

Read anything by Charles Dickens and you'll get a feel for how we used to treat kids less than a hundred and fifty years ago. How YOUR great great grandfather was treated. How your great great great grandfather treated him.

The point is that yes, of course, it's nasty bullying rather desperate and unintelligent handling of a child revealed in this story. But the clear impression the author is trying to convey is that things today are getting much worse than they used to be: I give you her opening sentence - When did kindergarten teachers get so mean?

And it just aint so...

Hemp For Victory: Aug 13, 12:51pm 2 reviews history, video, war-on-drugs, manufacturing-consent
http://video.stumbleupon.com/?p=tyrzhyo0gg; I wasn't aware that Congress and USDA had denied the existence of this film. Unfortunately, the best evidence I can find to support the charge are these virtually unreadable scans...

Whom do we fear or trust?: Aug 8, 4:14pm 1 review psychology, science, manufacturing-consent
http://www.physorg.com/news137164573.html; hardly surprising but will be misused to shape political and commercial advertising ad nauseam...

t r u t h o u t | Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column?: Aug 6, 6:29am 13 reviews politics, democracy, tyranny, manufacturing-consent
http://www.truthout.org/article/is-fourth-estate-a-fifth-column; Oh dear. Bill Moyer reveals himself to be part of the problem, not the solution:

Across the media landscape, the health of our democracy is imperiled. Buffeted by gale force winds of technological, political and demographic forces, without a truly free and independent press, this 250-year-old experiment in self-government will not make it. As journalism goes, so goes democracy.

The implication here is that at some time during that 250 years, journalism and the media have been a force promoting democracy. The further implication is that the American Republic was ever democratic. All he's doing is revealing his ignorance both about Democracy and the American Constitution (which was intended to PREVENT Democracy - it's authors feared Democracy as another source of the Tyranny they were trying to escape from)

America can't possibly "get back to" a situation which has never existed in its short history. The only time the human race got close was two and a half thousand years ago in Athens. You need to start there in order to begin to understand what Democracy really is. Then we can discuss whether we want to revive it in a modern context and how we could go about doing that...

The Progressive Puppy: Obamas Great-Uncle: Another Rightwing Non-Scandal Exposed: Aug 1, 9:52am 3 reviews politics, manufacturing-consent
http://www.progressivepuppy.com/the_progressive_puppy/2008/07/obamas-great-un...; failed attempt by the neocons at "manufacturing consent"

Home Office minister gets tough, then gets stuck | The Register: Jul 31, 8:47am 1 review politics, democracy, manufacturing-consent
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/31/liam_tufty_byrne/; "Hard Working Families" is the phrase that makes me projectile vomit at the screen so, inspired by The Reg example, I googled

"government OR opposition AND "hard working families" AND Labour"

(the "AND Labour" excluded the foreign contributors without excluding the British Tories who nearly always use the phrase in close proximity to an attack on Labour)

...which "brought up" (hmmm... know the feeling) 46,300 examples including this beauty from wikipedia

These words and phrases belong to a class of "button pushing" cliches which politicians believe puts them in contact with Joe Public. Every country probably has its own. America has dozens. IF they work as politicians obviously believe they do, then this suggests that We The People are every bit as stupid as they think we are.

Not good news for those of us who aspire to Democracy