Propaganda, Divide and Rule, Deliberate Dissonance and Managed Dissent

We, the Rabble, are highly vulnerable to tactics of Propaganda, Divide and Rule, Deliberate Dissonance and Managed Dissent. We certainly have seen them all employed in the current frenetic Summer Story of the NSA Spying On Everyone In The Whole Wide World!!!!™ But these tactics are widely employed throughout the sometimes strained relations between the People and Media, the People and Corporations, and the People and Government.

Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, played a major role in developing the science of popular opinion shaping and control during the 20th Century, as was incisively described by Adam Curtis in his award winning BBC documentary, The Century of the Self. It is long and detailed, but well worth four hours of one's time to sit through it all. It lays the historical and psychological foundation for understanding why and how We, the Rabble, are so thoroughly propagandized and our beliefs -- and often our actions -- are so completely manipulated by those in power and those who would wish to be in power.

It is very difficult to break free.

There is a certain level of marketing science involved in the control and manipulation of the masses; for example, the principle that fear sells is at the root of many, many product and political campaigns. But there is more to it than that. It's no longer simply or mostly a matter of marketing. The control and manipulation is more for straightforward political objectives -- naked power -- these days, more so than at any time since WWII, when the War Effort overwhelmed every other popular interest at all. But WWII, like practically every other war in history, wasn't a war the People chose; it was one the Power Elites had to have in order to sort out world dominance, Once And For All. Again.

Well, at least for the next several generations. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of "Red" China into the global state capitalist industrial and commercial center, the sorting out has reached a kind of climax.

Who will rule, and how will that rule be exercised over the entire globe?

For that's what's underlying so much of the struggle we see today, between governments and corporations, and between them both and the People.

In this context, the notion of "preserving" the 4th (or any other) amendment is quaint to say the least.

We, the Rabble, are heavily propagandized, we are hopelessly divided, and we face constant onslaughts of cognitive dissonance and managed dissent all in a (so far) successful effort to keep us tame while Our Betters pursue their Glorious Path to Total Global, Final Domination, Forever and Ever, Amen.

The question is who will dominate, that's all.

Battle Lines and Rituals

Copyright 2007. G. F. Hohnstreiter
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I spent most of yesterday with a group of people engaged in memorializing the life of an ex-cop who died suddenly last October. He was the husband of a close family friend.

We spent the morning scattering his ashes in the East Mountains and the afternoon attending a memorial service that included a Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department honor guard. The memorial was presided over by the Albuquerque Police Department chaplain. This was actually the third memorial for him; there were two previous ones in California. He was from New Mexico, however, and had served as a Bernalillo County deputy sheriff and as a Rio Rancho Police Detective. He had asked that his ashes be scattered in the Sandia Mountains, and so, respecting those wishes, yesterday's events were organized.

I naturally thought about how ritualized all this was from the moment of his death, all the various officials, the priests and chaplains, churches, friends, family, the officers of the law and so on who were brought together, some repeatedly, over the months since his passing to handle the many details and to remember and to honor his memory.

And I thought about the many battle lines that have been drawn between the People and the troubled or failed institutions that have been involved in these memorial activities. They and we are able to engage in these rituals and memorials, to come together for a period of time -- at least in some cases -- and then return to the Struggle for however long until the next time we are brought together in something like harmony.

Was it like this during previous revolutionary eras? Somehow I think it must have been.

Much as rebels may seek the overthrow or replacement of the Existing Order, we and they are still so intimately intertwined -- especially if we are of a certain age -- that the sorts of rituals that bring us together are as commonplace as confrontations over important (and of course revolutionary) issues.

We are intertwined until the moment we aren't.

Missed Zozobra Again!

We've been coming to New Mexico going on 30 years now and have had a second home here for almost seven years. For many reasons we've always "missed" The Burning of Zozobra in Santa Fe, either because we had to leave before the event, or -- as is the case this year -- other things made it inadvisable or impossible to go. I decided not to go this year, for example, because I didn't want to go alone, and there was a specific night-time task I had to do at the house last night (still wrangling skunks, you see.)

Nevertheless, I wished "farewell to cares" -- which is the whole point of The Burning of Zozobra in any case -- and will have my own little ritual fireworks this evening, if all goes well.

Everyone in New Mexico has heard of Zozobra, but it seems that few outside the state have, and among those who have heard of it, there is a kind of inappropriate conflation with Burning Man in the Nevada desert wilderness. Burning Man is simply not the same thing.

I won't go into an elaborate history of The Burning of Zozobra, but just let it be said that it is a decades old ritual, beginning in 1924 in Will Shuster's backyard in Santa Fe; it is primarily a family-oriented local ritual connected with La Fiesta de Santa Fe, which has been going on annually since 1712.

It is about letting go.

Some people are too fearful to do that...

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