Proof? What every country besides Russia is reporting, what every western media company besides pro-Russian Fox (and the other far right media that gets their news from Fox then exaggerates) is reporting….and logic.
Russia’s military is large but under funded and OLD. They’re out of professional soldiers and new equipment and money. Ukraine is getting more, newer, more advanced equipment and training daily from dozens of sources, just hired 40000 more soldiers/mercs, and has logistical support Russia can’t even fathom. You think this means Russia is about to crush Ukraine….with no reasoning behind that. Derp.

Watching the map provided by Putin and acting like its reality is. Lol. He said Kiev would be Russian in 2 weeks. Now it looks like Crimea won’t be Russian in 2 months. Derp.

Most maps show Russia losing territory daily and the Ukrainian counter offensive has yet to start. Russian commanders say they have no ammo, soldiers are starving, equipment is 50 years old, broken, and they don’t know how to operate it because they’re prisoners and draftees not military.

Um…what did you do…YOU posted unverified reports from unaffiliated “reporters”. Then you claimed I wasn’t showing you the daily “proof” videos showing Ukraine was winning, which I then provided, including a link to the YT channel that posts one almost every 5 minutes of Ukraine winning the war, but unlike you was honest that it often came from “unaffiliated reporters” (like those you post, dummy) so shouldn’t be accepted as “proof”…but they do exist, I’m just more honest than you and don’t constantly post unverified claims by anonymous internet “reporters” that usually are just some guy in mom’s basement…but I could…you however post them constantly and act like they are real, verified NEWS not more Russian propaganda….and you never notice they are always lies, always misdirection, always bluster, never factual.


“ So you rather accept what is pushed onto you by media? Knowing that it is manufactured consent, not trustworthy, spun to teh side your on.” (Says the guy posting direct Russian propaganda constantly and BELIEVING it!?!)
Sweet zombie Jeebus, go to fucking school Jethro. I had infinitely better English skills by 2nd grade…and a better idea of how to do critical thinking rather than accept what I’ve been told because it’s a pleasant lie. You clearly failed at both in second grade and haven’t improved in your skills since. There is absolutely no way you earned a degree anywhere better than the defunct fraudulent Trump U. Even as your second language, your English skills are bad, horrible when you realize you’ve been practicing for 13 years with no improvement, Vlad.

Proof?

ZERO
Watching a map and seeing Russia gaining territory is not boot licking nor propaganda.

Im just watching a map.


unaffiliated reporters’ reports.------------ So you rather accept what is pushed onto you by media? Knowing that it is manufactured consent, not trustworthy, spun to teh side your on.

Your video, Can You Trust the Media? | Manufacturing Consent Explained, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Freedom of religion is independent of civilian armament.
History shows that religious persecution is normal for humanity, and in most cases it's perpetrated by the government. Sometimes to consolidate power (with government tie-ins to the main religion), and sometimes to pander to the grimace of a majority.

Ironically, in this country, freedom of religion only exists due to armed conflict, albeit merely as a side effect of independence from a religiously homogeneous ruling power.



It's true that Catalonians would likely have been shot at if they were armed.
However, likewise, the Spanish government will never grant the Catalans democracy so long as the Catalans are not armed - simply because it doesn't have to.
(*Barring self suicidal/sacrificial behavior on part of the Catalans that eventually [after much suffering] embarrasses the government into compliance - often under risk that 3rd parties will intervene if things continue)

When the government manufactures consent, it will be first in line to claim that people have democratic freedom. When the government fails to manufacture consent, it will crack down with force.

At the end of the day, in government, might makes right. Laws are only words on paper, the government's arms are what make the laws matter.

Likewise, democracy is no more than an idea. The people's force of arms (or threat thereof) is what assert's the people's dominance over the government.



You can say the police/military are stronger and it would never matter, however, the size of an [armed] population is orders of magnitude larger than the size of an army. Factor in the fact that the people need to cooperate with the government in order to support and supply the government's military. No government can withstand armed resistance of the population at large. This is one of the main lessons from The Prince.

Civilian armament is a bulwark against potentially colossal ills (albeit ills that come once every few generations).

Look at NK. The people get TV, radio, cell, from SK. They can look across the river and see massive cities on the Chinese side. They know they have to play along with the charade that their government demands. At the end of the day, without guns, things won't change.

Look at what happened during the Arab Spring. All these unarmed nations turned to external armed groups to fight for them to change their governments. All it accomplished was them becoming serfs to the invited 3rd parties. This is another lesson from The Prince : always take power by your own means, never rely on auxiliaries, because your auxiliaries will become your new rulers.






Below is general pontification. No longer a reply.
------------------------------------------------------------------



Civilian armament does come with periodic tragedies. Those tragedies suck. But they're also much less significant than the risks of disarmament.
(Eg. School shootings, 7-11 robberies, etc -versus- Tamils vs Sri Lankan government, Rohingya vs Burmese government. etc.)

Regarding rifles specifically (all varieties combined), there is no point in arguing magnitudes (Around 400 lives per year - albeit taken in newsworthy large chunks). 'Falling out of bed' kills more people, same is true for 'Slip and fall'. No one fears their bed or a wet floor.

Pistols could go away and not matter much.
They have minimal militia utility, and they represent almost the entirety of firearms used in violent crime. (Albeit used to take lives in a non newsworthy 1 at a time manner)

(In the U.S.) If tragedy was the only way to die (otherwise infinite lifespan), you would live on average 9000 years. Guns, car crashes, drownings, etc. ~All tragedies included. (http://service.prerender.io/http://polstats.com/?_escaped_fragment_=/life#!/life)






A computer learning example I was taught:

Boy walking with his mom&dad down a path.
Lion #1 jumps out, eats his dad.
(Data : Specifically lion #1 eats his father.)
The boy and mom keep walking
Lion #2 jumps out, eats his mother.
(Data : Specifically lion #2 eats his mother)
The boy keeps walking
He comes across Lion #3.

Question : Should he be worried?

If you are going to generalize [the first two] lions and people, then yes, he should be worried.

In reality, lions may be very unlikely to eat people (versus say, a gazelle). But if you generalized from the prior two events, you will think they are dangerous.

(The relevance to computer learning is that : Computers learn racism, too. If you include racial data along with other data in a learning algorithm, that algorithm can and will be able to make decisions based on race. Not because the software cares - but because it can analyze and correlate.)

(Note : This is also why arguing religion is likely futile. If a child is raised being told that everything is as it is because God did it, then that becomes their basis for reality. Telling them that their belief in god is wrong, is like telling the boy in the example that lions are statistically quite safe to people. It challenges what they've learned.)



I mentioned this example, because it illustrates learning and perception. And it segways into my following analogy.



Here's a weird analogy, but it goes like this :

(I'm sure SJW minded people will shit themselves over it, but whatever)

"Gun ownership in today's urban society" is like "Black people in 80's white bred society".

2/3 of the population today has no contact with firearms (mostly urban folk)
They only see them on movies used to shoot people, and on the news used to shoot people.
If you are part of that 2/3, you see guns as murder tools.
If you are part of the remaining 1/3, you see guns like shoes or telephones - absolutely mundane daily items that harm nobody.

In the 80's, if you were in a white bred community, your only understanding of black people would be from movies where they are gangsters and shoot people, and from the nightly news where you heard about some black person who shot people.
If you were part of an 80's white bred community, you saw black people as dangerous likely killers.
If you were part of an 80's black/mixed community, you saw black people as regular people living the same mundane lives as anyone else.

In either case, you can analytically know better. But your gut feelings come from your experience.



Basically, I know guns look bad to 2/3 of the population. That won't change. People's beliefs are what they are.
I also know that the likelihood of being in a shooting is essentially zero.
I also know that history repeats itself, and -just in case- I'd rather live in an armed society than an unarmed society. Even if I don't carry a gun.

-scheherazade

Tags for this video have been changed from 'chomsky, democracy now, propaganda' to 'chomsky, democracy now, propaganda, press, manufacturing consent, press freedom' - edited by Eklek

Yeah, modern-combat games are always pitting you against a caricature of the current political boggyman.

Even if it's not intentional, it's still manufacturing consent regarding political support for military interventions.

That said, a game's a game. COD was fun. Particularly 4 and 5.

-scheherazade

@RFlagg
i am watching the video right now and have not gotten to the jessica lynch segment,but the jessica lynch story was utter bullshit:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0905-09.htm
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/may/15/iraq.usa2
https://alethonews.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/bbc-proves-jessica-lynch-rescue-story-was-a-hoax/

i agree with his underlying message that opinions are being manipulated by those who most profit/benefit.noam chomsky probably makes the best argument in his book "manufacturing consent".

Terrorist attacks are more multifaceted.

First, they are an opportunity to generate work for the defense industry.

Second, they are usually for a reason. Often some angst over our own actions in foreign countries. For example, the news says AQ is a bunch of crazies that hate freedom, however AQs demands prior to 9/11 were to get our military out of the holyland. While that's not an offense that deserves blowing up buildings, it is definitely not the same as some banal excuse like hating freedom.

Thirdly, they are often perpetrated by some persons/groups that we had a hand in creating. We install the mujahedin in Afghanistan, knowing full well what they'll do to women, and then use their treatment of women as one excuse to later invade. Saddam worked for us, was egged on to fight Iran, was egged on to suppress insurgents (the 'own people he gassed'), and we later used his actions as one excuse to invade.

At the time, the mujaheddin was useful for fighting Russia as a proxy. At the time, Saddam was useful for perpetuating a war where we sold arms to both sides. Afterwards, they were useful for scaremongering so we could perpetuate war when otherwise things got too quiet and folks would ask about why we're spending big $$$ on defense.. (In the mean time hand-waving the much more direct 9/11 Saudi connection).

... Plus if on the off chance things do 'settle down' in areas we invade, that creates new markets for US companies to peddle their wares. You can reopen the Khyber pass for western land trade with Asia, you can build an oil pipeline, and you can prevent a euro based oil exchange from opening in the middle east. All things that benefit our industry.

So in practice, as far as big industry is concerned, there's a utility in 'fighting terrorism' (and perpetuating terrorism) that just doesn't exist with internal shootings. As such, unless another 'evil empire' shows up, the terrorism cow is gonna get milked for the foreseeable future.

Sure, there's a rhetoric about preventing terrorism, but our actions do nothing to that effect. It's just a statement that's useful in manufacturing consent.

There's a particular irony, though. That is, that while such behavior is 'not very nice' (to put it mildly), it does however provide for our security by keeping our armed forces exercised, prepared, and up to date - such that if a real threat were to emerge, our military would be ready at that time. While that seems unlikely, when you look back in history at previous major conflicts, most were precipitated rather quickly, on the order of months (it takes many years to design and build equipment for a military, and the first ~half a year of any major war has been fought with what was on hand). So in a round-about, rather evolutionary way, perpetuating threats actually does make us safer as a whole.

To clarify the word 'evolutionary' : Take 10 microbes. All 10 have no militant nature. None are made for combat. It only takes 1 to mutate and become belligerent in order to erase all the others from existence. If some others also mutate to be combative, they will survive. The non combative are lost, their reproductive lines cut off. As there's always a chance to mutate to anything at any time, eventually, there is a combative mutation. So, all life on earth has a militant nature at some layer of abstraction - those that exist are those that successfully resisted some force (or parried the force to its benefit. Like plants that use a plant eater's dung to fertilize the seeds of the eaten fruit).

The relationship holds true at a biological level, interpersonal, societal, national, and international level. Societies that allow the kind of educational and military development that leads to victory, are those that have dominated the planet socially and economically. For example, Europe's centuries of infighting made it resistant to invasions from the Mongols, Caliphates, etc, and ultimately led to the age of colonialism. For the strengths built with infighting, are later leveraged for expansion. As such, the use of "terrorism" to perpetuate conflict, is ultimately an exercise in developing strength that can later be leveraged.

Our national policy is largely developed in think tanks, and those organizations are planning lifetimes ahead. So these kinds of considerations are very relevant.

TL/DR : Yes, agreed, the terrorism thing is B.S. on many levels.

-scheherazade

I think we have a lot of deluded posters here that are unaware of just how much propaganda we're inundated with in the democratic world. In a democracy you have to propagandize to people in order to get them to do what you want. You don't have a tyranny and a big stick to force them, you have to "Manufacture Consent" or the bewildered herd.

So what some people are doing is pointing out rightly that what is portrayed in media is up for criticism. The fact that some women have done it and are being driven from their homes by threats is a travesty. And it's pathetic to see whatever lame defenses the people in this comment section have come up with.

I've tried very hard to stay out of this GamerGate bullshit because frankly people are just stupid, even when they think they're being even handed about it. Apparently context means nothing to those who are privileged, yes that's you.

Why would they? Why would Americans? They have to be the most propagandized to. There is billions spent on public relations in all mediums in order to make sure that the actual stories don't get out. The information, the signal needs to be controlled as much as possible.

This is especially true in a democracy. You don't need to do anything when you have your boot on the populations neck. When it's a democracy though you have to Manufacture Consent of the governed so they can't possibly know what they're actually consenting to.

Also in these cases almost 100% the people most demonized is those people who are being crushed. So we have to kill the Palestinians before they destroy us all. They're seconds from doing it, we have to stop them before they kill us all. The amount of fear people need to be pumped up with is mind boggling, and it makes them do crazy things. Like argue on the internet pointlessly for hours and hours.

Where do you live exactly because I'm guessing that I can find similar propaganda tools in your society as well. The United States is unique in a few ways, and it's Public Relations Machine is absolutely amazing. Hitler and Goebbels copied it because at the time it was the most advanced in the world at Manufacturing Consent.

I meet some people from foreign countries who like to run America down in some ways and they're correct a lot of the time and sometimes I participate with them. There are other times though where say someone from the UK or France speaks up and I just have to slam them down. The UK is a joke with it's rules against broadcasting and freedom of speech, an absolutely backward democracy. France is way WAY worse in regards to it's worship of academias charlatans. Just bullshit constantly being peddled in both places that would NEVER fly in the United States.

And Australia specifically because I know there's some Aussies on the board that like to run America and the UK down. Do you guys like being told what video game is ok to buy? Do you like trying to find your way around archaic bullshit rules that the US public would've fucking smashed in a second if they were even suggested?

America has a lot of fucking problems, and this is certainly tied to the biggest. The fact that we will go through another HUGE crash in a couple years that will be worse than the 2008 one. It might actually solve our fucking problems though. The first crash caused some serious organization and it had to be put down violently. It didn't continue with serious steam because a lot of people were still doing ok. What about the next horrible crash that should be much much bigger. You think organization will be difficult then? It's only a matter of time, and it's looking good for the activists. Sadly time is not on our side with regards to the planet.

And the reason why it's looking good for the activists in America is because we have some education in stopping Wars because of activism, in stopping barbarism. You want to think we're backward, what other Empire in ALLLLLL Of human history actually had civilians go and live with their victims to try and stop their armies destroying them. There isn't an example in all of history except for good ol' Americans doing it in Vietnam and Nicaragua.

Also this might be a minor point but didn't we at our birth overthrow probably the worst Empire ever to exist? Which I might add caused everyone else to start throwing them off like a hot blanket in the Arab Spring (American influence Arab Spring).

You said Bloody so I'm gonna assume you're from Britainland, the land that gave us Big Brother. We should've burned the UK to the ground a long time ago, the Nazis before the Nazis even existed.

Starting something doesn't matter when someone else takes it and drives it into the fucking ground. Let's say Harry Potter was based on a short childrens book, say like 10 pages of bullshit rhyming. Would you say that JK Rowling doesn't deserve the credit for making that one of the largest franchises in the history of books and cinema?

Obama doesn't sic the IRS on people, there has been no connecting made to him and the IRS scandal.

No the PR system in this country is unlike any the world has ever seen. It's an amazing propaganda machine used to manufacture consent. You can't trust any media outlet without doing your own research, and doing it is really hard sometimes. Enough about Fox being right and stupid or MSNBC being left and stupid, this is about supporting the State which is what this machine does. It's about getting people to agree to the states plans in whatever they want to do. They are in the service of the state and that is why they should be dismantled.

The current Republican 3 pronged media offensive is a perfect illustration of how effective this technique can be. Chomsky called it "Manufacturing Consent"

No it's designed this way, there was too much democracy in the 60s, too many kids standing up and questioning authority. The answer from the Trilateral Commission, Carter was involved with it and it's considered very liberal, was that the Education sector was not doing it's job to properly indoctrinate the students. You can read about it if you like the Trilateral Commission's "The Crisis of Democracy." It's not a conspiracy it's very well laid out and open.

Saying that there is a conspiracy to control american intellectual attitudes and direction is like saying there's a conspiracy in Apple to get people to buy their product through advertising. This was recognized a century ago, when you don't have a big stick to beat the populace with you have to "Manufacture Consent."

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

@enoch,
When Chomsky said, "the stupid masses", he was characterizing an elite point of view. (I looked it up) He wouldn't be the Noam Chomsky we know and love if he had that much contempt for his species. If you agree with that sentiment, then you identify with the elites Chomsky was criticizing. Chomsky may be cynical, but he is no nihilist. He is a humanist. (and so are you!)
If the human race is truly stupid, then there is no point in seeking positive change, and we are all doomed to suffer whatever cruel horrors fate has in store for us.
Underinformed? Sure, that is fixable.
Stupid? Fuck that kind of collective self loathing.
We are all we have. Everything that happens to us -short of an apocalyptic act of nature- , good or bad, will be a result of human action. If we think ourselves stupid, then stupid we shall be. If we loathe ourselves, it only makes it that much easier for the rich and powerful to dominate us. If we think ourselves elite in a world of fools, it just makes it that much easier for the real elites to divide and conquer (yes, I'm looking at you, rightwing libertarians.)
We need to start a humanist revival. White tents. Gospel music. The whole nine. And we are going to need some rebel preachers. Are you in?
disclaimer: dft has a strong pro-human bias and should probably not be trusted.


totally agree my man.
guess i should have paid more attention to how my comment may have been misconstrued in regards to chomsky's quote.
"manufacturing consent" is the book that started it all for me and the more time that passes ...the more it seems chomsky had it right from the get-go.
the man is brilliant and i have the utmost respect for him and his work.

and if you took the metaphysical aspect out of my worldview,what you would have left is a secular humanist.
i feel very strongly that my fellow humans have been utterly and thoroughly duped into believing that their happiness is tied to what they do or what they own and that somehow their success/failure resides solely in their ability to "pick themselves up from their own boots-straps".

this paradigm is utter bullshit of course.
it was a creation.
specifically designed to create good consumers.
the carrot on the stick.
you are not smart enough...
you are not pretty enough...
your skin is too light...
too dark...
nose is too big..
too small..
everything you wanted or desired is just inches out of reach.you are so close you can almost taste it.....
buuuuuuut..
if you purchase this skin cream,or that pair of sneakers..
this make/model car..or home...
YOU can achieve happiness and everyone will love you and you will be so popular and content.
so buy NOW!operators are standing by!

the irony is that the very companies selling you this happiness are the very people who created your own discomfort in your own skin.
its the great flim-flam and it has worked brilliantly.

wait..
what were we talking about again?
sighs...*derailed