Once you venture into political discussion on the internet, you quickly realize that you can't just toss out half-formed ideas the same way you can while getting drunk with your buddies, or any comparable sitiation in real life. Your buddies might not tell you when you're full of shit, but I guarantee that somebody on the internet will.

Listen to them.

This might be the most important, life-changing thing you ever encounter. It has the potential to revolutionize your entire thought process and transform you into a better, smarter version of yourself.



For starters, have the intellectual honesty to question the premise that you, of all people, have achieved complete omniscience, while every other person in the world is some stupid, brainwashed automaton. What is the statistical likelihood that a convergence of special genetic and environmental factors came together in just the right way to produce a super-human thinking machine, and that person is you, and you alone?

I'm not dropping anything.
Brainwashing is what is going on American television sets.
If you fail to see it, i feel very sorry for you.

:rolleyes:

Very particular, huge international happenings occur in the world, and are not covered by US News.
In its place, are distractions, that in fact direct the human mind in a specific direction.
The objective is to cloud the huge international happening, also, sometimes, alter the perception in regards to the specific issue.
A Russia & China agreement comes to mind.
A speech directed towards the United States that was never heard.

There are various perception's in regards to why the military is in the middle East at this time.
Most assume to be Gnostic on the issue, when the reality of why, escapes.
Reality on this issue escapes even the imagination of most.

When media continuously conceals the truth, replacing it with a false reality that is presented to an entire nation, it can be pretty much translated in the way that I have done.

Those of us who are not wackos, nor extremists -- i.e., not tw -- note that nothing in revealing Valerie Plame's employer and line of work would have shut off sources of information/intelligence. It is the professional standard in intelligence work that you never ever ever compromise your sources or your methods -- I worked in that field, back in the day. Let enemy counterintelligence work to compromise your source; never hand it to them.

Nor was there really any "only a political agenda" about it. Consulate staffer Wilson was no one's idea of a professional intelligence gatherer, and indeed he had never done anything of the kind in the logistical and embassy-admin work he had done up until then. The whole of his endeavor, beginning to end, was to make some appointments with some officials in Niger -- who told Wilson exactly what they wanted Wilson to hear about yellowcake and yellowcake inquiries. Plame pulled some strings to get her husband Wilson to be the one to take the trip.

No, tw, your anti-Republican prejudices continue to blacken your soul, dim your mind, and screw your writing. If you were any worse, you'd torture puppies -- in the womb, you horrid stumblefuck and sexual undesirable.

Kinda like the students protesting in London the other day.
The issue escaped everyone as the news read.
"Attack on the Royal family"

^^^^^THIS^^^^^
is brainwashing.
Cleaning the mind of the true issue

Like the G-20 Summit in Toronto that occurred.
Tens of thousands of people went to protest.
Do you think maybe they had a reason?
Well, nobody watching the TV found out, cause the news did not broadcast why.
You think maybe giving a reason why tens of thousands of people gathered to protest might be newsworthy?
No no no no, you gotta set up a stage for distraction, so they gave the News something to talk about, to alter the perception.
Of course the protesters are the bad guys.

Tens of thousands of people gathered so they can burn a police car.

You see, ^^^^THAT^^^^ is brainwashing

Why are you complaining about tv news, when a vast majority of non-local news consumption is through the internet now? The public has vast resources available through the internet and can get a wide variety of viewpoints and reporting on the same subject. CNN has "ireports" where private individuals do their own reporting and upload it to the website for example. This is completely independent from the corporate CNN structure that determines what is presented every day.

CNN even showcases every now and then articles from a news organization called VBS.TV, which you should check out sometime. They do very good independent reporting on a wide variety of topics from Pakistan weapons manufacturing to wildfires in Oregon. And that's just CNN.com. Point being, the American people have at their fingertips a much broader and multi-faceted wealth of information about the world than you seem to think, since you're so stuck on this tv news brainwashing thing.

It's kind of funny that you mention cnn, cause i remember working the day of the G-20 summit, and looking at cnn.com on a few occasion's to see what the headlines were.
top 2 headlines were non g-20 summit issues.
the third was something about some stupid celebrity romance issue, and 4th something irrelevant.

When they finally did mention it, this was the link
:http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americ...sts/index.html

If you read whats written, its truly absurd.
I guess you'd have to have been there to grasp how insane whats written there on cnn.com

I only mentioned CNN because they offer some very good alternative, independent news sources in addition to their own corporate news structure/formating. Which again was my point: that there are a large number of different ways that people get their news information, even from traditional, established news outlets and corporations. In light of that, I think it is knee-jerk to say that people have been "brainwashed" by major media.

That is one of my all time favourite poems, from one of my all time favourite poets!


Fucking well said Bri.

You didn't have to look far to find out what the Brits were protesting about, but just in case you don't know yet, it was over the fact that a new legislation was passed which will tripple university fees. That's a huge increase and will only widen the cultural divide and make a good start on bring the class system rocketing back to full strength. Hope you've all got your peerage booklets out! Let's get feudal!!!

Alas, this is true Ali.

It isn't just that they are tripling the fees: they are also reducing the state contribution by 80%. They have removed the state subsidy, currently paid to universities for each student they take on, from arts and humantities students. They will only now contribute to the teaching costs of scientific, engineering, medical and vocational type courses.

So: the average student will end up paying between two and three times the current cost of a degree, but will get significantly less for that money, than they currently do. They will also be much less likely to go for arts and humanties subjects as the universities which are able to maintain those courses despite the loss of the teaching grant, will be the ones able to command the highest rate of fees.

Not only will university access begin to split off along class/economic status lines, but within the university sector, there will be a classifying of subject type: with kids from working-class and poorer backgrounds tending towards the lower fee, technical and vocational specialisms, and the wealthy kids having access to a more expensive, but culturally more rounded degree choice.

It breaks my heart it really does.

The Conservatives have wanted to do this for a long time, and they've come into power (shared) at a time when the economy provides a politically defensible rationale for doing so. They are systematically dismantling the relationship between state and university education, and placing it in the hands of private and proprietorial providers. By slashing the state teaching subsidy, the 'market advantage' of the state supported universities (and that includes Oxford and Cambridge) is removed allowing the private sector to compete more effectively for students.

More and more education will be sold as a ticket into this career or that. Less and less frequently, do we hear a defence of learning in its own right.

Such learning has been simultaneously devalued in that it is not deemed important enough to fund, and made precious in that it is becoming once again the province of a few.

I guess it depends on how you define brainwashing but this is what I see:

US corporate media is run in a capitalist system where ratings are king. Each news corporation has its own flavor but they all stay within the acceptable limits of their mainstream audience. If they did not, viewers would simply change the channel or read a different newspaper.

This type of system will naturally not challenge viewer's/reader's personal views of the world. People do not like their personal worldview to be wrong so it's not in these new agencies' interests to tell the complete raw truth. This is what you see W.H.I.P.

But, there is a limit as how far they can sugarcoat what is going on. Hell, even Noam Chomsky admits that the Wall Street Journal is pretty accurate because US businessmen must have an idea what is going on so they can make rational business decisions. Other newspapers are not that far off either. Plus, with the availability of alternative new sources on the internet, it forces a check on these news agencies.


I will admit, and I'm sure every American on this board will agree with me to some point, that US news is not ideal in any way and that it gets extremely annoying how they care more about appealing to viewers/readers instead of getting the raw truth. But this is not brainwashing. While political agendas do have a role in news, they do not control it. There is no conspiracy where the US government is trying to tell us where to think. It is in their interests to keep us within a certain threshold, yes, but it is not worth it for them to try too hard.

If you want to see brainwashing look at North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, China, Burma, Arab countries, etc. This is a lack of free speech. US news has its problems but it is not brainwashing unless you choose a different definition and then we are arguing semantics.

As ever, the voice of reason.

After all this brainwashing to create a uniform point of view, we seem to still have one of the most diverse nations in the world.

In fact, right now, everybody is at everybody else's throats for their differing beliefs.

If you go to any US political forum you will find nothing but people who are angry at what news is being consumed that they don't agree with.

Entire organizations are dedicated to pointing out falsehoods and laughable bias on the other side.