Old Gadfly: IM (an American citizen with an inquiring
mind), you look tired and sad.
IM: I am.
As I prepared for today’s conversation I found disturbing evidence to
support my hunches about how politicians and the media are deliberately
engineering public sentiment.
Gadfly: But don’t both sides do it?
IM: Yes, but not to the same degree or
depth. Republicans might vet policy ideas to
measure
public
sentiment—this is not the same as engineering public sentiment. However, politicians and mainstream
media (80% of Americans still get 80% of their news from a left-leaning
mainstream media) who have aligned themselves with the progressive movement deliberately
engineer public sentiment and in doing so are guilty of mendacity, complicity,
and duplicity. I’ll explain with plenty
of public domain evidence.
Gadfly: We talked about mendacity in our last conversation
(“Dry, Parched Lips, September 23, 2012), and how wide-spread the comfort level
with untruthfulness can be. How do you
define complicity and duplicity?
IM: Complicity is a state of being an accomplice
in perpetrating or tolerating mendacity.
Our mainstream media has been egregiously complicit. Duplicity is deceitfulness in speech or
conduct. President Obama and his
strategic advisors, especially David Axelrod, have structured their reelection campaign
based on the art of duplicity. And some
in the media have played deliberate roles in support of this duplicity, such as
David Corn with Mother Jones.
Gadfly: These are serious accusations, IM.
Gadfly: Wait, just this week at the United Nations,
President Obama said, "True
democracy -- real freedom -- is hard work.
Those in power have to resist the temptation to crack down on dissent.
In hard economic times, countries may be tempted to rally the people around
perceived enemies, at home and abroad, rather than focusing on the painstaking
work of reform."
IM: Sounds great doesn’t it. There are three key phrases in Obama’s
speech: “resist the temptation to crack
down on dissent,” “countries may be tempted to rally the people around
perceived enemies,” and “focusing on the painstaking work of reform.” All three phrases clearly demonstrate duplicity. For example, as I just described, Obama and his lieutenants do
punish dissent.
Gadfly: Good point. What are your concerns about Obama’s phrase,
“countries may be tempted to rally the people around perceived enemies”?
IM: This phrase is the ultimate
example of mendacity and duplicity on the part of Obama. He portrays the top 1% of taxpayers as the
enemy of the middle class because they do not pay their fair share. Yet, he and his lieutenants and a complicit
mainstream media demonize Romney as the enemy when he tries to explain how
difficult it may be to convince the 47%, who pay no federal income tax, that he
has a better idea as to how to grow the economy. It does not take a rocket scientist or London
School of Economics Ph.D. to understand that it’s the economy, stupid—even
Clinton understood this: the economy
produces wealth; wealth provides tax revenue for the government. Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan
understands this. As an example of Ryan's
very clear and “non-Copernican
drone” thinking on this topic, see his excellent Wall
Street Journal critique of
Jeffrey Sachs’ progressive ideas of government.
Ryan is a threat (and enemy) to the progressive agenda. Look at how the White House’s own
website tried to rally people against Ryan’s proposed budget. Yet, with a complicit Democrat-controlled
Senate, there has been no budget since Obama took office. Since then, he has increased our national
debt by nearly 50% in four years, thanks to annual deficit spending well in
excess of a trillion dollars. Bush never
reached an annual deficit in excess of even half a trillion, despite having to
plus up a military force after the Clinton era to defend America against a real
existential threat.
Gadfly: Good point, IM.
IM: You want another example? How about the Tea Party? While I am not personally affiliated with this
movement, I certainly sympathize with their concerns about runaway government
spending and a growing central government.
This is a group, by the way, that peacefully protested without any
arrests or trashing of assembly areas, unlike the Occupy Wall Street movement,
which was celebrated by the Obama Administration, prominent Democrats in
Congress, and the mainstream media. Look
how a complicit mainstream media has rallied people against the Tea Party:
·
Nicholas
Kristof, of The New York Times,
called Tea Party sympathizers “extremists,” and equated Tea Party opposition to
the Obama and Democratic agenda a moral equivalent to the threat from al
Qaeda.
·
Thomas
Friedman, of The New York Times,
called the Tea Party the “Hezbollah faction” of the Republican Party.
·
Joe
Nocera, of The New York Times,
claimed the Tea Party movement is waging jihad against America.
·
Maureen
Dowd, a columnist for The New York
Times, has called members of the Tea Party movement “cannibals,” “zombies,”
and “vampires.”
Gadfly: I must say, IM, you have
done your homework for our conversation.
How about the reform mentioned in Obama’s UN speech?
IM: The reform Obama’s UN speech
alluded to is part of his “hope and change” strategy. For example,
·
Obama
wasted no time when sworn in (in fact he offered many public
speeches and appearances in his self-proclaimed position: Office of the President-Elect. His organization even formed a website in an attempt to seize
control of the public narrative before even being sworn in.). Within a month of his inauguration, he spent
around $800 billion on a stimulus effort.
This move involved no civil or bipartisan efforts, nor the normal
Congressional processes for introducing and conferring on legislation. In the end, the bill passed
with no Republican votes in the House and only two Republican votes in the
Senate (Snow and Collins from Maine). As
we now know, the stimulus bill, which was based on the Keynesian theory that
government stimulus can generate aggregate demand, did
not stimulate the economy. Other
economists claim that an increase in aggregate demand results from a growing economy; government spending does not cause
a growing economy. Further, lofty
speeches about
rebuilding infrastructure and investing in green energy revealed incredible
naiveté about how the broader economy and private sector business actually work
together. John F. Kennedy understood
this, which is why he is famously known for his axiom: “A rising tide lifts all the boats.” Of course, the corollary is also true: a diminishing tide lowers all the boats. This is why, under the Obama Administration
and its Keynesian economic policies, more people are now dependent upon food
stamps and other forms of government assistance.
·
Obamacare
was another hope and change achievement (without a single Republican vote in either
the House or the Senate). What made the
hair on the back of my neck stand up during his March 22, 2010 (11:47 EDT) victory
speech was when he said two things: first, “change in this country comes not from
the top down, but from the bottom up”—even though the majority of
Americans were not in favor of such a comprehensive bill; and, second, when
Obama paused and looked straight into the camera (at about
six minutes and seven seconds into the speech), saying, “This is what change
looks like.” President Obama clearly
proclaimed to all Americans that he had every intention to push his progressive
agenda. He reiterated this intention in
his “The
Country We Believe In,” speech on April 13, 2011. As a modern grand
inquisitor (see “Dry, Parched Lips,” September 23, 2012), President Obama,
cheered on by progressives who currently have political power at the federal
level, disregarded what the majority of Americans want. And even though Obama campaigned on themes of
civility and bipartisanship, there was nothing, civil or bipartisan, about the
tactics involved in passing the stimulus and healthcare acts.
Gadfly: Perhaps President Obama is demonstrating visionary
leadership by pushing reform that may not be popular now but makes life better
for more people over all in the future?
IM: First, for now, Americans live in a
Constitutional Republic. We, the people,
elect officials to represent us in matters of governance. All elected officials serve the will of the people,
not the other way around. Yet, the
President and the Democratic Party in Congress pushed policy that was not
desired by the majority of the people. Second, in Obama’s UN speech, he also
cautioned about cracking down on dissent.
Yet, unknown to most Americans, President Obama signed a unique
provision into law in the recent National Defense Authorization Act—the power
to detain citizens indefinitely. This
news was not reported in the American mainstream media. I found it in The
Guardian, a British newspaper. Publicly,
Obama claimed he would veto the Act if it contained the provision. In private, however, Obama
threatened Congress that he would veto the Act if the detention provision
was not included. This is a blatant
example of duplicity. About this time, FEMA
solicited contractor bids for containment camps (five per state) to be
established within 72 hours for populations up to 1,000 inhabitants per five
acres in all 50 states. Even Rachel Maddow
of MSNBC expressed concerns. And, amazingly, our President claims to have the
power to assassinate American citizens, without due process.
Gadfly: I remember when we made such a big deal about
waterboarding. If I had a choice, I’d
clearly take waterboarding over death by drone.
Yet, to be frank, IM, I don’t see anything so far that seems out of the
ordinary for Washington, DC. How does
this relate to engineering public sentiment?
IM: I’m just getting warmed up, Gadfly. As I casually observed actions and behaviors
that seemed somewhat isolated from each other, I also kept hearing in the back
of my mind: drip . . . drip . . . drip . . .
Then, these seemingly isolated drops began to merge into a stream with
force and direction. I pulled my copy of
George Orwell’s 1984 (with John Hurt
and Richard Burton) off the shelf and inserted it into my DVD player. At the very beginning of the movie was a
black screen, then these words in white:
“WHO
CONTROLS THE PAST
CONTROLS
THE FUTURE
(Following a short
pause, the next two lines appeared on the screen)
WHO
CONTROLS THE PRESENT
CONTROLS THE PAST
This is when I truly
understood the magnitude and danger of Obama and the progressive movement’s
design for engineering public sentiment.
Unfortunately, many of our younger voters have no idea that Orwell was
capturing the real dangers he actually witnessed in the Soviet Union and
Germany when he wrote the original book in 1949.
Gadfly: IM, you are starting to frighten me. Didn’t Lenin and Hitler promise hope and
change?
IM: Yes, Lenin
and Hitler
did inspire the masses with promises of hope and change. In Lenin’s case, change was revolution (from
capitalism to socialism and then communism) and the promise was shared freedom
and shared prosperity. Hitler promised
to restore the dignity and esteem of the German population through massive
changes in government administration and cultural norms (political correctness)
following the harsh and demeaning consequences of the Versailles Treaty after
World War I.
Gadfly: How did people buy into these promises?
IM: The people were agitated. Lenin and Hitler were able to create public
narratives to rally the people against “perceived enemies” such as the
bourgeoisie and Jews.
Gadfly: Do you think people anticipated the
unintended consequences of the hope and change?
IM: Perhaps many did but felt powerless to do
anything about it. This is why it is
important for American citizens, right now, to take a closer look at what is
going on in America. Clearly, those who
control the present control the past, and by engineering sentiment about the
past (even the recent, nearly four dismal years of a sluggish domestic economy,
not to mention foreign policy failures), they control the future.
Gadfly: Who do you mean by “those” and how do they do
this?
IM: “Those” are the progressive politicians who
currently control the federal government (and to a certain extent state,
county, and municipal governments, given the extent of unionization) and the
mainstream media. Let me give some
examples. Obama brings a philosophy and
unique set of experiences into his governing style. He was inspired by
Saul Alinsky (so
was Hillary Clinton; and while husband Bill was President, Wellesley
College was pressured not to make public her
thesis on Alinsky). Alinsky was a
University of Chicago-educated radical of the 60s and 70s. He wrote a book
in 1971, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. Alinsky gave a special acknowledgement to the
one who inspired him:
Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgement
to the very first radical: from all our
legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off
and history begins—or which is which), the first radical known to man who
rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least
won his own kingdom—Lucifer.” (p. xii)
Alinsky also explained the
rationale for his approach:
Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive,
affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our
people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in
the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance
the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. (p.
xix).
This sounds a lot like hope
and change. Further, Alinsky was very
transparent in his goal:
WHAT FOLLOWS IS for those who want to change the world
from what it is to what they believe it should be. The
Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules
for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away. (p. 3)
Gadfly: I’m not sure I see what’s wrong with this
goal from an idealistic perspective.
IM: What is disingenuous about Alinsky’s assertion is that Machiavelli described
how princes managed power in competition with other princes in an international
system, similar to the way prince Obama attempts to manage or balance power
with princes in Russia, China, Iran, or the Middle East. Alinsky even presented tactics for taking
away power in the form of rules. I’ll
single out four of the 13 to demonstrate how they are used in the current state
of affairs.
·
RULE 5: “‘Ridicule
is man’s most potent weapon.’ It is almost impossible to counterattack
ridicule. Also it infuriates the
opposition, who then react to your advantage” (p. 128). Recall the rampant ridiculing of Sarah Palin,
or even more recently, Clint Eastwood.
·
RULE 8: “Keep
the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events
of the period for your purpose” (p. 128).
Remember Harry
Reid’s comment about Romney not paying taxes for 10 years? While not true, the comment was political
noise that generated mainstream media news cycles. In another example, rule 8 delivered great
results in the state of Colorado. See
Fred Barnes’ analysis of these tactics in his article, “The
Colorado Model.” The key point of his
article is that most Americans are completely unaware of the integrated, behind
the scenes efforts to create political noise (allegations that do not need to
be true) that starts news cycles with mainstream media. A recognized master of this particular tactic
is David Axelrod. Axelrod has made a lot
of money for his public relations firm by engineering public (and
decision-maker) sentiment through a method called astro-turfing. Another professional tactician of rule 8 is
David Corn of Mother Jones. Corn
is the one who generated news cycles with Romney’s 47% comments. Corn also generated
the news cycles that prompted the Valerie Plame federal investigation. The problem is that no law was broken, but
once momentum developed in the mainstream media, Bush felt compelled to appoint
a federal investigator (something Obama refuses to do for many of the potential
illegal activities--such as Fast & Furious, Solyndra and other green energy
failures--under his Administration; but, then again, despite nearly singular
efforts on the part of Fox News,
Obama’s not pressured by any news cycles in the mainstream media). Although there was no real legal basis for
the investigation, Scooter Libby (advisor to Cheney) became the sacrificial lamb
and a victory for the progressive movement’s effort to shape a public narrative
painting a corrupted Bush administration.
Perhaps on another day, I can explain what I learned regarding the Bush
experiment—the progressive movement demonstration (e.g., George Lakoff and the
Center for American Progress) on how to demonize an individual and those
affiliated with him, thus, presenting a false dichotomy to a voting public.
·
RULE 12: “The
price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. You cannot risk
being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying
‘You’re right—we don’t know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us’” (p. 131). Two relatively recent examples demonstrate
this tactic.
o
The first involved the debt issue. Obama could not afford to revisit this issue
before the 2012 election. See Bob Woodward’s
account of the standoff in an excerpt to his book, The Price of Politics.
Ironically, Diane Sawyer on the ABC
Nightly News managed to shape
the interview with Woodward in such a way as to make Obama’s success in
managing the debt crisis on a scale of Kennedy’s Cuban Missile Crisis. Another blatant example of mendacity,
complicity, and duplicity.
Unfortunately, attempts to inform the public with more objective views from
other news sources get drowned out by the left-leaning pro-Obama mainstream
media.
o
The second example involves how Obama and
Democrats provided a constructive alternative (to manipulate the public
narrative) involving the payroll tax holiday.
On December 20, 2011, I caught a headline on page A23 of the New York
Times (New York edition): “House Republicans Refuse to Budge on Extension of
Payroll Tax Cut” (the online heading was “House
Set to Vote Down Payroll Tax Extension.”)
The article commends the Senate for exercising leadership and advancing
a solution, and harshly criticizes the Republican-led House for being
obstinate. What the article does not say
is that House Republicans had already forwarded a bill, passed on December
13. House Resolution (H.R.) 3630,
“Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011,” passed with 224
Republicans and 10 Democrats voting in favor, and 14 Republicans and 179
Democrats voting against the bill. H.R. 3630 provided for a 12-month payroll
tax cut. On December 17, the Senate
sent to the House an amendment (Senate Amendment 1465) to H.R. 3630 that changed
the 12-month payroll tax cut to 2 months. Yet, The
New York Times headline and content made it look like Republicans blocked
the payroll tax cut. Why would the Democrat-controlled
Senate not approve the House bill? Three
reasons: (a) Democrats could not afford
to let the public narrative suggest Republicans are interested in helping the
middle class; (b) President Obama and other Democratic politicians need this
issue to support their middle class warrior strategy against the wealthy; and
(c) Obama and Democrats count on mainstream media complicity in shaping public
narratives.
·
RULE 13: “Pick
the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it” (p. 131). While
Romney and his affiliates have produced negative ads about Obama policies and
performance; they have not gone after Obama as a person. Obama on the other hand is fully exploiting
rule 13. He is fully aware of this, but
chooses to play by Alinsky philosophy (the end justifies the means, even if the
means are immoral) and tactics. Obama admitted
to such tactics in an interview segment not
aired on Sunday’s (September 23, 2012) 60
Minutes. Further, someday, history
will more objectively record how George Bush was stigmatized by rule 13. Obama continues to blame today’s lack of
economic recovery on Bush policies. He
even suggests Romney wants to take America back to the policies that caused the
economic mess we’re still experiencing (despite analysis
strongly suggesting other causes for the economic crisis). In another example, once the Tea Party was
sufficiently excoriated in the mainstream media, it was relatively easy to
target individuals affiliated by the Tea Party.
These individuals are labeled, “extremists.” Yet, if one were to really look at the core
principles of the Tea Party movement, he or she would see that members of the
Tea Party are not anti-government (most of them are hard-working middle class
Americans). They are concerned about a
government that is (a) too large and unsustainable; and (b) too
egalitarian in taking away freedoms (or property, such as earned income) from
some to promote equality for others (redistribution of wealth). Thus, members of the Tea Party believe the
recent political direction and actions of the Obama Administration appear to
demonstrate what Jefferson cautioned against in the Declaration of
Independence:
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce
them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw
off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
By today’s progressive
definitions, Jefferson would be called an extremist.
Gadfly: But perhaps we live in different
circumstances than in Jefferson’s time.
IM: In Orwell’s Animal Farm, written in the 1940s, Napoleon’s (modeled after Joseph
Stalin) administration, which rallied the animals around a windmill (i.e.,
green energy), devolved into mere totalitarianism when the government could no
longer deliver on promises. The government’s
original seven commandments (e.g., politically correct norms) were reduced to
one: all animals are created equal; some
are more equal than others. Orwell’s
concern flowed from political ideologies that believed in the efficiencies of statism,
the compassion of socialism, and the hubris of capitalism. These same tenets define America’s
progressive movement. The outcome, if
left unchecked, will be the same as in Animal
Farm (and the former Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy,
etc.)
Gadfly: Americans should have enough power and common
sense to do something in the November elections. But, how would you convince them that Romney
is a better choice?
IM: Unlike your optimism in Americans having
common sense, Bill Maher, a serial progressive, believes they’re stupid. I do not.
Like you, I have confidence that Americans can do the right thing. To our fellow Americans, I would say, “imagine
this: If Obama is reelected, then he
would consider this fait accompli a
mandate to continue his current policies.
When the debt inevitably continues to grow with no economic growth and in
order to avoid a Greek-style collapse, the Administration will first seize the
trillions of dollars corporations are still holding back while hoping for a
more certain business climate, and then the Administration will seize personal
retirement accounts. Yes, IRAs, 401Ks,
etc. After all, as George Lakoff tells
us in Whose Freedom, wealth in America
belongs to the commonwealth: “As we have
already seen, America’s founders had a crucial idea: to pool the common wealth for the common good
to build an infrastructure so that everyone could have the resources to achieve
his or her goals. A government’s job was
to administer the common wealth to benefit all . . .” (pp. 155-156).
Gadfly: But the American people will protest.
IM: Yes, if they can overcome the human
bondage of emotion (i.e., the likeability index of political candidates) over
reason (actual facts and what they mean).
But the Administration has already anticipated the possibility of
protest—this is why Obama has already put in place, as we have already
discussed, the authority to detain American citizens indefinitely in statewide FEMA
camps, or even to assassinate those he deems a real threat to security. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? It can happen. It has happened. But, remember, those who control the present
are working hard to control what we know about the past in order to control the
future. And when the end (control of the
future) justifies the means, mendacity, complicity, and duplicity are not
considered immoral behaviors.
Gadfly: IM, your analysis is very discouraging. And, while I’d like to find a way to mollify the
harsh reality we’ve embraced in this conversation, I want to quote Neil
Postman, who in 1985 wrote the following in the Foreword to his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death:
We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t,
thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at
least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we
had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another--slightly older,
slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to
common belief among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same
thing. Orwell warns that we will be
overcome by an externally imposed oppression.
But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of
their autonomy, maturity and history. As
he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies
that undo their capacities to think.
What
Orwell feared were those who would ban books.
What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for
there would be no one who wanted to read one.
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much
that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that truth would be concealed
from us. Huxley feared the truth would
be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial
culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and
the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley
remarked in Brave New World Revisited,
the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose
tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for
distractions.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave
New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate
will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we
love will ruin us.
This
book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right. (pp. xix-xx).
IM: An Obama reelection will be additional proof
that Postman foresaw such an outcome 27 years ago. If so, perhaps we can only console ourselves
with the wisdom of Ecclesiastes 1:2-4, “Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
vanity of vanities! All things are
vanity! What profit has man from all the
labor which he toils under the sun? One
generation passes and another comes, but the world forever stays” (The New American Bible).
Gadfly: Very deep, IM. Shall we have a glass of wine before we’re
offered hemlock?
