What’s that deep groaning sound coming from the walls of the dam?
“Even an unreal economy reported on by an unreal media cheering on an unreal leader can only run for so long until reality punches through the illusion, the curtain falls, the magicians scramble off the stage with rabbits and doves tucked into their pants, and everyone wakes up to realize that the dream is over and we realize that we are entering a world where the stories no longer matter and history is about to begin.”
As described by Glenn Reynolds in a classic 2002 essay, a preference cascade occurs when people trapped inside a manufactured consensus suddenly realize that many other people share their doubts. Preference falsification works by making doubters feel isolated and alone. In a totalitarian society, the dissenter fears that if he speaks up, his will be a lone voice, easily squashed by the enforcers of the regime. When dissenters realize they are not alone, and the true strength of their numbers becomes apparent, “invincible” regimes vanish with astonishing speed.
My father went to Korea in the 50’s(before I was Born)to save the south from the commies in the north by shooting them. Of all the things he taught me the most important, at this time in world history is the only good commie is a DEAD commie.
When did facts and entertainment diverge in the media? I used to read the Alberta Report back in the 1970s and the content was totally different than the rest of the media. I really noticed the problem when the media wouldn’t touch anything critical of the clueless reprobate Clinton.
“the night that changed the world was an accident”
http://is.gd/LdgP3g
FREE, I would second that motion.
That 8 minute clip that Robert with the Menzoid and Kathy discussing the movie honouring Jack very funny.
Fascinating. It’s the ‘Sandpile’ theory, where a system, such as a sandpile, emerges and develops within a VIRTUAL rather than real infrastructure.
‘Virtual’ means that the infrastructure holding it together isn’t part of the internal system. It’s imaginary, it comes from the outside. The sandpile is held together by external forces such as rocks pressing the sand together, or hands making that sand sculpture.
It will exist as long as the external forces maintain it. Reality moves in; the pile of sand becomes too large for those rocks to hold, the external agent stops patting it in place. Another external force moves in, the rains, and it all collapses.
Obama’s regime is built on the Virtual. It’s all In His Words. Hope and change, the oceans will cease to rise. It is utopian perfection.
Who and what has kept his virtual regime intact? We the People who have continued to insist that the choice made in 2008 was the Right Choice. We have an emotional, psychological Bond With Obama.
And Obama, a master manipulator, has kept the flame of our belief in Him, alive.
A major part of the GOP platform, I suggest, is not merely to provide their own platform and policies to deal with problems. But also, a daunting task, of empowering and freeing the American people from their psychological Bond With Obama. And, to face reality. As Ryan keeps repeating, Americans can do it, they can face reality, the problems can be overcome.
The GOP can’t be seen as attacking the emotional bonds Obama and his utopian world have set up with the people, for the Democrats would instantly rebut this with charges of racism. So, the GOP have to maintain, as both Romney and Eastwood did, that Obama is a ‘nice likable guy’ and that it was great to weep with joy when he was elected. But now, it is OK to acknowledge that the job wasn’t done, and it is OK to still like him, and move on. AND, to feel that Americans have the strength to live in the real world.
That’s not easy to do.
Above all, we need more editorials and blogs and images of empty chairs to empower us to release ourselves from our bond with the imaginary, and decide to live in reality.
Actually I am amazed that the DNC elected to display that leering carcature of a sand sculpture.
It’s collapse was/is inevitable.
A few drops of rain….or hot weather…causing evaporation of the thin film of moisture bonding the coloids together until gravity takes over….an reduces it too angle of repose of dry sand……..
This is factors more foolish than the Syrian practice of planting olive trees to shade otherwise well camoflaged artillery sites on the Golan Heights prior to 1967.
I suspect the millions of rounds of ammo the federal government has been buying to supply every minor fed agency is a preparation for when the American people wake from the illusion spun by the media storytellers and see the stark reality of what has been done to them by their government.
I bet it keeps them awake nights knowing the first American Revolution was carried off by a patriot militia force comprised less than 3% of the population.
During the 1990’s, a philosophy called “post modernism” permeated many humanities departments in higher education.
Although difficult to describe, post modernism was marked by an emphasis on narrative and viewpoint, and skepticism towards objective reality.
Although officially out of fashion, post modernism seems to be alive and well in the Obama administration, and amongst the elites of the Democrat Party.
I’m waiting for some creative protesters to show up in Charlotte.
Hey, hey, wadda ya say
Are you better off today!
Repeat ad nauseum.
What is really amazing that in the age of Internet politicians speak the language of platitudes and cliches. What is even more amazing that people active on political blogs often fall for and defend these platitudes and cliches. The only difference between Ceausescu shouting ‘Romania’ and Ann Romney heart-warming ‘America’ is that of the style.
rabbit, yes, postmodernism would describe the Obama realm, a perspective built entirely within the words of the speaker and totally indifferent to objective reality.
That’s Obama’s strength; he’s a master manipulator with his words and emotional appeals. He was successful in 2008 because the people were tired of reality and wanted a utopian future.
Now, the people are exhausted, again, by reality. Not wars and terrorism this time but economic reality. The problem is, that Obama has no answer to this; he can’t promote peace and the oceans ceasing to rise when the overhead notice shows a 16 trillion dollar debt, when unemployment is above 8% and higher in real data figures, and so on.
The Democratic platform has nothing new to offer, other than self-praise and an appeal for continuation of ‘the same’. The really strange Virtual World of the Democrats is that they claim they are all about the Middle Class while the GOP are destroying the middle class. But a reality of lost income, of people on food stamps, of increasing dependency is intruding on this self-description.
The hard data of reality is covered up with words but experience is, I think, this time too strong for those words.
Therefore what will the Obama campaign do? They’ve tried to divide-and-conquer, with their claims that the GOP have a ‘war against women, against ethnics, against the poor, and so on’. It’s not working. What will they do? More claims of racism?
To actually have to call in a previous president, Clinton, and thus describe themselves not as a government of Obama but a government that is ‘really, really similar to that of Bill Clinton’ – that’s quite the desperate move.
Obama is a master emotional manipulator. Never underestimate his tactics. So, what will they do?
Occam at September 4, 2012 11:31 AM
“I bet it keeps them awake nights knowing the first American Revolution was carried off by a patriot militia force comprised less than 3% of the population.”
Yep and there are many real instances of their enunciation of that fear. DHS listing returned veterans as security threats. Proclamations of TEA party violence….
The totalitarians have reason to fear the guys in the John Deere hats….too many are veterans much like the first civil war (1776). They realize that the spray and pray cops and the homies with the side-ways guns are hopeless……
Amusing DNC poster satire
http://www.thepeoplescube.com/
set you free. Many thanks. Great satire. I don’t know which ones are the best! The Chair posters are all wonderful, but also, the ones showing the Evil GOP are also great. Thanks again.
Marshall Mcluhan once wrote “All myth is compressed wisdom”. The Emperor’s New Clothes is a myth.
Interesting piece on what constitutes reality and will ponder it for the remainder of the day. PK Dick was one of my favorite authors and the structure of reality was one of his most common themes.
We’ve made it possible to create our own realities, but strangely enough the majority of people opt for very mundane realities. One of the first things that people need to do to get more in touch with reality is to totally turn off the TV and not read newspapers. People seem to be concerned with the immensely trivial and, whenever I go to one of the online British papers to read a story referenced on SDA, the “news” appears to be about who’s screwing who and who’s wearing what. It’s incredibly banal and I find it amazing that people can even think this sort of crap is relevant to their lives.
The power of this sort of crap to grab peoples attention hasn’t gone un-noticed by totalitarians as the government of Vietnam finds that easy availability of online porn distracts people from politics. Other countries have discovered this also and having the people distracted covers up the few internet activists who disappear in the middle of the night.
People who are on welfare or unemployed are the easiest to manipulate and it seems their primary daily activity is watching TV. There’s a straight channel for the statist reality into the brains of a captive audience. There are times when I wish it was possible give a good chunk of the population the equivalent of the red pill from The Matrix to get them to see what kind of reality they’re living in.
In David Deutsch’s terms, the western world is being inundated by bad memes and the question is whether one can recreate the old positive memeplex of scientific progress or whether the disinformation campaigns started during the cold war to destroy the US from within will continue to progress just like their architects intended.
I don’t mean to fan the fire, but as a message to the twit-heads saying that anybody whom disagrees with them should be raped and murdered, not necessarily in that order.
You should be afraid of the guys in steel boots and ball caps. Pistols are recreation, rifles are business. As in out of practice I can end a d-bag at 200M, center mass. Try that with a sideways 9mm.
Sorry, I learned how to shoot when I was 8, like most country boys. Richardson ground squirrels, also known as Gophers, or just prairie target practice. Paper targets were boring. Scares the heck out of city libs, truth has that effect when they try to talk gangsta. Pussies.
Was “sideways 9mm” one of those “racist dog whistles”?
My bad
d
I love this post, and I love that Phillip K. Dick quote. Its freaking brilliant.
I second all of the above comments re: PoMo by ET and Rabbit. To me, PoMo really is nothing more or less than the magical belief that if you just wish hard enough, you will get a pony.
Or in Barry’s case, a pink flying unicorn that farts rainbows like Nyan Cat.
The manipulation of the electorate continues. Wasserman Schultz claims that the Israeli ambassador said that the GOP being against Obama is ‘dangerous for Israel’.
Hmm. Essentially she’s saying that IF you are against Obama, then, this will harm Israel. [And we’ll see more of this IF-THEN tactic where rejecting Obama will be defined as dangerous to: women, gays, the middle class, the world, etc].
“The Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. has released a statement “categorically” denying Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s claim that he accused Republicans of being “dangerous for Israel.” The Washington Examiner earlier reported that at a Monday event here, Wasserman Schultz decried Republicans attacks on President Obama’s record on Israel, and insisted that, “We know, and I’ve heard no less than Ambassador Michael Oren say this, that what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel.”
But the Israeli embassy has now released a statement from Ambassador Michael Oren responding to the Examiner report. “I categorically deny that I ever characterized Republican policies as harmful to Israel.”
That’s the emotional bond to which I refer where Obama is set up as some kind of divine lynchpin to prosperity, peace, goodwill and etc, and where YOUR denial of him sets YOU up as specifically harming these desired outcomes. Neat tactic.
The biggest scam that the MSM has pulled is that there is actually a choice in the election when in reality it matters very little who wins.
phantom – yes, and what’s really stunning to me in this Democratic narrative is that the Democratic campaign has to almost sideline Obama and turn to Clinton.
They are essentially declaring that Obama is only and merely a continuation of Clinton! Whew. Can a pathological narcissist like Obama accept that? After all, he’s The One; it was he who was going to come in, restore peace and prosperity, halve the deficit, reduce unemployment to below 8%, and etc.
He’s achieved none of this, and the Democrats are in a sense, whitewashing Obama out of the record. They are going back to Being Clinton rather than Being Obama. Obama is reduced to being a continuity of Clinton rather than a Great Force in his own right.
I consider that astonishing. Unreal. So, will Clinton glorify Obama? Even though he loathes Obama and might possibly consider a second term a disaster for the Democratic Party?
Or will he glorify Clinton, and thus, assist throwing out the Empty Chair and thereby attempt to pave the way for Hillary in 2016?
dwight, after a potential collapse of authority, the OWS/anarchists will be going around in groups to terrorize the population and the only immediate defense against them raping, murdering and looting will be local defense groups that are not afraid to shoot. Think of Nestor Makhno and his band of merry men.
Wasserman Schultz is doing her level best lately to get Romney/Ryan elected.
Ken, I’m locked and loaded, but in my small town, like I said in a previous thread, I am the lord of the flies.
Not being a power tripper, just that the kids trust me.
Bad scene, the last guy was trying to stick his “Johnson” Into anything with a pulse.
Seriously, he got 90 days in BC min for trying to have sex with 2 different 11 year old girls.
I was the jerk that told the locals to act and bust the creep, and told them exactly how to do it. I don’t consider my self a “community activist”
It was my duty, as a citizen.
I was a pariah for 2 years for that, said that I was undercover RCMP the whole time, but was not.
I was to the best of my ability being a Canadian, as I know it. And that kidf@#er is finished.
But so am I, once again, no regrets.
Take down a pedophile, then talk to me, so called intellectuals.
dwright
Is it true that Leni Riefenstahl has been exhumed and will film the DNC convention……and later vote 6 times?
At your link, Kate, is this link to Ronald Regan documenting the history of Communism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YVCjpbeLRs&feature=endscreen
The people of the west have been so befuddled and harrassed in schools by the pinko idealists in the teaching profession and in the ‘education’ bureaucracy that they can easily be drawn into accepting the Communistic ‘freedom’ offered by state totalitarianism (collective slavery) being the same or better than the true freedom of individuals offered by the Constitution of United States. Only the brave are willing to enjoy the latter, the former offers ‘security’ at the expense of rules, regulations and taxes that force equal poverty and dependance (state slavery).
The video clearly delineates the polar opposites.
Nemo2 @ 4:13, yes, and under the direction of Joseph Goebbels. Those socialists stick together like flies on a manure pile.
That was very eloquently stated real speak By Mr.Daniel Greenfield .
This is why I believe in the Bible. Its outlived every philosophy, form of Government, monetary system, reppression , Religions,or Wisdom man has devised. Why? Because it is the ultimate Rock of reality.
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away,” Philip K. Dick
Politics have never saved one Man, even from themselves. Nor quenched the thirst all humans have for answers that ride us all during life. Except this 4000 year old tome in parts, that claims to be from God.
Obama is just another Ill wind. In a World that has endured many storms, or harvests.
In the end all Men have to face one truth.
What can’t be sustained eventually stops. Under government handouts, borrowing and massive transfers of wealth, people’s expectations have risen to meet the level of the handouts. When those expectations can no longer be met, the Great God of Arithmetic will come to town and punch us all in the mouth.
kristianity….thee ultimate in make-belief
the very essence of a unreal world
‘bama, Puss in Boots Trudeau, and Taliban Jack – what else can we expect from populations whose worlds have been reduced to 3 inch screens?
“When dissenters realize they are not alone, and the true strength of their numbers becomes apparent, ‘invincible’ regimes vanish with astonishing speed.”
That’s when the leaders get the “Ceausescu Treatment”. I continually suggest of Kim Young-one and the mad mullahs of Iran that they find a graceful exit before they’re next, on a random future day. Not that they read SDA of course.
As for the theme of the thread, Ayn Rand had a couple of classic comments:
“Reality always avenges itself.”
“Reality is not infinitely elastic.”
Reality punched through in 2007, that’s old news.
Reality: The wrong side won the American Civil war
Fiction: The civil war was about slavery.
Reality: Lincoln was a power hungry statist.
Fiction: Lincoln freed the slaves.