"Just the facts Ma'am"

Bummed from the website 'Dream World'



My Independent self is rearing its uncomfortable, probing head. Ok, in light of my previous posts, I probably should've posted an 'ick alert' but I'm tired. I want to write politics now. (can't help it, I'm drawn that way)


So as an Independent, AND as someone who was born and raised in the Netherlands where there are quite a number of parties that make up coalition cabinets (now now, gotta play nice no one's getting the whole piece of pie..)..the difference between the Democrats and Republicans are very nominal. Naturally, the extremism of the neoconservatives have widened that gap a bit but on the whole, both dems and reps pursue the same foreign intervention agenda in the interest of economics and yes..oil! Except the dems call it humanitarian intervention (like in Kosovo which was dumb, thank you Clinton).

If you are a 'truth seeker' and it is not too painful for you to see , do check out Fact Check, the organization set up by Walter Annenberg in 1994 with the goal to "to create a community of scholars within the University of Pennsylvania that would address public policy issues at the local, state, and federal levels". Click on the fact check to inform yourself.

Quote from Jacques Ellul, famous author of Truth or Propaganda, the formation of the minds of men:

[This] sociological propaganda in the United States is a natural result of the fundamental elements of American life. In the beginning, the United States had to unify a disparate population that came from all the countries of Europe and had diverse traditions and tendencies. A way of rapid assimilation had to be found; that was the great political problem of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. The solution was psychological standardization--that is, simply to use a way of life as the basis of unification and as an instrument of propaganda. In addition, this uniformity plays another decisive role--an economic role--in the life of the United States; it determines the extent of the American market. Mass production requires mass consumption, but there cannot be mass consumption without widespread identical views as to what the necessities of life are. One must be sure that the market will react rapidly and massively to a given proposal or suggestion. One therefore needs fundamental psychological unity on which advertising can play with certainty when manipulating public opinion. And in order for public opinion to respond, it must be convinced of the excellence of all that is "American." Thus conformity of life and conformity of thought are indissolubly linked.

(underlining linked by yours truly)