Don’t forget the Qanon talking points that FBI and DOJ swamp creatures have jobs to protect. DNC is their meal ticket so to speak.
Well that’s a fun spin.
Essentially a problem in every single law enforcement branch in every level of government is that they have to find criminals and if they can’t find real criminals they go for the “kinda” criminals, and if they can’t find those they make something up. Just your typical police harassment story that happens every day in America.
But instead of considering complete reform of law enforcement from top to bottom as is needed, the new Trump Party will just selectively use this problem to further their political ends as if the BIG BAD DEMOCRATS are the ones responsible for a failed law enforcement system.
So @FermentedAgave - are you advocating for across the board police reform by recognizing there are deeply enmeshed blue uniformed swamp creatures? Is this another area where you are starting to lean consistently progressive - or only when Trump is the “victim”.
We are seeing rapid reforms in policing with video capable cell phones and body cams already. This reform, while not noted by Progressives, is happening at a very rapid pace. I think this a very good thing and am happy with the pace of reform. We are seeing now that with almost all communication digital (cell phone records, email records, IM records) that forensic analysis is possible on almost all communication and even down to location tracking. At some point, we will see investigations into electione
Of course I would be equally appalled if Republicans were weaponizing the FBI and DOJ to surveil, investigate, leak information for political or monetary purposes.
I’m highly optimistic that our bureaucratic machine will be more exposed for the behind the scenes decision making regardless of political party.
Of course they are, and if you did not already know, then with minimal effort you can find enough to be completely appalled by the Republican efforts to weaponize law enforcement. They aren’t even trying to hide it. It was one of Trumps main campaign platforms in 2016. Remember “Lock her up”? While in Office Trump regularly tried to use the FBI and DOJ to settle his personal vendettas. All this is documented again and again. Then finally, there is this whole matter of Trump and aides in his administration trying to use the DOJ to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Again, the documentation is being substantiated week by week. Oh, and then there is Trump threatening numerous state Attorneys General to “find more votes”.
If there was anyone stopping gross abuses of power from occurring, it was the Law enforcement officers themselves - who were often fired for refusing Trump’s demands.
I’ll just document a few interesting cases here of the law enforcement swamp on the Republican side.
Republicans fail attempt to redirect charges against capitol police:
All Fart Left Biased rags of ill repute.
All Fart Left Biased rags of ill repute.
Well, let’s compare these sources to the one you previously used.
Yours had a far-right bias, with mixed truth telling.
Looks like all of Ray’s sources are significantly less biased, with much better record of truth telling:
NPR:
BBC
NY Times
Reuters
Politico
Turns out your source was the one with the most bias, AND the most ill repute 
… according to mediabiasfactcheck.
Retractions are quietly rolling out on Russiagate coverage. Will the Pulitzers revoked? Will mediabiasfactcheck update ratings? Or perhaps change their name to mediafactcheckbias?
Nah. Just Qanoners experiencing aperspectival madness.
If Reuters is a “fart left biased rag of ill repute” to you, that really says something about your media ecosystem!
And speaking of Qanon, they are apparently waiting for the return of JFK and JFK Jr. so they can reinstate Trump as President 
Here’s the thing - I don’t trust ANY, ANY ANY media sources 100%.
That was kind of where I came into this discussion at - so we’ve come full circle.
Heck, even Integral Life has to make editing and scheduling decisions and decide what falls to the cutting room floor vs what is “revealed”.
The problem you seem to have is that you don’t even realize the complete lack of integrity in your own sources of information - and since you love Bill Maher so much, I’ll channel him and say it probably has a lot to do with your religious convictions. He’s a real funny comedian, ain’t he? (not for me, but you seem to like him).
In fact, if push comes to shove, this is the entirety of the crisis America faces - both the left and the right living in their various delusions and spinning off into their own perspectival ghettos - and this is due to some very basic mythologies and outright lies Americans were raised to believe, like American is blessed by God and our constitution with it’s trinity of rulership (Executive, Judicial, Legislative) is as Holy and infallible as the Torah or other nonsense.
There is a joke going around in younger circles, especially in Gaming communities. “Are we the bad guys”. I think this is because in an open world RPG where people can do what they want, they really do choose to do quite “evil” things. This is different than when I was a kid and most people wanted to play the Holy Avenger - today kids tend to prefer the Assassins’ Creed type of dark, edgy and misunderstood antihero. I see this as at least the younger generations dealing with their shadows - so I do have some hope for when the generations of Holy Avenger “MAGA” types all die off. Whether from refusing COVID vaccines or Rag Right media induced absurdity doesn’t matter. Decisions and their resulting actions have consequences and it’s just a basic inevitability that people who make the bad decisions whether individually or as a collective will suffer more for their stupidity.
This is an example - when confronted with an actual unbiassed report, just deny the facts.
Thus deepening your programming and reducing the likelihood that you will ever see anything “as it is”.
Increasing the likelihood that you will accept the next stage of programming - until one day you might find yourself in front of a judge being sentenced to 41 months in prison for trying to overthrow the government, lol
Rotten Fish Ratings 
- Politico - Fish Entrails washed up on the shore
- NYTimes - Dumpster Diving behind the Fish Market
- NPR - Canned Cat Food delivered with that maternal “it’s good for you” vocal intonation
- BBC - Global Voice-of-Anglosphere with some actual journalism
- Reuters - Minimal narrative - I read Reuters
I agree this is an interesting shift over the years. Could we consider this normalization or gamification of Nihilism?
I’m not sure where you got Nihilism from? Nothing I suggested has anything to do with believing life is meaningless. That is your own baggage, there. If anything, they are more Integral for recognizing, playing out, and understanding the “bad guy” perspective. Villains without realistic motives (meaning) is shallow 1950’s pulp trash. Of course villains (and antiheroes) believe their life has meaning, and are not Nihilists. Playing out these realistic complexities of the human shadow mans that the younger people I interact with in such games are far more emotionally balanced than my 50-something male peers I meet face to face.
Normalization - no. Of course they are not going out and doing backflips off of buildings while they slit a guard’s throat mid-flip. Perhaps early in their life they learned the difference between game-“them” and reality-“them”, while middle aged men particularly have a difficult time with this. Terms have even been coined for this type of man - “neckbeard”, “try hard”, etc.
Gamification - yes, obviously. That is why it is called a “game”. People designed a game sell it to people who play it. Is this a dog whistle of some sort that you attribute some kind of hidden meaning to? Are all games ever anything other than gamification of our baser instincts at various tiers? Is not American Football gamification of competitive behavior through means of violence?
Nihilism from the standpoint that nothing really matters, there is no good or bad, right or wrong.
We also see this with the loads of bad with bit of good vampire, undead, and crime productions.
The classic Flawed Hero has been replaced with Evil w taint of Goodness. Dexter is a perfect example.
You aren’t getting the point here. The question isn’t whether good and bad exist, or what is good and what is bad. The question being asked is “Am I the bad guy?”. It’s a completely different questionand goes much deeper. In my opinion people who fail to ask this question of themselves are far behind in personal and spiritual development than those who are able to recognize and accept all the various tiers of “bad guy” that walks around with them.
I’m not talking about silly vampirism and undead, lmao.
So no, it is not about Nihilism at all. Nor is it about normalization. Yes, it is about gamification, that’s what games do by definition, lol - but I suspect you are following the pied piper and his sweet notes into the sewers if you are making some kind of sinister hidden motive out of gamification.
Looks like even Lefty Newsweek is pandering for readership by publishing something critical of Democrats, and from Hoover Institute no less.
Who is the “you” in this comment directed to? …
Listen to the brilliant wisdom that passes through “you” in the following sentence.
Rejecting an understand of another’s point of view is weakness and darkness within our own comprehension. Imagine if every person followed your wisdom … exploring that “inner question”?
If we would actually follow your above advice how much better our relationships and societies would be.
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There is a lot to read in the Consilience Project and I can’t help but think that in trying to understand propaganda, it is being analyzed to the nth degree to the point in which it becomes too complicated. As well intentioned the article is, who is going to remember it all? And let’s say many people who read gain considerable insight. Then what? Where do you go from there? Of what good is it to know so much about the real problems affecting us only as an end in itself? How many more times must we read yet another article on propaganda, voting rights, immigration, crony capitalism, or what have you yet nothing changes for the better? Take for instance what Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein said in their book, It’s Even Worse Than It Was.
Today’s Republican Party, as we noted at the beginning of the book, is an insurgent outlier. It has become ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition, all but declaring war on the government. The Democratic Party, while no paragon of civic virtue, is more ideologically centered and diverse, protective of the government’s role as it developed over the course of the last century, open to incremental changes in policy fashioned through bargaining with the Republicans, and less disposed to or adept at take-no-prisoners conflict between the parties. This asymmetry between the parties, which journalists and scholars often brush aside or whitewash in a quest for “balance,” constitutes a huge obstacle to effective governance.
While propaganda can be a serious problem, the inherent chaos, malfeasance, and corruption within the Republican party (and the Democrats respectively) are creating as much harm as any disingenuous propaganda campaign. You don’t need to be a psychologist to understand that the above quote is true regarding the Republican party yet nothing is done about it. It is a disgrace -not so much to Democracy- but to humanity the manner in which the Republicans behave. They do not give a flying fuck about the values they hold as conservatives. I believe they’ve become radicalized by Trump, the master propagandist and demagogue and you can’t have and effective propaganda without a demagogue!
If you think about it, what is actually holding back the emotional, psychological, and spiritual evolution of humanity are those we put in power who have no idea what they are doing. As Adam Curtis said quite insightfully in his documentary,“Hypernormalization” (free to watch on youtube) our political leaders have no vision for the future. This film is not for the fainthearted. Just watching the clip I provided is enough to make you feel a tinge of existential angst on just how bad things really are and as long as we take sides, we keep the madness going.
I regret not having children. After watching Adam’s film, I’m glad I don’t have them because their future looks very grim.
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Do you have a solution to offer … something we could all unite around that would bring positive results?
Could we master love by exploring inside ourselves, as @raybennett referenced above, asking “Am I the bad guy” … ?
This approach, offered by all wisdom traditions, is to fix thyself first … letting go of the external battles … in so doing we reveal the magic of healing that is inside each one of us. It’s in our own internal spiritual space where all the life-changing answers lie.
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