MOMCOM In The Outer Limits Of The Twilight Zone

T-Rex of State

In a recent post I provided a video featuring a presentation at MIT by Prof. Dr. Noam Chomsky.

It covered the reasons behind the doomsday clock having been moved from seven minutes until "midnight" (a.k.a. "lights out for civilization") to 2.5 minutes until midnight.

The subject of that post was the ongoing murder-suicide process by power centers within our current civilization (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch - 9).

The actors "in that movie" are official anti-social-behavior power-centers that surprisingly mimic the characteristics of the demise of previous civilizations:

In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(A Study of History, by Arnold J. Toynbee). Once the most-oft-quoted historian, Dr. Toynbee discovered a pathological behavior often repeated in societies, including the largest society, civilization itself.

That behavior is still with us because it has not been addressed and epigenetically modified (On the Origin of Cultural Epigenetics).

The locus of these suicidal dynamics is harbored in three entities which I have called "MOMCOM."

MOMCOM is an extension of Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" (MOMCOM: A Mean Welfare Queen).

Those three areas (military, oil, media) are the center of the origin of the current suicidal tendencies, because the military has the nukes, big oil has the other "nuclear option" (climate change), the media have the power of deceit, so, together they comprise the complex MOMCOM.

Their (or its) firstborn offspring is Oil-Qaeda (Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

This family of players is not wavering from the mass-murder-suicide path they have been intentionally taking for decades (Humble Oil-Qaeda).

Instead, this deadly family has intensified their suicidal behavior (MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact, 2, 3, 4, 5).

They have financed political criminality to the point it has now openly taken over the U.S.eh? government.

If you want to know what they are doing, simply look at what they accuse sane people of doing (House Science Committee Leader Says Climate Scientists Are Trying to Control People’s Lives).

Next, realize how many years and how much money it has taken them to deceive substantial segments of society (Global Warming Disinformation Database).

Their basic behavior is to double down, even in the light of conclusive evidence against them (The Universal Smedley - 2, Oil Giants Caught Bribing Nigerian Money Launderer In Major Scandal, How World War I ushered in the century of oil).

By using the phrase "double down" I am including the habit of warmongering imperialism (The Peak Of The Oil Wars - 10, cf. The Fleets & Terrorism Follow The Oil - 2).

One of the reasons this suicidal behavior has not been stopped by western societies (by culturally evolving beyond the genetic dispositions of suicidal civilizations past), is primarily the power of propaganda hidden in plain sight:

THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons — a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty [now 320] million — who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
...
It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity. It will attempt at the same time to find the due place in the modern democratic scheme for this new propaganda and to suggest its gradually evolving code of ethics and practice.

(A Closer Look At MOMCOM's DNA - 4). That quote is taken from the American book which has the title "Propaganda."

It was written by "The Father of Spin," a.k.a the Father of the American PR Industry (cf. Exceptional American Propaganda Inspired NAZI Goebbels).

He and his wife opened the business now known as "public relations" ... their first customer was then named The War Department.

I guess there is only one question remaining, since today some elections are taking place: (Will Elections Cure The Disease?, 2, 3, 4).

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"And now we return you to your regular programming ..."

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The Shapeshifters of Bullshitistan

Have you finished the wall yet?

I. Foreward

I thought I would continue the phrase I coined during the Bush II Administration ("Bulshitistan"), however, I though it should be placed in a series rather than in random places in comments and the like.

The language spoken in Bullshitistan is designated as BS-01.5572, but in scientific circles it is called "double-speak," a language which has been studied incessantly (Propaganda Is A "Toxic Asset", quoting Professor Lutz).

II. Swamped

It is in honor of the quickest draw in the swamp:

It took former President George W. Bush 1,205 days to reach a majority disapproval rating. Former President Barack Obama crossed that threshold in 936 days.

And President Donald Trump did it in just over a week.

The Republican, who was sworn in on Jan. 20 as the least popular president in at least 40 years, hit majority disapproval in a record eight days, a new

"Dood, that was an awesome EO !"

Gallup poll of 1,500 Americans finds. As of Saturday, 51 percent of Americans disapproved of Trump.

Trump’s majority disapproval rating comes after a tumultuous first week in office that was capped off with his widely protested executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. After the president’s first day in office, millions of women and men protested his agenda in the Women’s March on Washington and sister marches around the world.

(President Trump Smashes Record for Getting Majority of Americans to Disapprove of Him). What do you expect from the author of The Art of the Deal?

III. The High Priestess

The high-priestess of BS-01.5572, The ConWay, wrestles with her tongue in cheek to cross the eyes and dot the teeth of her victims:

With doublespeak, banks don't have "bad loans" or "bad debts"; they have

The Tommy

"nonperforming assets" or "nonperforming credits" which are "rolled over" or "rescheduled."

Corporations never lose money; they just experience "negative cash flow," "deficit enhancement," "net profit revenue deficiencies," or "negative contributions to profits."

(ibid). The ConWay graduated from The Donald University with the highest honor, "Silver Tongued Devil", and is a close ideological descendant of The Patron Saint of The Plutocracy (Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy, 2, 3, 4).

Currently,  The ConWay is casting aspersion spells on those who are making fun of her for running off the rails to temporarily make things up in violation of the fundamental rule (BS-01.5572.Rule.001): "only things that the base will believe can be made up out of whole cloth" (Bowling Green massacre? Kellyanne Conway has taken alt facts up a notch).

IV. So Called

The Shapeshifters of Bullshitistan (SOB) are constantly at war with the  So-Called Realm, (SCR, a place where facts and law matter).

SOB has recently given SCR a "take that" motion, which backfired (U.S. appeals court denies request to restore Trump's immigration ban).

One thing to note is that the Federal Court of Appeals is not paranoid about lies (It Takes A Culture To Raise A Compulsive Liar), so SOB will take that into consideration (according to the SOB rule-book, generally, the next step is to threaten SCR with an invasion).

Stay tuned.

The next post in this series is here.

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Yep. Desolation Row ...

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Dress Codes: Language As A Clothing Metaphor

Fig. 1 "Your mother wears combat boots clothing."

Is "talk" cheap because it is a luxury, or is it costly ("words matter") because it is a necessity?

At least one observer indicates that luxury is cheaper than necessity in some scenarios:

Sociologist Joseph Cohen of Queens University is fond of saying that “America is a place where luxuries are cheap and necessities costly.”

A recent chart from economist Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute, using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, illustrates this well. Since 1996, the prices of food and housing have increased by close to 60 percent, faster than the pace of inflation. Costs of health care and child care have more than doubled. The prices of textbooks and higher education nearly tripled.
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In the case of higher education, the nation’s massive student loan industry bears much of the upfront burden of rising prices. To the typical 18-year-old, a $120,000 tuition bill may seem like an abstraction when you don’t have to start paying it off until your mid-20s or later. As a result, the nation’s college students and graduates now collectively owe upward of $1.3 trillion in student loan debt.

(The stuff we need ... and the other stuff). Down through time clothing and even fruit have been metaphors for behavior (e.g. "wolf in sheep's clothing" and "by their fruits shall ye know them").

Clothing still is metaphorical, in the sense and to the extent that behavior defines us:

Today, we design and define ourselves through clothing more than through any other device. Clothing originally evolved to provide protection and warmth. For centuries, it has also reflected gender, age, cultural identity, and class differences—visually distinguishing the ruling, powerful, and wealthy from everyone else. In the contemporary world of customization, mass production, and globalization—with information disseminated at a rate never before experienced— we can choose from myriad styles and types of clothing to alter how we are perceived and identified.

Since the 1990s, a growing number of international artists have been using apparel as a metaphor for shared, as well as personal, concerns.

(Dress Codes: Clothing as Metaphor, PDF; in other words: Dress Codes: Clothing as Metaphor). On another hand, "clothes don't make the man" and "you can't tell a book by its cover" allege that there are holes in our ability to discern the depths when we merely observing the shallows.

Moving along, one can ask or wonder: "if all of this applies to groups, nations, organizations, or cultures, what would that look like?"

The graphic in Fig. 1 indicates that some clothing is sufficiently revealing to in fact "tell the book by its cover," or "know the man by his clothing," at least in the sense of groups within a society (e.g. "hawks" vs. "doves").

So, you may be wondering what this has to do with "language" being as much of a revelatory indicator as "clothing" can be.

Can language reveal aspects of "the book" or of "the man" who is "wearing" that language?

Ok, fair enough ... as a simple exercise let's investigate cultures that use the word "slay".

But first let's investigate the word's traditional meaning:

slay [sley];  verb (used with object), slew, slain, slaying.

1. to kill by violence.
2. to destroy; extinguish.

(Dictionary). Synonyms usually help with the investigation into the meaning of a word:

Synonyms for slay: kill, assassinate, butcher, destroy, dispatch, execute, exterminate, massacre, murder, slaughter, annihilate, do, down, eliminate, erase, finish, hit, liquidate, neutralize, snuff, waste, cut off, do away with, do in, knock off, put away, rub out ...

(Thesaurus). So, what do we make of it when this word, which describes the most heinous of activity, is used casually by groups within a culture, or even when it is used by whole cultures?

First notice this:

Did you watch the Billboard Music Awards last night and follow along on Twitter or Facebook? Or maybe you skipped it and are just catching up on all of the headlines…

One thing is for sure, there were a lot of females “slaying” last night.

I am over it with this word, especially since it’s now used to describe outfits or performances that are only moderately good. It’s completely lost it’s meaning because it’s been so over used!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t “slay” supposed to be reserved for something that is out of this world, over the top, spectacular, cream of the crop, best of the best, most amazing ever, killed it, nailed it, WOW, and holy sh*t that was amazing? Because if you followed Twitter last night, just about every performance was the best thing ever of all time.. Even the ones that were just OK.

(CBS Local News, emphasis added). The commentator was not complaining that the use of the word "slay" in that context represents a watering down of the worst of human behavior (which is human crime).

Instead, the commentator was complaining that "slay" was being used to describe only mediocre performances (the commentator's argument was that "slay" should be reserved for the best human performances).

Perhaps that commentator was a graduate of some astute institutions within our slaying culture (Is War An Art or Is War A Disease?, 2) ?

Or, perhaps just a commentator who wakes up to the lyrics of a "killer" song:

And you killed it, you killed it
You killed it with I love you
And you killed it, you killed it
You killed it with I love you
And you killed with I love you
What am I supposed to say back to you?
You killed it with I love you
(U Killed It). The message subtly broadcast by those who create travesties of art, subversions of language, who extinguish reason, and/or who disable socially mature cultures, is the message that barbaric linguistic behavior is nothing more than fancy clothing.

And this is being done against the backdrop of our culture.

A culture which has been counseled from the beginning to avoid this state of mind, or maybe better said as this mind of state:

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established.

(The Greatest Source Of Power Toxins?). The warmonger depicted in Fig. 1 was telling the truth when it said to the president: "it's us or them."

It is getting to be all "US" without "THEM," because "US" is slaying, "US" is killing "THEM" softly with those "US" words.

Anyway, getting back to the words that work, listen to a former Secretary of the Treasury talk with sober words about work clothing:

On the basis of these factors, I expect that more than one-third of all men between 25 and 54 will be out work at mid-century. Very likely more than half of men will experience a year of non-work at least one year out of every five. This would be in the range of the rate of non-work for high school drop-outs and exceeds the rate of non-work for African Americans today.

Will we be able to support these people and a growing retired share of the population? What will this mean for the American family? For prevailing ethics of self-reliance? For alienation and support for toxic populism? These are vital questions. Even more vital is the question of what is to be done.

These questions should preoccupy social science researchers. They are vital to our future.

(A disaster is looming for American men). The bill for wising "US" up will slay "THEM" who are "killing it" :

The Fed asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency. The answer: 47 percent of respondents said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the $400 at all. Four hundred dollars! Who knew?

(The Atlantic). What the cavalier attitude about barbarianism subconsciously encourages is the spread of a social barbarianism which will slay our society by killing its middle class.

Resist.

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Really Roberta, softly?

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Kochenstein Kochaine

Kochenstein

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"Kochaine"
(with apologies to J.J. Cale)

If you want to die out, you've got to pump it out, kochaine
If you want to fall down, get buried in the ground, kochaine
She tells lies, He tells lies, that dirty kochaine

If you got bad news, you want to thank them fools, kochaine
When your day is done and you got to run, kochaine
She tells lies, He tells lies, that dirty kochaine

If your world is gone and you want to know why, kochaine
Don't forget this fact, you can't get it back, kochaine
She tells lies, He tells lies, that dirty kochaine 

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Previous post is here.

Global Climate & Homeland Insecurity - 2

I. Begin Here

The subtitle of today's post is: "When The Truth Is Found In The Wayback Machine."

The first post in this series, on July 14, 2009, discussed the national security implications of The Damaged Global Climate System's impact on the global environment (Global Climate & Homeland Insecurity).

In that first post I discussed an investigation by CNA concerning the U.S. Military's perception of global climate change.

As noted in that post, the substantial and robust report was "disappeared" sometime after I penned the post, but when I noticed the link no longer worked, I sought and found a copy of that CNA page recorded in The Wayback Machine.

Anyway, in that report the generals and admirals were unequivocal in their 2009 conclusions:

The nature and pace of climate changes being observed today and the consequences projected by the consensus scientific opinion are grave and pose equally grave implications for our national security. Moving beyond the arguments of cause and effect, it is important that the U.S. military begin planning to address these potentially devastating effects.

(CNA Report, emphasis added, PDF). It is clear that those who participated in the study and report are aware of military national security matters:

GENERAL GORDON R. SULLIVAN, USA (Ret.)
Former Chief of Staff, U.S. Army
Chairman, Military Advisory Board

ADMIRAL FRANK "SKIP" BOWMAN, USN (Ret.)
Former Director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program;
Former Deputy Administrator-Naval Reactors, National Nuclear Security Administration

LIEUTENANT GENERAL LAWRENCE P. FARRELL JR., USAF (Ret.)
Former Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs, Headquarters U.S. Air Force

VICE ADMIRAL PAUL G. GAFFNEY II, USN (Ret.)
Former President, National Defense University; Former Chief of Naval Research and Commander,
Navy Meteorology and Oceanography Command

GENERAL PAUL J. KERN, USA (Ret.)
Former Commanding General, U.S. Army Materiel Command

ADMIRAL T. JOSEPH LOPEZ, USN (Ret.)
Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and of Allied Forces, Southern Europe

ADMIRAL DONALD L. “DON” PILLING, USN (Ret.)
Former Vice Chief of Naval Operations

ADMIRAL JOSEPH W. PRUEHER, USN (Ret.)
Former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) and Former U.S. Ambassador to China

VICE ADMIRAL RICHARD H. TRULY, USN (Ret.)
Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

GENERAL CHARLES F. “CHUCK” WALD, USAF (Ret.)
Former Deputy Commander, Headquarters U.S. European Command (USEUCOM)

GENERAL ANTHONY C. “TONY” ZINNI, USMC (Ret.)
Former Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM)
(ibid, caps in original). I have posted about other military officers tasked with grasping the climate change threat to national security (Has The Navy Fallen For The Greatest Hoax?, with a video of R.Adm. Tilley's presentation @ Pentagon).

II. Perhaps It Was The Irony?

I wondered why CNA would be directed to lose the report.

It was excellent, well researched, unconventional, and counter to the Oil-Qaeda and MOMCOM propaganda of the day (Will This Float Your Boat - 12).

But the number one polluter, in terms of fossil fuel burning, is said to be the U.S. military (A History of Oil Addiction - 2, cf. The Military Assault on Global Climate).

So, I though "perhaps they do not want us to think that they are a threat to national security" ... hence the missing report?

We are all in this together, and today's military is as much a victim of bad decisions made by their predecessors in command as we are (The Universal Smedley - 2, Viva Egypt - 2).

III. Military Solutions?

There is nothing the military can do beyond what other agencies can do (Why The Military Can't Defend Against The Invasion; The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports - 4; Greenland & Antarctica Invade The United States, 2, 3, 4; Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization, 2, 3, 4, 5).

But they can stop fighting for possession and or control the oil that is causing the problem (The Fleets & Terrorism Follow The Oil).

They can switch to non-polluting sources of energy (U.S. Military Orders Less Dependence on Fossil Fuels).

IV. Military Conflict With Climate Change Deniers?

Some military officers have also anticipated problems with some of the current presidential candidates (Pentagon Officers: We Quit if Trump Wins).

One wonders how they have interacted with similar congressional deniers during the past few years (Inhofe's One Man Troofiness Crusade).

Even the courts and prosecutors are seeing reason for concern about the hiding of the facts (Have Courts Fallen For The Greatest Hoax?, Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder - 5).

Increasingly, the physical predicament is exacerbated by the predicament of the conflict of world views in government (The Authoritarianism of Climate Change).

Not to mention the cover-up instead of coverage in the press (In the Fog of The Presstitutes - 4).

V. Worse Than Previously Thought

One has to wonder if the deniers, who used to make fun of environmentalists because they wanted to save the snail darter (Snail Darter Politics) will awaken.

Up to this point in time, their dangerously myopic viewpoints have had certain untenable impacts on reality (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

Impacts that bring it all home (The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports, 2, 3; The Extinction of Charleston, The Extinction of Philadelphia, The Extinction of Washington, D.C., The Extinction of Boston, The Extinction of Miami, The Extinction of Manzanillo, The Extinction of Houston, The Extinction of Providence, The Extinction of Chesapeake Bay Islands; Endangered Naval Bases).

It is not about snail darters assholes (On The Origin of Assholes), because now even East Antarctica is catching up (Melt Expanding into East Antarctica).

VI. Conclusion

It is time for the panicked frenzy of immature leaders in government to disappear instead of continuing to disappear the facts they are afraid to admit (The 1.14% vs. The 100%).

Time to admit that the waters around us have grown:

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

(The Times They Are A-Changin’, by Bob Dylan). Yep, worse than previously thought.

The previous post in this series is here.

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"Everything is Broken" by Bob Dylan, (lyrics here).

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Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder - 5

Oil-Qaeda Propaganda Minister

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has, for years now, pointed out the criminal behavior and conspiracy of Oil-Qaeda (e.g. Oilah Akbar! Oilah Akbar!, 2, 3, 4; Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

The word is getting around about the greatest crime in human history:

When do we hold someone responsible for a harm? What if the harm is climate change?

In determining responsibility for a harm, courts are likely to ask: Did they have the capacity to foresee the harm? And, did they have the opportunity to avoid or reduce it? For example, by warning others.

Growing public evidence demonstrates that Exxon and other oil companies understood climate risks by the 1980s, yet spent millions to sow uncertainty and misinformation about climate science.

The documents that follow—industry histories, scientific articles, oral testimonies, patents—span more than half a century of industry research and industry action. They offer compelling evidence that oil executives were actively debating climate science in the 1950s, and were explicitly warned about climate risks a decade later. Just as importantly, they offer glimpses into why the industry undertook this research, and how it used the results to sow scientific uncertainty and public skepticism.

(Smoke & Fumes). The documents are compelling evidence that a mass murder us under way/

You, your friends, children, grandchildren, relatives, fellow citizens, and mine, are all victims of an ongoing murder-suicide conspiracy.

The previous post in this series is here.

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Choose Your Trances Carefully - 6

About that civilization virus

I. The Stage

Academics know that the word "civilization" has been "doublespoken" by violent propaganda (Life under the Chief Doublespeak Officer, cf. The New Doublespeak: Why No OneKnows What Anyone's Saying Anymore, New White Trash: Doublewide Doublespeak).

Way too many American English words also have been doublespoken, which is a deadly phenomenon (Good Nomenclature: A Matter of Life and Death).

Honest language is an essential essence to alleviate shadowy notions that have been injected into the word "civilization."

Yes, like with a "coffee" cup that we can pour many liquids besides coffee into, some poisonous some not, we can doublespeak words until they also become poisonous.

II. "Worse Than Previously Thought"

If you think that "civilization" has only one meaning, and that one meaning equates to nothing but good, to the point that nothing cataclysmic can go wrong, then please explain what the once upon a time most-often-quoted historian had to say about the subject:

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(A Study of History, by Arnold J. Toynbee). May I ask: "if murder and suicide are the common thread of civilizations past, what pray tell does "civilization" mean then?

It is true that the word has meant different things to different people, such as one celebrated American, Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Emerson’s later work, such as The Conduct of Life (1860), favored a more moderate balance between individual nonconformity and broader societal concerns. He advocated for the abolition of slavery and continued to lecture across the country throughout the 1860s.

By the 1870s the aging Emerson was known as “the sage of Concord.” Despite his failing health, he continued to write, publishing Society and Solitude in 1870 and a poetry collection titled Parnassus in 1874.

Emerson died on April 27, 1882, in Concord. His beliefs and his idealism were strong influences on the work of his protégé Henry David Thoreau and his contemporary Walt Whitman, as well as numerous others. His writings are considered major documents of 19th-century American literature, religion and thought.

(Bio). Emerson influenced Thoreau, Whitman, and other respected academics and non-academics alike.

So, why did Emerson say:

“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”

(Ralph Waldo Emerson). In the 19th Century he perceived something, discovered something, or observed something that gave him a disconcerting understanding of the future of "civilization."

It was no light matter to him, because he came to the point of seeing "civilization" as the destroyer of the human species.

Scientists of the day had access to the same evidence that Emerson analyzed, but like scientists and poets today, they did not have a unified understanding of the essential meaning of "civilization":

"Darwin relied on much the same evidence for evolution that Lamarck did ..." - Understanding Evolution

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“One would say that [man] is destined to exterminate himself after having rendered the globe uninhabitable.” - Lamarck (1817)

(See Genesis: The Evolution of Biology, by Jan Sapp, p. 274, fn. 14; quoting from Lamark's writings)

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"Lastly, I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilisation than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risks nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races [Chuck was a tad-bit racist eh?] will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world." - Charles Darwin (1881)

(emphasis added). So, those who studied biology came to different conclusions about the meaning of "civilization" (e.g. Lamarck essentially agreeing with Emerson, but not so much so with Darwin).

Darwin thought that social evolution would purify "civilization" by exterminating the "inferior, less evolved" races.

As to mystics, Gandhi implied that "civilization" is a good idea if ever attained: "What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea" (Mahatma Gandhi).

Yet, Gandhi did not base his observation of "civilization" on a militaristic dominance: "The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated" (Mahatma Gandhi).

The doublespeak concerning "civilization" seems to be both an ancient as well as a modern phenomenon.

III. Civilization Is a Group

The double-mindedness concerning the meaning of the word "civilization" may have been based on, and still may be based on, observations of group dynamics.

For example, “Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Evidently "the father of Psychoanalysis" came to see that there is something to Nietzsche's observation:

"If the evolution of civilization has such a far-reaching similarity with the development of an individual, and if the same methods are employed in both, would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilization—or epochs of it—possibly even the whole of humanity—have become neurotic under the pressure of the civilizing trends? To analytic dissection of these neuroses, therapeutic recommendations might follow which could claim a great practical interest. I would not say that such an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to civilized society would be fanciful or doomed to fruitlessness. But it behooves us to be very careful, not to forget that after all we are dealing only with analogies, and that it is dangerous, not only with men but also with concepts, to drag them out of the region where they originated and have matured. The diagnosis of collective neuroses, moreover, will be confronted by a special difficulty. In the neurosis of an individual we can use as a starting-point the contrast presented to us between the patient and his environment which we assume to be normal. No such background as this would be available for any society similarly affected; it would have to be supplied in some other way. And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy? In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities.
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Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this——hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension."

(Civilization And Its Discontents, p. 39-40, PDF, emphasis added). Senator Lindsey Graham recently broke the ice and diagnosed his group as "batshit crazy" (US News).

Perhaps we need more of that type of analysis, because, for example The Romney's personal diagnosis of the election success of The Donald results in blaming the votes of a multitude of voters on an individual, i.e., on The Donald.

The notion of "group analysis" that Freud advocated would come to a different diagnosis.

It would likely diagnose the group of voters as neurotic, the same group that Senator Graham diagnosed as "batshit crazy" (cf. The Donald University vs. The Lord GOP University).

IV. Culture Is A Group Phenomenon

The essence of "culture" can be dealt with effectively in the same manner because it is a group characteristic and dynamic too:

That paper should now be seriously considered because it seeks to analyze some of the behavior in the terms that Dredd Blog has advocated for a few years now.

We have been arguing that such analysis would be more likely to lead to revelations of systemic dysfunction, then hopefully lead to remedies:

In this theoretically informed study I explore the broader cultural changes that created the conditions for the credit crisis of 2008. Drawing on psychoanalysis and its application to organizational and social dynamics, I develop a theoretical framework around the notion of a manic culture, comprised of four aspects: denial; omnipotence; triumphalism; and over-activity. I then apply this to the credit crisis and argue that the events of 2008 were preceded by an incubation period lasting for over two decades during which a culture of mania developed. Then, focusing especially on the Japanese and South East Asia/LTCM crises, I argue that a series of major ruptures in capitalism during this incubation period served not as warnings, but as opportunities for a manic response, thereby dramatically increasing the risks involved. I also argue that this mania was triggered and strengthened by triumphant feelings in the West over the collapse of communism. I suggest therefore that this manic culture played a significant role in creating the conditions for the problems that led to the credit crisis.

(A Culture of Mania, by Dr. Mark Stein, 2011, emphasis added). A free PDF of the entire paper is available for download.

Dr. Stein goes through the structural components of mania sequentially applying those components to the cognition and behavior of professionals in a group, an organization, which qualifies as a meme complex.

(When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 2). Senator Graham boiled it down, while Dr. Stein elaborated at length.

Both psychoanalysts were quite effective.

V. Conclusion

I think I have made the point by using the words that have been seriously given to us by observers down through time.

And upon occasion, I have also used words of a more recent, but equally availing nature:

People'd call, say,"Beware doll, you're bound to fall."
You thought they were all kiddin' you

(Like A Rolling Stone). The study of the foggy concept of "civilization" ends up revealing a trance or two, which are hopefully useful to ponder.

So, from now on: Choose Your Trances Carefully !

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

The Donald University vs. The Lord GOP University

Why is duct tape & platic on sale?

I have to give V.P. Biden credit for, from his political perspective, answering the question "what do you think of the Republican primary?" with the answer "It is a gift from the lord."

I also have to give credit to a commentor who made a comment on my criticism of the GOP heavyweights for not allowing their people to vote for the GOP candidate of their choice (Doomer Tuesday).

That commenter wrote "Look for the GOP voting school to evolve" (comment by Randy).

Today, First Professor of The GOP University, Gov. Mitt Romney, delivered his first lecture on "How To Vote Properly and please the Lord GOP."

I can't say that I disagreed with the obvious things he indicated in that lecture, but I saw through it for what it was.

They are trying to save their majority in the Senate.

The Donald can stop that along with losing the presidential race for them.

Who the democratic nominee will be is equally clouded with intrigue.

Will Hill be indicted like the war hero General Betray Us Petraeus was?

Or Will Hill's speeches extolling the virtues of Wall Street be kept secret?

That is our homework assignment.

This collapse of the minds of Americans is only beginning, as I have indicated for a while:

... it is possible that we are beginning to see the national manifestations of our massive practice of deceit in our nation, because deceit removes reality from the target to be deceived, and not being aware of reality is otherwise known as dementia.

In essence then, when governments, businesses, and those behind them decide to deceive the people "for their own good", they are actually injecting dementia into the populace.

With the massive technologies we have for spreading deceit "through the air waves", we can even say that the disease has become airborne, which usually strikes terror into the hearts of the Center For Disease Control, because that brings on pandemics of the untreatable kind.

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But there are obviously times when entire nations "go crazy", and do strange things. Things like attacking other nations for no sound reason, or becoming inexplicably belligerent, or the like.

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There is a large amount of data indicating that the amygdala, a particular structure in the brain, is strongly involved during the learning of "conditioned" fear ... distinct neuronal circuits within the central nucleus of the amygdala ... are specifically involved in acquisition and control of behavioural fear responses ... researchers have recently discovered that ... prolonged activation of this defense system may lead to emotional disorders.

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We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!

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We have noted that the primary thrust of this series is a focus on the dementia of cultures, societies, or civilizations, rather than a focus on the essence of individual forms of dementia, except of course, where those forms are indistinguishable in some significant way.

For a spark of clarity, let me first say that one example of "social dementia" would be a well known social dynamic called "social darwinism", which is touched upon from another angle in the Dredd Blog post "Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy."

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So then, don't these factors beg the question, "why don't the people know about this?", which leads to the answer: epic propaganda programs designed to deceive the people.

The damage in the form of dementia has been done, and still is being done to the U.S. citizenry.

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“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”

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"It is critical for people with dementia and their families to receive information, care, and support as early as possible. To help family members and health care professionals recognize warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease, the Alzheimer’s Association has developed this checklist of common symptoms."

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Some observers see this dementia originating in the early 20th century when government or those behind government perceived a need to control the people, but realized that they could not do it by physical means.

Thus they took to propaganda in an effort to control the minds rather than use physical control.

Eventually this led to a mega-industry of businesses whose function was to deceive the people into believing something other than the truth of events occurring around them.

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This series is about the paranoia that begins with the official propaganda of fear, then spreads through the entire society.

With damaging results.

Today we take a look at the impact of paranoia on our national government.

The case we look at is one where the minds of officials become so warped and blinded they act as if they were carelessly firing into a crowd of innocent people.

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Evidence also seems to indicate that the leaders of a superpower, when not countered by another major power, when lacking an arms race to run or territory and influence to contest, may be particularly susceptible to the growth of delusional thinking, and in particular to fantasies of omnipotence.
...
Just as still water is a breeding ground for mosquitos, so single-superpowerdom seems to be a breeding ground for delusion. This is a phenomenon about which we have to be cautious, since we know little enough about it and are, of course, in its midst. But so far, there seem to have been three stages to the development of whatever delusional process is underway.
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... no one can look at Planet Earth today and not see that the single superpower, while capable of creating instability and chaos, is limited indeed in its ability to control developments.  Its president can't even form a "coalition of the willing" to launch a limited series of missile attacks on the military facilities of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.  From Latin America to the Greater Middle East, the American system is visibly weakening, while at home, inequality and poverty are on the rise, infrastructure crumbles, and national politics is in a state of permanent “gridlock.”

Such a world should be fantastical enough for the wildest sort of dystopian fiction, for perhaps a novel titled 2014. What, after all, are we to make of a planet with a single superpower that lacks genuine enemies of any significance and that, to all appearances, has nonetheless been fighting a permanent global war with ... well, itself -- and appears to be losing?

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This series has been about the government and business miscalculating the detrimental impact that their propaganda has on the public.

They evidently do not think that using misinformation, lies, and other forms of propaganda to control and manipulate the public has an adverse impact on the public.

Let's hope that is the case, instead of the alternative, which would be that they deliberately damage the minds of the populace with falsehood.

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And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy? In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities.
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Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature
to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this——hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension.
...
"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(Etiology of Social Dementia, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13). I took a quote from each post of that series so you can get the flavor of it.

The GOP has been driving their people crazy for a long time, now they turn on a dime and want them to become sane all of a sudden.

This when it is seemingly too late.

What would it matter anyway?

Is it the Iraq or Libya murderous frenzies that they have done in our sight driving us over the edge?

Clue: they have been this way "forever," and will only get worse (S.Ct Eugenics).

There is a spot-on methaphor which applies (Iraqi Dam danger).

The bottom line is that civilization is, like Greenland and Antarctica, melting from deep down rather than all at the surface.

And like America, is also melting from "the everywhere."

It is exactly because the epigovernment that rules us, has it exactly wrong:

THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons — a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty [now 320] million — who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
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It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity. It will attempt at the same time to find the due place in the modern democratic scheme for this new propaganda and to suggest its gradually evolving code of ethics and practice.

(Etiology of Social Dementia - 9, quoting the premier American propagandist, Edward Bernays). Suing them in desperation makes nice words, but makes no difference (Hansen on his lawsuit vs gov; Usufruct Declaration, PDF).

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The Warming Science Commentariat

"A slight drizzle"

I. The Fuzzy Warm

The dictionaries don't vary much when they define 'commentariat':
"All the pundits and commentators of the news media collectively" - Wictionary; "a group of powerful and influential commentators" - Miriam-Webster; "Members of the news media considered as a class" - Oxford; "the journalists and broadcasters who analyse and comment on current affairs" - Free Dictionary; "the group of people who regularly write about subjects in the news or discuss them on television" - Macmillan; "the journalists and broadcasters who analyse and comment on current affairs" - Collins; "the journalists and broadcasters who analyse and comment on current affairs" - Dictionary.Com.

II. It Is Warm So Cover Up

Those definitions above do not apply when the subject matter is The Damaged Global Climate System (The Damaged Global Climate System, 2, 3, 4, 5).

"A warm southern breeze"

Which is now a worldwide system of damage, yes, a system of automated damage which they choose to either ignore or cover up, on behalf of their cohorts in the epigovernment (Epigovernment: The New Model - 11).

It is a damaging system which they have greatly helped to bring about by way of, among other things, deliberate geoengineering of the flow of information through "the innertubes" (MOMCOM 2.0).

And boy howdy, they are by now consummate deceivers:

"Mass-media coverage of climate change is not simply a random amalgam of newspaper articles and television segments; rather, it is a social relationship between scientists, policy actors and the public that is mediated by such news

"Hurricane Patricia Big Nuthin"

packages. This paper demonstrates that consistent adherence to interacting journalistic norms has contributed to impediments in the coverage of anthropogenic climate change science. Through analysis of US newspaper and television coverage of human contributions to climate change from 1988 through 2004, this paper finds that adherence to first-order journalistic norms – personalization, dramatization, and novelty – significantly influence the employment of second-order norms – authority-order and balance – and that this has led to informationally deficient mass media coverage of this crucial issue. By critically scrutinizing US print and television media as a ‘public arena,’ we improve understanding of how journalistic activities have shaped interactions at the interface with climate science, policy and the public."

(Power of media to shape public response, PDF, emphasis added). So, I think the Dredd Blog definition tends to be more accurate (In the Fog of The Presstitutes, 2, 3; Blind Willie McTell News, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

III. This Dredd Blog Series Will Expose Their Mythical Memes

I intend to go through the memes which they promulgate, the myths they perpetuate, and the distortions which they originate.

I intend to do that one, two, or three myths at a time per post.

For example:

In this series I have been pointing out mythological memes that are promoted by main stream media (McTell News) as science and as news, even though they are neither.

The news media is not giving much true information about the President's climate change trip to Alaska.

After all, there are the real news makers, the Kardasians, Trump, and shootings, so how can they talk about the President's first-time-in-history-trip for any president to the Arctic (National Geographic) ?
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Like most of us, the President is unaware of the nature of climate change, that is, the part of the story in the sea level change (SLC) category.

Why?

For one thing, deliberate suppression of the information.

For another, reality is scary as hell, "so don't tell me what I don't want to hear."

Sea level fall (SLF) is unheard of.

Since I found out about it, a short while ago, I have been posting about it.

Some bloggers have been asking me to "stop with the obsession already."

Yeah, right, my reality obsession bothers them.

Too bad, on Dredd Blog reality gets first place, junk science and similar rubbish gets last place.

(False Climate Change Meme Infects The President - 2, emphasis added). Would you please show me McTell News articles that talk about SLF caused by the burning of fossil fuels which in turn causes global warming?

I mean articles in McTell News since 1888 when scientist Woodward first published a scientific paper in a journal:

To our knowledge, Woodward (1888) was the first to demonstrate that the rapid melting of an ice sheet would lead to a geographically variable sea level change. Woodward (1888) assumed a rigid, non-rotating Earth, and therefore self-gravitation of the surface load was the only contributor to the predicted departure from a geographically uniform (i.e. eustatic) sea level rise. This departure was large and counter-intuitive. Specifically, sea level was predicted to fall within ∼2000 km of a melting ice sheet, and to rise with progressively higher amplitude at greater distances. The physics governing this redistribution is straightforward.

(Mitrovica Team, quoted @ On the West Side of Zero, emphasis added). Again, show me one McTell News article that talks accurately about global warming induced SLF would you?

IV. Myth Number One

Let's get down to business, then, and start with "thermal expansion."

It is touted as the original cause of sea level change up until a few years ago.

That is because the commentariat did not want to know about, and was therefore unaware of, among other things the existence of "ghost-water" (The Ghost-Water Constant, 2, 3).

It has been shown, by a century of observations, that Woodward (1888) had a valid hypothesis (see e.g. Proof of Concept - 3, and Proof of Concept - 5).

It has also been shown that the Greenland Ice Sheet began to melt circa 1774 (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 54).

That is the time when SLF began to take place.

Thermal expansion in the ocean can not and does not cause SLF.

I mean SLF as recorded in many tide gauge station records, some going as far back as more than two centuries (ibid).

Nor does thermal expansion, or any other form of SLC for that matter, happen uniformly.

Thermal expansion happens more like a "warm water iceberg" in the sense of staying together in a warm water area within a larger cold water area:

In one sense, it's [El Niño is] like an iceberg; most of it is submerged, but part of it sticks out above the sea's surface, as the wedge floats in the surrounding ocean. Partly because warm water is less dense than cool water, and also partly because El Niño waters are less salty than normal seawater. (It's always raining over an El Niño, and the rainwater dilutes the sea.) Both of these conditions contribute to buoyancy. A sharp temperature and density change—called the thermocline—floats about 100 meters below the surface, and marks the bottom of this warm "iceberg." The top layer of water may protrude 150 or more centimeters above sea level. This isn't so hard to picture if you think about tides, which also pile water up above sea level.

(On The Origin of the Sea-level Seesaw - 2, quoting NOVA @ PBS). Thermal expansion in the vast ocean is not at all like thermal expansion in a small beaker warmed by a Bunsen Burner.

V. Conclusion For Today

I will continue to name individual members of the commentariat, and their myths as this series proceeds.

In the mean time, as regular readers know, you can go to the Series Posts tab at the top of this page to read more of this type of information in posts listed under the SEA LEVEL CHANGE headings on that page.

The next post in this series is here.

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From Media Matters:

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