Here is the Sacred Cow
Here is the Sacred Cow - the reflexive acceptance of the war machine in the name of love of country. The names of the leaders do not matter. Our challenge is to help the people to see how their patriotism has been used to manipulate them (and bankrupt them). I see this as a massive challenge. I am personally at a loss for how to get this across to some of my closest potential allies.
Let's do some soul searching and brainstormng about how we can accomplish this task. Because it is as ingrained as "Mom and Apple Pie". It's probably also a deeply primordial tribal reflex - to come together in defense of a perceived enemy - and to view dissenters reflexively as traitors to the tribe... Think about most of the Tea Party protestors. They are spitting mad, but this is their blind spot. Their sacred cow.
If you have stories of how you have reached anyone with the taboo knowledge that their government has been playing them with the war racket, please share.
If you'd like to hear someone thundering this home with the most righteous fury, read here from Lew Rockwell's site: http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance185.html
Unfortunately, this gentleman, too, is stumped as to how to get the truth across.
The question above is...
what methods of deprogramming have been effective.... in your experience?
Lao Tzua: Keep it short and drive everything back to their
Purchasing Power.
Which effects either their ability to grow wealth (half the populace) or to grow their charitable giving (half the populace).
Of course there are other uses of increased purchasing power, but I'm putting it into two large camps: those who would love to grow their giving and those who would love to grow their wealth.
The attention getter is: Owner-Right-Seeking, Worker-Right-Seeking, and the Masters of Credit and Currency are the three primary causes of big gov't and destroyed purchasing power.
Another attention getter is: Voting and Lobbying is the key to those upper three -- "we, the consumer, must never abdicate our power, 'free-market purchasing' and our 'daily dollar voting'."
When they are "hooked in debate" or "intrigued" over the above.
I determine "their need" and focus on that: be it anti-war, or green revolution, or right to bare arms, or constitutionalism, or foreign aid/relief, and I focus on that 100%.
Then I drop the "rulers" (Fed, Hollywood, Corporatist, Wall Street, Unionists, Lobbyist, and Politicians) revenue stream (being thus): 1) Consumers-who-Purchase, 2) Consumers-who-Invest, and 3) Consumers-who-Abdicate (keep assets in Fed Banks and Wall Street, paying taxes, buying corporatist products, voting, and lobbying etc).
That's how I roll through it, of course there's more.
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
Yes, Good advice.
Focus on the pocketbook. Concrete. Thank you.
Patriotism should mean "in defense of ones home"
and not in defense of someone elses.
It used to be you'd join the foreign legion if you wanted to "see the world" -- now we are in 130 countries with way over 700 bases.
A patriot keeps the wolves out the hen house.
He's local-first, county-second, state-third, and country-last.
That's how I break it down.
We need to train people to innovate their own protection first; rather than to be dependent on a standing army; as a first amendment.
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
Absolutely
and in all aspects,Defense of ones home country should never be questioned!
Trying to get an interesting website rolling along, Offering free banners to DP business owners. Please contact me through the DP for details with size Etc. If you don't have one I can adjust, I will make you one.
http://www.shtfknowledge.com/index.php
Specifically -- Defense of ones home country and only on
one's own home country soil, smile.
"They" make the argument we are protecting America by fighting "on their soil"
This is oxymoronic -- while we are over there; there's an army of welfarist and product flowing into this country destroying local business and flooding our ER's to the bursting point.
Diluting our educational system and destroying the currency.
We wouldn't have this problem in a free-society. We'd welcome them and their product; because we'd give them nothing for free and they'd be here in the right-state-of-mind. There products would have to be superior and since there is no protectionism we'd reverse engineer it and defeat their long supply chain.
Free-markets balance the equation in the short-run; thus no need for bills or regulation, it's over before the problem could be identified.
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
I respectfully disagree
The real sacred cow is Wall Street and London Banking Cartel (money changers).
"Allow me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who writes the laws." - Mayer Amschel Rothschild, 1828
1849: Gutle Schnaper, Mayer Amschel Rothschild’s wife dies. Before her death she would nonchalantly state,
"If my sons did not want wars, there would be none."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USGSOViaulc
Take all your Anti-War protests to WALL STREET.
____
"Take hold of the future or the future will take hold of you." -- Patrick Dixon
Perhaps the ordinary "support our troops" folks you know hold
the London Banking Cartel in a place of sacrosanct honor.
But the people I'm talking about have never heard of it - for them, it is not a "sacred cow".
If we did not surrender to woman's sons they wouldn't matter.
Divinity is the right to power not its possesion. Who is fit to be our Lord?
Anarchy (literally without ruler) breeds Autonomy (self rule). Autonomy demands anarchy. Economy (house rules) flourishes where fairness and justice reign.
If you want peace work for justice in the realm you touch.
Free includes debt-free!
Step 1: Always state the truth
Step 2: Repeat step one, ad infinitum.
Most people who blindly support the military do so because they have been told the "big lie" over and over again throughout their lives. Believing we all must support America's military dominance of the world is embedded in their world view, so they will naturally resist information or points of view that contradict it.
There is no magic bullet that will 'get through' to these people. No single logical argument will ever be as powerful as the mind-conditioning they have endured their entire lives. They are innoculated against unfamiliar and uncomfortable facts and ideas through mass group-think.
However, since their world view does not rest on objective facts and sound reasoning, but instead on mantra-like repetition, it can be worn down by the same technique that built it up: repeated exposure to truths and facts. The beauty of speaking the truth, no matter how uncomfortable or outlandish it seems at the time, is that it is self-reinforcing. You speak the truth, the truth is verifiable (if not at once, at some point in the future), which makes you more credible the next time you speak the truth, which if verified leads to more credibiltiy, etc. Facts, it is said (by John Adams?) are stubborn things.
I cannot claim mass conversions through this technique, after all, I'm talking about counterbalancing years of exposure to mass-media messages with my one small voice. But by repeating over and over the truth about the Iraq War for eight years, I have won over (or greatly softened) formerly pro-military neo-cons. They are now highly suspicious of statements from the military and often ask me for my take.
Think of what Ron Paul has done for thirty years: he spoke the truth, even if it made him temporarily look like a wacko. If what you say is right, you'll be exonerated eventually and your influence will grow.
Besides, what other real choice do we have?
Excellent advice.
You make sense. Thank you.
This is a human problem, the demon child of collectivism
Where individual liberty and persoanl responsibility is exchanged for collective blindness and group righteousness then civialization dies leaving the mob to rule with violence.
The evil intent of that collective is projected on their designated enemies. That means, the mob sees in their enemy the evil intent that the mob itself has.
In order to justify its existence the mob must provoke their enemy until they show their true colors. If the enemy will not be provoked but merely defends itself ethically then individuals may escape the mob's mentality and reassert their individual responsibility. This was proven possible by Ghandi and Martin Luther King. It takes great courage. Is this the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Free includes debt-free!
Paul_S -- You went deep on that one.
Leonard Cohen needs you as a writer, hahahaha.
Well "if not depressingly" Said!
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
I dont care for the dark side, but I won't shrink from it.
Thanks for noticing.
Free includes debt-free!
I like your take
Makes sense to me.
When searhing for my former self on the Daily Paul from sept '08
I found the site in those days was a treasure trove of conversations and debates. We can practice here so we can better stand out there.
I think your point about group-think is the key. These are not logical or rational drives but the concentrated folly of men.
Free includes debt-free!
Until people realize they were duped about 9/11...
...what reason is there for them to believe the wars and loss of civil liberties are not really about ~keeping us safe from terrorists~?
I'm not intending to turn this thread into a 9/11 debate, but since it has been the justification for the wars and loss of civil liberties these last several years, until people wake up about it, the sacred cow will still have legs.
Offensive wars are battles agaisnt bogeymen.
Whatever really happened on September eleventh has happened before and is likely to happen again.
Men abandon liberty and personal responsibility for the expedient of mob rule and group think. Men with money and means often can manage the mob to their liking.
Each generation must learn again what their forefathers learned by personal experience or historical scholarship.
War is a Racket!
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
Free includes debt-free!
I don't know, Paul S.
Do most men and women abandon liberty and personal responsibility? Do they think to begin with?
Or do they cling to the security of the group and its demands.. abandoning thinking.
Thank you for the link!
It is hard to know what they think harder to know their intent
Dr. Paul simply starts by treating others as if they were already free. Friend is one we leave free.
Can the offer of friendship pierce the darkness of collecivism? Is the offer an act of faith? It is a meaningful gesture ventured not a rational attack.
The so-called terrible two should be celebrated by parents. Before that the child was wholly dependent. In this new stage their "No" is an act of independence. It is an inconvenient truth for parents. Is the dissent recognized? Sometimes people have to stand agaisnt something before they stand with. If only to prove to themselves that they are free to choose.
I reread the OP. You present some important clues. Still thinking about them.
Free includes debt-free!
Really excellent point.
It seems the current administration is presenting a lot of people who have never really examined their political beliefs with an impetus to define what they do NOT want in government. They are standing against something - and it's an opening. But it's a delicate situation. To use your analogy, two-year olds must be approached gingerly - respectfully.
Have you ever read Alice Miller? She's got a book you'd appreciate called The Gifted Child - all about how most adults disrespect two-year olds, and the awful consequences.
I agree with you - Dr. Paul's spirit of friendship is so powerful. I am still looking for the perfect video of him to send the people I have in mind. It's got to be a video - they will not read anything - and not too long. I saw one recently from CNN online - I'm going to re-watch it.
I 2nd that!!!
100%
I suspect that like me Vance has never been near war.
Few ex-soldeirs are willing to discuss this topic. Without the experience of war, we don't understand.
Free includes debt-free!
Please clarify what you mean...
What exactly don't we understand....?
War has not been my experience, I do not "know" war.
By analogy, I drank to excess once, and have been tipsy on occasion. I have friends who have never drank alchohol. How can I adequately describe my drunkeness to them? We have no common frame of reference.
Hedges calls war the most powerful narcotic ever invented by man. By drunken man analogy then I gather that the physical, psychic and intellectual reality of war so horrific and immediate it is something I can only imagine.
There are other immediate experiences that are indescribable in similar ways. Sexual intercourse and childbirth come to mind.
Likewise, I know what I mean but can I adequately convey that meaning in words, the mere ashes of a once living thought.
Why do I think it is important to understand the distinction? War often mutes the warrior, leaving the unitiated to fill in the blanks with the deception that war is something noble and rational. We cannot face the ignobility and irrationality that war is so we hide behind the myths for comfort.
In order to repudiate this myth I must admit my guiltly support and abandon the myth's psychological protection.
Some are blessed having ever rejected war in thought word and deed. (Self defense may be another matter.) This is a very difficult task. It is one men have struggled with from antiqueties and will challenge each new generation. We cannot fix it, it requires constant fixing.
See what I mean?
Free includes debt-free!
Yes.
I see what you mean. Thanks.
I will think more about, and get back to you later.
How To Reach People
It seems that most people tend to take verbal warnings coming from others as, "Believe! Believe me cause I said so!"
So one of the newest tactics I've heard on reaching people is by ending your statements with:
"Don't believe me . . . . I don't want you to "believe me." I'm telling you this because I believe it and something as important as this deserves to be checked out. So I'm asking that you check it out for yourself.
At this point it helps if you can supply a website reference.
*****************************
Can anyone help refine or improve on this?
Thanks
But THAT can't happen here! * Because some animals are more equal than others -Animal Farm- * A patriot is someone who supports their country all the time and the government when it deserves it. -Mark Twain-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MTIwY3_-ks
Watch this and get back to me.
War is a Force that gives us Meaning -Chris Hedges
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2SaM8RJ30c
Free includes debt-free!
Excellent video....
I don't think it applies only to those IN the war. Also the SOCIETY that SUPPORTS going to war feels "part of a group" feels a comaraderie. In many cases the group support felt with the waiving of the flags and the cheering for the "troops" is the high he is talking about.
The U.S. has been a culture of war for so long that we are talking about a GENERATIONAL change that must occur. To let go of the "high" of feeling "Patriotic" and out to "save the world for Democracy" etc. is impossible for most. It is their GOD.... or as stated above... their sacred cow.
Thanks for the terrific video
Thomas Jefferson: “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."
Viva La Revolucion!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmaTNf4YhEs
Like Mark Twain's War Prayer
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/making/warprayer.html
Free includes debt-free!