"The fiction is taken as truth because the fiction is badly needed." A quick introduction to Walter Lippmann and the commonality between him, Ellul, Bernays, Haidt, and Harari. People can't personally perceive the world beyond their own sliver of firsthand experience. Therefore, the Current Events Man is beholden, dependent upon, and therefore exploited by the propagandist and his digital distortions. If democracy is demands an "enlightened citizenry", it's likely doomed from the start. Paradoxically, there's a stab at some hope in here too. Weird. 

ALSO:

• Te Nosce, bitches 

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A rare ETC podcast: one topic. The stage that was once the playground of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, and even Andrew Dice Clay has been stormed by a mob of Social Vengeance Warriors hell bent on using comedy as a delivery mechanism for textbook sociological and agitation propaganda, complete with its own version of the Ten Commandments (now in print!) and a handy scapegoat Satan. When does the "Thank You, Comrade!" showcase start?

ALSO: 

• Controlling speech is controlling thought; Speechcrime is Thoughtcrime

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Agitation propaganda doing its work, speechcrime taking root in the form of virtual media mobs enforcing cancel culture and its point-of-view authoritarianism, the Wokeflake Messiah will arrive soon, Newton's Third Law of Extremism, slave's spirituals and frightened children scrambling to the ideological church to be soothed by visions of a future Heaven on Earth.

ALSO: 

• Toxic Compromise

*The Propaganda and Social Media Disease theme resumes soon. It's a good time to catch up on what you may have missed.*

Social validation, dopamine, and social media's Walter White; the predictably ridiculous reaction to Dave Chappelle's latest Netflix special and how comedy has evolved from truth telling to Wokeflake proselytizing; more on how people are more willing and eager than deceived when it comes to swallowing fiction and disinformation; choking on data leading to confused gullibility; honestly in a crisis; Sausage Party Hope: children demanding their happy ending. Where's the spring of genuine hope?

ALSO:      

• The Battle of the 21st Century

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Agitation and Integration: two often closely related but very different types of propagandas: one used to provoke internal conflict the other to shape members of a population into a mold. Agitation: The propaganda of insurgency and revolution. Includes how internal enemies are used as scapegoats to manufacture then exploit hatreds as means to an insurgent's end, Mao's view on "the enemy residing in every man" and fitting him into the "Socialist Mold", Hitler's internal agitation, spontaneous volunteer propagandists, and how facts and "truth" are irrelevant to the person burning with primal hatred. 

ALSO: 

• Agitation propaganda during the American Revolution 

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

*More: www.escapingthecave.com

This quick primer episode is the uncomfortable preface to Jacques Ellul's agitation propaganda. I explore how our Matrix Avatars themselves act as agitation propaganda and the way the informational cyber-swamp has actually managed to monetize it. Also Ellul on the dangerous effects of suppressing innate drives and human nature, the Ideology of Happiness, the universal violent human instinct, the devastating effects of dissolving human domestication to unleash and exploit primal hatred, and the self-defeating ignorance of poking the hibernating Crackerbear.

When it's done, to quote William Munny, "Have a drink, kid." 

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

Propaganda's ambiguity and contradictions including: creating tensions while relieving others, the Outrage Media Complex and introduction to the companion propagandas: agitation and integration and how they overlap; self-justification and imposed guilt; attachment and ostracizing oneself to join the "enemy; politicization and privatization; "Why die for Danzig?' and how political orphans benefit extremists and authoritarians.

• Andrew Sullivan on the boomerang

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

On Ellul's "The Need For Propaganda." We've both developed a tolerance for and a psychological dependency on propaganda's certainty-stoking, justifying, and and self-worth generating narratives, social media is a propagandist's dream, desensitization and an increasing desire for the excitement felt from being immersed in the constant, and necessary stream of propaganda, how our addiction has allowed both traditional media and social media "influencers" to monetize the Outrage Industrial Complex, our role as retained ideological attorneys, and wishful thinking (and possibly disastrous effects) of suddenly eliminating 320-million people's propaganda narratives. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Grab a sammich for this one. And maybe a stiff drink. Hey! I never said this would be easy! 

ALSO: 

• This is a triage situation; not a search for the "cure"

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

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The Propaganda opus resumes with Ellul's take on psychic "dissociation". Includes more on wordknapping, how righteous and simplistic propaganda narratives silence the self and numb natural cognitive dissonance, replacing reality with the electronic eyes of the "verbal universe", the effects of disconnecting a person's personal opinion in favor of an acceptable "public" opinion, and how opposing propagandas affect the target.

ALSO:

• Democratic Socialists: as ridiculous during Occupy as at their "convention"

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

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Todd, Chris and Rich discuss the Dayton shooter's leftist leanings being swept aside, poking the Crackerbear and how a real conflict between Woke Island and Trumptown might resemble an episode of "Lambs to the Wolves", Los Tíos Tom Blancos and their own dignity, informational chum agitating swarming ideological sharks, how suppressing a defeated ideological Holy War enemy might look in the 21st century, and we revisit "reparations" just to, you know, lighten things up. (Send the bill to Boris!) The Propaganda opus continues next time.

ALSO:

• Chris & Rich educate Todd on "Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo"

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