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Right wing propaganda video

Started by LikelyToBreak, September 30, 2013, 09:21:00 PM

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LikelyToBreak

I found this right-wing propaganda video which pretty closely describes how I see our government.
WARNING there are some scenes which are very graphic.
[youtube:19hf8m74]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Xh5eN2fXY[/youtube:19hf8m74]
Please tell me the lies this video presents.  I am trying to learn more about the world, but with all of the lies the various media tell us, I have trouble telling the truths from the lies.  Thanks.

The Whit

It states the the role of the government was always to guard the ruling class, but that isn't true.  The fears of the Anti-Federalists have finally become reality, but it took a while.

Haven't finished watching yet.  Probably more to come.
"Death can not be killed." -brq

Eric1958

May I suggest that the subject title is off. This is not a right wing propaganda video, rather it is a left wing propaganda video. While I tend to agree with a significant portion of it's sentiment, I do take issue with many elements. I didn't make it through the whole 22 minutes, but did hang on for 10. Allow me to make a few points.

It states that the constitution was written, primarily, to protect private property (agreed), then rushes on to say "and suppress mass democracy". While an effort certainly was made to protect against "mob rule", by dividing up the powers of the government, making the office of the president elected by electoral votes rather than by popular vote, the Senate was not, originally, designed to be elected by popular vote and only the house of Representatives were directly elected by popular vote. Also the terms for each office were all different, this is in no small part, to keep the whole of our government from being swept up with every political fad that comes along. Think of the Tea party and the 2010 election. Our system is a representative democracy. It's a long way from perfect, but it's really not half as bad as most other systems.

Another point would be that they like to use a lot of subjective language in their writing (I'm talking about the writers of the video). How, for instance, should we characterize our relationship with the USSR during and after WWII? The video suggested that we were equivalent powers, but it should be noted that we were only equivalent on a military scale. Economically they were never in our league. While the video would have us believe that the rich and powerful elite of the USA have always been the harsh task masters of the proletariat, it is also true that our country and political & economic system has done more for the middle class and even the poor than most other systems.

As it got further and further in, I found myself questioning too much ofwwhat they said. Yes, there are way too many examples of big business getting way too close to many politicians. But that doesn't really make capitalism inherently evil and it felt like that's what they were trying to lead us too.

Did love the picture of the flag raising on iwa jima where they substituted the McDonald's arches for the American flag.

LikelyToBreak

The Whit wrote in part:
QuoteIt states the the role of the government was always to guard the ruling class, but that isn't true.
Well, you are correct in how it was explained in the Federalist Papers.  But, in recognizing slavery and quickly allowing a national bank would tend to make their argument correct.  

Eric1958 wrote in part:
QuoteThis is not a right wing propaganda video, rather it is a left wing propaganda video.
No, it is a right wing video.  It shows how the government has favored some over the many pretty much from the start.  That what we have isn't really pure capitalism, but a kleptocracy.  A kleptocracy kept in power by corrupt politicians.

Eric1958 wrote in part:
QuoteAlso the terms for each office were all different, this is in no small part, to keep the whole of our government from being swept up with every political fad that comes along. Think of the Tea party and the 2010 election. Our system is a representative democracy. It's a long way from perfect, but it's really not half as bad as most other systems.
The Senate was originally designed to make sure the masses didn't have too much of a say in the government.  The selection of the Senate couldn't be done by the masses, or the wrong people might get too much power.  This was allowed to change once they were sure that money would always ensure a victory for the right people.  Many of the "fads" in politics are encouraged by the monied elite.  Then they recruit candidates for those "fads" who they know "will play ball" with them.  All smoke and mirrors to keep us confused.

Yes, our system appears now to be representative democracy, but it was supposed to be a representative republic.  It is easier to confuse everyone by saying it is the "will of the people," then by having a few laws which have the consensus of the people.    

Eric1958 wrote in part:
QuoteWhile the video would have us believe that the rich and powerful elite of the USA have always been the harsh task masters of the proletariat, it is also true that our country and political & economic system has done more for the middle class and even the poor than most other systems.
The Caesars always took care of the Praetorian guards.  They tended to loose their heads if they didn't.  Since WWII, America has been the policemen for the world.  Why did an isolationist country suddenly decide to set up an hegemony?  Do you think it was the masses who suddenly decided to throw our weight around and make the world safe for the capitalists?   Or did the rich run a propaganda campaign preaching about the terrors of Communism?  Communism fell, so now the rich run a propaganda campaign preaching about the terrors of terrorism.  Try to notice how often 9/11 is brought up as a reason to do things which many of us don't want to do, and tell yourself it is not propaganda.

Eric1958 wrote in part:
QuoteBut that doesn't really make capitalism inherently evil and it felt like that's what they were trying to lead us too.
Capitalism is not inherently evil.  Kleptocracy is though.  They'll get there.

Eric1958 wrote in part:
QuoteDid love the picture of the flag raising on iwa jima where they substituted the McDonald's arches for the American flag.
I liked that too.  It is also important to show how the military is used to advance corporate interests.

Solitary

This is neither right or left propaganda in my opinion, but stating facts. We are and have been under an oligarchy for a long time. When we invade another country it is imperialism, and being based on a lie that has caused so much pain and  suffering as well as death to innocent people and children is unconscionable. We are also becoming more and more a Fascist Police State. It's not just The USA that is controlled by the rich and powerful, it is the whole world now. The idiots that have all the money and power don't realize they need the working man to survive and have all their toys, and payback is a bitch, and they are running scared. Things can only get worse before they get better. And the Church and churches aren't helping matters by controlling people and making them have a sheep and cattle mentality that teaches to not question authority when it is an all powerful God that has a plan.  :evil:  Solitary

QuoteAs over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors' "toxic assets" was the only alternative to the U.S. economy's "systemic collapse." In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets' nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term "political class" came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public's understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the "ruling class." And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.

Although after the election of 2008 most Republican office holders argued against the Troubled Asset Relief Program, against the subsequent bailouts of the auto industry, against the several "stimulus" bills and further summary expansions of government power to benefit clients of government at the expense of ordinary citizens, the American people had every reason to believe that many Republican politicians were doing so simply by the logic of partisan opposition. After all, Republicans had been happy enough to approve of similar things under Republican administrations. Differences between Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas are of degree, not kind. Moreover, 2009-10 establishment Republicans sought only to modify the government's agenda while showing eagerness to join the Democrats in new grand schemes, if only they were allowed to. Sen. Orrin Hatch continued dreaming of being Ted Kennedy, while Lindsey Graham set aside what is true or false about "global warming" for the sake of getting on the right side of history. No prominent Republican challenged the ruling class's continued claim of superior insight, nor its denigration of the American people as irritable children who must learn their place. The Republican Party did not disparage the ruling class, because most of its officials are or would like to be part of it.

Never has there been so little diversity within America's upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America's upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and "bureaucrat" was a dirty word for all. So was "social engineering." Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday's upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.

Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters — speaking the "in" language — serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.

The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century's Northerners and Southerners — nearly all of whom, as Lincoln reminded them, "prayed to the same God." By contrast, while most Americans pray to the God "who created and doth sustain us," our ruling class prays to itself as "saviors of the planet" and improvers of humanity. Our classes' clash is over "whose country" America is, over what way of life will prevail, over who is to defer to whom about what. The gravity of such divisions points us, as it did Lincoln, to Mark's Gospel: "if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand."

The Political Divide

Important as they are, our political divisions are the iceberg's tip. When pollsters ask the American people whether they are likely to vote Republican or Democrat in the next presidential election, Republicans win growing pluralities. But whenever pollsters add the preferences "undecided," "none of the above," or "tea party," these win handily, the Democrats come in second, and the Republicans trail far behind. That is because while most of the voters who call themselves Democrats say that Democratic officials represent them well, only a fourth of the voters who identify themselves as Republicans tell pollsters that Republican officeholders represent them well. Hence officeholders, Democrats and Republicans, gladden the hearts of some one-third of the electorate — most Democratic voters, plus a few Republicans. This means that Democratic politicians are the ruling class's prime legitimate representatives and that because Republican politicians are supported by only a fourth of their voters while the rest vote for them reluctantly, most are aspirants for a junior role in the ruling class. In short, the ruling class has a party, the Democrats. But some two-thirds of Americans — a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents — lack a vehicle in electoral politics.

Sooner or later, well or badly, that majority's demand for representation will be filled. Whereas in 1968 Governor George Wallace's taunt "there ain't a dime's worth of difference" between the Republican and Democratic parties resonated with only 13.5 percent of the American people, in 1992 Ross Perot became a serious contender for the presidency (at one point he was favored by 39 percent of Americans vs. 31 percent for G.H.W. Bush and 25 percent for Clinton) simply by speaking ill of the ruling class. Today, few speak well of the ruling class. Not only has it burgeoned in size and pretense, but it also has undertaken wars it has not won, presided over a declining economy and mushrooming debt, made life more expensive, raised taxes, and talked down to the American people. Americans' conviction that the ruling class is as hostile as it is incompetent has solidified. The polls tell us that only about a fifth of Americans trust the government to do the right thing. The rest expect that it will do more harm than good and are no longer afraid to say so.

While Europeans are accustomed to being ruled by presumed betters whom they distrust, the American people's realization of being ruled like Europeans shocked this country into well nigh revolutionary attitudes. But only the realization was new. The ruling class had sunk deep roots in America over decades before 2008. Machiavelli compares serious political diseases to the Aetolian fevers — easy to treat early on while they are difficult to discern, but virtually untreatable by the time they become obvious.

Far from speculating how the political confrontation might develop between America's regime class — relatively few people supported by no more than one-third of Americans — and a country class comprising two-thirds of the country, our task here is to understand the divisions that underlie that confrontation's unpredictable future. More on politics below.

The Ruling Class

Who are these rulers, and by what right do they rule? How did America change from a place where people could expect to live without bowing to privileged classes to one in which, at best, they might have the chance to climb into them? What sets our ruling class apart from the rest of us?

The most widespread answers — by such as the Times's Thomas Friedman and David Brooks — are schlock sociology. Supposedly, modern society became so complex and productive, the technical skills to run it so rare, that it called forth a new class of highly educated officials and cooperators in an ever less private sector. Similarly fanciful is Edward Goldberg's notion that America is now ruled by a "newocracy": a "new aristocracy who are the true beneficiaries of globalization — including the multinational manager, the technologist and the aspirational members of the meritocracy." In fact, our ruling class grew and set itself apart from the rest of us by its connection with ever bigger government, and above all by a certain attitude.

Other explanations are counterintuitive. Wealth? The heads of the class do live in our big cities' priciest enclaves and suburbs, from Montgomery County, Maryland, to Palo Alto, California, to Boston's Beacon Hill as well as in opulent university towns from Princeton to Boulder. But they are no wealthier than many Texas oilmen or California farmers, or than neighbors with whom they do not associate — just as the social science and humanities class that rules universities seldom associates with physicians and physicists. Rather, regardless of where they live, their social-intellectual circle includes people in the lucrative "nonprofit" and "philanthropic" sectors and public policy. What really distinguishes these privileged people demographically is that, whether in government power directly or as officers in companies, their careers and fortunes depend on government. They vote Democrat more consistently than those who live on any of America's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Streets. These socioeconomic opposites draw their money and orientation from the same sources as the millions of teachers, consultants, and government employees in the middle ranks who aspire to be the former and identify morally with what they suppose to be the latter's grievances.
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

LikelyToBreak

Solitary wrote in part:
QuoteThis is neither right or left propaganda in my opinion, but stating facts. We are and have been under an oligarchy for a long time.
Nope.  It is right wing propaganda because it says we have a kleptocracy.  It might pass for left wing propaganda if they said we had an oligarchy.

From Merriam-Webster

Definition of KLEPTOCRACY
government by those who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed;
also: a particular government of this kind

Definition of PLUTOCRACY
1: government by the wealthy
2: a controlling class of the wealthy

Definition of OLIGARCHY
1: government by the few
2: a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes;
also: a group exercising such control
3: an organization under oligarchic control

Glad I could clear that up!

Solitary as far as the rest of what you said, and the article you quote, is just conspiracy theory crap.  Ask any Democan or Republicrat and they'll set you straight.  All that we have learned for what has happened in the last two hundred years is just the imaginings of wacko tin-foil hat wearing historians.  Even the so-called original documents which we can find on the web.  And you can never trust your own memory, even if you can find video evidence to validate what you remember.  

Okay, I tend to be too sarcastic.  I'm just used to people not believing what I tell them, even with evidence for my assertions.

Solitary

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Solitary wrote in part:
QuoteThis is neither right or left propaganda in my opinion, but stating facts. We are and have been under an oligarchy for a long time.
Nope.  It is right wing propaganda because it says we have a kleptocracy.  It might pass for left wing propaganda if they said we had an oligarchy.

From Merriam-Webster

Definition of KLEPTOCRACY
government by those who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed;
also: a particular government of this kind

Definition of PLUTOCRACY
1: government by the wealthy
2: a controlling class of the wealthy

Definition of OLIGARCHY
1: government by the few
2: a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes;
also: a group exercising such control
3: an organization under oligarchic control

Glad I could clear that up!

Solitary as far as the rest of what you said, and the article you quote, is just conspiracy theory crap.  Ask any Democan or Republicrat and they'll set you straight.  All that we have learned for what has happened in the last two hundred years is just the imaginings of wacko tin-foil hat wearing historians.  Even the so-called original documents which we can find on the web.  And you can never trust your own memory, even if you can find video evidence to validate what you remember.  

Okay, I tend to be too sarcastic.  I'm just used to people not believing what I tell them, even with evidence for my assertions.

I thanked you for the video because it is what believe has and is happening. So you think the video or anyone that agrees with it a wacko tin-foil hat person or historian?  Count me as one then because that video is what I have seen to be true for all my adult life. My memory is excellent, but I agree we can have false memories. But if they are verified they aren't true? Where did you find the definitions of yours? I can't find the first one in any unabridged dictionary I have.  My saying it is and has been an oligarchy is my opinion not from the video, but I see the video supporting that contention. Why do I get the feeling your being sarcastic with your take on the video?  :lol: I'm just used to people not believing what I tell them, even with evidence for my assertions. " I now the feeling very well! :roll:  Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

LikelyToBreak

Solitary, I really feel people are splitting hairs when they argue that something is right wing or left wing.  They seem to want things to be white or black, team D or team R.  Like you, during my lifetime I have seen and remember R's acting like D's and vice-a-versa.  It seems to me, that if you are not one team or the other, you are labeled a tin-foil hat wearing wacko.  Evidence be damned.

More people are waking up to the fact we are living in something other than a representative republic or democracy.  Diane Feinstein said she had something like 99 calls to 1 asking her not to do vote for the banker bailout, but she decided to do it anyway.  Which I think pretty well shows where she and most other Congress critters really get their orders from.

Oh yeah, I got the definitions from Merriam-Webster on line: //http://www.merriam-webster.com/

Solitary

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Solitary, I really feel people are splitting hairs when they argue that something is right wing or left wing.  They seem to want things to be white or black, team D or team R.  Like you, during my lifetime I have seen and remember R's acting like D's and vice-a-versa.  It seems to me, that if you are not one team or the other, you are labeled a tin-foil hat wearing wacko.  Evidence be damned.

More people are waking up to the fact we are living in something other than a representative republic or democracy.  Diane Feinstein said she had something like 99 calls to 1 asking her not to do vote for the banker bailout, but she decided to do it anyway.  Which I think pretty well shows where she and most other Congress critters really get their orders from.

Oh yeah, I got the definitions from Merriam-Webster on line: //http://www.merriam-webster.com/


Thank you! I can't believe all unabridged dictionaries wouldn't have that definition in them. I agree that there is no right or left as far as government is concerned, they all answer to the almighty dollar. The problem now is the great divide between the super rich and even the so-called middle class. And foregetaboutit if you are poor and a minority. I still can't believe there weren't riots when the government bailed out the poor managers and crooks with billions that don't pay taxes and file for bankruptcy while complaining about people on welfare that doesn't even compare for the cost.  :roll:  I'm getting more use to my mortality as I see the world implode from overpopulation and everyone one looking out for themselves the best they can. We haven't seen nothing yet, wait until the oil and water wells run dry and there's no food left. I've got to take up hunting a trapping again.  :-$   :twisted: Well on this cheerful account I'm leaving for now. Adios! Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

LikelyToBreak

I first heard the word kleptocracy in a movie about Chief Justice Earl Warren and the court's decision to end separate but equal.  I think he used it differently than the dictionary definition in the movie.  He said it meant something like, "government by court," or something like that.  When I heard it, I tried to look it up and couldn't find it either.

Solitary

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"I first heard the word kleptocracy in a movie about Chief Justice Earl Warren and the court's decision to end separate but equal.  I think he used it differently than the dictionary definition in the movie.  He said it meant something like, "government by court," or something like that.  When I heard it, I tried to look it up and couldn't find it either.


"A rose by any other name smells the same"---all three definitions mean they are liars and crooks that steal our money. :shock: Did I say liars when so many of them are lawyers?  :lol:  Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

The Whit

There is some truth to this video, but it's just the shit we all already know.  It's very wrong about some stuff, like this gem:  "It is the wrecked and pillaged economies looted by our predatory capitalist austerity regimes."

Whoever made this video doesn't know a a damn thing about economics.  Only an idiot would think mass deficit spending is a good thing.  This is a leftist video, with rhetoric copied from the right.

The only things this video gets right should be common knowledge, although I do think there need to be more attempts such as this one to provoke action.
"Death can not be killed." -brq

LikelyToBreak

The Whit wrote in part:
QuoteThe only things this video gets right should be common knowledge, although I do think there need to be more attempts such as this one to provoke action.
You are right.  This is a left leaning video.  But, notice how the left leaning members of this forum have avoided it?  

My purpose in labeling it a right wing video, was to show how people get caught up in the left/right paradigms, while we the American people let the super rich get away with literal murder.  We allow ourselves to be spun by whichever party we affiliate with.  Democrats have a more loyal following than do the Republicans, probably because there are more Democrat newscasters.  The news is spun, and trying to expose that, just makes you a Fox News watching retard.  

The facts are, that both parties are beholding to and work for the super rich.  Inevitably, an atrocity is exposed, then the party in power circles their wagons and spin it as being because of the other party.  While the other party makes a bunch of speeches denouncing the atrocity, and that is pretty much it.  No real investigations, nobody of importance being punished, no real accountability for those who ordered the atrocity.  Just rhetoric and general grandstanding.

I was planning on putting this same video up as left wing propaganda in a week or so, and see what the responses were then.  It is a little dishonest on my part, but I think people need to wake up as what is really going on.  The government doesn't allow real capitalism. Changing the names on the seats in Congress or at the Whitehouse won't change that.  Some Democrats want to put a socialist form of government in, not realizing it would end up just like Mussolini's Italy.  Socialists answering to the corporations which they seemingly despise.  

If someone reads this now, who sees my little scam, so what?  If they have gotten this far, then they just might have woken up a little, and that is what I am after.  Disagreement with is me is fine.  Disagreement with the government is a duty, whichever party is in power.