Genie Out Of The Bottle

“Can’t stop the signal, Mal. Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere.” – Serenity

I wonder if Putin got his doctorate in Russian political leaders?  If so, does that make him a Stalin grad?

As technology has changed, so has the information that is available to us.  Starting with radio, the ability of that technology to influence public opinion increased.  Radio was a voice in the night that broadcast the opinion of one to many.  Then, after the invention of FM radio, radio became stereo-typical.

Film increased the ability to spread messages, and in a much deeper way.  There is something about moving images coupled with sound that draws human attention and consciousness.  Measurements of human brain activity while watching television showed that the brain “shut off” while watching television, entering an alpha wave state – a state normally associated with resting.

It isn’t that way when talking, or reading.  Beta waves, associated with active thought processing jump back into play when we read.  In a very weird way, television puts us into a trance, where we receive and don’t think about the message.  If ever there was a way to put propaganda into the heads of everyone watching, television is your answer.  It also caused the problem of losing the controller.  I always found mine in some remote area.

Also, congratulations to drugs for winning the war on drugs.

In many cases, the idea wasn’t only to put propaganda into heads, it was also to entertain.  Why would I watch a television show that I didn’t like?  No, shows competed for market share, too.  If the propaganda was too strong, the show would fail.  But many of the messages of globalist, Leftist thought were still put into skulls relentlessly, slipped in as special episodes, or by painting ideas that violated The Narrative in the most negative light possible.

Even the news, though, was part of the same message, which we now call The Narrative.  The Narrative is strong.  Honestly, I am still finding elements of The Narrative that I believed to be true.  It’s more or less like The Matrix, but Elon Musk doesn’t keep forgetting that Keanu Reeves is the good guy.

Now here’s a narrative I could get behind. (meme not an original)

One example was that The Narrative that drove the United States both getting into and getting out of the Vietnam War.  It was the first war that was televised on a daily basis.  And, regardless of our recent fiascos, presidents dream of being a “War President” which gives them nearly unrivaled political power.

A case in point was the attack on the Twin Towers.  Whoever did it, the beneficiaries were George W., Lockheed-Martin®, and everyone who didn’t like the United States.  It’s unlikely that George W. would have been re-elected because of messy economy.  W. drove the “Left” every bit as insane as Trump did, and would have (no doubt) driven them to the same level of coordination to bring him down in 2004 as they spent on Trump in 2020.  Except?  9/11.

I think Sleepy Joe would love nothing more than the power and prestige that comes with a War footing in the country.  Or at least someone would.  Hence, Ukraine.

They asked Joe what he thought of this meme, but he’d forgotten Biden.

I don’t know exactly what the game is.  It appears that the Ukrainians are a lot less concerned about the Russians than we are, and that Joe is far more concerned about Russians crossing the Ukrainian border than the millions that he’s inviting to cross our border.

Why not?  If get gets the Russian Bear just grumpy enough, I think the calculus is, he can turn Putin into a figure to unite the country.  If Corona-chan couldn’t do it, well, trot out the (spins wheel) Russians.  And we’ll have a united country, and the whole economic mess will get solved when spending even more billions with weapons manufacturers!

First, we’re no longer a serious nation when it comes to anything military.  Yes, I know that we have a long, proud tradition.  But have you seen the military in 2022?

I had a friend that joined the Army and killed a lot of people.  He’s a horrible doctor.

Second, although the people of the United States were in favor of going to get Osama Bin Laden, the wars overseas soon became background noise.  Without a significant loss of Americans, say, a carrier battle group, there is little chance of getting the rank and file American citizens would support a war in Ukraine.  Outside of, say, loss of a carrier battle group.

And, finally:  What, exactly, is this about?  Ukraine and Russia are similar in the national corruption index scores – it’s not like Ukraine is remotely on par with Denmark or even Albania.  Yes, Albania is less corrupt than Ukraine.

A Russian wedding used to be called a Soviet Union.

Even the Ukrainian president, Zelinsky, told Biden to chill out on fanning the flames of war.  Russia has a long sense of paranoia, and isn’t interested in having NATO camp out right next door.  Honestly, I have no idea why we have troops in Europe in 2022, let alone trying to pull Ukraine into NATO just to irritate the Russians.

Oh, yeah, because international tension takes away from the intractable problems Joe has at home.

The problem that Joe faces is a simple one:  the old model of a single source delivering a single Narrative is gone.  Places exist all over the Internet the question The Narrative.  That’s crucial.  Heck, they’re even questioning The Narrative in Canada.

Politely, but they are.

From Trudeau:  “They only hate me because I’m black.”

And the Signal is getting out.  I have only listened to a few minutes of Joe Rogan.  It was okay, but not enough to keep me coming back.  But he’s irritated the gatekeepers of The Narrative.

Or at least Neil Young.  Neil Young, who hasn’t had a headline since Nixon was in office, decided that he was so in favor of free speech that he’d pull his music from Spotify®, who sponsors Joe Rogan’s podcast.

It’s unlikely that Spotify™ will cave to Mr. Young, even though he’s now been joined by Joni Mitchell, Liza Minnelli, and maybe Wolfgang Mozart.  Of course, The Mrs. and I made fun of Mr. Young on our podcast.  When I checked on it the next day, I found that our podcast was gone.

There are fates worse than death.  (not my original meme)

The Mrs. had used a music bed for a parody commercial.  The music bed was one of Mr. Young’s songs.  The next day, we were pulled down for copyright infringement (no strike).  The Mrs. is getting ready to re-upload an edited version.  I really don’t think Mr. Young had anything to do with it personally.  So, our podcast hits dozens of visitors sometimes.  Joe Rogan hits millions.

They try to censor the small when we deviate, but the large they must take down, in public.  If the Canadian trucker protest were not so large, there would be a complete lack of news coverage.  As it is, the coverage will be small as they can make it, except to cover whatever trivial outrage can be manufactured.

I hear some of the protesters are semi-retired.

The important thing is, large or small, there is an alternative to The Narrative.  I try to be as honest as I can be in every single post.  In many cases what I say is slightly different from The Narrative.  Sometimes it’s a lot different.

And there are thousands of other voices out there, too, willing to defy The Narrative, in ways both big and small.  This is new.  Television and radio gave us the grand wave of propaganda that led to The Narrative being so powerful.  They’ll stop at almost nothing to stop us from seeing that the emperor has no clothes.

But it’s too late.  The signal is out.  It’s even covered in maple syrup sometimes.

Question:  how many trees did mankind have to suck before they found maple syrup?

Tomorrow, there will be a rare Tuesday version of Wilder Wealthy and Wise, just memes and examples of The Narrative being exposed.

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

20 thoughts on “Genie Out Of The Bottle”

  1. Rahmie the commie said never let a crisis go to waste and WAR conditions would be perfect for the statist utopians to clamp down on everything.
    What you don’t support making the world safe for fake and gay, to the gulag with you.
    Not down with the not-a-vax experiment, what are you a shirker.
    Here is your rationing card, comrade, hope that works out for you.
    China and Russia are now joined and they will mop the floor with the faces of the woke abomination of Chiquitastan.
    Be like Slim Pickens and ride the missile like a cowboy while cheering your ass off because this abomination of desolation is coming down hard.

    1. Rationing? We have farms here. And food. Rationing is for cities . . . (attempting to forget Holodomor)

  2. John – – You mentioned your Army contact ( “I had a friend that joined the Army and killed a lot of people. He’s a horrible doctor.”).

    Am sure you were not talking about WoeBamaz favorite physician; MAJ Nidal Hassan…..

    However that joke reminds me of the local school event a few years back where a bunch of VN veterans from the VFW were invited to come to the school so the Jr High could hear their stories and ask questions before the school “rewarded” the veterans with a typical school lunch (Moochelle WoeBamaz crammed-down menu…).

    Right before the event was to be dismissed the teacher asked if there were any final questions. One boy stood up and said he had not heard from the veteran sitting on the end and questioned if he had killed anyone in Vietnam.

    The teacher objected, but the veteran stood up and said it was a fair question and needed to be answered.

    He told the students, after a significant pause to collect his thoughts, “Well, yes, I probably did.”

    Then he paused again and said, “I was a cook.”

  3. “Without a significant loss of Americans, say, a carrier battle group….”

    The newest carrier named after President Gerald Ford is the largest ever and has a crew of over 4,500. If that thing goes down in the Black Sea in the middle of significant combat, you could see as many casualties as 9/11 from a single ship. We aren’t used to that and I don’t think we are really ready for that. ( https://www.military.com/equipment/gerald-r-ford-class-aircraft-carrier )

    1. Even the Pentagram can’t be stupid enough to bring a carrier in to the Black Sea. Also, I think it might be illegal due to some international law of the sea regarding the Bosporus. Even in the Med or Baltic I’m pretty sure carriers would just be sitting ducks, and there is no need for a $13B air strip with so many land-based ones nearby.

      Unless of course they want to lose a carrier so they can do a “remember the Alamo/ Maine/ Lusitania!” moment… After all, it’s not $13B of tax money lost, to them it’s an opportunity to transform another $13B of tax money into MIC contracts and political kickbacks…

    2. And we’re going to get it, odds on, if the current USN leadership, from Captain on up is not replaced. I know one Admiral, recently retired, who never held a sea command..We’re making the Carter navy look like a finely-tuned war macine. The naval Academy is a sad joke.

      We don’t need a war to lose a carrier.

      God have mercy on the poor civilian port when one of our nuclear fleet goes.

    3. Oh, and it doesn’t work. The catapult breaks down after a few hundred launches. What do you call a carrier that can’t lauch planes?

      A target.

  4. John – Yesterday in the sermon, the pastor in his commentary on the fact that society seems more disunified than ever used a recent quote from an article by David Brooks (14 January 2022, if I recall correctly) in which he noted that that he could not understand why society was so fragmented, but as an author it bothered him. I am reasonably sure Mr. Brooks and I hold not a single opinion in common, but I did find it remarkable the recognized the outcome of the policies and social constructs of the last two years, even as he could not pinpoint the source of the problem.

    Which is the problem for Our Political And Social Betters (OPASB). Having enabled this situation, they are overcome with confusion about how it went all wrong. They are too proud and in love with their positions to apologize and walk them back or even state “we maybe went overboard a bit”, and so are condemned to watch things continue to dissolve even as they are confused about why they are so.

    The fact that a war is considered a unifying factor in this day and age (and I do think this is why it is being pushed so hard) is as foolish as it is unfortunate. Like practically everything else in the last two years, the results will be not at all what is imagined.

  5. Our current Military couldn’t fight its way out of wet paper bag, thanks to the ass hat General class appointed under the Obama regime. Our local Fighter Wing has 50% of their personnel out for COVID-19 cases right now (so much for the clot shot), and the Mission Capability Rate of our F-15E fleet is terrible (spare parts issues that started under the magic mulatto’s reign of terror against our ounce highly lethal and capable military). I’m sure it was all the USAF could do to send the 6 ship of F-15Es from Seymour-Johnson AFB to Estonia last week. My guess at least on KC-10 tanker and a couple of C-17s to transport them and their support personnel, equipment, and other cargo there. One can only guess how many of those 6 could launch on short notice if the Russian bear gets poked too hard. Don’t know what the screw-ups in Mordor on the Potomac are up to, but it won’t help the unelected occupant of the White House ratings one little bit.

    I have to agree with Arthur Sido that the general public could not handle the casualties due to the loss of a naval carrier group in the Black Sea.

    1. The logistics aren’t there, neither is the troop strength or quality. At this point it would be difficult to pull off a South American garrison army. The idea of a lucrative Cold War is enticing, but even an expeditionary force is out of the question. The US Military has become the kind of show that our NATO so called allies put out for show. Unless TPTB figure on rolling up illegals for cannon fodder, the numbers will be lacking. And the lack of discipline will make those troops worse than useless. At this time the only winners will be defense contractors and political slush funds.

  6. The Narrative has affected us far more than most realize. None of us are immune. Read stuff from pre-1940 America, and it can be extremely alien. Professors would write books on things that would get a private corp to fire him for now. Look up the content of Father Coughlin’s radio show, and realize that a significantly larger % of the populace listened to him than to Rush Limbaugh today. Until he said a few too many things about how the New Deal was very friendly towards the bankers, at which point he was heavily censored. The Catholic Church didn’t have much of a problem with what he was saying, either.

    A great source on our indoctrination:

    http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260

    It lists a bunch of things that are the result of propaganda that pretty much didn’t exist in this country previous to the Frankfurt School. I’m not saying the Soviets are still running a game on us, but that someone picked up where they left off.

    1. Now that’s an online space: Clean. Elegant. Suacribed.

      The comments were unintentionally hilarious. An atheist arguing with LDSs not on the grounds of truth, but utility.

  7. The use of false narratives has been used for well over a century. It works, and the best example is the narrative those in the South are basically ignorant, evil people that deserve derision and insults. It works, but only if the narrative isn’t exposed. The damage done will take generations to correct, and is more of the division of the country for the gain of power.

    I paid attention to the news today, and there is very little about the enormous group of truckers marching in Canada to protest the mandates. A good media would be exposing the economic impact on the truckers, the consequences of undelivered goods, and how the Canadian government should drop the mandates, while pressing the United States to do the same. Instead, the root causes are basically ignored, those involved are being vilified, and without alternate news sources, the narrative would work against those seeking relief from tyrannical government officials.

    The good news is some of the leading cable networks are becoming money pits, their lineups are only getting viewers that fell asleep in front of their televisions, and even Rachel Maddow is taking some time off. Whether she returns is to be seen, but I have a feeling a lot of people won’t notice if she does.

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