Given the current kerfuffle about Planned Parenthood, it seemed worthwhile to remind people that Planned Parenthood isn’t just about abortions. It’s also about advancing an agenda antithetical, not only to Christians, whom it attacks very directly, but to any parents who worry about their children’s safety and morality.

Also, as you watch this circa 2005 video from a San Francisco Planned Parenthood Chapter (i.e., a pre-Obama video), please keep in mind that you, the taxpayer, heavily subsidize Planned Parenthood. This video’s crude propaganda is still shocking — and is a reminder about where your tax dollars go:

(I have to admit, watching this video, that I really wonder whether it isn’t a head fake. It’s hard to believe that, even in the San Francisco chapter, someone would come out with propaganda this crude. Does anyone know more about this video’s provenance?)

Hat tip:  shirleyelizabeth

UPDATE: The inestimable Zombie, bless his (or her) heart, did the leg work for me and discovered that this video is the real deal. Here are the links Zombie sent me establishing that fact:

The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Character

Dionysus, God of Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood’s Most Recent Gaffe

Inside Planned Parenthood Golden Gate’s Building Design

Double Standard : There’s The Left, And Then There’s The Rest Of Us

One lesson of advertising is that, no matter whether true or false, to make a message stick, one must repeat, repeat, repeat. This is how false messages become enshrined into the ideological orthodoxy of the Left and ripple out to the collective consciousness of the masses.

Now, there are many ways to deliberately distort a message. One commonly used tactic is to deliberate omit information that provides necessary context. Thus, the message may be true as it stands, but it misleads by what it does not say.

Here is an article that simultaneously illustrates how the Left establishes talking points for wide dissemination based on distorted information, while demolishing one particular such talking point that was found to reverberate repeatedly on this blog: the claim that the United States uses 25% of all world oil production but contains only 2% of the world’s oil reserves.

Yes, the U.S. has only 2% of the world’s “proven reserves”. However, as defined, “proven reserves” represents only a very small fraction to total reserves. When total reserves are factored in, U.S. petroleum holdings are likely to rival Saudi Arabia’s. Read it all – it really is very clearly presented

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/05/27/energy-myths-of-the-left

The article then goes on to demolish the argument that the U.S. uses a disproportionate amount of the world’s oil production.

Observe, however: the usual response of the Left when confronted with information that proves anathema to developed orthodoxy is to personally attack the source (shades of Galileo!) rather than distort the information (a classic Alinsky tactic). Orthodoxy  must be protected at all costs!

And, rightly so. For once these tactics are exposed for what they are, the credibility of the Left is forever put into question and people go elsewhere for their information.

Whenever any information emanates from the Left, it should be viewed with great caution. Left-wing memes are like highly damaging computer viruses: easy to create and very laborious to detect and remove. Caveat emptor.

Charles Johnson is masterful when it comes to exposing media fraud, whether it was Rathergate in 2004, or Reutersgate in 2006 (when Reuters messed with photos of the Israeli/Hezbollah War).  Proving that he wasn’t just lucky back then, but in fact has a genuine knack, Charles has done it again, this time exposing Reutersgate II, with that disgraceful propaganda service excising terrorist weapons and erasing Israeli blood from photographs it published about the terrorist flotilla attack against Israel.

Word got out that ANSWER, a Communist front group, is planning a protest at the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco today (June 1), so Stand With Us in San Francisco is trying to gather for a counter-protest.  So, the email you see below is from a group friendly to Israel, giving information about ANSWER’s protest, and what to expect:

Of course, everyone is aware of the recent events involving Israel’s interception of so-called “peace activists” on the Gaza flotilla; some of these “peace activists” attacked Israeli soldiers with knives, crowbars and poles which led to deaths and injuries.

Anti-Israel groups led by International ANSWER are holding a protest in front of the Israeli Consulate building in San Francisco (456 Montgomery Street) Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 PM. SWU/SF Voice for Israel is going to be there to counter them. We will have some flags and signs, please feel free to bring your own as well. If you choose to bring your own signs, please no signs or graphics offensive to any racial or ethnic group including but not limited to Arabs, Islam, or Palestinians in general. Signs in violation of our policies do not help the pro-Israel cause and will not be allowed.

Please be aware of the possibility that some of the so-called “peace activists” here in the Bay Area may not be any more peaceful than their counterparts on the Turkish boat; use common sense and avoid engaging with those on the other side as you arrive or leave the area.

We will be updating you on the status of protests at Israel in the Gardens as we become aware of them. We hope that the SFPD will recognize the need to keep anti-Israel protestors away from the gates of the festival.

Finally, we are including this excellent summary prepared by the Northwest (Seattle) chapter of StandWithUs as an information resource.

Friends,

As most of you have already heard, there was a major altercation at sea between the Israeli navy and a flotilla of vessels attempting to run the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza.

This flotilla was purely a PR effort by groups that support Hamas-controlled Gaza. Israel currently allows 15,000 tons humanitarian aid per day into Gaza, more than a ton of aid per person in Gaza every year.

After Israel issued numerous warnings before the flotilla left the Turkish portion of Cyprus that it would stop the flotilla and after numerous warnings at sea by the Israeli naval ships that intercepted the vessels (go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKOmLP4yHb4&feature=player_embedded to see a video of the Israeli navy warning the flotilla ships to stop), the flotilla refused to change course. Israel had told the flotilla that if they docked at Ashdod, Israel would transport all the humanitarian aid on their ships to Gaza, but that Israel would not let the flotilla carry the goods to Gaza because it had to inspect the cargo to ensure that there were neither weapons nor weapon-producing or tunnel constuction materials on board.

The flotilla ignored these numerous warnings. After the flotilla continued toward Gaza despite of the warnings by the Israeli navy that they would board the flotilla, Israeli navy commandos did begin to board the flotilla ships.

When the Israeli commandos boarded the ships, demonstrators attacked them with live gunfire as well as with knives, crowbars and clubs. The demonstrators threw at least one of the Israeli commandos from the top deck to the deck below (a 30 foot drop). All the while, the Israeli commandos were yelling to each other “No shooting! No weapons!” Only after what you can see in on YouTube (go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU12KW-XyZE&feature=player_embedded#! to see this astonishing video), did the Navy authorize the use of weapons.

Tragically, it is reported that at least 10 demonstrators died and others were wounded. All wounded were flown to Israeli hospitals. Numerous Israeli naval commandos were gravely wounded as well. They, too, were taken to Israeli hospitals. The ships were escorted in to Ashdod, from where any humanitarian aid will be taken to Gaza by Israel.

For StandWithUs’ s statement on the Gaza Flotilla incident, go to http://www.standwithus.com/app/iNews/view_n.asp?ID=1444.

For background facts and videos from Honest Reporting Canada showing “Gaza Flotilla” members attacking Israeli naval commandos, go to http://www.honestreporting.ca/news_article_name/specialhralert53020.aspx.

For an eye witness account “A Brutal Ambush at Sea,” by Ron Ben-Yishai of Ynet News, go to http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3896796,00.html

For an excellent summary and background, see the materials put together by The Jewish Federations of North America go to http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=221579.

Okay, I’m not really saying that those on the Left are quivering, whining cowards.  They are, however, working hard to present themselves in that light — or, rather, in the light of helpless victims — in the hope that they can convince ordinary Americans that conservatives, libertarians, Tea Partiers, etc., are unhinged neo-nazis who are filled with an insatiable blood lust.

To that end, starting on Saturday, they’ve been accusing people opposed to Obama Care of racism, spitting, violence, powder threats, etc.  My suspicion is that (a) many of these alleged threats are imaginary, for propaganda purposes; (b) that those making the threats are often Leftists who are faking the attacks as part of the Alinsky tactic of making conservatives look evil; and (c) a few fringe people who should be ignored, rather than spread out over the front pages.

I’m assembling here a collection of solid posts that expand upon my own suspicions about the Left’s propaganda technique here and that remind us that, even in their wildest imaginings about conservatives, Leftists haven’t managed to come close to what Bush and other conservative politicians suffered through for 8 years.  Without further ado:

Brutally Honest:  The incredible hypocrisy of the “inciting violence” crowd

Patterico’s Pontifications: Leftist Issues Death Threats to Palin and Family on Twitter

Wizbang/Lorie Byrd:  Josh Marshall — Beyond Absurd

Mudville Gazette/Greyhawk:  Rabble rousing, Part I and Part II

Michelle Malkin:  Unhinged:  the mugshot collection

UPDATE:  James Taranto opens his Best of the Web Today with a nice collection of provably false (or, at least, grossly exaggerated) accusations health care supporters have made against the bill’s opponents.

My daughter’s Spanish class has spent the last couple of days watching a movie.  I know many people who learned English by watching American television, so I don’t have a problem with using movies as a teaching device.  I do, however, have a big problem with the movie chosen — La Misma la Luna — which is a movie that uses the travails of a charming and pathetic little boy to make the case that our laws against illegal immigrants are cruel:

The film tells the story of Rosario (del Castillo), a mother who emigrated illegally to the United States, and her nine-year-old son, Carlitos (Alonso). Rosario and Carlitos have not seen each other in four years, when Carlitos was only five. Rosario, now living in Los Angeles, California, calls her son, still in Mexico, every Sunday. Carlitos lives in a small Mexican village with his sick grandmother. Carlitos encounters two immigrant transporters, Marta (Ferrera) and David (Garcia). When his grandmother passes away, he crosses the border with them. After getting separated, Carlitos continues the journey, pairing up with another illegal immigrant named Enrique. Although Enrique (Eugenio Derbez) initially refuses to help Carlitos, he soon grows a bond with him. One day, Carlitos is sleeping on a park bench and almost gets caught by the police but Enrique throws food at the police, getting caught instead. Carlitos flees and arrives at the bus stop from which his mother called him. He sees her across the street at the payphone, and they are reunited at last.

This is not just me being a conservative contrarian, with a knee-jerk reaction to anything that depicts illegal immigrants  positively or American immigration policies negatively.  Even the New York Times figured out that this movie is pro-immigration propaganda (although, typically, the Times writer seems most upset about the fact that the propaganda is too obvious to be effective):

“Under the Same Moon,” an “Incredible Journey” for the socially conscience-stricken, arrives in theaters trailing a standing ovation from last year’s Sundance Film Festival and more than a whiff of sanctimony. And even allowing that Sundance audiences are notoriously unreliable arbiters of quality — for every “Spanking the Monkey,” there’s a “Spitfire Grill” and a “Quinceañera” — their wholehearted embrace of this manipulative, saccharin product is dispiriting.

[snip]

This is screenwriting by numbers. Unlike, say, Ken Loach’s marvelous “Bread and Roses,” “Under the Same Moon” is too busy sanctifying its protagonists and prodding our tear ducts to say anything remotely novel about immigration policies or their helpless victims. The filmmakers know that middlebrow movie audiences prefer their thorny social issues served lite and with a side order of ham, an opportunity to shed happy tears and enjoy a guilt-free drive home to the (let us hope, legal) baby sitter.

“Under the Same Moon” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has bad white people, hard-working brown people and morally ambivalent people of mixed race.  (Emphasis mine.)

So here we have a movie that is such obvious propaganda that even people who agree with the message are offended by it, and this is the movie our local middle school chooses to show the 11, 12 and 13 year olds who are taking Spanish.

The fact that it’s being taught in a Spanish class is important.  Theoretically, if it was being taught in a Social Studies class, it would be part of a discussion about illegal immigration, national sovereignty, secure borders, social policy, etc.  (I say “theoretically” because, in American schools today, it’s just as likely to be used as a stirring battle cry to man the barricades against the INS agents).  In Spanish class, however, the kids just take it as it comes, all the while identifying with the plucky little boy separated from his mother only by America’s cruel laws.  The only bow to addressing the issue was a question, “What do you think of illegal immigration?” which the kids had to answer in their beginner Spanish.  My daughter, bless her heart, replied, “I think it’s a bad idea.”

The fact is that, whether the issue is illegal immigration, gay rights, or national security, there are always going to be people in a minority situation who do not benefit from the legal status quo and who are, in fact, hurt by it.  I’d be willing to bet that most (although certainly not all) illegal immigrants who come here are decent, hard-working people, who truly want to make a better life for themselves and their families.  Their sad stories, though, don’t change the fact that, collectively, their presence here is damaging to America’s well-being, nor do they change the fact that there is nothing morally wrong or unjust about a country protecting its borders, preserving its national sovereignty, and enforcing its laws.

The Left’s appeal to emotions — especially with kids as the symbol and the target — is what happens when you have a perpetually moving moral touchstone.  I’m reading Paul Johnson’s masterful A History of the Jews right now, and found interesting his discussion about the Jewish belief in a single all-powerful God who articulates huge moral precepts (and a bunch of very specific contractual rules), as opposed to the Pagan gods, who were completely random.  They were not fixed in name, location, principles, or anything.  Morality, such as it was, was always decided by the whim of the moment of the God of the moment.  There were rules, but there was no justice, at least as we understand it.

The same holds true with Leftist political positions, which emanate from feelings, not from fixed principles.  Whoever feels most strongly wins.  Sometimes those strong feelings march with morality, justice, common sense, and societal needs; and sometimes they don’t.  But they’re so seldom grounded in anything more than “I feel your pain.”  (Incidentally, I’m not arguing that beliefs grounded in traditional Judeo-Christian principles can’t and shouldn’t change.  The Jews themselves are a perfect example of moral and doctrinal development over the centuries.  I’m just arguing for fixed points other than “I feel your pain,” at least when we’re contemplating remaking society.)

Emotional angst is an especially good propaganda tool for young people.  Pre-teens and early teens live in a flurry of emotions anyway.  They are reasonable creatures, but that’s not their first response to any situation.  It takes work, patience, information and intelligence to create a fact-based, reasoned argument that will be comprehensible to a very young adult.  On the other hand, pathetic pictures of puppies, big-eyed kids and bad guys are instant winners for the younger set.  I hope that Scott Brown’s victory, which resulted from independent Americans really seeing the Left for the first time, marks a culture shift that has Americans more vigilant about the creeping Leftism, not in D.C., but in every school in America.

(I should add here that I acquit my children’s school of intentionally using this film as propaganda qua propaganda.  For these people, imbued in a Leftist world view, this movie is as American as Superman insofar as it has clearly delineated and, to them, entirely appropriately drawn good guys and bad guys.)

The conservative internet is appropriately riled by a video of New Jersey public school children singing a song to the Obama:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lyrics
========
Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama
He said that all must lend a hand [?]
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be clear today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama
He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama
He said Red, Yellow, Black or White
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama
Yes
Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama

For people raised in a democracy, and raised on songs about “the land of the free,” seeing a Dear Leader song is deeply, deeply disturbing.  Democracies are not supposed to celebrate individuals in that way, since the worship of an individual is one of the first steps in the march to a statist system.  (It’s funny, when you think about, but “statist” systems are invariably focused on demagogues, rather than the state itself.)

That we are seeing these videos and are able to be so incensed about them is actually a good thing.  The misuse of public schools and the indoctrination of children have always been part of the Democratic/Progressive playbook.  The problem for ordinary Americans is that they didn’t see it.  Thanks to the internet, however, and thanks to the increased confidence Leftists feel now that one of their own is the White House, the rock has been lifted and a spotlight is shining on all of the Left’s nasty little secrets.  Americans no longer drift along unaware of what’s going on.  It’s in their faces and, I suspect, critical masses of them will resent and resist.

Among others blogging on this subject are:

Michelle Malkin

Pierre LeGrand

Lorie Byrd

One of the hallmarks of a modern totalitarian government is stagecraft.  Leni Riefenstahl made a whole movie dedicated to glorifying a totalitarian government’s meticulously staged extravaganza.  As a child in the 1960s and 1970s, I vividly remember footage of marches in the Soviet Union, with soldiers in perfect goosestep order.  China and North Korea are also much given to elaborate shows and parades, none of which originate with the people, and all of which are aimed at demonstrating the people’s alleged love for their leaders (and for the latter’s policies).

Would you be surprised to learn that Obama’s White House is carefully inching in that direction?  Obama is not doing anything as blatant as mass rallies or inhumanly perfect parades, of course.  In a way, he’s doing something much worse, which is co-opting a fundamentally American democratic institution and, without letting people see, turning it into a carefully staged political show.

The latest example of this propaganda impulse is the President’s “townhall” regarding healthcare.  Americans think of a townhall as a free exchange between a political leader and “ordinary” people.  We’ve learned over the last few years that audience members are more likely than not to be friendly to the candidate or president than not, but we believe that the questions are freely asked and unknown to the politician.  Obama’s changing this game and, worse, hiding that fact from the public.  His upcoming townhall, during which he plans to “sell” his government-controlled health care plan he will take only pre-scripted questions.  This is entirely new and it’s bad — so bad that even Helen Thomas, the liberal doyenne of the White House press corps and the one who never met a Republican she liked, is up in arms.

Obama’s reluctance to expose himself to unscripted moments isn’t surprising, of course.  It was when he went off script that he revealed his belief that the federal government’s purpose is to redistribute wealth.  And even when he’s not redefining the American dream to bring it closer in line with the Soviet dream, his teleprompter-free moments reveal him to be a man of few words, most of which are “uh.”

Thanks to an outraged press corp and the blogosphere, Americans are now learning about the perversion of the traditional townhall concept.  The new administration’s control over content, however, is even worse than staging completely fake question-and-answer sessions with “ordinary” members of the public.  In a move that more closely aligns it with North Korea than with North America, the Obama administration is forcing people to listen to his message, whether they want to or not.  This is the antithesis of the marketplace of ideas.

I have it on very good authority (an employee at US embassy in a major NATO country) that this year, in order to celebrate America’s (not Obama’s, but America’s) Independence day, all embassies have been ordered to install a big screen TV in a prominent location in order to play an endlessly looped Hillary Clinton speech for the duration of the festivities.

My employee contact notes that, at his particular embassy, people are appalled by this requirement.  They see it as “tacky.”  I see it as profoundly un-American.  Indeed, I can think of only two precedents for this kind of thing.  One is found in George Orwell’s 1984. In that book, as you may recall, all party members have in their living quarters TVs that may never go off and that sprout endless party propaganda (not to mention have cameras that watch everyone perpetually).

And lest any readers think to themselves “well, 1984 is just fiction,” think of North Korea’s struggles to ensure that its citizens hear only government-approved propaganda:

Until the mid-1990s, it didn’t make sense to broadcast to North Korea. Authorities since the 1960s had dealt with the “foreign broadcast problem”, which created so much trouble for other communist regimes, by outlawing all radios with free tuning. Radios sold in North Korea had fixed tuning and thus could receive only three or four official channels.

If North Korean citizens purchased a radio in one of the country’s hard-currency shops, which accepted foreign cash and had a wider variety of items, or when overseas, it had to be submitted to police where technicians would “fix” (disable) it, making sure its owners could only listen to ideologically wholesome programs about the deeds of their Dear Leader – Kim Jong-il.

This ban was enforced with remarkable efficiency. It was largely entrusted to the heads of the “people’s groups” or inminban, to which all North Koreans belong. Typically, such group consists of 30 to 50 families living in the same block, and is headed by an official. These low-level officials were required to regularly check all radios in their neighborhoods, making sure that they could not be used to listen to foreign or, more likely, South Korean broadcasts.

The punishment could be harsh. One official said in the 1980s she discovered that a family in the neighborhood under her supervision had a radio that could tune into foreign broadcasts. She duly reported her discovery, and the family was immediately exiled to the countryside.

Ironically, even as that situation has improved slightly in North Korea, Obama’s working on putting it into effect in North America.

I recognize, of course, that an endless loop of Hillary blathering away in the background is not the same as the total content control in either Orwell’s fictional Oceania or Kim Jong Il’s horribly real North Korea.  Nevertheless, the impulse is always the same:  force people to listen to a government message without the opportunity either to avoid the message or to hear alternatives.

Obama’s impulses are totalitarian in nature.  In a fight, although he affects an Olympian detachment, laboring always to position himself in the middle, the straw men he places on either side of himself ensure that his Solomonic cogitations always bring him down on the side of the antidemocratic group, be that Hamas, Chavez, Saudi Arabia, Ahmadinejad, or the American people’s right to tune out from government controlled propaganda.  And on the home front, true to these totalitarian impulses, Obama and his team will constantly search for ways to make his the only voice the American people can hear.

The always interesting, sometimes controversial Ymarsakar, who blogs at Sake White, has contributed another post for your consideration.  In it, he tackles using psychology to disarm us, or to help us understand and combat our enemies.

Since Y didn’t provide a little intro, and because it’s a long post, I’m going to take a stab at an intro, because I think he makes an extraordinarily important point, and one that few people understanding.  Here goes:

Both the entirely of the Left and a large number of decent people in America assume that empathy equals goodness and kindness.  In fact, empathy is a huge weapon in the narcissist’s, psychopath’s, or sociopath’s arsenal.  That he can understand and sense your feelings means that he can manipulate them, either for the pleasure of your pain, or to maneuver you into committing an act in which you normally would not engage (such as killing your Jewish neighbors).  This difference between good and evil isn’t empathy, it’s morality and decency.  The most effective bad guy is highly empathic, but he uses this skill to further his own selfish, and often evil, goals.  Did I get that right, Y?

***************************

I recently read Neo-neocon’s biographical post “Therapists and liberalism”. It sparked an interesting subject matter for me, but not in the sense that she intended it.

In her post she describes the (fake) liberal bias of most therapists in her profession, as viewed from herself and her voyage in life.

So I’ve been thinking about what it is that accounts for the overwhelming liberality of therapists. It’s true, of course, that those in the social sciences, literature, and the arts generally tend to be of the liberal persuasion more often than those in the hard sciences or business; and therapy–despite assertions to the contrary–resembles an art far more than a science, I’m afraid. (It is also a business, but some therapists are in a certain amount of denial about that fact.)

In addition, there are elements within the training and belief system of most therapists that reinforce liberalism of students already predisposed to it anyway. In general, therapists–particularly those who specialize in treating individuals through talk therapy–are taught that they cannot be effective with clients if they start off with a judgmental approach. So they learn to exercise a certain suspension of judgment, a tolerance that even amounts at times to moral relativism, in order to gain the trust of clients and be able to work effectively with them.

I did not come to psychology or therapy from Neo’s perspective. She, as I have often stated, learned the material to directly help others. I learned the material to directly harm others. Technically, of course, it is more intricate than that, integrating civilian and peace time applications with the justice and expedience of war, but in summary you can look at it in the fashion that I have described.

Thus, it may be safe to say that I am not a Democrat and that I do not ascribe to certain fake liberal, Leftist, or Democrat party platforms. I am not their enemy merely because they seek to heal and I seek to harm. Instead, I am their enemy because the more I learned about the destructive potential of human psychology and how it could be used to manipulate and harm human beings, the more I saw the Democrat party using the exact methods, methodologies, and techniques I had been studying and attempting to grasp and master.

I am their enemy because, just as fake liberals are brought up in a bubble and taught that self-esteem, self-perception, and talk are the kings of conflict resolution, I was brought up under the Aegis of 9/11, Al Qaeda, Nick Berg’s execution, and the Democrat practices of treason, guile, deception, and gross manipulation of the Lives of Others. Just as therapists are liberal because they believe in talk and in resolving the fundamental conflicts of others with sweet reason and passive observation, so am I a believer in resolution through Superior Firepower and the correction of fundamental conflicts through primordial struggle and absolute submission.

Most psychologists never witness what I have witnessed, because few were looking in the same place, at the same time, as I was. And they would not see what I saw, even if they had been told where to look. Psychiatry deals with certain prescribed methods concerning the human mind, heart, and behavior. Whether the standards are rigid or (ostensibly) flexible, all deal primarily with understanding human behavior so as to render it less harmful, less self-destructive, or less personally stressful. That is not the derivation of psychology that I studied. The specific derivation of psychology I learned contained numerous subjects but most notably it was:

1. How to manipulate individuals or groups of individuals to commit suicide, murder, theft, or numerous kinds of military/ideological actions.

2. How to use others’ emotions in order to inculcate specific and primeval reactions so as to bypass rationality or wise due consideration on the part of the subject in question.

3. How to lie and what advantages vs disadvantages dishonesty provides.

4. The difference between the virtues of honesty and the vice of lying.

5. How to cause more destruction with propaganda than has been accomplished with nuclear weapons.

6. And many many more.

As you can see, there are particular differences between my kind of psychology and the kind of therapy as practiced in the US. Particular in the sense of motivations, if not actual methodologies. For example, much of psychological warfare or psychological profiling of a target for future elimination utilizes the same things as Democrat psychologists utilize. Here’s Neo again:

It isn’t always easy to do this, because every person we meet triggers some reaction in us. Therapists try to understand these reactions and be aware of them in themselves (traditionally, these reactions are called “counter-transference”), and to block expressing them in a way that would hinder the therapeutic relationship. Imposing the therapist’s own ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong in the moral sense can be too directive and disruptive, and could easily trigger resistance to therapy in the client. Besides, the task of therapy is not usually seen as guidance towards some objective standard of “right” behavior; it’s seen as guidance towards self-actualization and self-expression.

For example, a propagandist who intends to manipulate people to achieve a goal (most of the time destructive of one nature or another) must be aware that every reaction the propagandist has towards the subject must be carefully purified, filtered, and removed. It does not matter whether you, the propagandist, feel contempt for the subject or not. All that matters is the work.

The reason why propagandists block themselves from expressing their true views is both because it would hinder their ability to achieve their goal and it would disrupt relationships with the subject.  Thus, Democrats cannot let blacks know the contemptuous racism they really hold towards blacks and minorities. It would also overreach in the sense that the mask would fall off and the subject could become aware of and interrupt the propagandist’s efforts at manipulation.

Just as the task of therapy is not usually seen as a guidance towards some objective standard of “right” behavior, propaganda (a specific kind of operation in psychological warfare) also is not intended to make people do things “correctly” or by a moral code. Thus as an example, the Left’s intentions with prosecuting the Haditha Marines were not to reduce atrocities or to reinforce the rule of law.  Instead the entire operation was designed to fulfill certain propaganda goals relating to the United States war effort. This had nothing to do with whether the Haditha Marines shot correctly or incorrectly, except when it came to choosing which viewpoint would most hurt the US war effort. Morality becomes a weapon in the hands of the propagandist, instead of the propagandist becoming a tool or servant of morality.

Let me clarify some aspects here for certain situations that may remain unclear. As professionals, therapists should avoid the folly of dictating, lecturing, and guiding their patients to a path that the therapists themselves believe is the “Right and True” path, since the therapist’s ideas of “right” or “true” may damage the patient.  The propagandist, however, can guide his subject to a cause that the propagandist knows will destroy the subject, all the while saying “this will be the right path for you.”  The propagandist, after all, is interested in the ultimate societal result, not the subject’s well-being.

Therapists can certainly cause harm or produce unfruitful sessions. But propagandists produce negative results on purpose, at least negative from our perspectives and the perspective of the subject. From the perspective of the propagandist, it was very positive that Americans were convinced that Vietnam was a mistake. Did the propagandist believe that Vietnam was a mistake? Not necessarily. Did Vietnamese Communists truly believe that their enemy’s lives would be better without America?  Not necessarily. propagandists don’t need to believe something to be able to convince you that it is true.

The propagandist, similar to the malignant narcissist, utilizes deception and emotional manipulation, amongst other tools, to make you walk yourself over the cliff.  Once you’ve accomplished this self-destructive task, the propagandist will look over the cliff at your falling body and he will have a proud smile on his face. This isn’t because he thought it was the “correct path” for you to go there. Instead, it’s because he knew you thought it was the correct path, and because he knew it wasn’t. This is different from therapeutic mistakes or transference.

Now that we have covered the particular differences between therapy and propaganda, we can go on to Neo’s more specific and concrete details:

So therapists are specifically taught to practice non-judgmental openmindedness, as well as to exercise the obviously necessary skill of putting themselves imaginatively into the heart and mind of another person. This emphasis on empathy further extends the idea of openminded and nonjudgmental acceptance of the other person’s point of view.

One particular subject here concerns empathy. Many people believe, I dare say, that sociopaths or sadists lack empathy: that the reason they can hurt others is because they don’t feel the pain of others. I don’t believe that is exactly correct. Empathy does not make you a good person guaranteed nor does it make you more “sensitive” in the meaning of the Democrat propaganda messages we see so often. In fact, narcissists, sociopaths, serial killers, and sadists have very highly defined empathic abilities and sensitivities.

Now, obviously, this may seem a bit counter-intuitive. But it is only counter-intuitive if you see things as if you, a healthy socialized person, were transplanted into a serial killer’s mind. But a serial killer’s mind is not that of a healthy socialized member of society. These killers understand that they cause pain, but that’s their goal.  Faced with two approaches to a situation, the sadist will choose the methods that causes the most fear and panic.  The sadist, of course, can do this only if he has a twisted empathy, and can understand what his prospective victim will feel.

This explains why it is that, so often, serial killers are later described as “good neighbors.” If the serial killer lacked empathy, he would not know how to act in a way that would placate his neighbors.  This, just as he understands someone’s fear and pain perception, so too does he understand how to behave so that people trust him.

The same applies to narcissists and malignant narcissists. For all that they don’t particularly care about your wants and needs, that are actually extraordinarily sensitive to others’ emotions.  That’s how they can so easily manipulate you. And that’s why they are so much in need of attention and of adulation. They can’t feed off others’ approval if they aren’t sensitive to their emotions.  Bill Clinton could control a crowd only because he understand the individual crowd member’s feelings.

It is only the byproduct of Leftist illusion which convinces people that, simply because somebody has “empathy” or is able to “feel your pain,” this means that understanding is going to cause peace on earth or some other Leftist claptrap mantra. The truth is that it isn’t so. If a narcissist or serial killer does see you as a human being, but just as some meat to be butchered, tenderized, and cooked for their gustatory pleasure, then it doesn’t matter if the bad guy can “feel your pain.” Indeed, it helps him carry out his objective if he can feel your pain.

Thus, psychological warfare and therapy both utilize empathy, but not necessarily for the same end goal. And it certainly doesn’t reinforce the Leftist mantra that peace on earth will be had through “understanding eachother’s differences.” They always keep on telling us that war is a result of “misunderstandings” or of one group exploiting the resources of another group and that so long as you “understand” this fact, you can stop the exploitation. Obviously, you don’t want the Left to be your sole protection against killers, sadists, terrorists, and cultists.

And now back to Neo:

In addition, in order to do the work they do, therapists have to maintain certain general beliefs. They need to maintain an attitude of hopefulness about the human condition, an ability to believe that there is good in almost everyone and that it is not so hard to create the proper conditions to activate that goodness. Once again, it’s not the attitude itself that is at fault, or its application to the therapeutic relationship; it’s the overgeneralizing that causes problems. Sometimes people are too far gone to be helped by such an approach; life, and the world, does not mimic the conditions of the therapeutic hour.

Depending on the school of therapy, some therapists (so-called “insight therapists,” for example) believe that human behavior and feelings can be understood, and, once understood, can be changed for the better by dint of that understanding. So “understanding” can be elevated to much more than an exercise in intellectual curiosity–it is sometimes considered a solution in and of itself, even to something as multifaceted and political as terrorism.

It is an interesting description dear Neo has provided us. For example, much of what she has written about therapists here concerning their general beliefs would also apply to propaganda agents and operators. For example, therapists must maintain an attitude of hopefulness about the human condition and just so propagandists also have to maintain an attitude of hopefulness about the human condition. Therapists believe that the human nature is amenable to changes in behavior through therapy. Propagandists strongly believe that human nature is amenable to a modification of its behaviors through propaganda. Therapists believe that with enough analysis, talk, and sessions they can “activate” the “proper conditions.” Propagandists also believe that with enough propaganda operations that certain “proper conditions” can also be activated.

The difference, as you may have already guessed by now, is that propagandists are hopeful that human nature will remain consistent so that they will be able to reliably manipulate human fears and hopes. Propagandists believe human nature is amenable to manipulation by changes in behaviors, beliefs, and emotions. Propagandists believe that with enough ground work, you can activate the proper conditions to make a complete zombie out of an individual or collective group of individuals.

An obvious question at this point in time may be, “Well, if propaganda is so bad, aren’t you worried that you will slip into worse and worse moral slides by studying it?”

My answer is, perhaps, very simple and to the point: just because Nick Berg got his throat slowly sawed off does not mean I must remain ignorant of the exact anatomical failure induced in the human body by Zarqawi’s knife so that when faced with another similar situation, they will always be the ones doing it and I will always be the one that had it done upon.  In other words, learning the skills doesn’t mean I have to practice them.  It does mean I can prevent myself from becoming a victim.

For those familiar with the philosophy behind armaments, you may have already reached the conclusion that weapons are tools and tools are neither inherently evil nor intrinsically good. They do what they do based upon the skill and intention of the user, along with a good dose of moral luck. This is no more different for propaganda or psychological warfare than it is for the fission bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just because the Russians wanted to use it on Japan to carve up another piece of territory for Global Communism, does not mean their use would have been moral on the basis that our use of it was ethical.

This concludes the subject matter which I most wanted to address. As for secondary issues, you may look upon the key levers used to manipulate people. I will give you two levers, the strongest two in my view: Fear and Hope.

Some of you may wonder if, by “fear,” I refer to Bush’s alleged “fear mongering.”  I’m don’t.  Instead, I’m talking about a very specific mechanism for creating fear. For example, people will believe what they fear to be true. Thus, Neo got scammed by the “desert tire racket” based upon the fear that her tires will explode in the middle of the desert, thus stranding her and causing her death by dehydration. She didn’t know that it was true. She only feared the possibility of the consequence being true. That was enough to modify her behavior so as to be conned.

This type of fear is natural and part of human instincts. After all, whenever humanity was faced with the possibility of a calamity, we could use our brains to think up solutions to this “future calamity.” Some of those solutions worked, some didn’t. Inevitably, though, this resulted in more humans surviving rather than less, simply because humans had an idea of the “future” and could think obsessively over potential disasters and pitfalls and how to avoid them. This is why the human mind dwells more on negative experiences than positive experiences. The positives are not something we need to think about for survival. The negatives? Whole different story. That’s why the fear of possible bad events is one of the most powerful levers that can be used to manipulate a person’s beliefs or emotions — it bypasses most “rationality” through knee jerk survival instincts. You can’t beat survival instincts, people; that’s some strong stuff.

Now, the other thing is Hope. What is this Hope? It is hope that something is true. People believe things to be true because they want them to be true; or, in other words, because they “hope” they are true. False hope, real hope, it doesn’t matter. People will believe, because the alternative is to believe what they fear to be true. And that’s not a good thing to dwell on.

With these definitions in mind, here’s a short description of the Leftist propaganda campaign in America and its ultimate results: People were convinced that everything they feared about Bush’s power grabs was true. People were convinced that everything they hoped about Al Qaeda’s weaknesses, was true. Thus, people wished that Saddam and AQ did not have connections, because it was safer to believe AQ was isolated than to believe AQ had the help of other nation states. People feared that Bush was endangering them personally by taking on AQ and Saddam, so they believed Bush was making things up with connections in the absence of any concrete evidence. People were convinced that Obama had the right stuff to lead, because they hoped it was true in light of all that they feared and knew to be true. Or thought they knew to be true.

Of course, in reality, things are much more complex, just as the human mind is a much more complex place than two sentences or even 200 pages of text could adequately describe in all its variations. But on the fundamentals, I believe this has adequately covered the subject, for now.

For a full read of Neo’s article, click here. And consider the many many ways of Obama and our nation in crisis and Manufactured Emergency Decree mode.

We often complain here about the futility of arguing with someone who gets information and opinion only from the liberal media.  Thomas Sowell attacks the same problem from the perspective of a parent trying to get through to a child whose entire education has been spent in the liberal school system.  Rather than trying to attack one issue at a time, only to have propaganda spouted at you, Sowell offers this practical advice:

Another approach might be to respond to the dogmatic certainty of some young person, perhaps your own offspring, by asking: “Have you ever read a single book on the other side of that issue?”

Chances are, after years of being “educated,” even at some of the highest-priced schools and colleges, they have not.

When the inevitable answer to your question is “No,” you can simply point out how illogical it is to be so certain about anything when you have heard only one side of the story—no matter how often you have heard that one side repeated.

Would it make sense for a jury to reach a verdict after having heard only the prosecution’s case, or only the defense attorney’s case, but not both?

There is no need to argue the specifics of the particular issue that has come up. You can tell your overconfident young student that you will be happy to discuss that particular issue after he or she has taken the elementary step of reading something by somebody on the other side.

Elementary as it may seem that we should hear both sides of an issue before making up our minds, that is seldom what happens on politically correct issues today in our schools and colleges. The biggest argument of the Left is that there is no argument—whether the issue is global warming, “open space” laws, or whatever.

Some students may even imagine that they have already heard the other side because their teachers may have given them their version of other people’s arguments or motives.

But a jury would never be impressed by having the prosecution tell them what the defendant’s defense is. They would want to hear the defense attorney present that case.

Yet most students who have read and heard repeatedly about the catastrophes awaiting us unless we try to stop “global warming” have never read a book, an article, or even a single word by any of the hundreds of climate scientists, in countries around the world, who have expressed opposition to that view.

These students may have been shown Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth in school, but are very unlikely to have been shown the British Channel 4 television special, The Great Global Warming Swindle.