This afternoon something happened in this forum, which has been on my mind ever since.
The traces of the incident have been (rightly) removed by the mods and I don't want to say anything which refers in detail to the deleted posts in question – so I will try to keep it general whilst conveying the issue I want to raise.
* * *
Somebody posted a reference to a video that touched on a topic which has been very close to my heart recently and which I feel quite emotional about.
At the same time the same video called for violence in response to this emotive issue – something I would normally never, ever condone.
And yet, because I feel so passionate and supportive of the emotive issue, all I could see was what I AGREED with and at the same time I simply ignored (or went along with) the things I totally DISAGREE with …
I felt so convinced about it that I not only agreed with the one who had posted the reference, but went as far as putting up the offensive video MYSELF!!
I have apologised and I have mulled the ensuing criticism and responses over ever since.
* * *
It occurs to me that this is a good example of how propaganda works: it captures the feelings and emotions of its audience and couples it with a suggestion or idea which may not have occurred to the audience initially.
Then, by association, the two (feeling and idea) become intertwined and – before we know it – we adopt a belief or a suggestion, which wasn't ours to start with!
I feel very humbled, because I had believed that I was beyond such mind games.
Clearly I am not ...
Spinning this further ... if we had no 'monsters' and all looked for the shared humanity in our enemies instead, would this be the end of wars and conflict?? (Utopian, I know, but would this be the ultimate consequence?)
Theoretically. In practice, unfortunately, it cannot work. Have you heard of Dunbar's number? Basically, it's a theory that any one person is only capable of caring for a finite amount of people before they become indifferent or even hostile. Usually, this number is suggested to be 150.
So, most people, including me, are only capable of caring for this sort of 'tribe', and anyone outside of it is not worth thinking about. On the basis of this, it is very easy to stereotype people of other 'tribes' to make them easier for us to process.
The strength of this age of instant communication is that it allows us to hear the other side's perspective, and expand our horizons. But you have to be willing to fight your baser insticts.
Fighting baser instincts also happens to be the foundation for all major world religions, and funnily enough, it leads to civilisation.
What makes manipulation so easy is of my mind nature of humans. We are the most as "heard animals". We want to live in heard as community with others and please others by our behaviour as well we want that heard has leader. Leader or party of leaders decide behalf of us what is right way to think and behave. I made before work also in political matters and learnt a lot how leaders behave and how they keep they leadership.
Most of people were as sheeps whose had one strong ram.
From Occupied Palestine:
We have suffered too much for too long. We will not accept apartheid masked as peace. We will settle for no less than our freedom.
''clever and persistent propaganda can make Heaven look like Hell and Hell like Heaven'' - adolf hitler
So, why we still read newspapers, watch TV and so on? The same nazis who were brought from germany to the US by a CIA-operation called; ''operation paperclip'' (http://www.operationpaperclip.info/)
These same nazi-scientists have worked along with american scientists and CIA to build a new system in which they can bring out a deception so great that it can make a person believe what it tells, and to affect the person's emotions. This ended up to be the TV - television or to sum it all up: MK-ultra.
Today, the television provokes people to support wars, to hate on a group being demonized, today its the muslims, before it were the communists, in world war 2 it were the japanese and the germans and tommorow it might be someone else.
When you see pictures coming up in newspaper or television with for example dead bodies and the media tells that these people were killed by taliban soldiers, think twice.
Today we are facing a so horrific deception that in no doubt its best to refrain from support any conlfict and to lay down. We cant know what happens in syria or anywhere else. There is more going on there btw.
Be a good muslim or christian - dont fall in the trap and dont be decieved by the masses. the only thing we can do now is pray and pull yourself out of the matrix and the one within it. Pray to Allah and ask HIM to keep you on the straight path and that HE may give you the ability to '''see''.
Last edited by Jedi_Mindset; 10-14-2012 at 12:08 PM.
http://www.youtube.com/user/robinb4life?feature=mhee
I will not calm down until I will put one cheek of a tyrant on the ground and the other under my feet, and for the poor and weak, I will put my cheek on the ground. - Umar ibn khattab(Ra)
Be a good Muslim or Christian - don't fall in the trap and don't be deceived by the masses. the only thing we can do now is pray and pull yourself out of the matrix and the one within it. Pray to Allah and ask HIM to keep you on the straight path and that HE may give you the ability to '''see''.
I like that, Jedi.
We are called to look first and foremost to God's teachings and instructions to us.
As soon as we are incited to hatred and aggressions, we should know that that's of human making and not from God!
Sis Glo asked one heck of an important question..........
"how do we protect ourselves from it?"
Gosh, it really makes you think don't it?
I'm a natural skeptic... yeah yeah, I know you're all rolling your eyes at that comment thinkin' "but Scimi, you make conspiracy films" ask yourselves, does he present "theory" or the "facts" after they present themselves???
I learnt one thing. You will never be convinced, unless the idea propagated is convincing enough. The trouble is, today, anything can look convincing. As someone who is learning special effects, I find it amazing how easy it is to fool people. And I have sworn to my self that I will never be one to mislead others. If I am not convinced, I am not going to push it out there.
But what about me then? What does it take to convince me? ...........
I aint fooled by much, I tell ya. I have to look after a group full of brothers and sisters aged between 15 and 26, and I have to tell ya, some of the members are very easily led by propaganda. And so, I have to remain vigilant in bringing them back to earth. Truth be told, it's taken it's toll on me. Getting pains in the chest sometimes from it. I don't expect anyone to understand what I am saying. I doubt any of you have been in this position I find myself in - leading the lambs group. We started something special over 15 months ago now, we've had a lot of fun, laughter, pain, heartache, and loss... and it's really worn us all down. And in this fragile state, we've all been vulnerable at times... all of us. I've had to burden that responsibility for the whole group. To keep them focused on deen - and reminding them, has helped to keep me focused too. It's not easy. It's bloody effing hard at times, especially when you have members ranting off about cannibals eating Muslims and what not (yep, more propaganda) in the midst of an important topic (things like this happen often, and it throws the whole group into disarray.
I don't really know what I'm trying to say.
(wipes tear)
I've never really been good with people. I'm harsh, coarse and been told I have a condescending air about me. I don;t try to be like that on purpose, I swear it. I just am that way some times.
because I know how easily people are fooled into following a false dichotomy, and I can't stand it.
No one is perfect... I always tell the group members this, and it serves to remind me also. Nobody is perfect. So before you go getting convinced about a certain propagation - ask yourself - "what right do I have to form such a strong opinion about anything? I don't have all the answers, and neither do these muppets who are selling me this story... if I believe them - what will it turn me into? Am I that fickle? That naive? that i fall for the "hype" ???
NO
Remain skeptical. Believe only half of what your eyes see, and even less of what you hear, because everyone in the effing world has some agenda or another. Propaganda... if only it was propa-ghandi instead. Heck it;s a bad pun, but it fits.
Sorry, I am making no sense here. I almost erased everything I wrote just now, but for once, I'll just let you see what goes on in my own troubled mind, just this once.
But what is it really about? It is the dehumanization of another people. But these people are mostly just like yourself.
You are exactly correct. Propaganda is always wrong because it is a concoction of lies and half-truths intended to manipulate a group of people to hate another group of people in order to commit atrocities against them. These other people are portrayed as the epitome of evil and as merely devils in human skin to be destroyed. In the end the soldiers who commit these atrocities often come to see the 'enemy' as just normal people and the images of what they did and saw haunt them for the rest of their lives.
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ask yourselves, does he present "theory" or the "facts" after they present themselves??? 
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