Mark Twain once said, “History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes.”
With all due respect to Mr. Twain, sometimes it DOES repeat itself. Especially when it comes to lies the government tells.

My wife and I travel a lot around the country. We mostly stay at motels. It's at these temporary stop-overs that I turn on the TV, something that I haven't done for years at home. My usual refrain is; "Since it's paid for we will use it". It was at a recent stop-over that something caught my eye. I've oft wondered how it is that people are so susceptible to mind control. How it is that so many seem to have lost any semblance of critical thinking. And then I saw it.

While surfing for something to fill background noise I happened upon Fox News so I left it on for a few minutes. I can't remember exactly what the talking head was bleating about but I did take notice of the background imagery that accompanied the commentator. I saw subtle thought steering using symbolism and subliminal perceptive inferences. The commentator's words were enhanced by the imagery, a double splash of propaganda, verbally and visually, engaging both the conscious and subconscious mind.

We all know how the propaganda is catapulted. Movies, newspapers, radio, books, etc. It starts at a very young age and continues throughout our lives. I am now convinced that the television is the main mode of brainwashing, both in words and imagery, and I also suspect, by audio sensory.

Television has created the boobus americanus' modern reality. Thanks Obama. It's most noticeable if one doesn't watch TV at all, but if one were to quit watching for a few months and then turn it back on to the news it should pop out like a jack-in-the-box.

Then watch the commercials to see who is funding the propaganda.

How is this insidiousness negated? Shut the damn thing off.

What is true and what is false? Do we even know anymore? Our reality is being formed right before our eyes in the guise of propaganda. That screen display in your hand, on your desk, on your wall is stealing your mind. The monied class is forming a new reality. They want you to know that there are many things other than themselves that are the cause of the maladies that are beset upon you. Don't fall for it. It is on them.

Our language is being transformed, words are mutable, in flux with the political wind. Bend the words and bend the mind, Orwell understood such. Your mind is in play. It is under assault. Our history is being rewritten.

There are distractions everywhere. How quickly the flags changed from Ukraine to Rainbow, from Johnny Depp to Amber Heard, from demand destruction to empty food shelves. One catastrophe after another. It is meant to make the head swim.

It's 7:10 AM. I'm sitting at the desk staring out the window trying to prod the muse into something readable. It's funny how the muse works. Some of my best writing comes to me when I sit down an hour before the deadline and just let it flow. The stuff I ponder over and fidget with to perfection many times goes over like a lead balloon.

I seem pretty brain dead this morning. Probably because I've been doing brain dead things like gardening and landscaping all week. But there has been an idea rolling around my head like a boulder bouncing through a rock crusher. So here goes.

Is it collective amnesia? Have people forgotten the lie of WMD's? How about the democracy we brought to Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan? Do people think those countries are better off now than before we destroyed them? Are we so propagandized we've become blind? Sure seems so. The acceptance of absurdity seems systemic to me... down to and including today's time change. As usual, it may be that we're a dollar short and a day late ...but today we're also an hour early
(to give you an extra hour to shop after work)

NOTE:The title and much of the quoted text are from Jackson Browne's brilliant Before the Deluge

Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each other's hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

As we head into the abyss...

For far too long far too many of us have mostly ended up just going along with some of the worst acts against humanity, ever. Either in outright denial of reality or via superhuman feats of rationalization...or by being misled in one way or another, or by simple exhaustion, pummeled as we are by the constant torrent of media-borne propaganda.

This is what I wrote in 2017, about US propaganda and the Russian "hack". I described a Ukrainian connection back then, which may help some to understand our current circumstances. One prediction I made back then would be that we'd be in a war in Ukraine within a year. I was wrong. It took five years:

The okeydoke that Americans were supposed to get

Submitted by Bob In Portland on Sun, 04/02/2017 - 4:42pm

Media Manipulation

The failure of legacy media to inform and educate is clear to see. The goal of the media is to push desired narratives. Several events this week caused me to think in this direction... Ukraine, the Durham Report, and the freedom convoy among them.
Have we finally arrived at 1984's Newspeak?
Some Newspeak words include:
Thoughtcrime - Anti-Party thoughts
Facecrime - Occurs when the face reveals the existence of thoughtcrime (either lacking in anti-Party vigor, or expressing distaste for Party actions).
Goodthinkful - Describes a person who thinks just as the Party wishes.
Unperson - Someone the Party has vaporized; someone that no longer exists.(think Joe Rogan)