Monday, June 30, 2008

The War for your Mind

Someone somewhere is trying to control your mind.

They sit in cubicles or run agencies. They work for the government, the private sector, the church.

Buy this and people will love you. You'll only be cool if you drive this car. Support the troops... (and the way to do that of course is not to question us or our policies). You're only Christian if you believe exactly what I do... and that will include who you vote for.

See, if they can get you to think the right way, you'll buy their stuff. It doesn't matter if the stuff is deodorant or torture.

How about dividing the country? Pitting one group against another. The latest logic bomb I've seen launched pits blacks against whites. It's an incredibly subtle and seductive bomb.

I was listening to CSPAN and Rep. King (IA) was on. A caller congratulated Iowans about their restraint from not looting during the flooding... This bomb was originated on the right - Rush was launching the same thing....

It's so beautiful because it takes two natural disasters in our recent history, the flooding in the Midwest vs. Katrina, and holds them up for comparison. We remember Katrina and the images burned into our mind... Now we contrast that to the flooding in Iowa. Here's the subtle message.

Black people loot (click on the pictures to read the comments if you can't see them clearly)








White people 'find'.










This bomb is very effective. See, in New Orleans where there are a lot of black people - disasters result in looting. In Iowa where the white people live - people work
together to overcome hardship.

So how do we diffuse this bomb?

It's not too hard. We simply have to think.

Ok, we have to think critically.

Follow this.... flood and hurricanes are very different disasters so if we think critically about this, the comparison starts to fall apart.

Floods - the water rises along a river. People can flee effectively. Even the poorest person can walk a mile away from a river to avoid the rising waters. It's harder to move a house out of the way.

Hurricanes aren't so easy to dodge.


When a hurricane comes to town, it's swath is hundreds of miles long. Oh yeah, and it moves.

So even if I move a mile away from the river,
that thing is going to catch me.

In New Orleans thousands of people were too poor to evacuate. It wasn't a matter of not wanting to leave - they were not able to get away.

We forget over 1700 American's died in that disaster.

They couldn't get out of the way. Once
trapped, there was such a SNAFU that people couldn't get clean water to drink. People couldn't get food. And chaos set in after two, three, four, five days passed while no relief came.

People fleeing across the Danziger Bridge were shot by police. Literally. People fleeing New Orleans trying to cross a bridge were shot and some killed by police.

And now someone has the balls to suggest Katrina and Iowa flooding are the same thing?

There is a war for your mind.







Think.

1 comment:

s.w. said...

And on and on and on. "Torture is o.k. if it keeps the terrorists from committing a terrorist act in our country..."
We are so accepting of anything the administration tells us, and they don't tell us much anyhow, that is truthful!
madmudmom