Monday, August 21, 2017

Media Uses Charlottesville Tragedy to Create Cult Atmosphere



Using tragedies to unite the public behind a great and glorious causes has been standard operating procedure for thousands of years; and it is much more common when the leading political establishment is unified in the control of a relatively small group of people, including monarchies or Oligarchies, which is what we have now. Not surprisingly, this has been taken to an extreme after the Charlottesville riots and crash killing an innocent protester.

The vast majority of the media has become obsessed with demanding that Donald Trump and many other politicians or pundits condemn white supremacy without necessarily doing anything to understand what causes it or how to prevent it!

I'm not going to condemn anyone because the entire political establishment media tells me to line up and condemn them without thinking.

I don't support white supremacism anymore than anyone else; however I become extremely skeptical when the entire media establishment seems to be repeating the same demand over and over implying that everyone should agree with this point without discussion. However, in all fairness, if it was accompanied by discussion of the root causes of hatred and the demand or request to condemn white supremacism was only targeting those that have expressed some degree of support for it, it might be far more reasonable.

One of the biggest problems with this demand is that lots of people that are lining up to condemn white supremacism are also opposed to social efforts to reduce inequality or to educate the public about how abandoned inner cities, early child abuse, and wars based on lies contribute to racial tensions and escalating violence. None of the Republicans and few if any of the Democrats that lined up to condemn the Neo-Nazis, KKK, or other white supremacists are overly concerned about how epidemic levels of pollution are dumped in poor neighborhoods, abandoned inner cities that provide little or no educational or economic opportunities, outsourcing that is designed to divide and rule among the working class, or wars based on lies that sacrifice veterans lured in by deceptive propaganda and civilians abroad that are killed in the crossfire, especially minorities, that contributes to racial tensions, including these riots.

There is an enormous amount of research showing how some of the leading causes of escalating violence starts with early child abuse, leading to escalating violence later in life, including bullying, hazing, domestic violence, murder and support for wars even when they're obviously based on lies and appeals to emotion. There's additional evidence indicating that additional contributing causes of violence include abandoned inner cities where the poor have little or no access to economic or educational opportunities, economic inequality, gambling, insurance fraud and many other things that impact the profits of major corporations.

However, there is little or no reporting on any of the biggest contributing causes to violence and racism in the traditional media since it is controlled almost entirely by multimillionaires and billionaires that profit from many of these contributing causes. I've pointed out how some alternative media outlets or library books that get much less attention show many of these things in numerous past articles, some listed below.

For one reason or another, many of the richest people that have been corrupting the political establishment are now lining up to oppose Donald Trump, claiming the high ground, or at least trying to; however there is little or no reason to believe they'll do much if anything to address the social problems that created this situation. Regardless of how we wound up in this situation, Donald Trump has enabled the vast majority of the political, media, and corporate establishments to claim the high ground in opposition to his absurd and irrational rhetoric that is inciting white supremacist rallies and violence.

They're also repeating the same tactic they used to convince us all that we should worry about the alleged hacking of the E-Mails of the DNC and John Podesta by Russia trying to tell the vast majority of the public that we should believe it without question, especially if we oppose Trump. However these E-Mails exposed what some of us that watched closely already knew, that the entire Democratic establishment and the corporate donors was overwhelmingly behind Hillary Clinton long before the voters had a chance to think things over, let alone vote.

Even if the Russians are involved in the hacking of the E-Mails or some other conflict of interest with the Trump administration, which is more likely, they couldn't have done as much to help Donald Trump get elected as the political and media establishment did by giving him an overwhelming amount of coverage and rigging the Democratic Primaries for the only candidate he could come close to beating in the General election.

Now the people that are responsible for his election, even though they come up with a lot of rhetoric about how they oppose him, are claiming to be the good guys, or "resistance," standing up to him; however their rhetoric is almost entirely anti-Trump and if the Democratic Party really did want to address the social problems creating racism they could have done so the last time they held control of the government. The reason they lost that control is because they refused to keep many of their promises then, and there is little or no reason to believe that they'll do so if we fall for the same scam again. Even the Republican Party is trying to take the high ground standing up to Donald Trump, by publicly condemning racism, although they don't do nearly as good of a job pretending to be sincere; however this isn't necessary, since their constituency is looking for any excuse to back up their own racism, or they're more concerned about fiscal policy that caters to the wealthy.

There's been a significant amount of speculation about how Gary Cohn, Steven Mnuchin, Jared Kushner, and David Shulkin will respond to Trump's latest tirade, since their all Jewish members of his cabinet; however they've shown that their fiscal ideology is far more important than their opposition to Antisemitism, which shouldn't be surprising. David Shulkin is the only one that spoke out at all; and his criticism was careful not to name Trump directly. There is some justification of this by claiming that they don't want to abandon any opportunity to have an influence on Trump and moderate him; however it seems far more likely that they're more concerned about fiscal policy that heavily favors the wealthy, which they could have counted on with either Trump or Clinton.

Some of the CEOs of his so-called manufacturing council that was allegedly formed to help bring manufacturing back to the United States took this opportunity to resign in protest, leading to the collapse of this group making them look like the good guys, as long as people don't think things through. Before they resigned they did little or nothing to actually bring these jobs back at all, Walmart has even started looking for more foreign labor again, quietly, of course, while their propaganda indicated they were, buying American. This is standard operating procedure for Walmart, and I'm sure it is for the other members of the council as well.

None of these major corporations seem to have much if any interest in educating the public about racism or how to reduce it, let alone reduce any other types of crime.

However many of them routinely rely on appeals to emotion that enable them to manipulate the public for their own interests, whether it is for profit or some other ideological reasons that may or may not be fully disclosed. Some of these appeals to emotions involve worshiping of celebrities, sports, or as the Bible describes it "Graven Idols," which has been a major part of religious indoctrination even though there are commandments against worshiping "Graven Idols."

The worship of these Idols is clearly a major part of the reason rallying white supremacists to this cause and angering civil rights activists. Ironically, I don't remember any memorial statues for the North from the Civil War, and few after a relatively quick search on the internet for these far more of them from the South turned up even when searching for Northern memorials. The South is, of course, the Bible Belt, where there are far more religious people that put an enormous amount of importance in the Ten Commandments telling them not to worship Graven Idols, or as it says in King James Bible Exodus 20:4 "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."

This is of course a major argument often brought up by atheists, and ignored by most religious people, who also use their religion to justify slavery and the use of corporal punishment against children, which as indicated in articles listed below is some of the major causes of escalating violence and indoctrination.

The religious commandment not to worship "Graven Idols," is a good idea, although religions fail to explain why, and don't seem to oppose it for the best reasons. Religions don't seem to oppose all worshiping of "Graven Idols," as the commandment claims, just those of other religions, regardless of what the literal commandment says. Religions routinely use worship of Idols or their leaders as a method to control the public. It is more a part of an indoctrination method than it is a commandment about moral values.

It is also relatively simple to understand that if societies spend an enormous amount of time building these monuments and ignoring basic functions of society, like education a reasonable sense of justice that doesn't use one segment of society to do all the work while another that gets all the benefits that this will inevitably lead to major social problems, including the riots in Charlottesville.

These problems should also be apparent when looking at many ancient monuments and the civilizations that built them before collapsing. The Egyptians, Romans, Assyrians, Persians, Mayans, Incas, Angkor, and many other ancient civilizations put an enormous amount of effort into building enormous monuments, many of them that celebrated War, without taking care of the basic functions that a society needs to survive and they all collapsed and most of the records for these civilizations have been destroyed, however there is enough evidence to indicate that they collapsed partly because of the monuments that we consider so spectacular, as well as epidemic levels of corruption and War.

We are repeating many of the same mistakes they did and the media refuses to report on the best research that could reverse this process before our own decline and fall escalates, possibly beyond the point of no return.



This isn't limited to "Graven Idols," designed to encourage the masses to worship their leaders, the Gods the leaders claim to represent or War; it also includes celebrity, and sports worship that is used for distraction and entertainment purposes, with little or no perspective about what is gained or lost by entertainment and sports cultures. This is also being used to stir up emotions and control the public without debating or implementing the best interests of the public. Sports inspire almost as much emotional appeal as religion or war, without much if any discussion about the benefits to health or good sportsmanship that used to be taught decades ago. Teachers used to teach kids that "It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game." This was intended to teach them good manners sportsmanship, and that the purpose was to improve health, and get along with others in a well functioning community.

Now this attitude is ridiculed, and it has been replaced with an attitude of "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." And sports fans look the other way at cheating, rape and if they pay much attention to violence it is often more for entertainment purposes than it is to look at it as something that should be prevented.

The leading political and media establishment are more concerned with using religion, sports and war as methods of controlling the public, through appeals to emotions, than they are with educating them about educating them about the impact of them and how to improve the quality of life for all.



The South is also where they routinely have the highest murder rates; and there is little or no doubt, after looking at some of the best research, that this is partly because of their religion; and because religion teaches them to use corporal punishment to control their children and teach obedience from an early age and use it to indoctrinate children to believe what they're told from their parents, instead of developing critical thinking skills. I've reported on this previously in articles listed below; the best evidence of this requires a close look at a lot of research.

However, brief supporting evidence is demonstrated by the fact that there are only nineteen states left that still allow corporal punishment in schools; these same states almost certainly rely on it more at home as well, and six to nine of them are routinely among the top ten states when it comes to murder rates, several more come close, and only one, Idaho, is typically in the bottom ten states, the only other one that comes close to the bottom ten is Wyoming. Neither Wyoming or Idaho use corporal punishment nearly as much as the Southern States and they don't have any major abandoned inner cities which is one of the other leading causes of high rates of murder and other violence. This is also true when it comes to the killing of police officers, which has also come up this week. Seventeen out of the thirty police officers killed by gunfire, so far this year were killed in states that still use corporal punishment in schools; and thirty-two out of sixty-three of the police killed in the line of duty last year. Even though these states only include about forty percent of the population they have more than fifty percent of the police killed by violence.

There's plenty more research showing that early child abuse and use of corporal Punishment leads to escalating violence later in life but it is almost completely absent from the traditional media and politicians practically never discuss it.

The same authoritarian training that leads to escalating violence is also used to train veterans and police to protect the public in many cases, although there are many more moderate methods available which are used in more progressive police departments. So it shouldn't be too surprising that white supremacists still have a lot of members in the military and police departments according to Report: FBI Finds White Supremacists Infiltrated Law Enforcement Agencies. 02/02/2017 there was also a report about a Shively police officer mocks Charlottesville crash that killed woman protesting Nazis 08/14/2017; who "was yanked off the streets" as a result of this post. These are a couple of the more reliable reports about some problems with white supremacists in the police and there are more about them in the military; there are also more that report about These Police Officers And Military Servicemen Had a Horrifying Response to Heather Heyer’s Death 08/16/2017; however this one might not be quite as reliable. The original source reports a response where someone says "I called Lower Chatahoochee Regional E911 and spoke to someone who said he was Chad Bowen. He says he posted no such thing. Are we sure?" in response to a related tweet about a fireman with a similar statement.

These are just a handful of the conspiracy theories that came up after this attack, which should be fact checked before putting to much weight into them; however some of them seem to be at least partially true. And there have been plenty of reports about police officers making similar statements that have come from more credible sources. Some of them claim that the police intentionally allowed it; while others that seem more credible claim that, although they didn't intentionally allow this violence they could have and should have responded quicker. This is supported by some admission from the police.

Whether it was inadequate response as some of the police admit, or the more far-fetched claims that it was intentionally allowed there is plenty of evidence to indicate that teh best research isn't getting the most coverage and that this means passing up more opportunities to educate the public and prevent future atrocities from happening.

The best traditional media report that I was able to find didn't come from the mainstream media that has an enormous audiance but a much lower profile article about Charlottesville Car Attack Suspect Accused Of Domestic Violence Multiple Times. 08/14/2017 This is a common trend that is often reported very quickly in the media before being quickly forgotten; however if they looked closer they would find that before these mass shooters had problems with domestic violence with their own families many of them, or possibly all, were victims of early child abuse first like Dylann Roof who was badly abused by his father before he went on his shooting spree.

While some police officers are in total denial about the problems with white supremacism and police brutality the government relying on many of the minorities that are still not getting fair treatment for their military activities that are often based on lies about weapons of mass destruction. This creates a dangerous situation when some of them come home and realize that the government and the police aren't protecting the abandoned inner cities that some of them live in or that the government is targeting minorities far more in their "War on Drugs," which is also based on lies. Last year two marines killed eight police officers in Baton Rouge and Dallas in response to police shootings of black people; this weekend another marine killed two more possibly in response to the attack at Charlottesville.



As I've said before oppression or early child abuse is not justification for committing mass murder or killing arbitrary police officers; however it is a partial explanation for why many of these killers committed their atrocities; and it we can learn from it to make future atrocities far less likely. Simply saying that there is no excuse when poor people or minorities strike out at the police or go on shooting sprees won't prevent them from happening especially when the victims of oppressive police tactics or a rigged economic system that doesn't hold those controlling it accountable won't prevent these atrocities.

If there's no excuse for poor people or minorities there should be even less excuse for those in a position of power, yet they're almost never held accountable; and if they continue to pursue policies that ignore root causes of violence then our country will go into and escalating decline until it either collapses or we start learning from the best research that the traditional media and political establishment is now ignoring!

The following are additional sources for this article:

Suspected Florida Cop Killer Claimed To Be Member Of Black Extremist Group 08/19/2017

Second Kissimmee, Fla. police officer dies from gunshot wounds; suspect is charged with first-degree murder 08/19/2017

Suspect in Kissimmee police shootings is former Marine, records show 08/20/2017

Chaos in Charlottesville: No One Gave Peace a Chance, Including the Police 08/15/2017

Confirmed: Police Told to Stand Down in Charlottesville—Did Nothing as War Broke Out 08/13/2017

The violence in Charlottesville was orchestrated and engineered by the Mayor of Charlottesville Michael Signer and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe 08/16/2017

I'm trying to imagine how different my world view and self-image would be if I grew up seeing statues of slave revolt leaders. 08/15/2017

The Fetishization of Violence: Reflections on Charlottesville, WWII and Activism 08/18/2017




1 comment:

  1. Well said. We must constantly be vigilant against the effort to turn legitimate attacks on identity and the cynical effort to harness this outrage while ignoring the structural inequities glaringly present in the USA.

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