They are really heavy in the fourth and fifth rules of propaganda.
These five rules of propaganda have been known for a long time, and they are certainly not original with myself. They can be found on the internet through searches. Please send them around so that more people will be aware of them. Ideally get them posted in school classrooms. Thank You.
The Five Rules of Propaganda
1. The rule of simplification - reducing all data to a simple confrontation between 'Good and Bad', 'Friend and Foe'.
2. The rule of disfiguration - discrediting the opposition by crude smears and parodies.
3. The rule of transfusion - manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one's own ends.
4. The rule of unanimity - presenting one's viewpoint as if it were unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people: draining the doubting individual into agreement by the appeal of star-performers, by social pressure , and by 'psychological contagion'.
5. The rule of orchestration - endlessly repeating the same messages in different variations and combinations.
"Propaganda" is a book written by Edward Bernays in 1928. It's an easy read, albeit very disturbing. Edward Bernays is the man who spread propaganda and propaganda tactics throughout world governments in the 20th century. The same man who 'invented' the field of propaganda practice known as 'Public Relations', and the same man who invented the modern Television advertising agency.
It is helpful to know/understand rhetorical sophistry, and 'Logical Fallacy' as well as the Logic upon which Language operates - Propositional/Predicate Logic in order to completely understand the insidiousness of his psychotic philosophy. Edward Bernays is the man who invented "the spin" with regard to language, especially political rhetoric.
Moreover, let's not forget how we got Television in the first place and why. The very first Network Broadcast Television station in the world was built by the NAZIS' in 1936 Berlin Germany - for the express purpose of delivering "propaganda" as entertainment to all good citizens of the Third Reich, and Edward Bernays provided his theories on propaganda to contribute to the success. When CIA Operation Paperclip, successfully smuggled those who made this technology and others out of Germany and into the U.S. they quickly got to work building what would become NBC nearly a decade later.
The people who work in Television will never talk about the origins of Television, or why it exists, because it would defeat the mission.
The so-called "Information Age" is more accurately the "Age of Propaganda". All of it is a "turd soup" of useless opinions, sophistry, and vacuous Logical fallacies of Language. It's quite literally a recipe for broad social confusion and puerile pseudo intellectual stupidity of Logic & Reason. So far, it's been extremely successful.
I've not read Bernays but I have visited the online US Holocaust Museum. The propaganda the Nazis used was nearly word for word what we're subjected to every day from the regime and its lickspittle legacy media.
All of Bernays books are amoral and sociopathic. Nonetheless, it's not just the NAZI', it's the Bolsheviks, CCP, et al, as well as the U.S. Bernays was a U.S. Citizen who worked for many Government agencies including the CIA.
you are free to castigate Bernays, but in some ways he does us a favor. and remember, he didn't invent these tactics, he simply organized them. I'm sure old Socrates knew these tricks. I recall from "John Adams" being shocked that the founding fathers talked about each other the way they did. some of it right out of Bernays. and, frankly, we should all teach his stuff to our children so they can detect when they are being played. the lefties sure learned it. why does the right continue to play by Marquis of Queensbury rules?
>You can win by destroying your enemy: Soviet Union destroying Germany in 1945.
>You can win by co-opting or absorbing your enemy: corporate capitalists infiltrating and taking control of NGOs such as Amnesty, Greenpeace, and such.
>You can win by making your enemy emulate you and over time become identical to you: China's current strategy vs. EU and USUK.
>You can win simply by not losing: the vietnamese vs. US.
Methods are neutral; they are tools. Your conscience and more important your will is what decides how they are utilised.
Rosie is exactly right, and it's Logically certain.
You become your enemy, when you use your enemies tactics. This is certainly a useful 'strategy' in battle, but propaganda isn't overt warfare, it's subversive, unconventional warfare against soft targets, who are typically noncombatants.
It's the 'win their heart's & minds' part of the colloquialism - "win their heart's and mind's & their asses will follow".
Nonetheless, battling propaganda with propaganda is Bernaysian public relations tactics. One cannot participate in propaganda and not expect to get the 'shit' of propaganda all over everything.
Participating in the psychological manipulation of anyone is an over act of psychotic sociopathy. That cannot be washed off.
Propaganda is a giant festering pile of shit and rotting corpses. Good luck getting it off after diving in.
Propaganda is the Science of psychological manipulation. It is inherently Sociopathic and therefore the epitome of evil.
Those who battle propaganda with propaganda, are the problem, not the solution!
The truth about propaganda is this... Once its known to be propaganda, it's no longer effective. Propaganda works in secrecy. It is only effective when the 'target' is ignorant of being subjected to propaganda.
Propaganda feeds on ignorance, and flourishes in the inherent darkness of the unknown. Education/knowledge is the greatest deterrent to propaganda... and the well educated propagandist 'knows' this. Keeping the populace ignorant is part of the process.
Leaning into propaganda and attempting to battle propaganda with propaganda is like two monkeys in a cage throwing feces at each other ffs. Battling propaganda with propaganda is exactly the premise of Bernaysian 'Public Relations' tactics. That's how the world is so fucked up today... And one man got away with it. One supremely fucked up psychotic sociopath. The fact that one man spread his philosophical poison throughout the word during his lifetime is a testament to the inherent fallacies and delusions of Representative Democracy first and foremost. Collectivism of any kind is a propaganda tactic.
Logically certain axiomatic Truth is the only vaccine for propaganda. The vaccine of Truth is only administered through education and knowledge.
Propaganda exists within the domain of stupidity. It only works against those who are ignorant and/or nescient. Propaganda preys upon the Human Condition... Fear, doubt, uncertainty, ignorance, nescience, foolishness, pride, stupidity, anger, arrogance, loneliness, isolation, low self esteem, depression, melancholy, Love, joy, triumph, kindness, generosity, charity, etc. Propaganda is the practice of manipulating Human emotional response and very specific autonomic functions of the human mind... Like Fear, uncertainty, & doubt, as well as love, security, and safety.
Given that the manipulation of Language is a primary tactic of propaganda - solid education & knowledge of the immutable axioms of Logic upon which Language operate is requisite innoculation against Bernaysian Public Relations propaganda.
Learning the Logic of Language is as easy as learning the multiplication tables...
Learning to identify Logical fallacies, and rhetorical Sophistry are requisite to castrating propaganda and bringing the propaganda machine to a grinding halt.
Language operates upon immutable axioms of Propositional/Predicate Logic and opinion is moot-point. That single axiom is the most important - Opinion is never Truth. Truth in Language is a function of objective Logic, and this is mathematically certain according to the "Algebra of Statements".
Propaganda is impotent against an education in Logic.
What is the productive value of a public toilet of opinion anyway? Opinions are inherently subjective, and are not Logical. They are in fact inherently fallacious, & illogical, and of limited utility. So why is humanity swimming in a sea of feckless opinion, and everyone on earth has been indoctrinated to be mindless useful-idiot opinion-pimps? The answer is - Bernaysian propaganda. It's a sewer of stupidity that has dumbed-down human civilization.
Short answer: Hitler ate sugar. Are people who eat sugar Hitler?
Longer answer:
All social interaction - such as this back and forth - is manipulation (it's not only that, but that is part of it).
Your text is arguing, trying to propagate the idea that one can argue without propagandising one's ideas; i.e. it is a piece of propaganda intending to manipulate its audience into accepting its premises and to start behaving in the manner indicated/stop behaving in the manner not approved of.
Your intent is, I have no doubt, benign and you yourself surely aims to elucidate, educate and imrpove others by sharing your thoughts with them - but it is still if viewed from the angle I've chosen (deliberately so as it serves my initial premise, that "tools are tools and neutral in and of themselves") a piece of propaganda.
I'd recommend that you learn what psychopathy/sociopathy actually is - such a person wouldn't be able to put together a novel or an instruction manual, and wouldn't be interested in it either. Virtually all such persons are in or in-and-out-of mental institutions/prisons for most of their lives, starting at childhood/teens, simply because of the deficiencies their condition and its corresponding behaviours cause ; the brilliantly intelligent super-villainesque idea of psychopaths is pure Hollywood, nothing more.
I mention this for two reasons:
1) Pathologising behaviour or opinions you personally disapprove of means a) you dismiss the person and their arguements out of hand without actually engaging with them or disproving them, thereby disqualifying your own arguement in the process since it remains untried (it is the same tactic "woke" people use when dismissing something as being "white and heterosexist"), b) that you label someone mentally ill because they don't share your opinions and the historical precednce for that should give anyone pause as to whom they resemble in how they reason.
2) If a person's behaviour, way of being, is pathological in root, that person cannot be held morally responsible as they do not act the way they do as a conscious choice. It makes you look unfair when you later blame them, on moral grounds, for their opinions or behaviour.
First & foremost - this is discourse not debate. You seem to not understand the difference.
Every literate person on this planet is capable of communicating with Logically certain, axiomatic Propositional Statements - if they choose to do so. Most don't. Nonetheless, most have been indoctrinated to communicate with inherently fallacious opinion, argumentative contrarianism, and dimwit popular fallacies of Logic - because they have been indoctrinated by Bernaysian propaganda tactics in the public education system, on Internet Social media, and Television.
Statistically, the average literate individual has only minimal education & knowledge of the Language they speak, and particularly, the Logic upon which all Language operates. You demonstrate this statistical axiom quite well.
You open your response with a puerile fallacy of syllogism, to assert more Logical fallacy... Which is the antithesis of intelligent, if done by mistake, and the epitome of Bernaysian propaganda if intentional.
I have zero interest in the opinions of random strangers on the Internet, and even less interest in opinions replete with immature Logical fallacies of Language, & vacuous popular pseudo intellectualism.
I demonstrate the Propositional Statement - "I will suffer no fool".
FTR - you, like everyone else, are entitled to nothing from anyone, no matter how much you protest. Welcome to reality.
Foolish people who say foolish things are not entitled to an audience or validation of their foolish opinions.
Language is a function of Logic not imagination or opinion.
An opinion is an inherently fallacious 'product' of Language. Opinion is not Logic. Logic is not opinion. Opinion is moot-point. These are Axioms of Propositional Logic. No amount of opinionated contrarianism changes axioms of Logic - even if you're incapable of comprehension.
A Propositional Statement is also a product of Language - a Logically certain, axiomatic 'Truth' Statement. Again, contrary opinion is moot-point & fallacious of Logic.
If there are only two types of people in this world - the inherently honest, and the inherently deceitful. Which is inherently trustworthy and which is not?
The blatant religious overtones were repellant, and I still feel disgust remembering those years. They are doing the same thing with Orange Bad Man in the opposite way as he IS the evil one in their manipulative and over emotive minds.
Comments turned off. Not surprising, as at about the 37 second mark, it goes full North Korean hosannas for the glorious leader as sung by adoring children who don't understand how they're being used and will grow up brainwashed with the parents such as they must have.
Mockery remains the answer. But we’re raised to be too polite. If we launched a national in their face mockery offensive this would all crumble quickly.
I’d do it like I shut down my HR person (someone just like Fanni) who seemed to think it her right to launch DEI in our start up. She never knew what hit her.
In my own small way, I have started. When I hear beliefs stated as immutable fact, I ask, “What are you saying?” in as calm a way as I can muster. That space of time disrupts the spewing. Ok, it’s not mockery, but it does reveal the lack of reasoning behind the mindless repetition.
That’s usually enough. Just a verbalized question is mockery. But to dare it with your neighbor walking outside maskless with his 3 year old granddaughter, forced into a mask. I failed that test yesterday.
I just rewatched Poilievre’s skewering of a “journalist” while eating an apple (just noticed his eyes are smiling 👍), and he asked the question “What do you mean by that?” over and over. Same objective as yours: Disrupt the baseless assumption and interrupt the spew. His advantage though is that as a major politician, the “journalist” can’t scream “You’re a racist!!” and run away without looking like a child.
You’re channeling Pierre Poilievre (admittedly not with the apple) in his calm assertive questions back to a biased questioner who’s loaded their question with false premises. Excellent approach. 👍
We tried that in the 1990's with political correctness (I'm in my 50's). We laughed at it instead of taking it seriously. We were wrong. When someone shows you what they think is "good", take it seriously. And if it leads to evil, treat them accordingly.
I know, right? I’m a little younger than you. As these types started showing up, we incorrectly thought they’d fade away, as they were obviously crazy. At the very least they would hide in shame because of the relentless mockery they received. But no, they snowballed and gained momentum. It’s apparently contagious.
My friends and I used to call the men SNAGs (sensitive new-age guys) or SNAPs (sensitive new-age ponytails).
I agree to an extant, but reality is the only thing the bullies respond to is force in their faces direct with will and intent and purpose and principle resolute.
My experience is they don’t do well with mockery that resonates with their crew. Of course, that was junior high in the mid-60s, but I don’t think the psychology has changed.
Willis must be on the verge of an aneurysm – being universally ridiculed is the antithesis of her self-image and aspiration.
My theory is that it’s almost the opposite: frantic imposter syndrome (fully justified in this case) coupled with incongruent aggressive assertion of authority, expertise, etc.
I see the application of hubris, but I’ve always thought of that as applicable to someone with SOME competence but excessive pride. Here we have someone of NO competence and childish reactions.
My fav, Wendy Davis, a self proclaimed feminist bettered herself off the back of hubs #2 only to move onto bigger, more influential and financial legal fish with hubs #3. Can we say hypocritical golddigger?
Such a brilliant legal mind is hers, why bother knowing where Miami or the Bahamas are? Or neglect to mention the pistol packing dude you're banging and who you pay cash to in your traphouses? Brave AND stunning! The *New York Times* says so! I mean, if this were the 1920s, and everyone was insane, she could have *easily* taken out Al Capone! Hear *that* Trump? Sleep with one eye open pal!
I think he was on vacation with his partner during the derailment that is more than suspicious.
Oh....check that - he was on paternity/maternity (which one?) leave I reckon. Meanwhile - that whole place got poisoned and nobody - not least of which the Department of Transportation seems to give a shit - telling ain't it about Buttigieg - effing jerk.
The Man Behind the Curtain is more apropos than any other description of our society's malgovernance today. A world led by weak, pathetic men and women who are just like the weak, pathetic geezer in the movie classic. It's why they work so hard at keeping the curtain closed. Keeping a safety perimeter around it so no one comes close.
That movie scene gives us a solution, a path to our freedom, how to reveal the weak and pathetic men and women behind our malgovernance. It will take the little nonthreatening pooches who run in unassumingly who pull the curtain back for the Dorothy's, Scarecrow's, Tinmen and Lion's to see. And cute little foxes can help, too!
It didn't dawn on me until 2020 that the reason The Wizard of Oz was shown every year for as long as it was, a half-century or more, on network TV was to teach us this very lesson about the world we live in and to be suspicious, skeptical of all who proclaim to be all-powerful possessing all knowledge. It was counterprogramming that some of our wise elders tried to pass into our collective DNA. When it stopped being aired it stopped educating people to distrust all-knowing authority concepts. It was turned into a rock show for the younger generations, paired with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Completely obliterating the educational value, just becoming a sight and sound production.
I've even offered that the Dukes of Hazzard did the same sort of counterprogramming for Gen X'ers. And propose that it was taken off the air was because it exposed how corrupt leaders work and how the disobedient are virtuous actors in corrupt systems. Instead of the slanders that it was racist in order to discredit it, which really intended to get rid of the show's lesson about resisting corrupt authority.
Media, not just news, is a constant programming and counterprogramming tool. We've got to get better at it at using its power. The New Adventures of little pooches...and foxes maybe?
In the 7th grade we read a book named, I think, Propaganda. I was just beginning to notice girls, had moved across the city to a Jr High where I knew no one, and the content was dense for my testosterone addled 12 year old mind.
Most of it was over my head, but I have been fairly suspicious since then.
The irony? The very next year, 8th grade, we had some health class that incorporated the Nancy Reagan anti-drug propaganda. We watched Haight-Ashbury, some Reefer Madness stuff--and I immediately thought, "Those bastards! There must be something great about drugs..."
Smoked by first joint within two months...
Great insights into Dukes of Hazzard & Wizard of Oz!
Thanks Tim. I'll check it out. Mistakes Were Made is a pretty rough read...I guess the more I read about how little we are actually in control of ourselves can be depressing.
BUT, when I remind myself that I'm a fallen sinner--I am in the right place to start my day.
That’s the biggest rub isn’t it? All those who spoke about giving a finger to the system are now its greatest enforcers. You mentioning DK got me thinking about how many from the punk/hardcore scene and almost violently anti authoritarian back when we were young, have now turned into the type that will kill their own kids so they might be the first o turn their neighbor in for wrongthink. Whereas, those who vac in school would rat you out for a perceived bending of the rules are now the ones who have become anti authoritarian of the type where you can see the rage at the system barely being able to be hidden.
It would be hilarious if the situation right now wasn’t so serious. I’m also not quite sure when this switch happened. I want to think it was sometime between 2001 and 2005. Sometime after the the Patriot Act became law and it began being put into practice. It grew silently until the Covid Lockdowns. That’s when it all came to a head.
Now it’s just fucking Clownworld 24/7-365 with no end in sight.
Yes, exactly. I wonder if another side effect of Covid and/or the jabs was to turn people into conformists. Nothing wrong with a little conformity as long as one doesn’t lose the ability to rebel when needed.
She's still got a long way to go before she reaches the sophistication of --
"So Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically that's wrong."
“When the voters decide, that’s when they’ll have made their decision. But until they make that decision, we will not know which way they’ve decided to decide.”
Yeah, it's all smoke and mirrors. Most of these people are as substantial as wet toilet paper, and about as virtuous. Fani should be chasing ambulances and doing DUI cases. She's in way over her head and is a perfect example of Dunning-Kruger syndrome in action.
The Dems use people like Fani and Alvin and Engeron and other middling henchmen when they know the high profile political maneuver has a high likelihood of criticism and failure and they want whoever implodes to be in a special victim class. Because you're not supposed to seem them or their actions in the light of day, which would show you clearly that they are corrupt, confabulating, stupid, ignorant, mean, and essentially unqualified for their position, which they are in the process of abusing. You're supposed to put on your DEI glasses and see them as heroes for fighting Le Grande Orange, who as we all know is a bad bad man. It also gives the head honchos plausible deniability. Except this time Fani and her equally admirable boyfriend visited the WH 3 times right before starting this southern fried cluster up. You think the WH and the schemers at Dirty Politics Inc., don't have dossiers on this dingbat and her associates? You think it's an accident that she's the point person on this circle jerk? That they didn't know who she was banging and what was going on with the money? They know. You think it's an accident that all these anti-Trump lawsuits are run by chumps? Because the head honchos know its bullshit. It's just another ankle biter latching on trying to drag down Gulliver.
Fani is going down in flames. But notice that not a thing happened to anybody from the DOJ who's been caught out for being a corrupt POS. I mean not really. There's Kevin Klinesmith the lawyer who was slapped on the wrist for 10 minutes and then welcomed back into the fold of wicked credentialed douchebags. There's all the three letter agency heads breaking laws left and right, who nobody ever goes after. But plantation Fani is going down. And so will Alvin Bragg, and the black lady prosecutor in Maryland who was found guilty of mortgage fraud. The best evidence of racism in the Democrat party is - WHY AREN'T THE WHITE FOLKS IN TROUBLE? 'Hunter will never see a jail cell. He's a traitor like his daddy. And he'll skate. Brennan, Clapper, Obama, they're presumably untouchable. The insider traitors in DC get carte blanche to fondle the CCP reminbi and screw with the US Constitution apparently. Mark Milley calls the Chinese military chief to warn him about the US President? Wut.... The FDA and the CDC and the rest of the COVID murderers, no problem. Who's looking into the one million dead Americans? Cricket noises.
the party that defended slavery, founded the KKK and enacted Jim Crow in the South are still the same party in charge. they are the same racist assholes they always were, but since LBJ found the magic makeover of the Great Society, no one will notice the same old tricks being played.
“When I took out a large amount of money on my first campaign, I kept some of the cash of that." - Fani Willis, unwittingly confessing under oath to campaign finance violations.
CBS News had a piece on their web site regarding her hearing testimony. From their characterizations, you would have thought she was the female reincarnation of Louis Brandeis.
Not a single examination of the serious allegations and supporting evidence that have been levied against her and Mr. Wade. A journalist at a once reputable news organization can't bother to discuss compelling evidence of alleged prosecutorial misconduct in a RICO case against the former president of the United States.
Instead, it's a People Magazine-styled fluff piece to tell us how brave Fani is.
The reporters do not have editors to guide them along. It’s all fluff and if you look closely half is usually written in text shorthand, the rest actively taking a piss on rules of grammar and spelling of the English language. The mentally ill are leading the mentally inept.
Headline, top of the front page, with photo, in Friday's War Street Journal (wife subscribes, not me): "Defiant Trump Prosecutor Gives Rebuttal Over Office Romance." Crony capitalists love their leftist flunkies. The Journal's urinalists seems to have overlooked the projection in Fani's testimony: "These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I'm not on trial . . . "
Fani Willis is the most Atlanta person in the world. She is the shameful walking embodiment of everything that is wrong with my state. Sadly, having lived in Metro ATL my whole life, I know that she probably won't even get thrown off her own farcical case--much less prosecuted for public corruption. She will probably be the next Senator from the once-Great State of Georgia. She'll be able to debate the actual weight at which islands capsize with fellow Atlanta luminary, Hank Johnson.
Fani is the Ava character on Abbot Elementary. Ava's narcissistic, shameless, and hyper-rationalized self-dealing is funny, charming and ultimately inconsequential. Fani's attitudes and behaviours on the other hand, are toxic and corrosive to civilized society. As well, her sanctimonious truth-mangling rationalizations are nauseating, and we can only hope, legally actionable.
Also the rightful governor of the State of Georgia. She was anyway, until the election was stolen from her. Of course those were the pre-2020 days when elections were still unfortified.
They are really heavy in the fourth and fifth rules of propaganda.
These five rules of propaganda have been known for a long time, and they are certainly not original with myself. They can be found on the internet through searches. Please send them around so that more people will be aware of them. Ideally get them posted in school classrooms. Thank You.
The Five Rules of Propaganda
1. The rule of simplification - reducing all data to a simple confrontation between 'Good and Bad', 'Friend and Foe'.
2. The rule of disfiguration - discrediting the opposition by crude smears and parodies.
3. The rule of transfusion - manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one's own ends.
4. The rule of unanimity - presenting one's viewpoint as if it were unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people: draining the doubting individual into agreement by the appeal of star-performers, by social pressure , and by 'psychological contagion'.
5. The rule of orchestration - endlessly repeating the same messages in different variations and combinations.
https://drp314.substack.com/p/propaganda-thoughts
"Propaganda" is a book written by Edward Bernays in 1928. It's an easy read, albeit very disturbing. Edward Bernays is the man who spread propaganda and propaganda tactics throughout world governments in the 20th century. The same man who 'invented' the field of propaganda practice known as 'Public Relations', and the same man who invented the modern Television advertising agency.
It is helpful to know/understand rhetorical sophistry, and 'Logical Fallacy' as well as the Logic upon which Language operates - Propositional/Predicate Logic in order to completely understand the insidiousness of his psychotic philosophy. Edward Bernays is the man who invented "the spin" with regard to language, especially political rhetoric.
Moreover, let's not forget how we got Television in the first place and why. The very first Network Broadcast Television station in the world was built by the NAZIS' in 1936 Berlin Germany - for the express purpose of delivering "propaganda" as entertainment to all good citizens of the Third Reich, and Edward Bernays provided his theories on propaganda to contribute to the success. When CIA Operation Paperclip, successfully smuggled those who made this technology and others out of Germany and into the U.S. they quickly got to work building what would become NBC nearly a decade later.
The people who work in Television will never talk about the origins of Television, or why it exists, because it would defeat the mission.
The so-called "Information Age" is more accurately the "Age of Propaganda". All of it is a "turd soup" of useless opinions, sophistry, and vacuous Logical fallacies of Language. It's quite literally a recipe for broad social confusion and puerile pseudo intellectual stupidity of Logic & Reason. So far, it's been extremely successful.
Bernays was a saucy fellow.
He made a good egg sandwich for breakfast.
He learned that in the Netherlands. Those were his Holland Days.
That was very good Harry.
Berry’s wife was from Mexico. Her name was Mayo.
I've not read Bernays but I have visited the online US Holocaust Museum. The propaganda the Nazis used was nearly word for word what we're subjected to every day from the regime and its lickspittle legacy media.
All of Bernays books are amoral and sociopathic. Nonetheless, it's not just the NAZI', it's the Bolsheviks, CCP, et al, as well as the U.S. Bernays was a U.S. Citizen who worked for many Government agencies including the CIA.
His Uncle was Sigmund Freud.
I had to look it up. Small world.
you are free to castigate Bernays, but in some ways he does us a favor. and remember, he didn't invent these tactics, he simply organized them. I'm sure old Socrates knew these tricks. I recall from "John Adams" being shocked that the founding fathers talked about each other the way they did. some of it right out of Bernays. and, frankly, we should all teach his stuff to our children so they can detect when they are being played. the lefties sure learned it. why does the right continue to play by Marquis of Queensbury rules?
Because we’re constrained by morality.
Thank you for bringing up Bernays.
Learning what method is used against you, means you can learn how to use it yourself.
If you employ your enemy's tactics, you become your enemy.
No. Dead wrong.
But thinking like that ensures that your enemy wins.
In this world...yes, if that is how you measure winning. Propaganda in no way bears witness to the truth...but if that's your thing....
It's not "my thing"; it's the way it is, period.
>You can win by destroying your enemy: Soviet Union destroying Germany in 1945.
>You can win by co-opting or absorbing your enemy: corporate capitalists infiltrating and taking control of NGOs such as Amnesty, Greenpeace, and such.
>You can win by making your enemy emulate you and over time become identical to you: China's current strategy vs. EU and USUK.
>You can win simply by not losing: the vietnamese vs. US.
Methods are neutral; they are tools. Your conscience and more important your will is what decides how they are utilised.
Rosie is exactly right, and it's Logically certain.
You become your enemy, when you use your enemies tactics. This is certainly a useful 'strategy' in battle, but propaganda isn't overt warfare, it's subversive, unconventional warfare against soft targets, who are typically noncombatants.
It's the 'win their heart's & minds' part of the colloquialism - "win their heart's and mind's & their asses will follow".
Nonetheless, battling propaganda with propaganda is Bernaysian public relations tactics. One cannot participate in propaganda and not expect to get the 'shit' of propaganda all over everything.
Participating in the psychological manipulation of anyone is an over act of psychotic sociopathy. That cannot be washed off.
Propaganda is a giant festering pile of shit and rotting corpses. Good luck getting it off after diving in.
By your logic, the US and UK were nazis, since they used the same tactics as German forces did.
Propaganda is the Science of psychological manipulation. It is inherently Sociopathic and therefore the epitome of evil.
Those who battle propaganda with propaganda, are the problem, not the solution!
The truth about propaganda is this... Once its known to be propaganda, it's no longer effective. Propaganda works in secrecy. It is only effective when the 'target' is ignorant of being subjected to propaganda.
Propaganda feeds on ignorance, and flourishes in the inherent darkness of the unknown. Education/knowledge is the greatest deterrent to propaganda... and the well educated propagandist 'knows' this. Keeping the populace ignorant is part of the process.
Leaning into propaganda and attempting to battle propaganda with propaganda is like two monkeys in a cage throwing feces at each other ffs. Battling propaganda with propaganda is exactly the premise of Bernaysian 'Public Relations' tactics. That's how the world is so fucked up today... And one man got away with it. One supremely fucked up psychotic sociopath. The fact that one man spread his philosophical poison throughout the word during his lifetime is a testament to the inherent fallacies and delusions of Representative Democracy first and foremost. Collectivism of any kind is a propaganda tactic.
Logically certain axiomatic Truth is the only vaccine for propaganda. The vaccine of Truth is only administered through education and knowledge.
Propaganda exists within the domain of stupidity. It only works against those who are ignorant and/or nescient. Propaganda preys upon the Human Condition... Fear, doubt, uncertainty, ignorance, nescience, foolishness, pride, stupidity, anger, arrogance, loneliness, isolation, low self esteem, depression, melancholy, Love, joy, triumph, kindness, generosity, charity, etc. Propaganda is the practice of manipulating Human emotional response and very specific autonomic functions of the human mind... Like Fear, uncertainty, & doubt, as well as love, security, and safety.
Given that the manipulation of Language is a primary tactic of propaganda - solid education & knowledge of the immutable axioms of Logic upon which Language operate is requisite innoculation against Bernaysian Public Relations propaganda.
Learning the Logic of Language is as easy as learning the multiplication tables...
Learning to identify Logical fallacies, and rhetorical Sophistry are requisite to castrating propaganda and bringing the propaganda machine to a grinding halt.
Language operates upon immutable axioms of Propositional/Predicate Logic and opinion is moot-point. That single axiom is the most important - Opinion is never Truth. Truth in Language is a function of objective Logic, and this is mathematically certain according to the "Algebra of Statements".
Propaganda is impotent against an education in Logic.
What is the productive value of a public toilet of opinion anyway? Opinions are inherently subjective, and are not Logical. They are in fact inherently fallacious, & illogical, and of limited utility. So why is humanity swimming in a sea of feckless opinion, and everyone on earth has been indoctrinated to be mindless useful-idiot opinion-pimps? The answer is - Bernaysian propaganda. It's a sewer of stupidity that has dumbed-down human civilization.
Short answer: Hitler ate sugar. Are people who eat sugar Hitler?
Longer answer:
All social interaction - such as this back and forth - is manipulation (it's not only that, but that is part of it).
Your text is arguing, trying to propagate the idea that one can argue without propagandising one's ideas; i.e. it is a piece of propaganda intending to manipulate its audience into accepting its premises and to start behaving in the manner indicated/stop behaving in the manner not approved of.
Your intent is, I have no doubt, benign and you yourself surely aims to elucidate, educate and imrpove others by sharing your thoughts with them - but it is still if viewed from the angle I've chosen (deliberately so as it serves my initial premise, that "tools are tools and neutral in and of themselves") a piece of propaganda.
I'd recommend that you learn what psychopathy/sociopathy actually is - such a person wouldn't be able to put together a novel or an instruction manual, and wouldn't be interested in it either. Virtually all such persons are in or in-and-out-of mental institutions/prisons for most of their lives, starting at childhood/teens, simply because of the deficiencies their condition and its corresponding behaviours cause ; the brilliantly intelligent super-villainesque idea of psychopaths is pure Hollywood, nothing more.
I mention this for two reasons:
1) Pathologising behaviour or opinions you personally disapprove of means a) you dismiss the person and their arguements out of hand without actually engaging with them or disproving them, thereby disqualifying your own arguement in the process since it remains untried (it is the same tactic "woke" people use when dismissing something as being "white and heterosexist"), b) that you label someone mentally ill because they don't share your opinions and the historical precednce for that should give anyone pause as to whom they resemble in how they reason.
2) If a person's behaviour, way of being, is pathological in root, that person cannot be held morally responsible as they do not act the way they do as a conscious choice. It makes you look unfair when you later blame them, on moral grounds, for their opinions or behaviour.
First & foremost - this is discourse not debate. You seem to not understand the difference.
Every literate person on this planet is capable of communicating with Logically certain, axiomatic Propositional Statements - if they choose to do so. Most don't. Nonetheless, most have been indoctrinated to communicate with inherently fallacious opinion, argumentative contrarianism, and dimwit popular fallacies of Logic - because they have been indoctrinated by Bernaysian propaganda tactics in the public education system, on Internet Social media, and Television.
Statistically, the average literate individual has only minimal education & knowledge of the Language they speak, and particularly, the Logic upon which all Language operates. You demonstrate this statistical axiom quite well.
You open your response with a puerile fallacy of syllogism, to assert more Logical fallacy... Which is the antithesis of intelligent, if done by mistake, and the epitome of Bernaysian propaganda if intentional.
I have zero interest in the opinions of random strangers on the Internet, and even less interest in opinions replete with immature Logical fallacies of Language, & vacuous popular pseudo intellectualism.
I demonstrate the Propositional Statement - "I will suffer no fool".
FTR - you, like everyone else, are entitled to nothing from anyone, no matter how much you protest. Welcome to reality.
Foolish people who say foolish things are not entitled to an audience or validation of their foolish opinions.
Language is a function of Logic not imagination or opinion.
An opinion is an inherently fallacious 'product' of Language. Opinion is not Logic. Logic is not opinion. Opinion is moot-point. These are Axioms of Propositional Logic. No amount of opinionated contrarianism changes axioms of Logic - even if you're incapable of comprehension.
A Propositional Statement is also a product of Language - a Logically certain, axiomatic 'Truth' Statement. Again, contrary opinion is moot-point & fallacious of Logic.
If there are only two types of people in this world - the inherently honest, and the inherently deceitful. Which is inherently trustworthy and which is not?
Ordered it
Get ready to be pissed off. Must read though
At my age that's old news.
Speaking of Bernays:
24 Hours of Lies
https://georgestephenkelly.hearnow.com/24-hours-of-lies?fbclid=IwAR1sqZ9e-7Yi_kQtIVVXAeHtbzxxfsig5NuviX4N5nXLW__n1gq7Xsaaosg
Thanks
I'm stealing this.
By all means.
Just a coincidence that Willis photo includes a halo of light behind her.
As a political junkie since I was a teenager, I have noticed this sanctification of The Chosen ones.
The most artificially constructed personality has to be Obama, The Great One, The One we were Waiting for, The Promised One.
THE LIGHTBRINGER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW9b0xr06qA
The blatant religious overtones were repellant, and I still feel disgust remembering those years. They are doing the same thing with Orange Bad Man in the opposite way as he IS the evil one in their manipulative and over emotive minds.
(Vomit emoji here) wow that was hard to watch.
WOW. That was the closest to a visceral unswallowing that I have ever come in watching anything on YouTube. And that says a lot.
Pure cringe
Gotta love the shots of the almost tearful crowd of domestic partners watching this mind fuck.
Indeed. The LIGHT BRINGER: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer
Comments turned off. Not surprising, as at about the 37 second mark, it goes full North Korean hosannas for the glorious leader as sung by adoring children who don't understand how they're being used and will grow up brainwashed with the parents such as they must have.
I managed 30 seconds 🤢😂
The Kenyan. How many of those brainwashed kids have gone on to mutilate themselves with the trans lie, or participated in the mostly peaceful protest?
Change it and rearrange it alright!
The savior black man and his linebacker partner.....what a mockery they make of america.
Big Mike is gonna change everything 😆
He did stop the oceans from rising, so there is that.
The worst president ever! .....Until he got his puppet installed. Now, just like Jimmy Carter, he's not the worst anymore, because he's not official.
“Citizen of the World”
“We are the Ones we’ve been waiting for!”
Strangely reminiscent of Camel-a-Harris.
My wife objected to my constantly calling her Camel-Toe Harris around the kids, so I changed it to Camel-Butt.
Lucifer, being an archangel, had a halo.
Hope & Chump Change
Mockery remains the answer. But we’re raised to be too polite. If we launched a national in their face mockery offensive this would all crumble quickly.
Wanna write a business plan, to that end, with me?
I'm in for the mockery counteroffensive, comrades.
I can raise the money. It's what I do for a living
Plus you have the gift of succinct mockery...lol...True
I’d do it like I shut down my HR person (someone just like Fanni) who seemed to think it her right to launch DEI in our start up. She never knew what hit her.
Strategy can be quite delicious.
In my own small way, I have started. When I hear beliefs stated as immutable fact, I ask, “What are you saying?” in as calm a way as I can muster. That space of time disrupts the spewing. Ok, it’s not mockery, but it does reveal the lack of reasoning behind the mindless repetition.
That’s usually enough. Just a verbalized question is mockery. But to dare it with your neighbor walking outside maskless with his 3 year old granddaughter, forced into a mask. I failed that test yesterday.
I just rewatched Poilievre’s skewering of a “journalist” while eating an apple (just noticed his eyes are smiling 👍), and he asked the question “What do you mean by that?” over and over. Same objective as yours: Disrupt the baseless assumption and interrupt the spew. His advantage though is that as a major politician, the “journalist” can’t scream “You’re a racist!!” and run away without looking like a child.
You’re channeling Pierre Poilievre (admittedly not with the apple) in his calm assertive questions back to a biased questioner who’s loaded their question with false premises. Excellent approach. 👍
We tried that in the 1990's with political correctness (I'm in my 50's). We laughed at it instead of taking it seriously. We were wrong. When someone shows you what they think is "good", take it seriously. And if it leads to evil, treat them accordingly.
I lived in a college town in the 90s and saw PC creep in. The only resistance I heard was on back porches.
I know, right? I’m a little younger than you. As these types started showing up, we incorrectly thought they’d fade away, as they were obviously crazy. At the very least they would hide in shame because of the relentless mockery they received. But no, they snowballed and gained momentum. It’s apparently contagious.
My friends and I used to call the men SNAGs (sensitive new-age guys) or SNAPs (sensitive new-age ponytails).
I agree to an extant, but reality is the only thing the bullies respond to is force in their faces direct with will and intent and purpose and principle resolute.
My experience is they don’t do well with mockery that resonates with their crew. Of course, that was junior high in the mid-60s, but I don’t think the psychology has changed.
Willis must be on the verge of an aneurysm – being universally ridiculed is the antithesis of her self-image and aspiration.
Hubris.
My theory is that it’s almost the opposite: frantic imposter syndrome (fully justified in this case) coupled with incongruent aggressive assertion of authority, expertise, etc.
I see the application of hubris, but I’ve always thought of that as applicable to someone with SOME competence but excessive pride. Here we have someone of NO competence and childish reactions.
100%
Fani is a train wreck of WRONG.
Her performance was way better than any SNL sketch in the last decade or two.
My fav, Wendy Davis, a self proclaimed feminist bettered herself off the back of hubs #2 only to move onto bigger, more influential and financial legal fish with hubs #3. Can we say hypocritical golddigger?
Such a brilliant legal mind is hers, why bother knowing where Miami or the Bahamas are? Or neglect to mention the pistol packing dude you're banging and who you pay cash to in your traphouses? Brave AND stunning! The *New York Times* says so! I mean, if this were the 1920s, and everyone was insane, she could have *easily* taken out Al Capone! Hear *that* Trump? Sleep with one eye open pal!
Continents, continents....It rings a bell, just give me a second.
To be fair, which continent is Belize in? Is it North or South America?
Oh who am I kidding? These people don't play fair. Why should we?
Continents are a social construct.
Pete Buttigieg might fall in this category. Did he ever actually get to East Palestine?
That's not a maybe.
I think he was on vacation with his partner during the derailment that is more than suspicious.
Oh....check that - he was on paternity/maternity (which one?) leave I reckon. Meanwhile - that whole place got poisoned and nobody - not least of which the Department of Transportation seems to give a shit - telling ain't it about Buttigieg - effing jerk.
The Man Behind the Curtain is more apropos than any other description of our society's malgovernance today. A world led by weak, pathetic men and women who are just like the weak, pathetic geezer in the movie classic. It's why they work so hard at keeping the curtain closed. Keeping a safety perimeter around it so no one comes close.
That movie scene gives us a solution, a path to our freedom, how to reveal the weak and pathetic men and women behind our malgovernance. It will take the little nonthreatening pooches who run in unassumingly who pull the curtain back for the Dorothy's, Scarecrow's, Tinmen and Lion's to see. And cute little foxes can help, too!
Fox,
We have a wonderful off-leash dog park within a mile of my home. I take my dogs daily.
Something I’ve noticed about dogs—their courage seems to be inversely proportional to their size.
Toto, no 100 lb killer, was the perfect sized dog to sniff out the corruption.
bsn
It didn't dawn on me until 2020 that the reason The Wizard of Oz was shown every year for as long as it was, a half-century or more, on network TV was to teach us this very lesson about the world we live in and to be suspicious, skeptical of all who proclaim to be all-powerful possessing all knowledge. It was counterprogramming that some of our wise elders tried to pass into our collective DNA. When it stopped being aired it stopped educating people to distrust all-knowing authority concepts. It was turned into a rock show for the younger generations, paired with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Completely obliterating the educational value, just becoming a sight and sound production.
I've even offered that the Dukes of Hazzard did the same sort of counterprogramming for Gen X'ers. And propose that it was taken off the air was because it exposed how corrupt leaders work and how the disobedient are virtuous actors in corrupt systems. Instead of the slanders that it was racist in order to discredit it, which really intended to get rid of the show's lesson about resisting corrupt authority.
Media, not just news, is a constant programming and counterprogramming tool. We've got to get better at it at using its power. The New Adventures of little pooches...and foxes maybe?
In the 7th grade we read a book named, I think, Propaganda. I was just beginning to notice girls, had moved across the city to a Jr High where I knew no one, and the content was dense for my testosterone addled 12 year old mind.
Most of it was over my head, but I have been fairly suspicious since then.
The irony? The very next year, 8th grade, we had some health class that incorporated the Nancy Reagan anti-drug propaganda. We watched Haight-Ashbury, some Reefer Madness stuff--and I immediately thought, "Those bastards! There must be something great about drugs..."
Smoked by first joint within two months...
Great insights into Dukes of Hazzard & Wizard of Oz!
bsn
You’ve severely damaged my image of Army officers… 🤣
Also worth reading is the 1996 book, "PR: a Social History of Spin." I believe it's by Stuart Ewen.
Right up there also is Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), by Tavris and Aronson.
Thanks Tim. I'll check it out. Mistakes Were Made is a pretty rough read...I guess the more I read about how little we are actually in control of ourselves can be depressing.
BUT, when I remind myself that I'm a fallen sinner--I am in the right place to start my day.
bsn
"I've even offered that the Dukes of Hazzard did the same sort of counterprogramming for Gen X'ers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TtEO9nOdjU
DK’s rule! Think how far we’ve come from this 80’s subversion to today’s compliance.
That’s the biggest rub isn’t it? All those who spoke about giving a finger to the system are now its greatest enforcers. You mentioning DK got me thinking about how many from the punk/hardcore scene and almost violently anti authoritarian back when we were young, have now turned into the type that will kill their own kids so they might be the first o turn their neighbor in for wrongthink. Whereas, those who vac in school would rat you out for a perceived bending of the rules are now the ones who have become anti authoritarian of the type where you can see the rage at the system barely being able to be hidden.
It would be hilarious if the situation right now wasn’t so serious. I’m also not quite sure when this switch happened. I want to think it was sometime between 2001 and 2005. Sometime after the the Patriot Act became law and it began being put into practice. It grew silently until the Covid Lockdowns. That’s when it all came to a head.
Now it’s just fucking Clownworld 24/7-365 with no end in sight.
Yes, exactly. I wonder if another side effect of Covid and/or the jabs was to turn people into conformists. Nothing wrong with a little conformity as long as one doesn’t lose the ability to rebel when needed.
I like the Dead Kennedy's! I don't know if the lyrics are on point as I was making it, but I like the callback!
My two littermate rescues, 18 and 21 lbs apiece, terrorize not every dog, but those they immediately dislike.
Totally cracks me up!
I'd never thought of that aspect of poor, unassuming, Toto. I like it.
Why am I reminded of when World of Warcraft ruled the online gaming-sphere and every new game was hailed as the "WoW-killer"?
Do urinalists learn to write using "fill in the names"-cheat sheets?
"Urinalists" is highly satisfying.
Full disclosure: I didn't think of it first.
It works in swedish too which is a boon, and it's starting to gain traction too!
Love it. Our rags of record in Atlanta were The Urinal and The Constipation.
She's still got a long way to go before she reaches the sophistication of --
"So Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically that's wrong."
It’s at least accurate. She’s definitely said less true things in an equally dumb way.
haha, Kamala’s elementary rhetoric is the equivalent of responding to every statement with: “It is what it is”
is it incredibly deep? incredibly shallow?
that’s for the voters to decide...
“When the voters decide, that’s when they’ll have made their decision. But until they make that decision, we will not know which way they’ve decided to decide.”
-KH
She could fill a whole volume of Bartlett's herself.
You're cutting her an awful lot of slack there.
Exhibit A:
“It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day.”
-KH
You forgot the cackle.
Question is, what continent?
She’s only going to get that way after spending a few years on her knees.
Yeah, it's all smoke and mirrors. Most of these people are as substantial as wet toilet paper, and about as virtuous. Fani should be chasing ambulances and doing DUI cases. She's in way over her head and is a perfect example of Dunning-Kruger syndrome in action.
The Dems use people like Fani and Alvin and Engeron and other middling henchmen when they know the high profile political maneuver has a high likelihood of criticism and failure and they want whoever implodes to be in a special victim class. Because you're not supposed to seem them or their actions in the light of day, which would show you clearly that they are corrupt, confabulating, stupid, ignorant, mean, and essentially unqualified for their position, which they are in the process of abusing. You're supposed to put on your DEI glasses and see them as heroes for fighting Le Grande Orange, who as we all know is a bad bad man. It also gives the head honchos plausible deniability. Except this time Fani and her equally admirable boyfriend visited the WH 3 times right before starting this southern fried cluster up. You think the WH and the schemers at Dirty Politics Inc., don't have dossiers on this dingbat and her associates? You think it's an accident that she's the point person on this circle jerk? That they didn't know who she was banging and what was going on with the money? They know. You think it's an accident that all these anti-Trump lawsuits are run by chumps? Because the head honchos know its bullshit. It's just another ankle biter latching on trying to drag down Gulliver.
Fani is going down in flames. But notice that not a thing happened to anybody from the DOJ who's been caught out for being a corrupt POS. I mean not really. There's Kevin Klinesmith the lawyer who was slapped on the wrist for 10 minutes and then welcomed back into the fold of wicked credentialed douchebags. There's all the three letter agency heads breaking laws left and right, who nobody ever goes after. But plantation Fani is going down. And so will Alvin Bragg, and the black lady prosecutor in Maryland who was found guilty of mortgage fraud. The best evidence of racism in the Democrat party is - WHY AREN'T THE WHITE FOLKS IN TROUBLE? 'Hunter will never see a jail cell. He's a traitor like his daddy. And he'll skate. Brennan, Clapper, Obama, they're presumably untouchable. The insider traitors in DC get carte blanche to fondle the CCP reminbi and screw with the US Constitution apparently. Mark Milley calls the Chinese military chief to warn him about the US President? Wut.... The FDA and the CDC and the rest of the COVID murderers, no problem. Who's looking into the one million dead Americans? Cricket noises.
It's the peripheral people they sacrifice.
Dunning Krueger needs an update with a Z axis for hypocrisy in relation to overestimating their abilities.
There'd be some real depth in that cube.
Can we get another axis for projection as well?
Now you're getting metaphysical. A four dimensional graphic representation of stupidity! Love it.
4D idiocracy
yup.
the party that defended slavery, founded the KKK and enacted Jim Crow in the South are still the same party in charge. they are the same racist assholes they always were, but since LBJ found the magic makeover of the Great Society, no one will notice the same old tricks being played.
“When I took out a large amount of money on my first campaign, I kept some of the cash of that." - Fani Willis, unwittingly confessing under oath to campaign finance violations.
These people commit felonies daily yet somehow skirt around any accountability ever.
CBS News had a piece on their web site regarding her hearing testimony. From their characterizations, you would have thought she was the female reincarnation of Louis Brandeis.
Not a single examination of the serious allegations and supporting evidence that have been levied against her and Mr. Wade. A journalist at a once reputable news organization can't bother to discuss compelling evidence of alleged prosecutorial misconduct in a RICO case against the former president of the United States.
Instead, it's a People Magazine-styled fluff piece to tell us how brave Fani is.
Absolutely nauseating.
The reporters do not have editors to guide them along. It’s all fluff and if you look closely half is usually written in text shorthand, the rest actively taking a piss on rules of grammar and spelling of the English language. The mentally ill are leading the mentally inept.
CBS just fired Catherine Herridge, effectively certifying their complete abandonment of news reporting.
Not to worry, still plenty of CIA mockingbirds on the job, though with AI, they're not really needed anymore.
Headline, top of the front page, with photo, in Friday's War Street Journal (wife subscribes, not me): "Defiant Trump Prosecutor Gives Rebuttal Over Office Romance." Crony capitalists love their leftist flunkies. The Journal's urinalists seems to have overlooked the projection in Fani's testimony: "These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I'm not on trial . . . "
Juvenile delinquents abounding.
~
There - I told the story in 3 words succinctly.
BK
Fani Willis is the most Atlanta person in the world. She is the shameful walking embodiment of everything that is wrong with my state. Sadly, having lived in Metro ATL my whole life, I know that she probably won't even get thrown off her own farcical case--much less prosecuted for public corruption. She will probably be the next Senator from the once-Great State of Georgia. She'll be able to debate the actual weight at which islands capsize with fellow Atlanta luminary, Hank Johnson.
Fani is the Ava character on Abbot Elementary. Ava's narcissistic, shameless, and hyper-rationalized self-dealing is funny, charming and ultimately inconsequential. Fani's attitudes and behaviours on the other hand, are toxic and corrosive to civilized society. As well, her sanctimonious truth-mangling rationalizations are nauseating, and we can only hope, legally actionable.
Stacey Abrams is another who falls into the category. And also a black -- excuse me, Black -- woman from Georgia.
Also the rightful governor of the State of Georgia. She was anyway, until the election was stolen from her. Of course those were the pre-2020 days when elections were still unfortified.