Sisyphus And The PPMPRR

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
- The Tempest, Act V, Scene I

When it comes to quotes for all occasions, Shakespeare has the Bible beat.  The man could turn a phrase better than any other wordsmith I've come across, and like the character Miranda who speaks the lines above, I often boggle at the world's stage and all the men and women upon 't.

About a month or so ago, I wrote that people with common sense and the ability to reason should seize the moment to steer the narrative.  I suggested terms like "Corporate Media," "Snakes," etc., as a means to grab hold of the public discourse before the American political hacks (in the old sense and new) could regain control.

Alas, it is too late.  This whole "fake news" narrative is a prime example of the Corporate Media trying to wrest control of the Information Stream away from the Free Press, who so deftly ran circles around the Professional Liars during the election.

Amazingly, the Corporate Media actually chose Brian Williams to be one of their attack dogs.  Let's take a moment to remember who this bozo is.  This guy was the national news anchor for one of the propaganda outlets - I purposely forgot which one - who was disgraced for dozens of false reports, especially the whopper about being shot down by an RPG over some Middle East country (details aren't important, since the story was fake).

It seems, though, that this fabricated narrative of Russian hackers upsetting the US elections is being shot down.  Almost as much as the term "fake news" gets thrown around in the Corporate Media, are the retractions of stories that are wholly created for public consumption.  It seems the Battle of the Narrative is not won yet.

In all of this hollering about Fake News, though, is "die Sache hat einen Haken" that no one is willing to talk about.

Have you heard anyone, whether the Free Press or the Corporate Media, lately addressing the veracity of the information in the thousands of email that were released by WikiLeaks before Election Day?

Think about that for a minute...

Neither Clinton nor Podesta nor Wasserman-Schultz et cetera ad nauseam has denied the SUBSTANCE of the vast piles of email, only that the OUTLETS are not part of that very chic and exclusive club known as the Professional Propaganda Mouthpieces and Press Release Regurgitators (a.k.a. PPMPRR).  In other words, this is all a massive ad hominem attack that is trying to discredit the independent reporters and journalists, but they haven't spent a single minute addressing the underlying information that was reported.

Thus, Fake News is yet another fallacy of creating a Straw Man to attack, rather than denying and defending against the actual issues that were raised.

For their part, the Free Press has bought into the whole mess by not only adopting the "Fake News" term, but defending themselves against a false attack, instead of continuing to report on and hammer away at the real issues.

The Corporate Media are highly adept at these things.  They get their targets engaged in a thrilling round of "are too am not" until everyone forgets what the real issue was, and thus the original perpetrators get off scot-free.

Come to think of it, the Corporate Media have set up several Straw Men, with the Fake News narrative, the alleged Russian Hackers, and now, it seems they are trying to sneak the Chinese into it, as well.

It is a classic smoke and mirrors attack.  Get everyone arguing about something that doesn't exist and is completely irrelevant so they forget to argue about the real issues.  It also sets up the Free Press to spend all their time proving a negative, which also cannot be done.  Sisyphus would be proud.

This whole thing highlights the inexperience of the Free Press.  The PPMPRR has successfully - so far - hi-jackced the public discourse and redirected the death blow that is literally within the grip of the Free Press.  It is time for the New Media to learn quickly and fight back by retaking control of the public discourse, otherwise this rare moment in history will be lost.  Don't use the approved terms and phrases issued by the Corporate Media, and stop attacking the Straw Men they set up.

Instead, return to the Clinton and Podesta email that not only contain major issues that need to be investigated, but that have already brought down some major political figures.  This is REAL information that NO ONE has denied.

Stop getting bogged down in false narratives, or Sisyphus' boulder will roll right over you.

When The Moon Hits Your Eye

I've hit the post-election doldrums.

After the head-slapping antics of the past year in the US, nothing seems to rise to that level of hysteria, nor provides enough comic relief to write about.  Trump has been busy filling his Cabinet, with only the occasional tweet to keep us all entertained.  Hillary Clinton has virtually disappeared, and instead has pushed her surrogate Jill Stein to the front.  Not that the recount isn't entertaining - watching it backfire on both Stein and Clinton is rather chuckle-worthy - but it is anti-climactic.

In other news, there's PizzaGate, which if you haven't been following that story, you are missing some good entertainment.  Here is an example of click-bait that will be fly-paper for anyone who steps in it.

See, the pedophile rings at the highest levels of global power is a very real issue.  It is a story that has been around for several decades now, but the Pizza Parlor angle, regardless of whether it was part of the actual operation before, has now been sanitized and is being used to trap Free Press types who don't have the experience and/or sense to smell a trap.

These kinds of operations, at the levels at which they ope
rate, has the ability to sanitize within minutes.  Think of the speakeasys during Prohibition in the 1920s.  Before the cops could get in the door, the liquor shelves flipped, glasses were swapped with soda and the place was completely neutralized.  This, in effect, is PizzaGate.

A trail of breadcrumbs has been left for the less experienced investigators to follow.  This has two purposes: one, it hides the operation and protects the perpetrators, and two, it will be used to ensnare and eventually discredit the "alt media."  All operations of this kind have multi-layered traps, and as fast as one operation is discovered, it is shut down and backup operations are immediately fired up, complete with all new jargon.

This highlights the problem with "alt media," which I now distinguish from the Free Press.  Most of the "alt media" folks are neophytes who have no training, little experience and a fraction of the common sense they were born with.  Real reports and investigators follow their instincts, which were honed over years of hanging around the old gang and getting their feet wet with experienced hands to guide them.

Now-a-days, every numbnut with a smartphone and a YouTube account think they are Billy Batson.  They are dumb enough to think all leads are good leads, and that the bad guys might actually lay traps to disgrace and discredit them.  In a way, that's good.  It weeds out the talentless wanna-bes and keeps the field relatively uncluttered.

A good reporter knows that where there's smoke, it probably someone trying to distract him from the real trail.  Real stories are like lizards.  Just when you catch them, the tail pops off and they get away.  The cub reporter is left with a wriggling piece of meaningless meat that keeps him distracted while the rest of the animal gets away.  A good reporter knows which leads are hot and chases the perps, but a great reporter gets ahead of the game and is waiting when the perps arrive.

I don't intend to smear "alt media."  It is a necessary function, much like Upton Sinclair.  In fact, the idiots populate all forms of reportage, and especially the Corporate Media.  Most of the bobbing heads one sees on the propaganda press are vacuous hair-spray models who got a degree in jounalism, not to be reporters, but to be famous for being on TeeVee (i.e. celebrities).  The same goes for "alt media."  There are those who just want to draw clicks and earn ad bux, like their Big Brothers, and honestly have no business calling themselves reporters.

Real reporters often have highly trained instincts that keep them on the cutting edge.  They are the ones that most people dismiss as wild-eyed loonies.  They are the ones whose stories seem to have little or no relation to trending stories in the rest of the media, but who are proved - weeks, months, even years later - to have been on the right track all along.  They are the ones going against the herd, and by the time the herd turns to follow, they are off on a completely different tangent, leaving the mop-up to the followers.

A great reporter is a true leader, but not in the sense of a politician.  Politicians usually get one thing right in their entire lives and then stick around to milk the praise as long as it lasts.  Real reporters often spend their entire lives being mocked and ridiculed, primarily because by the time everyone accepts the reporter's stories as factual, they've forgotten who got them there in the first place.  Meanwhile, the reporter is already blazing new trails.

So anyway, back to PizzaGate.  You will notice all the wanna-be reporters jumping on this bandwagon in the "alt media."  The perps have already flipped the tables, though, and anyone who clings to this story will get smeared with the Stupid Brush.

The story is genuine.  PizzaGate was a real front for pedophile rings, but getting exposed in John Podesta's email made them jump into action immediately.  They didn't cover it up, that would look to obvious.  Instead, they turned it into a rabbit warren of false leads and self-references to obfuscate the trail, and like a Venus Fly-Trap, it will snap shut and digest anyone who continues down that line of inquiry.

Folks are free to follow whomever they want, as well as free to become whatever they want.  The efforts of the Corporate Media to shut down "alt media" and "fake news" is nothing more than a desperate attempt to save their precious elitist positions and their pampered asses.  Years ago, they made a deal with the devil to stop reporting the news and start making it.

By the same token, there are a lot of "alt media" types who are self-aggrandizing and spreading utter bullshit under the guise of "reporting" news.

It is up to the viewer whom to believe, and it is certainly NOT the job of the Corporate Media and their lapdog Social(ist) Media to tell anyone what to watch, read or believe.  Everyone has the right to be wrong.

Devil Take The Hindmost

Here lately, the Corporate Media (formerly the Main Stream Media) have been going on about so-called "Fake News."  President Obama has stated that we should beware of false or misleading stories from the Free Press that try to spin stories and influence thinking in a way that is not sanctioned by the government and "authorities."

Well, bub, I got news for you.  The US Federal government, through its Central Intelligence Agency, is on record as having done just that for decades.  Furthermore, the old ham-fisted methods have been highly refined and are far more devious.  In addition, the Corporate Media is now in full compliance with the operations, whereas in years past, they had to infiltrate the media.

I refer to something called Project Mockingbird.  Though I normally avoid doing this, I want to quote at length from Wikipedia on the topic:

Operation Mockingbird was a campaign by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Begun in the 1950s, it was initially organized by Cord Meyer and Allen W. Dulles, and was later led by Frank Wisner after Dulles became the head of the CIA. The organization recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network to help present the CIA's views. It funded some student and cultural organizations and magazines as fronts. As it developed, it also worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns, in addition to activities by other operating units of the CIA. The CIA's use of journalists continued unabated until 1973, when the program was scaled back, finally coming to a halt in 1976 when George H.W. Bush took over as director.[1]"

I wanted to quote the entire paragraph because I want the reader to note that Wikipedia, which goes to great lengths to purge "conspiracy theories," or at least flag them, presents this rather amazing information as undeniable fact.  I also want the reader to note the name George H. W. Bush, also known as Bush the Elder.

For three decades, the CIA infiltrated major media outlets in order to "steer" news stories in the "proper" direction.  This is obviously "fake news," since the angle and content of the stories were modified and/or entirely fabricated to present a specific viewpoint, notably that of the US Federal government.

Project Mockingbird took place during a particularly turbulent time in US history - the 50s, 60s and 70s - which included key assassinations of political figures, a very unpopular war (Vietnam) and major disruptions in civil society (the SLA, Weather Underground, etc.).  It is difficult to separate the CIA infiltration of the mass media from the turmoil in American society at the time, and one wonders how much was influenced, even created by Project Mockingbird.

That the operation was halted under George H. W. Bush is a curious fact.  The Bush family has long been associated with covert operations.  Grandfather Prescott Bush was a major figure in supporting the Nazis during WW2 and was censured by Congress for trading with the enemy.  GHW has long been allied with certain factions of wealthy oil people who thought it would be fun to use their riches to tinker with American politics and society.

GHW became the CIA Director in 1976, then Vice President in 1980, then President in 1988, and there is a large body of evidence connecting him with the Klinton Klan and drug/gun running through Mena, Arkansas.

There is a great body of circumstantial evidence tying Bush's tenure at the CIA with the explosion of the Corporate Media. The fact that Bush, his son, his partners-in-crime the Clintons, and their hand-picked candidate Barack Obama have dominated US politics since the 1980s, when Bush served as Ronald Reagan's Vice President, shows unusual control of the narrative and ability to steer public discourse.

The Bush Dynasty coincidentally ruled over the massive mergers that have led to just six corporations controlling a major share of the mass media in the US, and even globally.  It also saw the release of the internet (ARPAnet) to the public.

This was also the period where national (and later global) news outlets sprang up, like CNN in 1980, USA Today in 1982, and the subsequent explosion of cable and radio networks that all amazingly present more or less the exact same content on a constantly repeating basis.  The growth curve of the mass media seems to coincide nicely with the Bush Dynasty rise to power.

It stands to reason that Bush oversaw, not just the end of Project Mockingbird, but a new and far more malicious form of propagandistic mind control that came to be known as the Main Stream Media.

Over the past two years, the public has been exposed to some of the most obvious and cynical attempts to control the masses ever witnessed.  It was clearly intended that yet another set of Bush/Clinton operatives were meant to be installed in the Presidency.

In June of last year, the media gushed over Jeb! Bush, another son of GHW (Ed - when he says "we," he doesn't mean "us").  In the other corner, of course, was Hillary Clinton.  Both were intended to be in the final round, and no matter who won, the Bush/Clinton Syndicate would have solidified its iron grip on power.  There is no doubt in my mind that had either of those two won, the next and final step would have been dictatorship.

All successful dictators control the media.  It is a given.  Without a means to control and feed carefully composed narratives to the masses, dictators quickly fall.  From the most inane Banana Republic to the most sophisticated oligarchies, absolute control over print and electronic media is essential to control over the masses.

Something extraordinary happened, though.  A media-savvy billionaire with no "controllers" and no political IOUs came along and tossed a wrench into the works, though I increasingly suspect Trump was a plant intended to siphon off the Ron Paul loonies and clear the path for Jeb! or Hillary.  There is no doubt that the time was right for a fight-back movement, but to watch it in progress was truly stunning.

For several years now, a number of commentators in the Free Press have noted a particular sense of panic on the part of the oligarchy.  It is clear that the "authorities" were cognizant of a new rising force of citizen journalists who were becoming real bugbears to the ruling class.

The "authorities" were quickly losing control of the Official Narrative as the new journalists were expanding their audiences by doing nothing more than proving the falsehoods put out by the Corporate Media.

It seems rather obvious now, but the so-called Conspiracy Theorists were winning the War of Hearts and Minds.  The legion of bloggers, vloggers and more sophisticated operations like Alex Jones were eating away at the control mechanisms.  In retrospect, it didn't matter whether they were right, so long as they could create enough doubt in the minds of the masses to undermine the Official Narrative.

The perceived panic on the part of the oligarchs was due almost entirely to their eroding control of the narrative.  What we witnessed this past year was a last-ditch effort that included the complete unmasking of the media control system.

It became so obvious that even a great many people sitting on the fence, or in complete denial, over the issue were ultimately pushed to the side of the Free Press.  The volumes of falsified polls, the obvious planting of smear pieces and the open hatred and disgust displayed by the Corporate Media ultimately was their undoing.

It was a race against the clock, and they lost.  In fact, the first shot across the bow was the spat between Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly during the primary debates.  That single event displayed both Trump's mastery of social media, and the Corporate Media's willingness to throw anyone they could get their hands on under the proverbial bus.

It is remarkable to see just how desperate the oligarchs have been to complete their take-over.  They have literally cashed in all their chips on this bet.  They will never recover.  GHW's "thousand points of light" have been snuffed out for good.

This is far from the end, though.  Behind the Bush-Clinton Dynasties are far more evil and powerful forces, and they have only begun to fight.

We need only look at the Millennial generation, those kids raised on non-stop diets of video games, cable news, smart phones and social media.  They are completely incapable of thinking independently, and as they grow older - eventually taking power - they will be a zombified force to be reckoned with in the next couple of decades.  They are a mindless army just waiting for instructions from the Hindmost.

It is difficult to overstate the significance of recent events.  That the Corporate Media has had its comeuppance is a satisfying moment, but it is only a battle in the greater war.  Few people are ready for what is coming, and it will be a major shock to a great number of people who are hardly prepared for it.

An enemy is not vanquished until it is utterly crushed, and the enemy here is hardly crushed - badly wounded and vulnerable, yes, but that is when wild beasts are most unpredictable and dangerous.

Enjoy the victory, Free Thinkers, but brace yourselves - the worst is yet to come.