Posts

Hannah Arendt | The real goal of totalitarian ideology

“The real goal of totalitarian ideology is not the transformation of the external conditions of human existence and not the revolutionary reorganization of the social order, but the transformation of human nature itself, which, as it is, constantly opposes the totalitarian process. … What is at stake in total domination is really the essence of man.”

Hannah Arendt

Emile Zola | If you shut up truth

"If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way."

Emile Zola

Paul Claudel | Truth has nothing to do

"Truth has nothing to do with the number of people it convinces."

Paul Claudel

Gore Vidal | chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice

"At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice."

Gore Vidal

Upton Sinclair | American journalism is a class institution

"American journalism is a class institution, serving the rich and spurning the poor."

Upton Sinclair

Noam Chomsky | course of intellectual self defense

"Citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for meaningful democracy."

Noam Chomsky

Ray McGovern | have in any real sense a free media

"In Washington 52 years now I've seen a lot of change but there's one change the dwarfs all the other changes in importance and that is that we no longer have in any real sense a free media and that is big that could not be bigger"

Ray McGovern

Caitlin Johnstone | power-serving worldview

"The predominant reason mainstream news reporters say things that aren’t true is because in order to be hired by mainstream news outlets, you need to jack your mind into a power-serving worldview that is not based in truth."

Caitlin Johnstone

James H. Barry | Its news-gatherers, I sincerely believe, only obey orders

"You wish to know my "confidential opinion as to the honesty of the Associated Press." My opinion, not confidential, is that it is the damndest, meanest monopoly on the face of the earth--the wet-nurse for all other monopolies. It lies by day, it lies by night, and it lies for the very lust of lying. Its news-gatherers, I sincerely believe, only obey orders."

James H. Barry

Upton Sinclair | whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy

„Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters.“

Upton Sinclair

Gustav Kuschinsky | If it is claimed

"If it is claimed that a substance has no side effects, then there is a strong suspicion that it does not have any principal effect."

Gustav Kuschinsky

Blaise Pascal | Truth is so obscure in these times

"Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it."

Blaise Pascal

Sergej Lawrow | „Master of the house“ of NATO and EU sits in Washington

"Both Nato and the European Union have resigned themselves to the fact that their ‘master of the house’ is in Washington and in Washington they have decided that the world must now be monopolar, they talk about that all the time."

Sergej Lawrow

Joost A.M. Meerloo | Numbing the senses by monotonously repeating

"Numbing the senses by monotonously repeating an assertion is a key element in utilizing mind control techniques."

Joost A.M. Meerloo

Joost A.M. Meerloo | Ready made opinions

"Ready made opinions can be distributed day by day through the press, radio, and so on, again and again, till they reach the nerve cell and implant a fixed pattern in the brain. Consequently, guided public opinion is the result, according to Pavlovian theoreticians, of good propaganda technique, and the polls [are] a verification of the temporary successful action of the Pavlovian machinations on the mind."

Joost A.M. Meerloo

Joost A.M. Meerloo | hammering noises of arguments and propaganda

"The continual intrusion into our minds of the hammering noises of arguments and propaganda can lead to two kinds of reactions. It may lead to apathy and indifference, the I-don't-care reaction, or to a more intensified desire to study and to understand. Unfortunately, the first reaction is the more popular one."

Joost A.M. Meerloo

Joost A.M. Meerloo | effective mind control.

"Confusing a targeted audience is one of the necessary ingredients for effective mind control."

Joost A.M. Meerloo

Joost A.M. Meerloo | master of the mind

"He who dictates and formulates the words and phrases we use, he who is master of the press and radio, is master of the mind. Repeat mechanically your assumptions and suggestions, diminish the opportunity for communicating dissent and opposition. This is the formula for political conditioning of the masses"

Joost A.M. Meerloo

Marshall McLuhan | All media work us over completely

"[...] All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the message. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.[...] All media are extensions of some human faculty — psychic or physical. [...] Media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act—the way we perceive the world. When these ratios change, men change.[...]"

Marshall McLuhan

Marilyn Monroe | thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul

"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents."

Marilyn Monroe

Friedrich Nietzsche | The State is the coldest of all cold monster

"The State is the coldest of all cold monsters, and coldly it tells lies, and this lie drones on from its mouth: 'I, the State, am the people'."

Friedrich Nietzsche

Karl Rove | We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality

"People like you are still living in what we call the reality-based community. You believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Karl Rove

Yuval Noah Harari | flooding people with irrelevant information

"In the past, censorship worked by blocking the flow of information. In the twenty-first century, censorship works by flooding people with irrelevant information. [...] In ancient times having power meant having access to data. Today having power means knowing what to ignore."

Yuval Noah Harari