Ukraine is winning the war!

  Go to YouTube and type: "Ukraine is winning the war". You will be stunned as you get a biblical deluge of whatever can be scrapped from the Internet of mostly fake but also old videos. Propaganda on steroid.

  No wonder the European leaders are lost in delusion. If this is what you watch from dawn to dusk, in the end how can you not believe that David is slaying Goliath in real time? Maps showing the relentless advance of the Russian army? Just show the retreat without context from the Kiev, Kharkov and Kherson areas at the beginning of 2022 and suddenly the current "fall back" of the Ukrainian army looks less ominous. Explosions in Kiev? Likewise, highlight a big fire at a Russian oil refinery to show that Ukraine is indeed weakening the Russian juggernaut preventing a full scale attack on Europe. And on, and on without respite.

  As always, in such circumstances, the fog of war is thick and propaganda is rife. Each side will necessarily present the interpretation of reality which serves its interest best and to some extent confirms what they want to believe. Fair enough. 

  But when high command starts believing its own propaganda and losing touch with reality, defeat inevitably looms over the horizon. Cherry picking feats of heroism in the mist of destruction is not a long term viable strategy. And as people realize that what they've been shown was not accurate, instead of changing their opinion, they invent bigger lies and their anger instead of being rightly directed at their own credulity focus on the dissonant messages they can neither process nor accept. Think Berlin 1945.

  The question nowadays, not only for Russia but for the rest of the world is how to manage this anger without generating a conflagration from which absolutely nobody can win.     

  This is in fact what we saw when Xi Jinping met Macron in Beijing last week or earlier when Putin met with Trump. Exploration of elusive off-ramps for intractable conflicts, more to avoid escalation than to solve "problems with no easy solutions". (The words of Trump which actually mean Europe and his own deep state are dead against the compromises he is proposing.)    

  In the end, the war in Ukraine can only conclude not with the total military defeat of Ukraine, which is a done deal, but because Europe is fully invested in the war, the financial failure of Europe as well. This is why the stakes are so high. Defeat is not something that any country can contemplate lightly. The first world war lasted 5 years from 1914 to 1918 as this was the time necessary to defeat Germany economically. The second world war likewise lasted 5 years in Europe and 4 years in the Pacific. Again, as this was the time necessary to exhaust both Japan and Germany's military and industrial machines thoroughly.

  Based on these precedents, without the participation of the US, it will probably take another year at most for Europe to give up financially. As we approach defeat, the stakes will rise and tensions likewise. But in the end, the outcome is painted starkly on the wall: Europe played for broke and lost. The world "casino" will not extend credit. Out in the depth of the night, under the rain and destitute. The morning after will be hard for Europe!

  Their last hope is a Pearl Harbor moment. Provocations upon provocations until Russia over-reacts and Trump is finally forced against his better judgement to do "something". Not to lose on this political front, Russia will have to thread a fine line between effective dissuasion (Not so easy when the other party is desperate.) and avoiding being pulled in a spiral of retaliations. The coming months will be fraught with risks.      

The Truth about AI (Well, just one example in fact but funny and worth reading.)

  The example of the introduction of AI in the corporate environment below is fascinating because behind the jargon, you'll find the reality of what AI really is for most people: Nothing much!  

  On average, it takes about a year to understand what AI really can do for you. It is a difficult path full of trial and error until you finally figure out that AI right now is little more than a demultiplicator of your competence. Input rich ideas and the AI will help you focus and refine them. Input junk and the AI likewise will demultiply your junk until your incompetence becomes glaringly obvious to every one around. 

   Input nothing much as in the example below and you'll get nothing at all as in so many legacy companies which are focused on their own process to the exclusion of why they exist in the first place. This in the end may be the safest attitude: No risk, no reward but no downside either. Until of course the competition takes off with a killer idea. But then there is always time to catch up, right?    

Post by Peter Girnus

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees.

$30 per seat per month.

$1.4 million annually.

I called it “digital transformation.”

The board loved that phrase.

They approved it in eleven minutes.

No one asked what it would actually do.

Including me.

I told everyone it would “10x productivity.”

That’s not a real number.

But it sounds like one.

HR asked how we’d measure the 10x.

I said we’d “leverage analytics dashboards.”

They stopped asking.

Three months later I checked the usage reports.

47 people had opened it.

12 had used it more than once.

One of them was me.

I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds.

It took 45 seconds.

Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations.

But I called it a “pilot success.”

Success means the pilot didn’t visibly fail.

The CFO asked about ROI.

I showed him a graph.

The graph went up and to the right.

It measured “AI enablement.”

I made that metric up.

He nodded approvingly.

We’re “AI-enabled” now.

I don’t know what that means.

But it’s in our investor deck.

A senior developer asked why we didn’t use Claude or ChatGPT.

I said we needed “enterprise-grade security.”

He asked what that meant.

I said “compliance.”

He asked which compliance.

I said “all of them.”

He looked skeptical.

I scheduled him for a “career development conversation.”

He stopped asking questions.

Microsoft sent a case study team.

They wanted to feature us as a success story.

I told them we “saved 40,000 hours.”

I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up.

They didn’t verify it.

They never do.

Now we’re on Microsoft’s website.

“Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot.”

The CEO shared it on LinkedIn.

He got 3,000 likes.

He’s never used Copilot.

None of the executives have.

We have an exemption.

“Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction.”

I wrote that policy.

The licenses renew next month.

I’m requesting an expansion.

5,000 more seats.

We haven’t used the first 4,000.

But this time we’ll “drive adoption.”

Adoption means mandatory training.

Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches.

But completion will be tracked.

Completion is a metric.

Metrics go in dashboards.

Dashboards go in board presentations.

Board presentations get me promoted.

I’ll be SVP by Q3.

I still don’t know what Copilot does.

But I know what it’s for.

It’s for showing we’re “investing in AI.”

Investment means spending.

Spending means commitment.

Commitment means we’re serious about the future.

The future is whatever I say it is.

As long as the graph goes up and to the right.

Gaming The System: Huge Proportion Of 'Elite' University Students Claiming Disabilities

  Yesterday we had fun looking at the emergence of Idiocracy in Western countries but it is also important to understand how such a system is built. To secure the unavoidable rise of such a monument of anti-achievement, you must first and foremost poison the education system in such a way that its main output become perfect citizens for such a system. 

  Bribing your way to greatness was always an open freeway to the top for the very rich. Think about such luminaries are George W. Bush. But this alone cannot crash a country as long as competent underlings are still selected in such a way that the brightest end up manning the essential technical positions which ensure that however badly managed by politicians, a country keeps functioning more or less adequately.

  No, to truly crash a system, you need incompetent people whose main achievement is having answered correctly to woke questions and LGBTQ surveys, and of course be either from oppressed minorities or with disabilities. Saying your grandmother was native American has its limits but finding a compliant doctor to sign a disability certificate seems to be easier and this is how you end up with 38% of students with disabilities at Stanford! I kid you not. A sanatorium! 

  Read below if you are interested but the advantages are such that you would have to be a moron not to do it. Now, come on, ADHD? Who doesn't qualify these days? Certainly much easier than a real difficult test with limited time. You know, what University used to be about: Selecting the very best.       

Gaming The System: Huge Proportion Of 'Elite' University Students Claiming Disabilities

Just when you thought the ongoing cultivation of weakness in American youth couldn't get much worse, huge proportions of the student bodies at US universities are enrolling with official disability designations that bestow various accommodations upon the students who claim them. As you may have expected, the alarming trend is most pronounced at what are supposed to be the most "elite" institutions. 

We're not talking about people in wheelchairs, but rather students snagging diagnoses for ADHD, anxiety and depression from indulgent doctors. "It’s rich kids getting extra time on tests," an un-tenured professor at a selective university told The Atlantic's Rose Horowitch. Apparently fearing backlash, he requested anonymity. 

The numbers are jarring. Harvard and Brown's undergraduate student body is 20% "disabled." Amherst has hit 34%, while Stanford's disability rate is a head-shaking 38%. At one unidentified law school, 45% of students have been awarded academic accommodations. In stark contrast, only 3 to 4% of students at public two-year colleges get disability accommodations. 

"Obviously, something is off here," observes Emma Camp at Reason. "The idea that some of the most elite, selective universities in America—schools that require 99th percentile SATs and sterling essays—would be educating large numbers of genuinely learning disabled students is clearly bogus."

Disabled students are often given time-and-a-half or double-time to finish a test, and the freedom to turn in papers well beyond the given due date. However, extra time isn't the only benefit. At Carnegie-Mellon, a social-anxiety disorder can ensure a student isn't called upon by a professor without advance notice.

Schools also let supposedly learning-disabled students take tests in "reduced distraction testing environments," as being in a room with 80 other people is apparently just too taxing for them. However, a University of Chicago professor told the Atlantic that a deluge of students taking tests in the "reduced distraction testing environments" means those rooms are pretty much as "distracting" as a conventional classroom supposedly is.   

In what may be the most darkly amusing accommodation, a public college in California allowed a student to bring her mother to class -- which backfired when the mother went beyond whatever role she was expected to play and eagerly participated in the discussions, tuition-free.  

Professor Paul Graham Fisher, who'd previously co-chaired Stanford's disability task force, told the Atlantic:   

“I have had conversations with people in the Stanford administration. They’ve talked about at what point can we say no? What if it hits 50 or 60 percent? At what point do you just say ‘We can’t do this’?”

 

Plenty of these students are likely motivated by a cut-throat desire to gain advantage. However, equally bad, it's possible a majority of these students sincerely consider themselves disabled. "Over the past few years, there's been a rising push to see mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions as not just a medical fact, but an identity marker," writes Reason's Camp, who notes that social media and other factors foster a rush to attribute common human fallibilities as some kind of medical condition. "The result is a deeply distorted view of 'normal,'" says Camp. "If ever struggling to focus or experiencing boredom is a sign you have ADHD, the implication is that a 'normal,' nondisabled person has essentially no problems." 

The disability rush isn't limited to elite college campuses. High school students are using disability designations to score extra time on SAT and ACT tests. "We are also well aware of fliers in the district circulating among parents of doctors in the area who are known to hand out ADHD diagnoses," a high school teacher at an affluent public school told We Are Teachers. "In some cases, I think what’s happening is a pay-to-play situation.”

And the decline of the West proceeds apace...

Idiocracy! - Jasmine Crockett Announces US Senate Run

   Among the best predictive movies of the late 20th Century was of course The Matrix, making it clear that our reality is in fact "manufactured" and The Terminator, announcing early the arrival of killer robots and drones. 

  And then there was Idiocracy. A seemingly innocent comedy about a future when finally democracy flourished, the Mencken way, and people succeeded in electing politicians who truly represented them in every respect including their low IQ. And gosh was it funny, because here and there a few hints of this coming reality were already apparent but still, it was comedy. 

  That was then. 20 years ago in 2006. Move forward a couple of decades, one short generation later and reality seems to be squaring with fiction. What democracy alone could not deliver, DEI did. 

  If in 2024 you enjoyed the campaign of Kamala Harris and her future "unburdened by what has been", Jasmine Crockett's gonna be pure bliss for you! 

  If this was only about politics, I wouldn't bother to mention it but it clearly is not, this is a trend. If you need to be convinced just listen to Kaja Kallas, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission. With such a lengthy tittle, you would expect the EU to have chosen one of the most brilliant representative available to spar with China, India, Russia and even the US and you would be very wrong.

  All this forces us to consider a fundamental question: Is there an inverse correlation law between the speed of decline of a country and the IQ of the people representing it? Well, Jasmine Crockett is not in the Senate yet but Kaja Kallas and Ursula von der Leyen are at the top of the EU hierarchy. That much is undeniable. No wonder these people had to take the public bus when they visit Beijing last month. Soon they will be treated with a "Panda tour" as Emmanuel Macron was last week when he went all the way to ask China to be "less" competitive! And later finally welcomed with Shanghai Disneyland tickets to enjoy the magic of... whatever, it won't matter that much anymore.

Jasmine Crockett Announces US Senate Run And It's Already Comedy Gold

Democrat meme and congresswoman Jasmine Crockett is running for the US Senate in the deep red state of Texas, and Republicans are cheering.  Notorious for providing some of the worst political takes of the past year, Crockett is widely considered to be the embodiment of leftist DEI - A low intelligence person artificially elevated into law and politics because of her minority status.  Her presence on the national stage has produced endless comedy gold, but it's about to get better.  

Crockett's last minute announcement is causing confusion within the Democrat Party and concerns that her radical Trump Derangement Syndrome is a "gift" for Republican opponents entering the race.  In a state where Democrats have not won a single statewide election since 1994 (longest active drought in the nation), Crockett seems to be operating on the assumption that there is a "progressive base" hidden among the non-voting population.

However, other controversial Democrats have tried to conquer Texas under similar notions that the state is "secretly purple."  Crockett cites Beto O'Rourke's gubernatorial run in 2022 as evidence, but she overlooks the fact that the election took place at the height of the pandemic hysteria and an unprecedented propaganda onslaught by the establishment against conservatives.  O'Rourke still lost the race to Greg Abbott by double digits.

No gubernatorial election involving O'Rourke has occurred since, and as of December 2025, he has not announced plans to run again in 2026.  The likelihood of Crockett doing any better in a run for Senate is next to zero.  The reasons why should be obvious, but her first ad for her 2026 campaign explains everything.  The advertisement features nothing about her accomplishments, only Donald Trump calling her low IQ on repeat. 

Indeed, Crockett's entire career revolves around Donald Trump even though she's not running against Trump and Trump will, ostensibly, retire after the 2028 elections.  Crockett argues:  

“There are a lot of people that said, ‘You got to stay in the House. We need our voice. We need you there.’ And I understand, but what we need is for me to have a bigger voice... I’m done watching the American dream on life support while Trump tries to pull the plug. The gloves have been off, and now I’m jumping into the ring.”

The problem is that Crockett perceives her national exposure as a good thing, despite the fact that she is most famous for being, as Trump says, one of the lowest IQ people in US politics.  Crockett's bizarre behavior includes changing her accent to "black voice" to appeal to progressive voters.  She defended the existence of USAID and Sesame Street in Iraq in order to propagandize foreign enemies to stop hating America.  She also released a list of Republicans who supposedly took money from Jeffery Epstein, except it was the wrong Epstein. 

When confronted on the fraudulent list, Crockett argued that she never specified "which Epstein" she was referring to.  Federal campaign finance records show that the actual Epstein donated primarily to Democrats, including two current sitting members of Congress, Delegate Stacy Plaskett (D-V.I) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), both of whom have retained the donations, despite scrutiny.  

These kinds of blunders have become a feature of Crockett's career and there's little doubt that she will provide ample laughs during her Senate race. 

EU Rushes To Secure Russian Assets Under Emergency Powers, Bypassing Hungary Veto

   What is not being said in the article below is that this move could very well crash the current world order. In other words, if the neutrality of Euroclear is compromised, then the platform is toast and European assets themselves cease to be tradable on Euroclear for outside parties, including China and most of the developing countries. In such a scenario, you can expect a sudden rush to expand the BRICS system both vertically with a deeper integration and horizontally with many new countries applying suddenly. Can the BRICS bear the brunt? Well, we may be about to know. This would mark the instant marginalization of Euroclear and internationalization of BRICS. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The Belgians are right to be worried!  

EU Rushes To Secure Russian Assets Under Emergency Powers, Bypassing Hungary Veto

Ukraine is desperately seeking more money, which has been a persistent reality of the war, and the European Union is scrambling to find solutions amid a general Western war weariness which has already seen hundreds of billions poured into Kiev's coffers.

Currently EU member states are rapidly advancing a plan to permanently freeze as much as €210 billion ($244.38 billion) in Russian state assets to finance Ukraine for at least the next two years. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is seeking to use a loophole to rush this through, based on invoking emergency powers to sanction the frozen assets on a permanent basis, instead of holding the funds based on current six-month renewals, which requires unanimous agreement from all member states.

The plan would see €90 billion (roughly $104.71 billion) released over the next two years. Von der Leyen's scheme would allow for the plan to pass merely with a qualified majority, and so couldn't be derailed by just a lone veto. Nations like Germany and Spain have already signaled their support. 

Hungarian and Belgian leaders. Source: vrt.be

EU leadership is rushing it forward to circumvent holdout Hungary in getting what's being dubbed a "reparations loan" to Ukraine, and there's also the idea that it would bolster the EU’s negotiating position in US-led peace negotiations.

EU summits chairman Antonio Costa has vowed to deliver the desired outcome by any means. "The leaders are to decide at a summit on December 18 in Brussels how to deliver on their pledge and Costa told reporters in Dublin he would keep them talking for days, if necessary, until they reach an agreement," Reuters reports.

It will involve more than just overcoming the hurdle of Hungarian objections, however, given Belgium is not onboard at this point, and the bulk of the Russian funds are kept in Belgian banks.

For starters, Brussels fears immediate negative repercussions from Russia, which could deeply hurt its economy, and so wants guarantees ahead of any EU vote that all members would help absorb the impact.

Von der Leyen has acknowledged the issue, posting on X: "Belgium’s particular situation regarding the use of the frozen Russian assets is undeniable and must be addressed in such a way that all European states bear the same risk."  She added: "We agreed to continue our discussions with the aim of reaching a consensus at the European Council meeting on December 18."

Belgium's initial reaction was to call it "complete madness" - according to The Hungarian Conservative:

‘This is complete madness,’ [Belgian Prime Minister Bart] de Wever said of the proposal in October, according to POLITICO Brussels. The Belgian prime minister argued that the risk of legal and financial retaliation from Moscow is simply too great. He told his colleagues that if Russia were to win lawsuits against Belgium or Euroclear—which holds the frozen assets—the country would be forced to compensate the entire amount itself.

De Wever’s concerns are not unfounded. Reacting to the Commission’s proposal, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that any ‘illegal action’ involving frozen assets would provoke the ‘harshest reaction’, adding that Moscow is already preparing a package of countermeasures. Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev described the plan as a ‘casus belli’, labelling the move tantamount to outright theft.

EU diplomats have been in back-and-forth negotiations with Belgium. Germany's Chancellor Merz has also acknowledged, "What we decide now will determine Europe's future: Belgium's particular vulnerability in the issue of utilizing the frozen Russian assets is indisputable and must be addressed in such a way that all European states bear the same risk."

The European Commission is working on 'safeguards'. "The Belgian government, along with Euroclear, are looking for financial guarantees from fellow EU member states before committing to supporting the plan," Fox News writes. "De Wever fears that Belgium will ultimately be held responsible and be forced to pay back the assets that are seized in the event a sanctions deal is negotiated with Russia as a way to end the war in Ukraine." But without doubt, the Kremlin has been brainstorming the punitive actions it could in turn unleash to make Belgium and Europe feel the pain.

Alastair Crooke: Zelensky & EU SABOTAGE US sponsored Peace plan (Video - 1h20mn)

  This interview of Alastair Crooke, a former British diplomat is a must see. Not because of what he is saying about Ukraine which is interesting in its own right but because of how he describes the deep state and how it truly works. 

  The "deep state" as we often understand it, is a layer of non elected and mostly un-removable civil servants who often have more sway over the laws than actual politicians since practically, they are the one who decide which laws are actually applied and which ones can be ignored. I have a long experience of dealing with these people in Japan, France and the UK and can confirm that practically, they and they alone are the law. 

  But then Alastair Crooke goes on explaining how the other layers of the deep state operate. Rich people, often but not limited to industrialists like Elon Musk or Bill Gates, but also thousands of less prominent people, operate through "donations". They give a little money directly and a lot indirectly which eventually get people elected, or in other words, they buy elections, often through the media they control. Bad enough if you believe in democracy. 

  And then finally, there is the very deep state, the supra state of powerful people and organizations, which operates as a control gate of who can and who cannot be elected. Their control is hidden and murky. It goes from the secret but known Bilderberg Group to the shadowy Club of the 300 and others. 

 These "deep states" will get you labeled as "conspiracy theorist" whenever you mention them by name, but less so when you observe the effect of their respective actions on politics. This is especially the case with the Trump administration which for obvious reasons is directly opposed by the civil servants, tries often successfully to co-opt the industrialists and is kept under a rather short leash by the "controllers". 

  This is why, beyond their apparent vagaries, the policies of Trump are mostly and practically always expunged of their most potent aspects soon after being made public. This is especially and glaringly the case with Ukraine where Trump can say almost whatever he wants and in reality the actions of the US stay to course of indirectly supporting Ukraine both politically and militarily to his great frustration.   

  I do not think you can hear a more open description of these deep states than what transpires from the Alastair Crooke's discussion below. This also helps to a large extent understand why the Trump administration looks as disorderly as it does. Trump is fighting many different demons at the same time in a fog of war from which only the results can be glimpsed. Fascinating once you understand what you are seeing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWiNINCmig

Question Everything

   The tittle alone should be everything you need to know or understand but unfortunately this is not the case. Our current system of communication management and information control was built over a century of better and finer understanding of the way reality is created, since the pioneering days of Edward Berneys, and god knows if we have made progress since. 

  If you have any doubt, just watch TV advertising from the 1950s. They sound quaint, childish and induce feelings of nostalgia because they come from a simpler world when "reality" was easier to manipulate. Our ancestors didn't question (or rather few did) the necessity to go fight German "Huns" or oppose the "bolsheviks" later. The quote "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it" attributed to Joseph Goebbels is a basic principle of perception manipulation and it dates from the 1930s.   

  Then television became ubiquitous and the messaging more subtle. We slowly understood that "Buy X!" (X being a product or an idea) was not the most efficient method. You just needed to be "primed" to X (hear the name or idea often enough) so that when the time came to look at a product on a shelf or talk about an idea and voice your own opinion with little time to think, the correct induced automatic mechanism would kick in. 

  And as we "discovered" this new continent of the subconscious, more savvy people saw the opportunity and as is often the case, what was earlier an art became a science. 

  Then came the Internet and the trickle of news and ideas became a flood. A fast food of concepts where pre-digested memes were served hot and cold at any time of the day. And here we are today: People's brains are fat with news and starved of thinking, worried about what happens in places they will never go but completely ignorant to what truly and immediately affects them. (Think about public finance and policies. The monetary system, their free access to information and so many other essential parts of their lives.)  

  The other side of the equation, is that the global Internet has conversely polarized and tribalized people so that discussing and therefore confronting your ideas with other people has become more conflictual and therefore less frequent. Now imagine the devastation Artificial Intelligence will bring to such a landscape with its sycophantic interactions and ever more subtle ability to nudge us in the "right" direction.

  To remain sane in such an environment will become a daily struggle, just like trying to find good food when mega-malls and chain-stores have taken over the cities. It is not impossible but it will require so much energy and time that few people will bother. The war for information will not be lost in long passionate discussions but by exhausted people hypnotized by screens, large and small, watching memes and AI generated videos (Slops) with a faint smile, alone, eating stale hamburgers delivered by Uber Eat.

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

The average person in the First World receives far more information than he would if he lived in a Second or Third World country. In many countries of the world, the very idea of twenty-four hour television news coverage would be unthinkable, yet many Westerners feel that, without this constant input, they would be woefully uninformed. 

Not surprising, then, that the average First Worlder feels that he understands current events better than those elsewhere in the world. But, as in other things, quality and quantity are not the same.

The average news programme features a commentator who provides “the news,” or at least that portion of events that the network deems worthy to be presented. In addition, it is presented from the political slant of the controllers of the network. But we are reassured that the reporting is “balanced,” in a portion of the programme that features a panel of “experts.”

Customarily, the panel consists of the moderator plus two pundits who share his political slant and a pundit who has an opposing slant. All are paid by the network for their contributions. The moderator will ask a question on a current issue, and an argument will ensue for a few minutes. Generally, no real conclusion is reached—neither side accedes to the other. The moderator then moves on to another question.

So, the network has aired the issues of the day, and we have received a balanced view that may inform our own opinions.

Or have we?

Shortcomings

In actual fact, there are significant shortcomings in this type of presentation:

1. The scope of coverage is extremely narrow. Only select facets of each issue are discussed.

2. Generally, the discussion reveals precious little actual insight and, in fact, only the standard opposing liberal and conservative positions are discussed, implying that the viewer must choose one or the other to adopt as his own opinion.

3. On a programme that is liberally-oriented, the one conservative pundit on the panel is made to look foolish by the three liberal pundits, ensuring that the liberal viewer’s beliefs are reaffirmed. (The reverse is true on a conservative news programme.)

4. Each issue facet that is addressed is repeated many times in the course of the day, then extended for as many days, weeks, or months as the issue remains current. The “message,” therefore, is repeated virtually as often as an advert for a brand of laundry powder.

So, what is the net effect of such news reportage? Has the viewer become well-informed?

In actual fact, not at all. What he has become is well-indoctrinated.

A liberal will be inclined to regularly watch a liberal news channel, which will result in the continual reaffirmation of his liberal views. A conservative will, in turn, regularly watch a conservative news channel, which will result in the continual reaffirmation of his conservative views.

Many viewers will agree that this is so, yet not recognise that, essentially, they are being programmed to simply absorb information. Along the way, their inclination to actually question and think for themselves is being eroded.

Alternate Possibilities

The proof of this is that those who have been programmed, tend to react with anger when they encounter a Nigel Farage or a Ron Paul, who might well challenge them to consider a third option—an interpretation beyond the narrow conservative and liberal views of events. In truth, on any issue, there exists a wide field of alternate possibilities.

By contrast, it is not uncommon for people outside the First World to have better instincts when encountering a news item. If they do not receive the BBC, Fox News, or CNN, they are likely, when learning of a political event, to think through, on their own, what the event means to them.

As they are not pre-programmed to follow one narrow line of reasoning or another, they are open to a broad range of possibilities. Each individual, based upon his personal experience, is likely to draw a different conclusion and, thorough discourse with others, is likely to continue to update his opinion each time he receives a new viewpoint.

As a result, it is not uncommon for those who are not “plugged-in” to be not only more open-minded, but more imaginative in their considerations, even when they are less educated and less “informed” than those in the First World.

Whilst those who do not receive the regular barrage that is the norm in the First World are no more intelligent than their European or American counterparts, their views are more often the result of personal objective reasoning and common sense and are often more insightful.

Those in First World countries often point with pride at the advanced technology that allows them a greater volume of news than the rest of the world customarily receives.

Further, they are likely to take pride in their belief that the two opposing views that are presented indicate that they live in a “free” country, where dissent is encouraged.

Unfortunately, what is encouraged is one of two views—either the liberal view or the conservative view. Other views are discouraged.

The liberal view espouses that a powerful liberal government is necessary to control the greed of capitalists, taxing and regulating them as much as possible to limit their ability to victimise the poorer classes.

The conservative view espouses that a powerful conservative government is needed to control the liberals, who threaten to create chaos and moral collapse through such efforts as gay rights, legalised abortion, etc.

What these two dogmatic concepts have in common is that a powerful government is needed.

Each group, therefore, seeks the increase in the power of its group of legislators to overpower the opposing group. This ensures that, regardless of whether the present government is dominated by liberals of conservatives, the one certainty will be that the government will be powerful.

When seen in this light, if the television viewer were to click the remote back and forth regularly from the liberal channel to the conservative channel, he would begin to see a strong similarity between the two.

It’s easy for any viewer to question the opposition group, to consider them disingenuous—the bearers of false information. It is far more difficult to question the pundits who are on our own “team,” to ask ourselves if they, also, are disingenuous.

This is especially difficult when it’s three to one—when three commentators share our political view and all say the same thing to the odd-man-out on the panel. In such a situation, the hardest task is to question our own team, who are clearly succeeding at beating down the odd-man-out.

Evolution of Indoctrination

In bygone eras, the kings of old would tell their minions what to believe and the minions would then either accept or reject the information received. They would rely on their own experience and reasoning powers to inform them.

Later, a better method evolved: the use of media to indoctrinate the populace with government-generated propaganda (think: Josef Goebbels or Uncle Joe Stalin).

Today, a far more effective method exists—one that retains the repetition of the latter method but helps to eliminate the open-ended field of alternate points of view. It does so by providing a choice between “View A” and “View B.”

In a democracy, there is always an “A” and a “B.” This illusion of choice is infinitely more effective in helping the populace to believe that they have been able to choose their leaders and their points of view.

In the modern method, when voting, regardless of what choice the individual makes, he is voting for an all-powerful government. (Whether it calls itself a conservative one or a liberal one is incidental.)

Likewise, through the modern media, when the viewer absorbs what is presented as discourse, regardless of whether he chooses View A or View B, he is endorsing an all-powerful government.

Two Solutions

One solution to avoid being brainwashed by the dogmatic messaging of the media is to simply avoid watching the news. But this is difficult to do, as our associates and neighbours are watching it every day and will want to discuss with us what they have been taught.

The other choice is to question everything.

To consider that the event that is being discussed may not only be being falsely reported, but that the message being provided by the pundits may be consciously planned for our consumption.

This is difficult to do at first but can eventually become habit. If so, the likelihood of being led down the garden path by the powers-that-be may be greatly diminished. In truth, on any issue, there exists a wide field of alternate possibilities.

Developing your own view may, in the coming years, be vital to your well-being.