By Kelly O'Connell ——Bio and Archives--February 6, 2012
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I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.Barack later claimed himself fourth best president of all time. How reminiscent of a Roman Emperor who burnished his legend by publishing his Deeds of the Divine Augustus, describing his reign on a bronze plaque in Rome,
By a senate decree, my name was included in the Saliar Hymn, sanctified by a law that I would be sacrosanct for ever...The senate consecrated the altar of Fortune the Bringer-back before the temples of Honor and Virtue and the priests and Vestal virgins to offer yearly sacrifices on the day when I had returned to the city from Syria and it named that day Augustalia after my cognomen...Or, consider presidential historian Michael Beschloss claiming Barack the smartest president ever. This is like the panegyrics composed about such leaders as Stalin, presented as a loving father-figure, and wise leader, depicted in countless myths and on heroic posters -- fearlessly steering the ship of state, or lovingly holding aloft children.
The spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person. Or; Ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also, a public action having such an effect.Edward Bernays also gave an introduction to the subject in his Propaganda:
THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. This constitutes an invisible government, the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.For Bernays, Dr. Sigmund Freud's nephew, propaganda is needed for a proper functioning democracy, so individuals can become a manageable whole. Yet, this progressive idea contradicts the Founders' belief that a society became liveable by pursuing virtue, and not by simply being manipulated into following some mastermind's hidden persuaders. (see United States of Propaganda Unleashes Unholy War Against Newt Gingrich)
But in a deeper sense he was not really a scholar and not a scientist at all. He was not interested in finding the truth but in proclaiming it. There were three strands in Marx: the poet, the journalist and the moralist. Each was important. Together, and in combination with his enormous will, they made him a formidable writer and seer. But there was nothing scientific about him; indeed, in all that matters he was anti-scientific.Karl Marx fits the stereotype of so many later Marxists -- the True Believer so busy converting the world to their ideas that have no time for careful study or presentation of the truth, nor any interest in the disinterested honesty that professional journalism presupposes. Eric Hoffer writes of this (see Obama & the Eighty-One Percent True Believers) bent towards mindless devotion in The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements, defining a "true believer" as "the man of fanatical faith who is ready to sacrifice his life for a holy cause." Marxist journalists are mindless fanatics devoted to bringing in the final age of paradise via world socialism (see Obama, the Duke of Babylon & the Christian Origins of Marxism). A classic example is Dan Rather destroying an entire career in the Rathergate scandal. Overall, we realize that since atheist Marxism has no church or seminary, it must recruit its evangelists from the secular world. It achieved splendid success in the university system, from Hollywood, and via journalism, encompassing all elements of the media. But a desire accept such propaganda presupposes an audience dumb enough to receive it, which is where Prof. John Dewey comes in.
In order to develop children sympathetic to socialism, Dewey analyzed the traditional curriculum that sustained the capitalist, individualistic system and found what he believed was the sustaining linchpin -- that is, the key element that held the entire system together high literacy. To Dewey, the greatest obstacle to socialism was the private mind that seeks knowledge in order to exercise its own private judgment and intellectual authority. High literacy gave the individual the means to seek knowledge independently. It gave individuals the means to stand on their own two feet and think for themselves. This was detrimental to the "social spirit" needed to bring about a collectivist society.Dewey wrote in School and Society,
The mere absorbing of facts and truths is so exclusively individual an affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of merely learning, there is no clear social gain...In other words, Dewey thinks society should offer a meagre free education, focusing on experience and feeling, over logic and argument. Ellul writes such "fact" oriented education withholding training in independent thinking and analysis are an absolute precursor to creating a kingdom of propaganda, to establish a socialist paradise on earth.
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Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico.