So, what is the excuse for so-called neuro-typical/balanced/blanched/normal Homo Consumopethicus a la Americano?

Disgusting: US Winco.

Versus:

Gaza bakeries targeted and destroyed by Israeli air attacks

Food in the Gaza Strip is running out and bread – a staple in Palestinian households – is becoming more difficult to get each day.

Stockholm Syndrome a la Goy: The captors, those Jews, and those Israeli Murderers, have deployed all the tools of Freud and Edward Bernays and the Holly-Jew-Wood and Mass Minyan Media to put fear in and inbue empathy into those fucking Dumb as Fuck Gentiles.

All Nine of Goebbels’ and Bernays’ forms of propaganda, Plus:

The Long List of Propaganda Tactics [note that many of the specific historical examples all are framed and filtered through the fucking Capitalist and Western smeared lens.]

Below is a long list of propaganda tactics collected from the internet or relayed by me (from memory, or because I coined a general social tactic), some overlap with each other. The idea is to create an exhaustive list over time, even if that means over-lap. Feel free to contribute any tactics below by commenting.

TIP: Remember, in ways, every formal and informal fallacy is essentially also a propaganda technique. See a list of fallacies. Also, the goal is to manipulate cognitive bias. So, see a list of cognitive biases too. Also, this is all generally “social psychology tactics,” so one can look to things like “gaining techniques” and the psychology of compliance in general.

Ad hominem in general (deflection): Focusing an attack on the opposition rather than on the argument or issue. Counter: Bring the focus back to the issue, reiterate the key point, point out their focus on opponents rather than issues. TIP: Ad hominem attacks aren’t useless, in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue. Still, generally speaking, an attack on a person speaks little to the facts behind an argument or the argument being made.^[5]

Ad hominem tu quoque (meaning “You also”): This technique is when you respond to your opponent by accusing them of acting in a way that is inconsistent with the argument. For example, a father may tell his son not to start smoking as he will regret it when he is older, and the son may point out that his father is or was a smoker. That is a good point, but it doesn’t change the facts.

Ad hominem circumstantial (Bulverism): A technique that combines a genetic fallacy with circular reasoning. A tactic where one assumes that their opponent is wrong, and explains their error. Of course, explaining why a person made an error (that they did or didn’t actually make) is completely irrelevant. FACT: C. S. Lewis coined the term Bulverism.

Ad hominem guilt by association: A technique that associates a person with another person who made the argument.

Ad nauseam: The repeating of a slogan over and over again. When repeated enough a slogan will begin to be accepted as true. If we keep hearing “pro-life” instead of “anti-choice” or “taxation is theft” instead of “paying our fair share” or “gay marriage” instead of “marriage equality” it can become true. All these phrases mean the same thing, but the emotional impact is different. A propagandist will find a simple emotional slogan and will propagandize it “Ad nauseam.” Counter: Always use a better slogan… this is one of those fight fire with fire things. Saying “marriage equality” instead of “gay marriage” is still white hat.

Appeal to authority: Humans obey authority on average. As children we look to parents, then we look to teachers, then we look to peers, then we look to the state, etc. We naturally obey authority figures (and perceived authority figures such as celebrities). Propagandists know this and they will always try to sell a strong man and sell admirable qualities to sell a brand. Counter: You could always try bringing up the American Revolution, liberty, the bill of rights, individualism, etc. Someone wants you to obey authority, so make them agree on a time when obeying authority went against their own values.

Appeal to fear: Fear is a basic human emotion common on both the left and right. The media spends a lot of time exploiting fears, propagandists do too. Our anxieties and concerns about the future are used as emotional exploits to sell ideology. Counter: Fear is countered with love and understanding. They say fear X, you say, “I get it, I feel that way sometimes too, but we are all humans and we all share the same fears… we can connect over that.”

Appeal to prejudice: Humans naturally favor their in-group and fear their out-group. It is easy to exploit the many results of this basic human attribute. Exploiting the nature fear of “others” and the desire to belong to a group is a favorite tactic of propagandists and authoritarians. Counter: Look for other connections, despite identity politics, at the core we all share human traits. “We all bleed the same blood.” Also, point out the tactic and specifically focus on how this is being used to distract from more important issues.

Appeal to the stone (argumentum ad lapidem): A tactic where one dismisses a claim as absurd without demonstrating proof for its absurdity. It is like a fallacious version of reasoning by reduction (using facts to show a conclusion is absurd).

Artificial Dichotomy: A type of black and white A/B choice. The difference here is that this not only when someone tries to claim there are only two sides to an issue, but when they imply that both sides must have equal presentation in order to be evaluated. A classic example is the “intelligent design” versus “evolution” controversy, another example is “climate change denial” versus “climate change science.” Just because there are two general choices doesn’t mean there are only two positions to take and it hardly means both sides are equal. Counter: Point out the many other choices and point out that the sides should both be considered (but aren’t inherently equal).

Audio tactics: Using sounds to depress or excite people and to generally manipulate behavior. Everything from national anthems to catchy jingles, to distortions.

Bandwagon: Humans naturally desire to be part of a group. This tactic exploits the desire to conform and be part of a group by encouraging adherence to or acceptance of specific planks. Counter: A group based on being against another group is negative. People also desire not to have a life filled with negative energy. Help guide the person toward a broader group based on positive emotions (giving them a replacement group). Do you want to be part of the anti-X type group (focused on bad vibes), or do you want to be part of the coalition of all-types who share Y values (focused on good vibes)?

Beautiful people: Associating brands with people who have attractive attributes (like beauty, fame, strength, or wealth).

Big Lie: Using a complex array of events to justify an action or narrative. What you do is take a carefully selected collection of truths, lies, and half-truths that all seem to tell a story (which is actually revised history) and use them to construct a story that eventually supplants the public’s accurate perception of the underlying events. For example, one could tell the story of the rise of fascism in WWI focusing only on how “our heroes” fought the oppressive liberal order, to justify the rise of fascism in WWII. Or, in this same vein (as Wikipedia offers for an example), After World War I the German stab in the back explanation of the cause of their defeat became a justification for Nazi re-militarization and revanchism.

Black-and-white fallacy, or giving the illusion of an A/B choice: A type of logical fallacy (which is the main thing that the art/science of logic and reason teaches you how to spot and combat). In this case, it is giving people an A/B choice where A is presented as “very bad” and B as “very good.” You either love liberty like a real patriot, or you support those evil trade unions… it is an A/B Choice.” Counter: It isn’t an A/B choice, point out why it isn’t and why supporting B is actually the stance with good qualities that they have falsely attributed to A.

Cause and Effect Mis-match: Connecting a cause and effect relationship that isn’t there (a type of logical fallacy). Generally, systems and their relations are complex. A fast food place replaces their workers with machines, a pro-market blog immediately decides the cause was minimum wage hikes. Counter: Point out other potential causal factors and point out that cause and effect relationships are rarely that simple.

Cherry-picking, out-of-context, distortion of data, card stacking, selective truth: Picking and choosing which facts you present and how you frame them. As Wikipedia says well: Richard Crossman, the British Deputy Director of Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) during the Second World War said, “In propaganda truth pays… It is a complete delusion to think of the brilliant propagandist as being a professional liar. The brilliant propagandist is the man who tells the truth, or that selection of the truth which is requisite for his purpose, and tells it in such a way that the recipient does not think he is receiving any propaganda… […] The art of propaganda is not telling lies, but rather selecting the truth you require and giving it mixed up with some truths the audience wants to hear.” In other words, propaganda is the art of selective truth-telling (AKA a popular favor of BS).

Classical conditioning: Anchoring one idea or stimulus to another (for example, using emotion to connect A and B, even when A and B don’t connect logically). Like Pavlov did to the dog. Counter: Anchor positive emotions to those ideas and stimulus (take back the term) and/or use different terms (anchoring positive emotions to the new term and not using the old term anymore).

Cognitive dissonance: Using a favorable stimulus to prompt acceptance of an unfavorable one, or producing an unfavorable association.

Color tactics: Red makes you feel rushed, yellow makes you want to buy something, some restaurants use these colors for that very reason (get you ordering up and out fast). We have 5 senses (plus), all those senses are on the table for exploitation along with every other human trait. Our neurology is wired for efficiency, we don’t always ask ourselves “why do I have this impulse” often we just run with our impulses (which isn’t always a good thing when our impulses are a result of manipulation).

Common man (or “plain folks”): The common man, the forgotten man, etc. It is when elites try to act like regular ol’ folks (mirroring their mannerisms, ideology, and policy stances) to try to connect with an audience that they wouldn’t otherwise connect with. Counter: Point out the ways in which they are nothing like the common man and the ways in which their policies will hurt the common man (if this is the case; it is often the case).

Cult of personality: The creating of a cult around a personality. John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Obama, Trump, Hitler, Lenin, Castro, Justin Bieber. If there is a fan club around a person, that can be used to manipulate people. This isn’t a statement on the person, it is a statement on how the fan base can be exploited. “John Wayne loves voting Republican, you don’t want to offend the Duke, do ya’ Pilgrim?… be like the Duke, vote for Reagan and deregulation.” <— the messaging is generally more subtle, I’m trying to make points not present well-crafted propaganda.

Demonizing the enemy: Propagandists often seek to dehumanize and denigrate the opposition to sway opinion against them, anchor negative emotions to them, make them “the elite”, make them “out-group”, etc. This tactic is the tactic of children, it is also insanely effective. Counter: Seek to connect and show similarities. Well Ted, you said I was Satanic, but I go to church with your Mom. Haven’t seen you there recently, is there something you aren’t telling us? Are you trying to demonize and deflect because you haven’t gotten right with the church recently? Or, embrace the slander like Trump did with the “deplorable” comment or Hillary did with the “nasty woman” thing. There is no great answer here, the mud-slinging is effective and hard to deal with.

Old WWII propaganda trying to explain why populism isn’t ideal. Is the idea of labor and management doing it together a positive message? I would generally say yes. Propaganda like the above sells National pride and a positive message, but it also does this by demonizing other ideologies (rightly or wrongly).

Demoralization: Propaganda meant to weaken resolve, to erode fighting spirit, and encourage surrender or defection. Counter: Don’t get demoralized, use the opportunity to boost morale.

Dictate: A tactic that speaks to dictators. An appeal to authority technique that tries to simplify choices and present an idea or cause as the only viable alternative. “There is an A/B choice, A is correct and American, which one do you choose evil Communist B or amazing super patriot A like everyone else?”

Disinformation: A broad class of propaganda which is false information spread deliberately to deceive. Many of these other techniques are types of disinformation. Disinformation can involve the deletion of information from public records, in the purpose of making a false record of an event or the actions of a person or organization, including outright forgery of photographs, motion pictures, broadcasts, and sound recordings as well as printed documents. This is different from misinformation (which is simply incorrect information).

Dog Whistles: You can’t say X-word anymore, but you can still call em’ Y and Z and your base knows exactly what you mean. Counter: Call them out. “Y and Z? That sounds a lot like the X-word? What exactly do you mean by that? Are you implying that all polite version of the X-word are Y and Z?”

Door in the face: A barter tactic where you start by asking for more than you want then settle on what you wanted in the first place. The persuader attempts to convince the respondent to comply by making a large request that the respondent will most likely turn down, much like a metaphorical slamming of a door in the persuader’s face

Doublespeak: Say one thing. Imply one or more other things. A lot of propaganda involves doublespeak. One can double speak with body language, tone, writing, or any other communication method.

Euphemism: Another word for dog whistle.

Euphoria: The use of an event that generates euphoria or happiness, or using an appealing event to boost morale. Euphoria can be created by declaring a holiday, making luxury items available, or mounting a military parade with marching bands and patriotic messages. “Be a patriot, buy liberty bonds on the 4th of July, they have flags on them!”

False Association, or false analogy: Hitler liked art, therefore all artists are NAZIs. Just because some traits are shared between two systems doesn’t mean all attributes are shared. This can also involve exaggerating the extent to which a trait is shared. Hitler called the news fake right before WWII, that means WWIII is about to happen.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD): disseminating false or negative information to undermine adherence to an undesirable belief or opinion

Flag-waving: Using nationalism or patriotism to sell an idea. A common thread here that speaks to in-groups and the desire for acceptance.

Foot in the door: A tactic where you “get your foot in the door” by getting some basic compliance and then pushing for more. A common technique of salespeople, “you bought the air freshener, your only one crushing debt away from that sports car!” A form of up-selling.

Framing and re-framing: Speaking loosely, everything depends on frame of reference. It’s all about framing an argument to help people see it from your viewpoint or re-framing an argument (controlling perspective). If I use rhetoric to drop you in X-tyrant’s shoes and start weaving a big lie, pretty soon you’ll be sympathizing with him (as I’ll make you see the human side of him and will ignore the tyrant side or spin it).

Gaslighting: Sowing seeds of doubt in a target individual or group, hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, sanity, and norms. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying. Comes from an old movie called Gas Light where the main character is driven insane by this sort of BS. “Oh, you don’t like being oppressed and starting a Yellow Wallpaper all day… you must be going crazy and have hysteria, maybe shock therapy will work?”

Gish Gallop: Bombarding a political opponent with obnoxiously complex questions in rapid-fire during a debate to make the opponent appear to not know what they are talking about.

Glittering generalities: Emotionally appealing words that are applied to a product or idea, but don’t logically relate to that specific product or idea. “Do you feel sad sometimes? Try this drug.” (everyone feels sad sometimes, so anyone is bound to connect). This is used in cold reading where the aim is to make very broad ambiguous statements that apply to nearly everyone but sound personal and specific. This technique has also been referred to as the PT Barnum effect. “There’s a sucker born every minute”… don’t be a sucker (and further, we can all be suckers sometimes; one reason that line works because we can all relate to it).

Half-truth: A statement that is partly true or only part of the truth, or is otherwise deceptive. Half-truths are almost always used in propaganda. They are one of the main types of counterfeit information.

Hot Potato: An inflammatory (often untrue) statement or question used to throw an opponent off guard, or to embarrass them. The fact that it may be utterly untrue is essentially irrelevant, it brings controversy to the opponent and throws them off guard. Counter: Call them out for making stuff up, make a joke, say “why is that what you do in your free time,” or “so you are resorting to making things up, you should take a course in logic.” Or, less savory, if you know anything inflammatory about them it may be the time to bring it up.

Ignoratio elenchi, or ‘ignoring of a refutation’ (Irrelevant Conclusion AKA Missing the Point): An argument that fails to address the issue in question (be it valid or invalid).

Inevitable victory: A bandwagon technique. The assurance of uncommitted audience members, and reassurance of committed audience members, that an idea or cause will prevail. “They say we we aren’t going to win, but we are going to win, you know we are going to win, my fans, who are patriots by the way, know we are going to win, trust me, there will be so much winning, our in-group are going to win because we are winners and the other guys are losers, it’s us versus them, and you can see it already, we are winning, just follow my pocket watch, winning…” (every election in the US both sides have a tendency to do this; yet one side always loses).

Insinuation: A tactic where one uses the complexities of symbolic language to practice a form of doublespeak. Where one dances around what they mean and imply it without saying it directly (or without making it the main point of a subject).

Intentional Vagueness: The use of deliberately vague generalities that allow the audience may supply its own interpretations. “We are going to do this healthcare so good, it won’t be bad, it’s great healthcare, I think people will really love this healthcare, it is very great.” “Hope and Change” “Make America Great” these are intentionally vague statements that let people fill in the blanks and ascribe their own meaning.

Join the crowd: A bandwagon technique. Reinforces the idea that people should come join the winning crowd. “So much winning!”

Labeling or name-calling: Labeling can be positive or negative. The idea is to hurt or help a brand via labels. The lowest of the low brow is negative name-calling and labeling (like saying “you are an idiot” in an argument). This tactic uses name-calling to anchor negative labels and emotions to people thereby discrediting them with a single label. The tactic aims at the very bottom of the pyramid of reasoned counter-arguments (see Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement in the image below). Why? Because it is so darn effective. With a simple name one can dismiss everything a person says, or conversely, a positive name can lift up a person everything does. In more complex terms, any emotion or conation can be anchored to a term, and then a term can be anchored to a person. Operation “Shock and Awe” (where we all got to watch bombs fall on Iraq on live TV back in the Bush years), or calling someone a “Fascist” or “Communist,” or calling someone a “hero,” “patriot,” or “a real American,” these are only a few examples of how labels play a roll in propaganda and how we perceive something.

Lacing: Using truth and fact but lacing it with propaganda (or, conversely, lacing counterfeit information with truth and justified belief to make it seem more valid). This is a type of subtle sort of grey-area BS.

Latitudes of acceptance: Introducing an extreme point of view to encourage acceptance of a more moderate stance, or establishing a barely moderate stance and gradually shifting to an extreme position. Like when you start the barter with a high price and the barter down to the price you wanted in the first place. Congress does this all the time with policy, they put out something crazy and then barter their way back to something they were fine with as long as they got the tax breaks to go with it.

Lesser of Two Evils: Justifying a bad choice by painting another choice as also being a bad choice. X candidate is the “lesser-of-two-evils,” so you should vote for them (or you should do something else). The main problem here is that moral judgments aren’t facts and one thing being “more evil” doesn’t make the other choice good. Counter: Point out that evil is a moral judgment and that calling things “lesser of two evils” is name-calling (a type of propaganda).

Lying: Spreading false or distorted information that justifies an action or a belief and/or encourages acceptance of it.

Love bombing (Milieu control): Using peer or social pressure to engender adherence to an idea or cause; related to brainwashing and mind control. Used to recruit members to a cult or ideology by having a group of individuals cut off a person from their existing social support and replace it entirely with members of the group who deliberately bombard the person with affection in an attempt to isolate the person from their prior beliefs and value system. So “love” with a small “l”, more like crazy cult stuff you should run away from.

Managing the news (talking points): Staying on message, spreading the talking point, and using classical conditioning. The influencing of news media by timing messages to one’s advantage, reinterpreting controversial or unpopular actions or statements (also called spinning), or repeating insubstantial or inconsequential statements that ignore a problem (also called staying on message). According to Adolf Hitler, “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”

Misuse of Statistics and Research: Presenting a statistics or bit of research in a misleading way.

Non Sequitur: A type of logical fallacy, in which a conclusion is made out of an argument that does not justify it. All invalid arguments can be considered as special cases of non sequitur.

Obfuscation: Intentionally vague and ambiguous messaging, intended to confuse the audience as it seeks to interpret the message, or to use incomprehensibility to exclude a wider audience.

Operant conditioning: Indoctrination by presentation of attractive people expressing opinions or buying products. The idea that sex sells falls under this category.

Oversimplification: Offering generalities in response to complex questions.

Pensée unique (French for “single thought”): the repression of alternative viewpoints by simplistic arguments. For example, “Minimum Wage doesn’t work, it’s simple economics.”… (but like, is it? TIP: It is not).

Quotes out of context: The selective use of quotations to alter the speaker’s or writer’s intended meaning or statement of opinion. Like how people accuse Saul Alinsky of being Satanic because he used Lucifer as a literary device.

Rationalization (Making Excuses, not “Rationalism”): The use of generalities or euphemisms to justify actions or beliefs. Or, simply, using beliefs and opinions and logical fallacies to get someone to rationalize something that isn’t rational and isn’t backed up by empirical truth.

Red herring: Presenting data or issues that, while compelling, are irrelevant to the argument at hand, and then claiming that it validates the argument. This is a very popular technique used often.

Reductio ad Hitlerum (reducing everything to Hitler): A clever name for reducing everything back to one negative person or event in order to get people to dismiss the idea. The NAZIs had healthcare, therefore universal healthcare is fascist.

Repetition: The repeated use of a word, phrase, statement, or image to influence the audience. The Ingsoc slogan “Our new, happy life,” repeated on telescreens in 1984 is an example of this.

Scapegoating: Blaming a person or a group for a problem so that those responsible for it are assuaged of guilt and/or to distract the audience from the problem itself and the need to fix it.

Selective truth: restrictive use of data or facts to sway opinion that might not be swayed if all the data or facts were given.

Shifting the burden of proof (onus probandi): A technique where instead of proving a claim the other person has to prove it false. For example, a person claims millions of unlawfully present immigrants voted in the 2016 election, you say, “there is no proof of that” and they say, “oh year, prove it.”

Slippery slope fallacy: The idea that a shift toward one direction will lead to extremes. “If allow marriage equality, then people will marry their dogs.” This is a jump in logic that is a sort of logical fallacy of reasoning by analogy.

Sloganeering: The use of short and memorable phrases to encapsulate arguments or opinions on an emotional rather than a logical level.

Stalling and Ignoring the Question: A very common technique is to ignore questions (to avoid giving unpopular answers or specific answers) or to stall (to get more time to think). For example, talking heads will often dismiss the climate change debate with a line like “more research is needed.” Counter: Bring it back to subject, “with the research we do have, what do you think?” Or, point out, “you did not answer the question, specifically, give me a specific answer, what do you think about X.” If they won’t give an answer, say, “ok, you don’t want to address that question head on, that is your choice, you did say X, so we’ll just have to infer your stance based on that.”

Stereotyping: The incitement of prejudice by reducing a target group, such as a segment of society or people adhering to a certain religion, to a set of undesirable traits.

Straw man: The misrepresentation or distortion of an undesirable argument or opinion, or misidentifying an undesirable persona or an undesirable single person as representative of that belief, or oversimplifying the belief.

Testimonial: The publicizing of a statement by an expert, authority figure, or celebrity in support of an idea, cause, or product in order to prompt the audience to identify with the person and support the idea or cause or buy the product. “Not only am I the CEO, I’m also a client…” well that is distracting from the reality that you are like the most bias person toward the product. Nice spin.

Third-party: Use of a supposedly impartial person or group, such as a journalist or an expert, or a group falsely represented as a grassroots organization, to support an idea or cause or recommend a product. For example, “9 out of 10 dentists recommend this toothpaste.” Essentially a vague version of the testimonial.

Thought-terminating cliché: Use of a truism (or catchy phrase) to stifle dissent or validate faulty logic. “Well you say climate change data is undeniable, I think its a hoax by China, who knows? We’ll just have to agree to disagree. You know, everything is just a matter of perspective anyway.” The idea that agreeing to disagree and that everything is just a matter of perspective are little more than clever ways to end a discussion. Counter: Point out that agreeing to disagree adds nothing to the debate, it isn’t a fact, it is a “debate-terminating cliché.”

Transfer: The association of an entity’s positive or negative qualities with another entity to suggest that the latter entity embodies those qualities.

Unstated assumption: Another word for implying something but not saying it directly. A form of doublespeak.

Virtue words: Anchoring positive connotations to an idea, brand, or group. Can be used to create a more positive image of an idea, brand, or group or can speak to getting people to embrace an idea, brand, or group by making them think they share positive qualities with the group. For example, the positive propaganda poster below wants you to associate (transfer) the virtue of Jefferson and Jackson, with Democrats, with W.J. Bryan, and with yourself (to get you to vote for Bryan).

Here we are, Jew Amy Goodman telling us through the lens of Jew Chomsky what is and isn’t.

Agnotology — The Jewish, mostly, measured erasure of reality, truth, history, facts. Nakba?

On a Tuesday morning last month, a few days after the uprisings in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah intensified, my daughter called me. The school principal, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, denied her and other students entry to the school because they were wearing black and covering their shoulders with the Palestinian keffiyeh. “Go home or call your parents to bring your uniform!” the principal said. The kids were dressed in solidarity with Palestinians in Jerusalem and Gaza. It might seem odd that their actions would so alarm a Palestinian school principal in Israel, but the incident encapsulates the paradoxes of Palestinian life there.

Israel has always administered and maintained two, segregated schooling systems: one for the Jewish, Hebrew-speaking majority and one for the Palestinian, Arabic-speaking minority.

Israel has always administered and maintained two, segregated schooling systems: one for the Jewish, Hebrew-speaking majority and one for the Palestinian, Arabic-speaking minority. While this arrangement might seem to accommodate sociocultural differences, it in fact upholds the divides that privilege the Jewish majority. Unlike Jewish students who read the literature and poetry of the Zionist movement celebrating the establishment of Israel in 1948, Palestinian students do not read the Palestinian literary classics taught throughout the Arab world. Nor do they learn about the Nakba or Palestinian history. They are required to learn about Jewish values and culture. Indeed, although Palestinians use Arabic as the language of instruction in their schools, Palestinian students spend many more class hours on the study of Hebrew, Jewish history, and Jewish culture than they do on Arabic literature and history. Moreover, right-wing Israeli politicians routinely defame Palestine’s poet laureate, Mahmoud Darwish, whose work they have tried to ban in both schooling systems. Israel’s former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman once called Darwish’s poems “fuel for terror attacks.”

The Israeli state has always perceived the Palestinian national-cultural identity as a threat to the Jewish nature of Israel. The education system thus serves a dual role: as a nationalizing apparatus for Jews and as a denationalizing apparatus for Palestinians. It does so by promoting Zionist narratives and erasing the Palestinian national identity. To show solidarity with the plight of Palestinians is to defy the main tenet of the Israeli education system.

In other words, the school principal was right: the symbolic gesture of my daughter and her schoolmates really was an act of resistance. The students insisted that they be allowed in, and the principal eventually acceded. But that was as far as the school staff was ready to go. When students initiated a discussion of the events unfolding in Jerusalem and Gaza, the principal and teachers shut it down. “This is an educational institution; we are not allowed to discuss political matters!” they responded.

The following day, my son called me to report that right-wing Jewish activists were targeting Palestinian students at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, where he studies data science engineering. I sensed the panic in his voice, though he was desperately trying to hide it. He asked to come home. While I’ve grown a thick skin to cope with the continuous harassment, discrimination, and racism that I have experienced, I was not prepared for this horrifying moment: the understanding that I might not be able to protect my children when their lives are in danger simply because they are Palestinians. The hour-long drive to Haifa seemed endless. Neither I nor my husband exchanged a word. We listened to a local radio station as it played Julia Boutros’s song, “Ana betnafas horiya, ma tekta ane elhawa”—“I breathe freedom, don’t cut off my air”. Finally, we arrived. “How are you?” I asked without thinking. His face was pale and his hands were trembling; my trivial question was suddenly unbearable. I felt both relief and horror on the drive home.

Whether we maintain our separate systems of education or merge them, Palestinians and Israeli Jews must learn of both narratives, cultures, and identities.

To be a Palestinian parent in Israel is to feel broken in two. The parental drive to protect your kids from life-threatening danger lives in tension with the ethical drive to raise them as dignified human beings who are proud of who they are and where they come from. Maintaining a sense of normalcy requires navigating these commitments in a life full of conflicts. We speak Arabic as our mother tongue but conduct our daily activities—education, work, medical services, and shopping—in the state’s official language, Hebrew. We identify with one history, but we are forced to learn and teach our children a history that the Ministry of Education imposes on us and that invalidates our own experience as Palestinians. We strive to liberate ourselves from cycles of victimization, to speak up and make our voices heard, but our victimizers continue to describe our existence as citizens of Israel as “a problem.” We are constantly called upon to justify our existence in this place, as if we came here of our own volition and were not born to this land. Most importantly, we are expected by the state to be good, law-abiding citizens while being officially and practically treated as second-class citizens in a country that defines itself as a Nation-State of the Jewish People. And there are conflicts to negotiate within our own community, which is religiously and culturally diverse. This welcome diversity can pose its own challenges.

Miseducation: See above.

Brainwashing: On every level it is so fluid in AmeriKKKa. No protests and mass demonstrations against all the dollars and war murder weapons sent to the Jews in Israel (yes, it is the Nation State of the Jewish People, so, they are JEWS).

Jewish Undue Influencers: From TV, to Mad Men and Mad Women, to the Wailing Wall White House, to professors and principals to book writers and editors to HollyDirt to political parties, and the list goes on and on until we all are responsible for the boy in the fucking striped pajamas.

Zebras gon’t get ulcers but dumb ass Goyim under the thumb of banking, foreclosure, judges, DA’s, code inspectors, repo men, taxes, fines, tickets, forfeitures, tolls, back taxes, utilities shut offs, HR Nazis, etc., get more than ulcers in this Jewish controlled Western Society.

Here you go, to the fucking Jewish Extreme: Pain, loss, fear, panic, anger: Gaza’s Palestinians are suffering psychological torment

In a new report from Gaza, survivors speak of excruciating despair, grief, terror and thoughts of suicide. If Palestinians are to survive mentally, we must help mitigate their pain

United Snakes of Amnesia:

Amnesia — A combo thing — bad food, bad air, bad karma, bad parenting, bad advertising, bad leaders, bad businesses, bad education, bad dreams, bad men, bad batty fucking Puritans a la EuroTrash a la Jewish invasion. Until, finally, forgetting is accidental, intentional, transactional, transitory, traditional, and tyranical.

Frivolous — Almost everything in this society, so add, “infantilization,” “Walmartization,” McDonaldsization,” and “Disneyfication” fpr a one-two punch, and one-two kick, and one-two flip. It’s the Jewish influence Now, mostly, with all those jews in high places, in the controlling position, administrators, in the law, in the FIRE, in the Admin Class, all of them, hoping beyond hope that the frivolous Goyim will continue their collective gooey devolution. Until anything fucking goes: not we, the people, nor for we the people, nor, by we, the people, nor government for-by-with the people.

The National Security Agency has been buying Americans’ web browsing data from commercial data brokers without warrants, intelligence officials disclosed in documents made public by a US senator Thursday.

The purchases include information about the websites Americans visit and the apps that they use, said Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, releasing newly unclassified letters he received from the Pentagon in recent weeks confirming the sales.

The disclosures are the latest evidence that government agencies routinely buy sensitive information about Americans from commercial marketplaces that they would otherwise be required to obtain via court order.

The Iran-Contra affair, as the weapons deal and investigations afterward became known, “demonstrated the readiness of an ideologically driven administration to violate the law and controls over national security in the pursuit of its policies,” said Sam Walker, a professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska.

A deputy director on the National Security Council (NSC), North oversaw a secret plan in the 1980s to sell thousands of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s government, in exchange for the liberation of US hostages captured in Iran and tens of millions of dollars. Much of the proceeds were diverted to the Contras, North later admitted, who were also suspected of drug-trafficking

Oliver North’s new appointment as NRA president!

Colonized: A combo thing, too, with all the techniques of Jewish Mastered propaganda, fear and zebras not getting ulcers, and the entire joke of pendulum swinging center right and center less right. As if the government can’t be trusted and the private corporations can, vesus, corporations can’t be trusted, but governments can? So, you don’t DEMAND all forms to be ended, all companies bankrupted? This is a BIG story, so it will be buried.

“formaldehyde presents an unreasonable risk of injury to human health, specifically to workers and consumers.”

Freedom of press: Never was, never will be.

Lesser evil: Really, the evil of the lessers:

However, it is possible the Trump administration could try to reverse the Biden-era determination.

The last Trump administration faced significant scrutiny over its handling of formaldehyde after reports that it suppressed findings linking the substance to cancer.

In response to the Biden EPA’s finding, the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry lobbying group, stressed the importance of formaldehyde and said the determination was based on a “flawed” assessment. (Conflict of Interest for We the People; Agency Capture; Lobbies, Mobs, Mafias, Syndicates of the “various councils” of this or that industry, service sector, thing, product, et al.

From Nader’s 2024:

The use of Palestinians as human shields by the Israeli military is something else that just—it’s just—someone at some point will write a history of American media coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and no rational person will believe that it could have been this mendacious. — Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

It is unlikely that Israel will hand over its perpetrators for international trial, but they are already extremely limited. They have been marked as fugitives from justice, as suspected perpetrators of crimes against humanity. That impact is real and it is a part of chipping away at that longstanding impunity of Israel, and therefore it’s extremely important. Although they may never be brought to trial, they will pay a cost for these enormous crimes. — Craig Mokhiber

That’s where we are in this moment—opaque systems that the experts don’t understand, increasingly being deployed by organizations that also don’t understand these systems, and an industry that says, “don’t regulate us.” This is not going to end well. — Marc Rotenberg

Look, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist, right? If you’re rich in this country, you can get every break that you can afford. You can get the best justice, best lawyers, and they will fight wars. —Mumia Abu-Jamal

— Featured Clips—-

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa — Boobytraps, Bombs & Blowback (September 28, 2024)

Craig Mokhiber — Israel’s Wall of Impunity (December 7, 2024)

Ryan Grim — Cabinet of Curiosities (November 16, 2024)

Mark Dimondstein — Delivering the Election (November 2, 2024)

Hamilton Nolan — The Hammer (May 11, 2024)

Jonathan Kozol — Apartheid Education/Gas Station Heroin (March 23, 2024)

Mumia Abu-Jamal — Mumia Abu-Jamal: Criminal Injustice (April 20, 2024)

Marc Rotenberg — AI: Can Frankenstein Be Tamed? (November 30, 2024)

Vani Hari — Food Babe/Democrats Laboring (November 23, 2024)

+—+

Cognitive dissonance: Well, NRA and, convictged felon North, and, hmm, ten million examples of the putridity of the American mind to accept, well, rapists as presidents, and, hmm, fucking figure out your own fucking goddamned dissonance.

One of my six alma maters: EWU

Now, of course, with AI and AGI and the ubiquitous nature of the lying WWW, we can expand upon the 50 brainwashing, brain hacking, brain frying, lobotomizing, culling, corralling aspects of each and every technique deployed by Corporations, and by those government agencies and political prostitutes and presstitutes in the employ of the Corp.

1. Ad hominem: attacking opponents rather than opponents’ ideas or principles
2. Ad nauseam: repeating ideas relentlessly so that the audience becomes inured to them
3. Appeal to authority: use of authority figures (or perceived authority figures such as celebrities) to support ideas
4. Appeal to fear: exploitation of audience anxieties or concerns
5. Appeal to prejudice: exploitation of an audience’s desire to believe that it is virtuous or morally or otherwise superior
6. Bandwagon: exploitation of an audience’s desire to conform by encouraging adherence to or acceptance of idea that is supposedly garnering widespread or universal support
7. Beautiful people: depiction of attractive famous people or happy people to associate success or happiness with adherence to an idea or cause or purchase of a product
8. Black-and-white fallacy: presentation of only two alternatives, one of which is identified as undesirable
9. Classical conditioning: association of an idea with another stimulus
10. Cognitive dissonance: using a favorable stimulus to prompt acceptance of an unfavorable one, or producing an unfavorable association
11. Common man: adoption of mannerisms and/or communication of principles that suggest affinity with the average person
12. Cult of personality: creation of an idealized persona, or exploitation of an existing one, as a spokesperson for an idea or a cause
13. Demonizing the enemy: dehumanizing or otherwise denigrating opponents to sway opinion
14. Dictat: mandating adherence to an idea or cause by presenting it as the only viable alternative
15. Disinformation: creating false accounts or records, or altering or removing existing ones, to engender support for or opposition to an idea or cause
16. Door in the face: seeking compliance with a request by initially requesting a greater commitment and then characterizing the desired outcome as a compromise or a minor inconvenience
17. Euphoria: generating happiness or high morale by staging a celebration or other motivating event or offer
18. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt: disseminating false or negative information to undermine adherence to an undesirable belief or opinion
19. Flag waving: appealing to nationalism or patriotism
20. Foot in the door: manipulation by encouraging a small gift or sacrifice, which establishes a bond that can be exploited to extract more significant compliance
21. Glittering generalities: applying emotionally appealing but vague and meaningless words to an idea or cause
22. Half-truth: making a statement that is partly true or only part of the truth, or is otherwise deceptive
23. Inevitable victory: assurance of uncommitted audience members and reassurance of committed audience members that an idea or cause will prevail
24. Join the crowd: communication intended to persuade the audience to support an idea or cause because it is or will be the dominant paradigm
25. Labeling or name-calling: using euphemistic or dysphemistic terms to encourage a positive or negative perception of a person, an idea, or a cause
26. Latitudes of acceptance: introducing an extreme point of view to encourage acceptance of a more moderate stance, or establishing a barely moderate stance and gradually shifting to an extreme position
27. The lie: false or distorted information that justifies an action or a belief and/or encourages acceptance of it
28. Love bombing: isolation of the target audience from general society within an insular group that devotes attention and affection to the target audience to encourage adherence to an idea or cause
29. Managing the news: influencing news media by timing messages to one’s advantage, reinterpreting controversial or unpopular actions or statements (also called spinning), or repeating insubstantial or inconsequential statements that ignore a problem (also called staying on message)
30. Milieu control: using peer or social pressure to engender adherence to an idea or cause; related to brainwashing and mind control
31. Obfuscation: communication that is vague and ambiguous, intended to confuse the audience as it seeks to interpret the message, or to use incomprehensibility to exclude a wider audience
32. Operant conditioning: indoctrination by presentation of attractive people expressing opinions or buying products
33. Oversimplification: offering generalities in response to complex questions
34. Pensée unique (French for “single thought”): repression of alternative viewpoints by simplistic arguments
35. Quotes out of context: selective use of quotations to alter the speaker’s or writer’s intended meaning or statement of opinion
36. Rationalization: use of generalities or euphemisms to justify actions or beliefs
37. Red herring: use of irrelevant data or facts to fallaciously validate an argument
38. Reductio ad Hitlerum: persuasion of an audience to change its opinion by identifying undesirable groups as adherents of the opinion, thus associating the audience with such groups
39. Repetition: repeated use of a word, phrase, statement, or image to influence the audience
40. Scapegoating: blaming a person or a group for a problem so that those responsible for it are assuaged of guilt and/or to distract the audience from the problem itself and the need to fix it
41. Selective truth: restrictive use of data or facts to sway opinion that might not be swayed if all the data or facts were given
42. Sloganeering: use of brief, memorable phrases to encapsulate arguments or opinions on an emotional rather than a logical level
43. Stereotyping: incitement of prejudice by reducing a target group, such as a segment of society or people adhering to a certain religion, to a set of undesirable traits
44. Straw man: misrepresentation or distortion of an undesirable argument or opinion, or misidentifying an undesirable persona or an undesirable single person as representative of that belief, or oversimplifying the belief
45. Testimonial: publicizing of a statement by an expert, authority figure, or celebrity in support of an idea, cause, or product in order to prompt the audience to identify with the person and support the idea or cause or buy the product
46. Third party: use of a supposedly impartial person or group, such as a journalist or an expert, or a group falsely represented as a grassroots organization, to support an idea or cause or recommend a product
47. Thought-terminating cliché: use of a truism to stifle dissent or validate faulty logic
48. Transfer: association of an entity’s positive or negative qualities with another entity to suggest that the latter entity embodies those qualities
49. Unstated assumption: implicit expression of an idea or cause by communication of related concepts without expressing the idea or cause
50. Virtue words: expression of words with positive connotations to associate an idea or cause with the self-perceived values of the audience

+—+

And so, and so, never ever ban the military murder complex, but go after the fucking Cheetos, you fucking freaks.

Newsom aims to limit unhealthy food in California, getting ahead of Trump administration and RFK Jr.

Vaccination: A form of medical, pharma, educational, propagandist or religious or nationalistic system of fucking with the immune system, the growth system, the health system, the fucking goddamned ability to critically think.

+—+

Just do not limit yourself to these two fucking perverts. Put in a million combos of perverted people, politicians, so called scientists or leaders. You can do this at home with a coloring book.

American Kakistocracy

Why is a regular guy attracted to a billionaire candidate? It’s simple: Because the candidate can play to people’s fantasies. The man knows his television, loves girls, hates rules, knows how to make a deal, tells jokes, uses bad language, and is convivial to a fault. He is loud, vain, cheeky. He has a troubled relationship with his age and his hair. He has managed to survive embarrassment, marital misadventures, legal troubles, political about-faces. He’s entangled in conflicts of interest, but he couldn’t care less. His party? A monument to himself.

He thinks God is his publicist, and twists religion to suit his own ends. He may not be like us, but he makes sure there’s something about him that different people can relate to personally. He is, above all, a man of enormous intuition. He is aware of this gift and uses it ruthlessly. He knows how to read human beings, their desires and their weaknesses. He doesn’t tell you what to do; he forgives you, period.

And of course, David should be leading any number of govenrment agencies. How about DoD?

Author, activist, journalist, and radio host David Swanson asks us to consider the possibility of eliminating war. David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is the director of World Beyond War, a global nonviolent movement to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. David’s books on the theme of his talk include War Is A Lie (a catalog of the types of falsehoods regularly told about wars), War Is Never Just (a refutation of just war theory), and When the World Outlawed War (an account of the 1920s peace movement and the creation of the Kellogg Briand Pact), as well as (co-author) A Global Security System: An Alternative to War (a vision of a world of nonviolent institutions).

David blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts a weekly radio show called Talk Nation Radio. He speaks frequently on the topic of war and peace, and engages in all kinds of nonviolent activism. He recently drafted a resolution urging Congress to move money from the military to human and environmental needs, rather than the reverse. Versions of the resolution were passed by several cities, including Charlottesville, and by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

David also recently organized a flotilla of 50 kayaks that held banners on the Potomac River in front of the Pentagon reading “No more wars for oil / No more oil for wars.”

David is a 2015, 2016, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. David holds a Master’s degree in philosophy from UVA and has long lived and worked in Charlottesville — on the Downtown Mall when the weather’s nice. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

+—+

Read:

“I am very pleased to announce that our 2018 Peace Prize is awarded to the honorable David Swanson — for his inspiring antiwar leadership, writings, strategies, and organizations which help to create a culture of peace.”

On his website, Swanson describes himself as the child of a United Church of Christ preacher and an organist who’d left right-leaning families in Wisconsin and Delaware to move far from home. They’d supported Civil Rights and social work and voted for Jesse Jackson. Swanson says he learned from their example: be courageous but generous; try to make the world a better place; pack up and start over as needed — physically or ideologically; try to make sense of the most important matters; stay cheerful, and put love for your children ahead of other things.

When asked why he became a peace activist, he admits that his first gut-level reaction is, “Why aren’t you?” He is confounded by the need to explain working to end the worst thing in the world, while millions of people not working to end it need offer no explanation.

He says, “I had a typical suburban U.S. childhood, pretty much like those of my friends and neighbors, and none of them ended up as peace activists — just me. I took the stuff they tell every child about trying to make the world a better place seriously. I found the ethics of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace inevitable, although I’d never heard of that institution, an institution which in no way acts on its mandate. However, it was set up to abolish war, and then to identify the second-worst thing in the world and work to abolish that. How is any other course even thinkable?

“But most people who agree with me on that are environmental activists. And most of them pay no attention to war and militarism as the primary cause of environmental destruction. Why is that? How did I not become an environmental activist? How did an environmental movement grow to its current strength dedicated to ending all but the very worst environmental disaster?”

Swanson said he had no one experience that made his path as a peace activist clear. In general, he attended every war protest that current events made necessary, but it wasn’t until he went to work for Dennis Kucinich’s campaign for president that he had his “first peace job. We talked about peace, war, peace, trade, peace, healthcare, war, and peace.” When that job ended, Swanson held communications positions with the AFL-CIO and later Democrats.com, where he discovered that the Democratic Party was only “pretend interested” in ending war.

As he says on www.davidswanson.org, “In 2006, the exit polls said the Democrats won the majorities in Congress with a mandate to end the war on Iraq. Come January, Rahm Emanuel told the Washington Post they’d keep the war going in order to run ‘against’ it again in 2008. By 2007, Democrats had lost much of their interest in peace and moved on to what seemed to me like the agenda of electing more Democrats as an end in itself.”

Meanwhile, Swanson’s own focus “had become ending each and every war and the idea of ever starting another one.” He speaks tirelessly; advocates tirelessly; writes tirelessly, while living with his wife and children in Charlottesville, VA (yes, that Charlottesville). — Leslee Goodman

+—+

The MOON: Americans seem to accept war as a way of life, the so-called price of democracy. You have spent the greater part of your life debunking the myths that justify war. Will you do so for us briefly here, please?

Swanson: I don’t think we should generalize about “every American.” There are many residents of the Americas — in Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, and even the United States — who in no way accept the inevitability of war. But in the U.S. we do live in a highly militarized culture, and many people have accepted and internalized the myths that are used to support warfare. As a result, the idea that we could abolish war and still survive is almost unthinkable for many people in this country. So we have to revise public opinion in stages. If, for example, war is created by something called “human nature,” then let’s look for a minute at the other 96% of humans on the planet who are represented by governments that invest radically less than the United States in war. If we’re not ready to abolish war, might we be willing to move in the direction of the other 96% of humanity? And might we still consider ourselves within the bounds of so-called human nature? One would have to think yes. And in fact, you can poll people in the United States and, depending on how the poll is conducted, find that a strong majority would like to do just that. They would be happy to move money out of the military into useful things, like education and the environment and so forth.

If the United States were an actual democracy, rather than a country that bombs people in the name of democracy, it would begin to move away from ever more militarism, more war spending, more bases, and more threats, and in the direction of peace — because that’s actually what the people want. When it did that, we would see a reverse arms race all over the world. We would see China and the other countries reciprocating, moving away from greater investments in militarism and toward investment in far more productive endeavors, such as education, research, healthcare, environmental restoration, and on and on. Although it’s wonderful that there’s a growing campaign to try to ban even the possession of nuclear weapons, we’re not going to get those countries that possess nuclear weapons to get rid of them as long as the United States continues with its aggressive policies on warfare.

The MOON: Why do you imply that the United States is not an actual democracy?

Swanson: I researched this point for my book, Curing Exceptionalism. There are nearly 400 references in that book, including one for a study by Pippa Norris, comparative political scientist at Harvard and Sydney Universities and founding Director of the Electoral Integrity Project, whose research shows that U.S. elections are the worst among Western democracies and ranked 52nd, out of 153 countries worldwide in the 2016 Perceptions of Electoral Integrity index. The Perceptions of Electoral Integrity study measures things like how difficult it is to vote; how reliable the vote collection and counting methodology are; how much influence money has in determining outcomes; etc.

There are other possible measures of democracy, of course. Unfortunately, the United States doesn’t fare as grandly as we imagine in any of them. The British-based Legatum Institute ranks the United States 18th overall in “prosperity” and 28th in “personal freedom.” The U.S.-based Cato Institute ranks the United States 24th in “personal freedom” and 11th in “economic freedom.” The Canadian-based World Freedom Index ranks the United States 27th in a combined index of “economic,” “political,” and “press” freedoms. The CIA-funded Polity Data Series gives the U.S. democracy a score of 8 out of 10, but gives 58 other countries a higher score. Finally, researchers at Princeton and Northwestern University conclude that the United States is more accurately identified as an oligarchy, “in which the wealthy elite largely determine government policy,” than a democracy. No doubt most citizens would agree.

But back to your original question, on www.worldbeyondwar.org, you will find a section describing and debunking the myths that are used to justify war. “It’s human nature” is one of them. “War is natural,” whatever that might mean, is another. However, there’s not a single case of anyone suffering from war deprivation. War is not something that one needs, like food, or water, or love. It’s not a requirement for human happiness. On the contrary, to get people to participate in war requires intense training and conditioning, which is often followed by deep moral regret following participation. This is why the majority of the deaths from participants in the most recent U.S. wars — the so-called global war on terrorism — have been suicides. Participants are not satisfactorily convinced of the reasons for participating in these one-sided slaughters, which they then they must go on reliving through PTSD.

There’s also the myth that war is inevitable and, since it can’t be avoided, we have to try to win it. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. Yet, if you look more specifically at any particular war, there’s nothing inevitable about it. It takes the concerted efforts of warmongers intent on creating a war for political, and profit, and bureaucratic, and sadistic, and irrational reasons to create a war. It’s something that requires doing; it doesn’t just fall from the sky. For those readers who are unwilling to try something unless it’s been done before, please know that human societies have existed for centuries, in recent times and in the distant past, without war. Many anthropologists now argue that hunter-gatherer societies really had nothing you could call war, and their era accounts for the vast majority of human existence. It was only with the settlement of stationary, agricultural societies with excess production and urban development — which is to say, only in the past 10,000–12,000 years — that you had anything you could call war. Of course, what was called war even 200 years ago was nowhere near the same thing as what we call war today, just as the Second Amendment, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, is a far cry from the automatic weaponry we’re dealing with today. War, as it exists with the weaponry and technology involved today, is extremely new. It’s only since World War II that the vast majority of the deaths from war have been civilians, rather than combatants. Wars used to take place on battlefields — not in cities, towns, and villages. Yet, people still think of wars in outdated terms. They think of teams of armies with different-color uniforms in battlefields or battle spaces, and of course they want the team wearing their color to win. Because these teams are not fighting anywhere near the United States, most Americans aren’t aware that it’s mostly civilian men, women, and children being killed, not soldiers. Moreover, if you examine American societies before the arrival of Columbus, and societies in parts of Australia and other continents, and even nations now in recent decades and centuries, many have chosen to do without war. Japan famously locked out the world and flourished without significant war for centuries until it was “opened up” again, as they say, by the Americans, who proceeded to train the Japanese in warfare and we know how well that worked out.

Other myths include the idea that war is necessary to protect ourselves. We’d be opening ourselves up to danger, displaying our jewelry before a crowd of thieves, standing our door open to murderers and rapists, if we didn’t have war — and war preparations — to protect ourselves. This is one of these most deeply-seated myths in people’s minds; one they find it almost impossible to think their way around. I certainly can’t get most people to do so in the course of one short interview. I’ve had some luck with my books. (The most satisfying thing as an author is when people write to me and say that my books did completely turn their worldview around.) I think it usually takes a book, but hopefully in an interview we can start people questioning a little bit to the point where maybe they will go ahead and read some books, or watch some videos.

The MOON: Most Americans have no idea just how warlike the United States has become relative to other countries — even those we consider threats, or rivals, like China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea. Again, I know you’ve written entire books on this subject, but please share some facts to give us a more accurate view of reality.

Swanson: Most countries on Earth don’t spend anything like what the United States does in terms of war and war preparations. Part of the United States’ war business is weapons-dealing to the rest of the world. Three-quarters of the world’s dictatorships, by the U.S. government’s own definition of dictatorship, are buying U.S. weapons. It’s unusual to have a war now without US weapons on at least one side, and usually both sides. The war business is sold as nationalistic, as patriotic, but were it not for General Motors and Ford, and Standard Oil, and IBM, and other U.S. companies doing business in Nazi Germany right through the war and beyond, the Nazis never could have done what they did. Were it not for U.S. government complicity in those acts of legal treason — avoiding bombing U.S. factories in Germany, even compensating them for damage afterward — the Nazis never could never have done what they did. So much of what drives war is profit, not whatever is contained in the propaganda that sells the war to the public. And when the U.S. government itself is spending almost as much as the rest of the world put together — including its close allies, which together add up to three-quarters of the world’s military spending — the result is not actually protection, but endangerment.

I can give you a long list of recently retired U.S. military and “intelligence professionals” who say the exact same thing — that the wars, or particular wars, or particular tactics like drone wars — are counterproductive, are producing more enemies than they remove. And in fact, the so-called war on terrorism has predictably increased terrorism, not reduced it. Many of us have gone on predicting this result year after year, to no avail. Take suicide terrorism, for example. Ninety-five percent of suicide bombers are explicitly motivated to try to get a country to stop occupying or bombing another country. There is not a single recorded case of a terrorist attack motivated by resentment for providing food, or water, or medicine, or schools, or clean energy or no-strings-attached development assistance. It doesn’t happen. Of course, we could do a world of humanitarian good for a tiny fraction of what we spend making ourselves less safe through the traditional means of massive militarism. This is actually the number one way in which war kills; not by the violence; but by the missed opportunities for all the things we could have done with that money instead.

For example, just 3% of U.S. military spending, or about 1.5% of global military spending, could end starvation on Earth. A little over 1% could end the lack of clean drinking water. If we were to make a serious attempt to address climate destruction, the only place to get the kind of funds needed is from the military, and it would only take a fraction of what’s we spend on the military to put up a serious struggle. Instead, continuing the course we’re on, the military is itself the number-one destroyer of the climate and various other parts of our natural environment. That’s a huge reason to reduce militarism right there. There are many more myths I could discuss, but for the sake of time, let me address just one more — and that is the notion that war can be just. In the United States, most people overwhelmingly think of WWII as a just war. That is how it is overwhelmingly portrayed in U.S. history classes, U.S. entertainment, and U.S. historical references in current news reporting. That perspective dominates U.S. culture.

The MOON: “The Good War,” yes.

Swanson: Right. “The Good War” is a name it acquired when the war in Vietnam grew to be the “Bad War.” (Because if you’re going to have a Bad War, you must have a Good War, otherwise you’re threatening the very idea of war, and that’s not permissible.) In a similar sort of process, when Iraq became another “Bad War,” people began characterizing Afghanistan as the “Good War,” to the point where people imagine that anything bad that took place in Iraq didn’t happen in Afghanistan. People will even tell me that the United Nations authorized the war on Afghanistan 17 years ago, which of course never happened. They think it must have because the United Nations famously didn’t authorize the war on Iraq. Similarly, people know that horrible things were done in Vietnam; civilians were tortured, mutilated, and murdered; but that was the Bad War; those things must not have happened in WWII. Of course, they did, and on a much larger scale. So I’ve gone to great lengths — book lengths — to investigate the claim that WWII was a just war. I find this necessary because some people will never give up the belief in war so long as there’s even one example of a war that was just. This strikes me as absurd, because we don’t go back 75 years to find the most recent justifiable instance of anything else; only for our biggest public program. Might we not have progressed since then? We live in a different world now. We have laws banning war for territorial conquest; we have nuclear weapons, which change the entire calculus of warfare; we have (flawed) international institutions for resolving differences and enforcing cease-fires; and we have far greater knowledge of, and experience with, non-violent resistance. We know that non-violence is more than twice as likely as violence to succeed, and its successes are almost guaranteed to be much longer-lasting than those achieved through violence in opposition to tyranny and oppression, even foreign-imposed.

The crux of the argument justifying WWII is that the Nazis had to be stopped because they were killing Jews — and lots of other people, too. However, the U.S. never justified its involvement in the war for that reason at the time. There was never a poster that said, “Join the Army and save the Jews.” In fact, U.S. immigration policy, by popular demand, banned any increase in admitting Jewish refugees into the United States and for explicitly racist, anti-Semitic reasons. At the Evian Conference of 1938, where representatives from 32 nations met to discuss “the Jewish refugee problem” — in other words, the large numbers of people seeking to flee Hitler’s pogroms — the United States and every other country except the Dominican Republic publicly refused to accept any additional Jews. This enabled Hitler to respond, “Look at these hypocrites. They want me to stop abusing the Jews, but they won’t take them. We, on our part, are ready to put all these criminals at the disposal of these countries, for all I care, even on luxury ships.” In pointing this out, I am not by any stretch of the imagination defending Hitler, or suggesting there’s something excusable about murdering millions of people. But there’s also nothing excusable about the conduct of the rest of the world’s nations refusing to accept Jewish refugees; about the Coast Guard chasing a ship of refugees away from Miami, Florida; about the state department turning down Anne Frank’s family visa application.

The fact is that peace activists went to the United States and British governments throughout the war and demanded that something be done to bring the Jews out of Germany. Even after the British had evacuated so many thousands of their own troops from Germany and shown how they could do the same for refugees, they said they couldn’t be bothered; they had a war to fight. So the primary justification for the Good War in most people’s minds — although serious historians have their own justification and I won’t even get into that one here — actually had nothing to do with the war until after the war was over. In the public’s imagination, the war was justified because the Nazis were killing Jews. The war itself killed 10 times as many people as were killed in the camps, which, one would think would make people wonder whether the cure was worse than the disease. Sadly, that kind of questioning doesn’t happen very often.

The MOON: Could you give us a context for the massive amount of public funds and resources that the U.S. invests in its war machine relative to the rest of the world — even those countries that Americans are constantly told are a threat?

Swanson: Gallup and Pew have conducted international polls in recent years asking people what country is the greatest threat to peace in the world. In the majority of countries, the top vote-getter is, of course, the United States. This would be shocking news to many people in the United States, even though it has been reported in their newspapers. In the United States, depending on what week it is, Americans will name Iran or North Korea as the greatest threat to peace. In a Gallup poll in December 2013, Americans said Iran, although Iran hasn’t started a war in centuries. Iran spends less than 1% of what the U.S. does on its military. Moreover, in 2015, Iran agreed to more intense inspections of its nuclear facilities and other locations than any country ever has. The United States would never dream of agreeing to any such thing. The inspections clearly showed that the agreement had never been needed in the first place, as any serious observer already knew. Yet, to this day, Americans are likely to name Iran as an answer to the “greatest threat” question, depending whether Russia or North Korea or some other country has been more prominent in the recent news cycle.

Similarly, Russia spends less than 10% what the United States does on its military and has been significantly decreasing that percentage in recent years. However, Russia has, as the United States also has, roughly half the nuclear weapons in the world, so Russia, as well as the United States, could easily destroy life on Earth with a tiny fraction of their nuclear arsenals. But the idea that North Korea or Iran or Iraq or any small, impoverished, relatively unarmed country is the greatest threat to world peace is ridiculous and is a position held not just by uninformed, uneducated television-viewers, but unfortunately, by most U.S. academics who have any opinion on the matter. I mean, I could point you to a pile of books put out by university professors in the United States, each of which will tell you that the greatest threat to the system of law and peace and justice on Earth in recent history was the Russian seizure of Crimea. Never mind the war in Vietnam, or the war on Iraq, or the current bombing of Yemen, or any of the many wars and all of their millions of deaths and injuries the U.S. has participated in. Instead, these academics argue that this operation, in which the people of Crimea held a vote to rejoin Russia, and which didn’t involve a single casualty, was the greatest threat to peace in the world. At the same time, I’ve yet to hear a single advocate of this position propose having the people of Crimea do a new vote with a new system of voting, or different international observers. They don’t propose it because every poll shows the people of Crimea are happy with their vote. So, if it’s breaking off a piece of Serbia, that’s okay. If it’s splitting Slovakia off from Czechia, that’s okay. I mean, the idea that people have the right to secede and determine what country they’re going to be a part of is selectively respected, based on our own national interests.

The MOON: I think that most Americans have absolutely no idea just how militaristic our country has become. Again, I know you’ve written whole books on this subject, but will you please go ahead and educate us? Afterward, I’m sure the next question will be “Isn’t that the role we have to play, because we’re the only remaining superpower? As the world’s policeman, if we don’t do it we’ll all go to hell in a handbasket.”

Swanson: Right. I mean, if the United States doesn’t overthrow the government of Libya and turn the place into a living hell, proliferating violence and chaos throughout North Africa, who will step in and do that job? If the United States doesn’t turn Yemen into a hotbed for terrorism, and create a major war with every kind of weaponry, and join with Saudi Arabia in creating the biggest human catastrophe in recent years — which is saying something — who will do it?

By the way, we’re told that drone wars are the future of warfare because “nobody” gets hurt — by which they mean, “Nobody you need to care about.” But these “nobodies” are somebodies to their families and countrymen. Imagine if a foreign government’s drone assassinated one of our citizens. Would that breed anger and resentment?

We spoke a moment ago about some of the polling that’s been done. Polls show that the rest of the world doesn’t appreciate the global policeman. “Global policeman” is a self-appointed position. It’s not requested; it’s not appreciated. It is also unique in history.

When I speak publicly I typically begin by asking a pair of questions. The first is, “Do you think war is always justified, sometimes justified, or never justified?” Of course, almost everybody goes with “sometimes justified.” Then I ask those people to keep their hands in the air and, if they can, to name current U.S. wars. Almost never can I find a single person who can even name the countries we are actively bombing. (Which, of course, is a far fewer number than the countries where we have a handful of so-called special forces working to destabilize the government.) I mean, even the Roman Empire could keep track of its wars. Our militarism is unprecedented. It’s a global enterprise with the United States dominating weaponry in space and satellite technology for weaponry in space. The U.S. has weaponry on the oceans, with fleets at major ports around the world, as well as nearly 800 military bases in some 70 countries and territories around the world. We have the military bragging about having troops in 175 or 176 countries. Sometimes that’s just a handful of troops; however, at many of them, it’s thousands of troops. We saw Putin standing next to Trump in Helsinki recently saying he wanted the U.S. to enter into a treaty to ban all weapons from bases. Of course, Trump has no interest in that; nor has any other president in the last 75 years. The rest of the world’s nations combined have perhaps 30 military bases that are outside their borders. We label Russia, which has military bases in nine countries — most of them former members of the Soviet Union — and countries we haven’t been able to dominate like Iran or North Korea, which don’t have any outside military bases, as lawless, as rogue.

But there’s nothing lawful about imposing U.S. militarism on other people’s countries. The clear goal is to make U.S. military presence everywhere. That is an incredible financial expense, environmental disaster, and provocateur of violence. It leads us to support tyrannical governments that have permitted U.S. basing. It leads to the use of U.S. forces against democratic efforts opposing these tyrannical governments. It’s a disaster from start to finish. And it’s not popular anywhere. It’s the really bipartisan cross-ideology, low-hanging fruit for taking down U.S. militarism. Everybody wants to close the foreign bases except the U.S. military. Most local populations never wanted them to begin with and/or want to get rid of them immediately. This is something that World Beyond War is working to achieve in coalition with many other groups. We had a big conference in Baltimore last year and have a global conference planned in Dublin, Ireland, in November 2018. It ought to be possible to get some of these bases closed. Unfortunately, even candidates who run on a platform opposed to nation-building and foreign occupations — as both Obama and Trump did — once in office continued down the same path of spreading militarism. So we don’t yet have a force within the political system in Washington, DC, that’s on the right side on this.

The MOON: So war is barbaric and obscenely expensive. What are our alternatives?

Swanson: Again, I’ve written an entire book on this subject (A Global Security System, an Alternative to War), which can be read for free at the World Without War website. The United States could easily make itself the most beloved nation on Earth with much less expense and effort by ceasing its “military aid” and providing a fraction of that aid in non-military forms instead.

The first step in handling crises is to stop creating them in the first place. Threats and sanctions and false accusations over a period of years can escalate tensions that can then flash into war over a relatively small incident, even an accident. By taking steps to avoid provoking crises, much effort — as well as lives — can be saved.

When conflicts inevitably do arise, they can be better addressed if investments have been made in diplomacy and arbitration. The United Nations needs to be strengthened, reformed, or replaced with an organization that forbids war and allows equal representation by population for every nation.

We also need to work diligently on disarmament. The most heavily armed nations can help in three ways. First, disarm — partially or fully. Second, stop selling weapons to so many other countries. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, at least 50 corporations supplied weapons, at least 20 of them to both sides. Third, negotiate disarmament agreements with other countries and arrange for inspections that will verify disarmament by all parties.

The MOON: Let’s talk a little bit about your most recent book, Curing Exceptionalism: What’s wrong with how we think about the United States and what can we do about it. Here again, Americans seem to believe a story about themselves that doesn’t jibe with the facts the rest of the world are looking at.

Swanson: Yes; that’s what motivated me to write the book. A lot of Americans believe there are qualities that make the United States the best country in the world — things like freedom, or democracy, or our court system, or free enterprise, or civil liberties, or advanced research, or innovation, or something else the United States is the greatest at. Yet, when you look, it’s very difficult to find anything that anybody in any research institute, in the United States or elsewhere, from any political perspective, that the United States is number-one in, except for some horrible things that nobody should want to be number one in. We’re the leader, of course, in military spending, various types of environmental destruction, locking people up in cages, and a few other unfavorable categories. When you compare the United States to other wealthy countries — and most of them are actually not as wealthy as the United States — you find that in many of these countries, there’s longer lifespan, greater health, greater security, greater happiness, greater environmental sustainability, less militarism, less violence, better schools, better education, and so forth. The United States frequently ranks better than many poor countries, but in some desirable categories it’s trailing even those. Unfortunately, residents of the United States are ignorant of these facts and are more likely than residents of any other country to say that their country is the best.

The problem with believing this way is reflected in our foreign policy — and also in our treatment of the very first Americans. Because we believe that our way of life is superior to others, we think nothing of imposing it on others. We actually believe we’re doing them a favor; that they should be grateful. We believe our country has the right to attack other countries, even acting unilaterally, without the approval of the United Nations. Yet we never consider ourselves a rogue nation. Why? Because we’re the U.S. We’re number one!

It’s fine to love one’s country and to prefer one’s culture over others; but it also seems reasonable to expect that people in other countries feel the same way about where they live. In the book I consider ways of thinking that might better serve us — such as identifying more with our local communities and with our global human community, and less with a national government, a grotesque national military, and less in a bigoted sense of superiority to the other 96% of humanity. “American exceptionalism” is really the last acceptable form of bigotry among educated liberals and everyone else in the United States. In many segments of the U.S. — media, academia, and even government, there has been great progress in combatting racism, sexism, and numerous forms of bigotry, but bigotry toward the people of other countries is still a major problem.

Just today I was looking at a tweet from a CNN reporter claiming that the U.S. media had never pushed the U.S. government toward war. I tweeted back a YouTube video clip from a 2016 Republican primary debate where the presidential candidates were asked by a CNN debate moderator, “Would you be willing to kill hundreds and thousands of innocent children as part of your basic duties as president?” I don’t think there’s another country on earth where that kind of question has been asked in an electoral debate. It’s grotesque. It’s sociopathic. And yet it didn’t even make a story. It was hardly a scandal. It was just a question in a debate, but it’s uniquely American.

I don’t mean that you should come to the realization Americans are evil and need to feel guilty and ashamed. I think we should come to the realization that, as in any country, great things and horrible things have been done. We’ll be far more likely to make more good things happen if we stop identifying with a national military team and start identifying with humanity — all the good and bad in it that can be found everywhere. I think there’s a great deal to be gained. We can take pride in German environmentalism and Finnish education. We can take pride in everything we find good around the world and stop rejecting it and failing to benefit from it because it’s not American. There’s nothing to be lost in setting aside the thrills of patriotism. You will never regret losing that nonsense. You will wonder how you ever lived without the benefits of identifying with all of humanity.

The MOON: You write that a fair and democratic international system of law is needed to replace war. What would that look like?

Swanson: That’s a long question with many possible answers. World Beyond War is having a conference on that topic in September 2018 in Toronto. I can tell you most easily what it wouldn’t look like. It wouldn’t look like the structure in which the five biggest weapons dealers, or at least four of the five biggest, make up the UN Security Council and have special powers to run the world; or to have veto power over the larger body; or to overrule the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. This is obviously not a system of fairness, even with nations as the constituents. I think a real global democracy, difficult as it would be and horrifying as it sounds to many people who’ve been trained to flee from the very idea, would involve representation of populations in relation to their size, not just nations. I mean, it’s a little ridiculous for Liechtenstein and China to each have one vote, but it’s even more ridiculous for the biggest war-makers to be given the special powers of the UN Security Council. The United Nations was created as an international institution to end war, like the United Nations, and then we put the biggest war-makers in charge of it.

So we have to either reform or replace the United Nations with a system that represents nations, but also represents people in proportion to population, and involves real democracy. Technologies exist to allow democratic discussions and decision-making; what we need is the political will. It is a real challenge. We can’t seem to get out from under the financial corruption of national governments enough to work through them to create a much bigger government — which we would then have to steer clear of financial corruption. Yet I think we have to. I think part of the answer is moving power down to the local level and developing real democracy and decision-making at the local level, while simultaneously moving power up to the global level, neither of which national governments are always going to like. But I think the two efforts can actually facilitate each other. To the extent that localities can take on the responsibility of working to create a global system of law, we will be better able to circumvent the roadblock that is the bought-and-paid-for, so-called democratic nation-state.

The MOON: How do audiences generally receive your anti-war messages?

Swanson: It actually takes very little to change people’s minds. In half an hour to an hour people want to become peace activists because they’ve never heard any argument against war before. It’s all new to them. They’ve been exposed to the pro-war media saturation, but they’ve seldom had anyone walk them through arguments for the other side. This is true, too, when I’m part of a panel or debate, and there are representatives for the pro-war arguments on the same platform. I think there’s a lot more openness to opposing war in the general public than we’re encouraged to believe.

The MOON: How do you maintain your optimism, even your commitment, when even our response to people who disagree with us tends to be so violent? For example, Obama was vehemently attacked for making the Iran deal, just as Trump has been attacked for “cozying up” to Putin. Any kind of questioning of American exceptionalism, or of the United States’ gargantuan military budget, is assailed as “un-American” and “weak.” What does keep you going? What gives you hope? Do you have to look to other countries for encouragement?

Swanson: I probably don’t have an answer that you’ll consider satisfying, but in my view, it’s quite likely we are doomed to environmental catastrophe. It’s also fairly likely we’re doomed to nuclear apocalypse. But the more we work to avoid those disasters, the better our odds. If we accept these outcomes as inevitable then we’re doomed for certain. So I believe it’s our moral obligation to do everything we can to prevent catastrophe and make everything we can a little better. Who knows? We may succeed. And the effort is actually more enjoyable than moping about it. Some may try to adopt the attitude, “Well, the world’s screwed; I’m going to enjoy myself as long as it lasts.” But in my experience, you actually don’t enjoy yourself more that way. You remain miserable. However, if you get engaged with people who are committed to the same work, who encourage each other and work to make the world a better place, you’ll actually find the fulfillment and satisfaction and solidarity and camaraderie that people have always longed for. Many of them have even found it in war — with terrible consequences and side-effects. Scientific studies of the matter have confirmed that activists are generally more mentally sound and emotionally happy than cynics who’ve bailed out. So for your own good [laughter], get involved!

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This interview was originally published on The MOON: http://moonmagazine.org/war-no-interview-david-swanson-2018-09-01/