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[–] onegin 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

I'm really starting to believe that propping up feminism and social justice are machinations of the US intelligence apparatus, and this article is making me think about how deeply embedded they could be in show business.

I may make a separate post about this, but I saw an opera this weekend (at a major house in the US), The Pearl Fishers. It was an absolute travesty. Opera is pretty rigid in that the music dictates directorial decisions-- if you change a character's emotional take on a situation, it will be incongruent with the music. Anyways, they weakened the bond between the two male leads (which is really a keystone of the plot), making the tenor very disloyal, weak and unlikeable. His friend, the baritone, comes about as close to raping the soprano as can be done on stage, which renders his character despicable and also weak beyond measure. Literally his entire duet with the soprano he is kind of tackling her, pulling her around on stage by her limbs, groping her, in this desperate pathetic way as she is squirming and sort of trying to hold him off. In no way is this indicated in the script, or in traditional productions of the opera. So both the male leads are made to be loathesome creeps. The female lead is a priestess under vow of celibacy, but they polluted her character by making her completely uninterested in maintaining her celibacy from the start. It makes her, I guess, a strong womyn who was thrust unwillingly into priestesshood by the patriarchy. Anyways these choices totally deflated the drama so we were left with a historic work of art being turned into a multi-million dollar (I don't actually know their budget, but operas are fucking expensive to put on) 2.5 hour long feminist propaganda piece. I swear to god if it had been done this way even as late as the 1950's, the audience would have rioted and dragged the director out into the streets and beat him. I am going to check out the reviews now but I am thoroughly expecting them to be hum-drum and completely ignore the gender-political bastardization of this piece. I can't believe that half the audience didn't fucking walk out during the "rape," it's like everyone is desensitized to this stuff, and doesn't realize how insane it is to buy into this narrative.

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[–] RewriteFullwise 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

This ^^^

My thoughts are along similar lines: We now know the following:

1) Propaganda, no matter how well intentioned, was almost limitless in the past.

2) The Snowden NSA documents confirm that cultural propaganda is alive and well online and elsewhere today.

The question is, how much of what we see in news and in online forums is essentially "fake". Like you, I think the entire SJW/Feminism/PC/Anti-white racism is nothing but one big gigantic propaganda effort. What I'm not sure yet is who is behind it. Is it the American government that wants its people as unstable, anti-social, distracted and weak as possible? Think 1984 or Brave New World. Or is it the efforts of a foreign government who know they can't beat us militarily, so they instead attack the soft target of destroying us socially?

At this point I don't have the answer. I think the first step is to outline a sort of manifesto that this stuff IS happening almost non stop. The next is to make a coordinated effort to call it out whenever we see/suspect it online. Google JTRIG for a start.

One final point is something I've though about the other site for a while. This could also warrant its own post, but I'll shoehorn it in here.

The other site was a place where some really thoughtful stuff was discussed. Pretty much everyone on there knew the following was accepted fact:

-The NSA is spying on you

-The war on drugs is based on a lie and has been a catastrophic failure

-The war in Iraq is the same

-The permanent warfare state is not an accident. It is intention and will remain alive and well indefinitely.

-Elections have long since stopped mattering, and both parties are against YOU

Pretty cool that a group of people all across America, and the world could all know and agree on that, huh? But then something interesting happened. The site started to tear itself apart. A certain group of people would pop up in every forum and sow enough distrust and hate between the members so as to render any discussion among serious adults impossible. One by one they took them down. An effort so coordinated, so constant, it almost seemed as if it was... someone's full time job. What type of person who was gainfully employed would actually spend that much of their free time doing such a thing? Nobody in their right mind. It was somebody's full time job to do so.

A year or so passed and what happened? The site is a cauldron of vitriol, hate and distrust and is nothing but a propaganda outlet for powerful governments, non profits and corporations.

I absolutely, positively refuse to believe that was just some simple accident. It was the coordinated takedown of a place that was exchanging just a little too much of the wrong kind of info.

Thoughts?

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[–] onegin ago 

I lean towards thinking that "SJW/Feminism/PC/Anti-white racism" propaganda is internal. I think that the US is doing everything it can to figure out strategies to manage the internet. Build up an arsenal for discrediting, increase public support for censorship, increase public support for tracking/telemetry, sockpuppetry/astroturfing, backdoors in software and social sites (e.g. kill-switches and selective filtering), propping up and funding individuals who will parrot a narrative that is useful to them (this can be done 2nd or 3rd degree as they talk about in the artice-- so e.g. Sarkeesian or somebody like that just thinks they are getting donations from like-minded people when in fact the money originated in an intelligence agency and was "cleaned" by passing hands a few times), intelligently picking their battles in order to give the illusion that free discourse is still happening (that other site still appears very progressive and critical of the establishment by some measures-- if that had shifted too rapidly people would have known what was up), vote brigading (quite possible that with the skills and resources available they could even automate such techniques-- gov' controlled botnets, captcha solvers to mass generate sockpuppet accounts etc). It's not hard to spin these things all in a positive way-- you can easily argue that the government, and central control in general, are best able to keep the nation secure, and that propaganda and domestic spying are just tools to make sure the public behaves in a way that aligns with their current strategies. It is really a shame though because, while it might be effective in the current architecture, it 1) sets the stage for totalitarianism, but perhaps not until 1 world power has prevailed and no longer has any outside threats, 2) it poisons art, culture, and discourse with an agenda. This has sort of always been the case; churches controlling and censoring art, even sometimes using artists who are atheists or otherwise critical of the establishment (similar to OP's article), dictators funding huge monuments and works of art for nationalism etc. It is just sad, since I definitely used to be naive enough to think that internet would be much less susceptible to manipulation than it has proven to be. I think there are very intriguing technologies on the horizon which will make it harder and harder to manipulate the internet (there is a whole host of research and development going on in crypto, anonymity, decentralization etc.). But it has a long ways to go before a lot of it is going to be viable-- assuming it is even allowed to get off the ground. I guess this is why it is always a race between the gov't and the people, and it sort of maintains a balance this way. I just wish they wouldn't fuck with art. At least there are always niche areas and tiny little corners where it is not worth their effort to penetrate, and that is where you have to look for pure art, and free discourse. Voat seems to be an okay example so far, although I am constantly doubting everything online these days. Even things that are anti-establishment can actually be baiting techniques by the establishment. Baiting extremists and building cases against them in order to be able to take them down if the need arises. Egging on and propping up extremism as something to finger-point at in the mainstream media, as a way of discrediting a particular group or source. This stuff gets infinitely layered and complex, and the short of it is that they are going to be craftily mucking around in all of it, because like you point out-- they can do this stuff as full time jobs. They have the resources and the unity of agenda in order to have a great breadth and magnitude of influence. I guess the lesson is, keep seeking out those niches where freedom still apparently exists, stay mobile and keep your wits about you. Don't get complacent and just dial into one source for the rest of your life, just because a lot of other folks tune in to the same source and because the production values and availability are high-- that's a guarantee that you are being manipulated (i.e. mainstream media is anything that is big enough for the gov't to care about, since apparently they are resourceful enough to influence media regardless of new emerging formats like social and aggregation sites). That's a guarantee to a boring and unexamined life, in my opinion. Seek out those niches, never trust anyone, make art and honest discourse locally and at a smaller scale etc. As much as these propaganda and tracking mechanisms get revealed to the public, they seriously don't care. They are happy being dialed in to the mainstream theater. In fact, the best way to fight this might not be to aggressively counter it, but to mainly tune it out but subtly sew seeds of truth among people when opportunity arises. This would also mean to tune out of the dissident communities as well, as good as it can feel to participate in what feels like a populist movement. It requires accepting that world politics is on its own course and that there will be a way to recover from totalitarianism if and when it becomes oppressive or unbearable. It's too bad we can't just opt out, by not paying federal taxes. Oh, Ron Paul, won't you come and fix this for us?

That's my rant. I'm trying to come to terms with all this BS so I can get on with my life. It is so aggravating-- it is certainly very difficult to let go.