• Investigations
  • Opinion & Analysis
  • Cartoons
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Language
    • 中文
    • русский
    • Español
  • National News
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Elections
  • Civil Liberties
  • Environment
  • Health & Lifestyle
  • Media & Culture
  • MyMPN Announcements

Understanding The Mechanics Of Political And Corporate Lies

December 3, 2014 By Ethan Indigo Smith 1 Comment

Those involved in politics — the politicians, reporters and corporate lobbyists — are constantly lying. We all know it, we just don’t all appreciate the scope of it. Of course, there is outright lying which might be done in any number of ways, including complete conjuration and outright elimination of important information. However corporate heads, politicians and their faithful media normally prefer more nuanced presentations to their lies — so it pays to understand just how they go about it.

There is no wild “conspiracy theory” here, just a matter of linking the dots. Those with the greatest access to information in our oligarchical society are correspondingly the greatest liars to our society. That is how oligarchies are built – not by gaining the explicit agreement of the people to an inequitable ‘pyramid’ society, but by the covert and gradual creation of illusions to which the people progressively succumb. Oligarchs employ the addition, subtraction, division and multiplication of information to influence the minds of its society, gain its ongoing “consent” to remain at the bottom of the illusory pyramid.

Filed Under: Media & Culture Tagged With: 1984, Animal Farm, doublethink, George Orwell, Institutional Thinking, lies, newspeak, propaganda, The Ministry of Truth, truth, War, whistleblower, Winston Smith

Justifying War: “Just” Wars (Part 2)

November 24, 2014 By Ron Fullwood 1 Comment

President Obama has said that he and other Americans are weary, fatigued of war. That may well suit his own thinking, but I think American’s weariness is more than just fatigue at the presence of conflict; it’s an exhaustion with the justifying of it all.

Author Herman Wouk put it best, in the words of Julien Benda, a character in his book, ‘The Winds of War.’ He wrote: “Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.”

Barack Obama, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, actually used that occasion which celebrated peace to lay down justifications for war; ‘Just Wars’ he called them. The new president wrapped his militarism in a blanket of history in his acceptance speech in Oslo. He spoke with the detachment of a professor lecturing students about a “living testimony” to the “moral force” of the teachings of King and Gandhi; a U.S. president who just happened to be commander-in-chief over dual, bloody occupations.

Filed Under: Foreign Affairs, National News Tagged With: 9-11, Afghanistan, al-Qaida, Barack Obama, extraordinary rendition, Gandhi, genocide, George Orwell, George W. Bush, GITMO, Guantanamo, history, Human Rights, Iraq, ISIS, Islamic State, Julien Benda, Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize, Norway, Osama bin-Laden, Oslo, peace, September 11, The Winds of War, War, World War II

Should Institutions Have A Right To Secrets In A Free And Open Society?

November 17, 2014 By Ethan Indigo Smith 3 Comments

It is impossible to say what transpires in secret institutional meetings. Perhaps secret meetings are concerned with the orchestration of world peace, cures for disease and the eradication of poverty. Heck, maybe they are deciding when the best time would be to release their perpetual motion machine! But I doubt it. Whatever the subjects, whatever the group, they believe commoners do not need to know. And that in itself is a problem.

The notion of secret institutions and secretive decision-making are in direct opposition to the stated objectives of our free and open society, which employs institutions to serve its needs. For this reason, institutional secrets simply should not be. Institutions make plans within conceptualizations that do not recognize the individual, but which view a society as a single entity that must be controlled and influenced, dividing people according to their location, race, income or other conjured demographic reasoning – thinking which always benefits an institution, never an individual.

Filed Under: Civil Liberties Tagged With: 1984, Climate change, Corporate America, corporations, Declaration of Independence, democracy, Edward Snowden, England, environment, France, freedom, George I, George Orwell, George Washington, Gretna, Henry Ford, history, Hurricane Katrina, Imagine, Institutional Thinking, Jacobin Club, Jacobism, Jacobites, John F. Kennedy, John Lennon, Liberty, Louisiana, New Orleans, nuclear, oligarchical collectivism, oligarchy, philosophy, Reign of Terror, Scotland, secrecy, secrets, The Bilderberg Group, United Kingdom, United States Bill of Rights, whistleblowers

Next Page »
The file does not exist View/Post/small_loop.php

About MyMPN

MyMPN is MintPress News' community site. Anyone can participate by writing a diary and commenting on others' diaries.

Content posted to MyMPN is the opinion of the author alone, and should not be attributed to MintPress News.

MyMPN will cease publishing on January 15, 2017. Thank you for your support of our work.

  • More about MyMPN
  • Report site problems and bugs
  • MyMPN Comment Moderation

Follow Mintpress

RSSTwitterFacebookGooglePlus

Our Latest Posts

In The Age Of Trump, Peaceful Revolt Is Our Only Option

By Kevin Patrick Kelly January 11, 2017

Hafizah Geter Gives Moving Poetic ‘Testimony’ At Medgar Evers College

By José Negroni January 10, 2017

Gonzo Journalism Rejects The Myth Of The Neutral Media

By Dr. Milena Rampoldi January 9, 2017

Aleppo: How The US Manipulates Humanitarianism For Imperialism

By Steven Chovanec January 6, 2017

Why One ‘Remain’ Voter Now Supports A Hard Brexit

By Tara Lighten Msiska January 5, 2017

Hawaiian Kingdom, American Empire: An Interview With Professor Keanu Sai

By Dennis Riches January 4, 2017

War Against Rape In Karachi: Advocating For A Rape Free Society

By Dr. Milena Rampoldi December 30, 2016

What’s In A Name? From ‘Al-Qaeda’ To The ‘Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia’

By Nu’man Abd al-Wahid December 29, 2016

Popular Tags

activism Africa American imperialism Barack Obama Canada capitalism Climate change democracy Democratic Party Donald Trump Egypt election 2016 energy fracking history Human Rights inequality Iraq ISIS Islam Islamic State Israel journalism MENA Middle East mining nuclear oil Palestine police poverty prison propaganda racism Republican Party Russia Saudi Arabia Syria terrorism Texas United Kingdom United Nations Wall Street War water

Sign up for our Daily Newsletter

Copyright © 2022 Mint Press, LLC