Arms manufacturers are the big winners of the tumultuous events in the public-facing citadels of power across the Western world over the last couple of weeks. Just as the new White House administration tried to broker a peace deal with Russia over the three-year old war over Eastern Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen’s EU and
⋯Filtered by propaganda
Can we let the War Party win again?
Who benefits from more death and destruction in the Middle East? It’s easy to jump on bandwagons in righteous indignation against the latest demons guilty of unspeakable crimes against humanity. Alas recent history has taught us over and over again that we cannot trust the objectivity and impartiality of the mainstream media to verify the
⋯disinformation, human rights
Whom may you hate?
When hatred means only loathing protected categories, but it’s fine to direct your anger at new outgroups. As the antithesis to love, hatred is a natural emotion as old as humanity itself. We hate people who, we believe, mean us harm. By “us” I mean our immediate in-group, ourselves, our family and our wider community.
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The Persuasion Industry
In one way or another a growing percentage of workers in the UK are engaged in various sectors of the persuasion industry. Call it new media, education, publishing, marketing, sales, customer relations, call centres, advertising, entertainment, legal services, lobbying, consulting, advice bureaux, research institutes, awareness raising charities, they are all in the multi-billion pound business
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The Brown Broadcasting Corporation
Call me a cynic, but the BBC seems to have transitioned magnificently from its role as a covet apologist for the Blair regime to a smooth public relations operation for the emerging Brown leadership. Such a transition requires no change in logo, editorial control or political outlook. Indeed, as the electorate has grown tired of
⋯corporatism
Is the Crime Rate Falling or Rising
One well-designed Website, www.anxietyculture.com seemed worthy of a link exchange request as it was publicised in the forum of another site I respect Medialens. It claims to offer an antidote to the mainstream media with a special focus on the left’s favourite bête noire The Daily Mail. I particularly liked the article on ‘Team spirit
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Conspiracy Theory Slur
Many defenders of orthodoxy can simply shrug off all challenges to their sacrosanct worldview by dismissing them as conspiracy theories or urban myths. Recently a flurry of books have appeared to debunk conspiracy theories in totem by painting both empirically researched critiques of mainstream thinking and conjectural fantasies with the same brush, thus equating the
⋯censorship
The Awareness Raising Scam
On the surface there seems nothing wrong with bringing people’s attention to the plight of other human beings. As a concept awareness raising began life in political activism, but was soon embraced by the advertising industry. It does not take a huge leap of faith to conclude that National Smile Week, as delightful and charming
⋯awareness raising
Shameless Celebrity Promotion of Personality Disorders
Letter to the Independent (on Sunday) Judging from the Independent on Sunday’s feature on Stephen Fry’s high-profile outing as a bipolar-defined person, we can look forward to a new season of personality disorder awareness raising. If we believe the hype, until the mid 1990s human beings labelled with the new generation of behavioural disorders lived
⋯depression, mental health
You're just an Individual
Whether you read psychiatric literature, social work reports or listen to the speeches of leading politicians, you’ll find ordinary citizens increasingly referred to not as women, men, people, human beings or citizens but as individuals. Whether you lead an atypical lifestyle, are considered to suffer from a disorder or disease, are addicted to an obsessive
⋯Linguistics
By persuasion if we can, but by coercion if we must!
The liberal media’s reaction to reports of widespread abuse and torture of Iraqi detainees by US and UK military personnal marks a psychological turning point in the current phase in the sole superpower’s war for total global domination. Recent interventions have been justified in one way or another by our moral superiority, our more advanced,
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Is it Time to Rethink Media Effects?
It has become increasingly common in some academic circles to write off public controversies about children”s media as moral panics. This paper sets out to challenge the implied claim made in this argument that media do not have psychological and cultural impacts on children. This position confuses public concerns with public safety and children”s well
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