We live in a very not-brainwashed society 
.
Had a friend basically say that the FBI and CIA used to be crazy, but they're totally above board nowadays
Heard they allow LGBTQ employees into the Torture Division, what is the world coming to?
"Well Mr. Al-rafiq, if you don't want to tell us where the entrance to the Hamas tunnels is, we have ways of making you talk. Tell me...have you ever tried getting gender-affirming healthcare...in Mississippi?"
I miss the days when the CIA wasn't run by latina women with 3 children and generalized anxiety disorder
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Yeah, love how I pointed out that Chomsky/Parenti shows that the news media is so compliant that Operation Mockingbird isn't even needed by the CIA anymore, and being treated as some unhinged crank by my friends.
Oh yeah, they go all "sure they used to do that but not anymore!" and then you just feel insane
The Deprogram had the writers of Bubble City Boys on. Can’t remember which one said this
“Describing how the world works makes you sound crazy.”
I'm the shithead for pointing out we've figured out how to feed the world but instead throw half of our food away or more in order to maintain "the market."
My colleagues will look at me as if I'm insane if I even say the most mundane of statements like "infinite growth isn't possible"
uhm sweaty we have transitioned from a manufacturing to a service and financial based society and you can have infinite financial things happening because it's just bits flipping on a computer
also somehow that makes the world more gooder
It's very deliberate
It's a lot easier to dismiss an argument when you have the thought-terminating cliche of "Conspiracy Theory" ready for any statement that takes more than 3/5's of a second to explain
Never mind that the whole reason we have a distinct word for "conspiracy" is because it's a phenomenon that you encounter in the real world.
Me: brings up a good point that compares or contrasts an AES to the west
Them: THAT'S WHATABOUTISM!!!!1!!!
Me: ...and?
Honestly couldn't have been introduced to it at a better time. It's hilarious.
It really was pretty slick of them to just come up with a term that means "pointing our hypocrisy" that somehow negates the hypocrisy.
Absolutely. I can't even figure out how to approach some arguments without it though.
It's like I'm not trying to say my guy killing people is ok or whatever, I'm trying to say others can't condone the bad parts of, say the USSR, while willfully ignoring the whole history of the United States as essentially a global terrorism state.
But as soon as I drop the Big W, they act like they won for recognizing a fallacy or some shitm
Yea you would think pointing out we do the exact thing, often times worse, so we aren't really in any position to condemn or, if some libs had their way, invade another country because of it would be a pretty airtight argument but unfortunately whether they realize it or not libs are just as hypocritical as chuds when it comes to the foreign policy positions of "it's ok when we do it, if anybody else does it it's completely unacceptable"
It's especially bizarre because one could argue comparison is the basis for all logic and reason
How do you even understand anything about the world without ever comparing 2 things? It would be impossible
Whatabotism as a concept is an insult to all intelligent life, the english language (critical support) and especially whichever of our ancestors first evolved to rub two braincells together and be capable of comparing things in the rirst place
I'd go as far as saying that believing in whataboutism is a rejection of sentience
Barbie (Margot Robbie) is on the floor. Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) is asking her why she was immune to the patriarchy brainwashing.
Barbie: "My exposure to the real world must have made me immune. You're either brainwashed or you're weird and ugly. There is no in between.
Weird Barbie: "Sing it sister."
Hexbear is the Necronomicon. Reading it imparts knowledge which all seems reasonable to the reader, but to an outsider they are stark raving mad.
And also like a cursed tome, much of what drives you mad isn't the magic spells and alchemical sigils, but the secret histories, the sudden awareness of a world of agony and nightmare roiling just inches beneath the placid surface of our social pond, and the callous alien god-thing lurking beneath that even now feeds on us all (it's capital).
I have definitely used this to explain how it feels when learning about newly comprehensible man made horrors that have existed or are going to, back during year 1 of covid
But more or less the knowledge gained weighing heavily and making one mad, not so much the outsider peering in.
Almost as an article of faith, some individuals believe that conspiracies are either kooky fantasies or unimportant aberrations. To be sure, wacko conspiracy theories do exist. There are people who believe that the United States has been invaded by a secret United Nations army equipped with black helicopters, or that the country is secretly controlled by Jews or gays or feminists or black nationalists or communists or extraterrestrial aliens. But it does not logically follow that all conspiracies are imaginary.
Conspiracy is a legitimate concept in law: the collusion of two or more people pursuing illegal means to effect some illegal or immoral end. People go to jail for committing conspiratorial acts. Conspiracies are a matter of public record, and some are of real political significance. The Watergate break-in was a conspiracy, as was the Watergate cover-up, which led to Nixon’s downfall. Iran-contra was a conspiracy of immense scope, much of it still uncovered. The savings and loan scandal was described by the Justice Department as “a thousand conspiracies of fraud, theft, and bribery,” the greatest financial crime in history.
Often the term “conspiracy” is applied dismissively whenever one suggests that people who occupy positions of political and economic power are consciously dedicated to advancing their elite interests. Even when they openly profess their designs, there are those who deny that intent is involved. In 1994, the officers of the Federal Reserve announced they would pursue monetary policies designed to maintain a high level of unemployment in order to safeguard against “overheating” the economy. Like any creditor class, they preferred a deflationary course. When an acquaintance of mine mentioned this to friends, he was greeted skeptically, “Do you think the Fed bankers are deliberately trying to keep people unemployed?” In fact, not only did he think it, it was announced on the financial pages of the press. Still, his friends assumed he was imagining a conspiracy because he ascribed self-interested collusion to powerful people.
At a World Affairs Council meeting in San Francisco, I remarked to a participant that U.S. leaders were pushing hard for the reinstatement of capitalism in the former communist countries. He said, “Do you really think they carry it to that level of conscious intent?” I pointed out it was not a conjecture on my part. They have repeatedly announced their commitment to seeing that “free-market reforms” are introduced in Eastern Europe. Their economic aid is channeled almost exclusively into the private sector. The same policy holds for the monies intended for other countries. Thus, as of the end of 1995, “more than $4.5 million U.S. aid to Haiti has been put on hold because the Aristide government has failed to make progress on a program to privatize state-owned companies” (New York Times 11/25/95).
Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?” For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it “planning” and “strategizing” – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists. To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.
Michael Parenti, Dirty Truths
Lukewarm shit like "Office real estate business is why they want people to go back to the office"
Oh that stuff drives me crazy. I mentioned that exact thing during a meeting at work and people looked at me like I grew an extra head. I made some comment about Google having billions of dollars of real estate and someone actually replied by saying "cmon, I dont think Google cares about a couple billion dollars" like are you fucking nuts?? You think they got that rich by just leaving a couple billion on the ground??? its infuriating.
