“Don’t believe everything you think.” — The Malcolm X Memorial Foundation
Tag Archives: indoctrination
Hero Worship
This past Monday, 11/11, was Veterans day, an American federal holiday which originated as Armistice day, a day to remember the end of the first world war. Veterans day is a day to remember the veterans of America, the heroes who put their lives on the line to protect the freedoms we Americans take for granted. The only problem I see with this is that we haven’t had to protect our freedom for more than sixty years, we have been the dominant force in the world since World War II and we have used that position to bully and push our “freedom” on countries not seeking it. Of course, we have done great things for the world, but most of it doesn’t involve invading countries on the other side of the world or killing democratically elected leaders who happen to not be willing to bow to American feet, and those invasions and assassinations have done little than to show us as a bully that believes itself above the rules. All of this isn’t to say that we should blame our troops for mistakes, but it is to say that the soldier worship so evident in america is unhealthy, and altogether unhelpful, it glorifies war and makes questioning the government nearly treasonous. We should consider who benefits when we consider every veteran a hero. Not the veterans, no, they have record numbers of suicides, they make up 13% of the homeless population, despite only accounting for less than 1% of the total population, they have mental illnesses that often go untreated, or even get them dishonorably discharged, preventing them from even trying to get treatment. No, the people who benefit the most from this hero-worship are the policy makers, the leaders, the public sees the veterans as heroes, and heroes couldn’t be fighting an unjust war, no, the war has to be right, or else why would we be involved. The American public hasn’t exactly enjoyed the two wars we have been involved in for the past twelve years, but despite the ridiculous length of the war, there has been no movements, nothing even approaching the feelings felt during the Vietnam war, but what gives, the world is now more connected than ever, we can see images and names from the war whenever we want, why isn’t there the reaction that Vietnam incurred, where is the outrage, we have been at war for 12 years! Finally we are withdrawing, but still, the policy makers managed to declare war against an IDEA! the idea of terrorism, and they fought it, to little success, despite what they will tell you, yes, we got Osama, congrats, what about the billions spent in the war, what about the lives lost, what about the countries destroyed and destabilized, was the cost worth it in the end? according to the government the answer is yes, and we should just stand their and pledge ourselves to the flag and weep with patriotic pride. We commemorate the lost heroes and sanctify men and women who did a service, who fought a brutal, useless, war, who put their lives on the line for the not quite so honest leaders of this country who lead them into battle for little reason. We should always think before we consider such as brutal profession as inherently heroic, as its insults the true heroes, and benefits the wrong people.
“Emancipate you…
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.” –Bob Marley
“What goes around comes around”, says Mickey Mouse and his Buddies
The Walt Disney Corporation has some sort of fetish over Karma and Yin Yang. Off the top of my head I can name you half a dozen TV shows that have Karma references (Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Suite Life on Deck, Hannah Montana, Jessie, or the horrible Wizard one…). There are plenty that involve switching souls or reincarnation, with many in the same shows just mentioned. The same goes for Yin Yang, the Daoist concept frequently abused by corporate television warlords. Hell, Disney once had a Canadian show called Yin Yang Yo!, and in Lilo & Stitch they downgraded the concept of Yin Yang to alien pets(there is also Yang). Nickelodeon abused the same concept and diminished core Daoist beliefs to to spiritual fish (scroll to bottom) in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
So what’s the problem with this? Aside from the fact that Disney degrades some of the most widely held religious concepts in the world as ancient mythic folklore (the belief in divine justice, or “karma”, is in many faiths worldwide, including Christianity, in different ways), when’s the last time Jesus was mentioned in a Disney show? Another example of Disney’s orientalist religious fetish: the horrible indoctrinating trash-of-a-movie we call Aladdin that I wrote a disparaging review on has a scene where Jasmine’s dad shouts “Praise Allah!” after the Princess chose a suitor, and there’s a few other times when we hear the phrase “Allah forbid!” Now, the latter phrase isn’t even used by anyone (they took the phrase God forbid and translated it to what, make it funny?), but the first one is only used by people who want to “make fun of Muslims” or accuse “Muslims of being terrorists.” That is according to urban dictionary. There is no equivalent of that phrase in Arabic or in Islam, and I myself have only heard the phrase used by people ridiculing the Muslim faith. Now you can say what you want about your views on religion, but what the hell is it doing in a children’s movie? Do we really need to just pick out religions from a box and ridicule them since they’re from some “inferior” place of the world? We have a real problem of generalizing other cultures as the “other”. And to think they didn’t bother trying to pronounce Allah right – they might as well have used the English equivalent God – but then again that’s not as funny, is it?
I suppose it’s also not politically correct. You can mention and misinterpret Karma or Ying Yang or some indigenous folklore or the other all you want, but when it comes to Christianity it’s a big no-no. Why not bother anyone? They do enough damage when they call karma “mumbo jumbo” in front of hundreds of thousands of children…including Hindu ones. Because somehow making fun of any culture or faith other than the majority Western ones is OK. Remember the time Disney told kids that white skin color is the original skin color? See #3 in the link.
I’d like to see Disney grow up. Now the big movement of removing religious references from all children’s television is a load of hypocritical arrogant trash I’ll bash on any day, but going out of the way to insult and misinterpret religions and cultures is far worse. I’m tired of Disney and their television warlord equivalents (like Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network) poking fun at inferior cultures with sharp stereotypes and shoddy research. The public has literally no idea that this happens (I’ve done plenty of research looking for people with my view – and I found nothing), and that’s because Disney stops short of poking fun at Western culture and religions for that very reason. This sort of inferio-fying Hinduism, Islam, and Chinese traditions is absolutely disgusting, and I am astonished that people tolerate it. I grew up on Disney and know people that do, and I fear for their future.
War is Peace! Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength!: Doublethink is Everywhere
The motto in the title is a quote from 1984, a book I wrote a review on, where people are brainwashed in a totalitarian state to believe contradictory ideals with no concept of logic. The absurd reasoning of people in the book is referred to as “doublethink.”
Doublethink is an interesting concept, where people contradict themselves without realizing it. We see this every day. For example, 90 percent of Americans think that nuclear war is unwinnable, and yet 70 percent of the same data pool believe America should build more nukes (see page 12 of the link). Such logic is incoherent, and I love the quote from the Hindu epic the Mahabharata where it explains how we literally never stop to think about the fact that we could die tomorrow while people die in front of us every day.
A more relevant example is how most religious people of America find religion to be good for people and support evangelical causes while simultaneously preaching secular governance. Similarly, many in Britain are against the Sharia law courts they’ve implemented (I am too) on the grounds of secularism, while their own beloved Head of State is the head of the English Church! Or how the American PATRIOT Act is called so as if to tell Americans they should be patriotic, whilst the act itself contradicts what the original patriots fought for!
You know what else is doublethink? CVS, a drug store chain, didn’t sell the latest Rolling Stones magazine since it had the Boston Bomber on the front page “out of respect for the victims of the attack and their loved ones,” while they didn’t hesitate to have Obama on the front page: someone who is technically a war criminal. That is doublethink, and I wish neither ever got a photo in a magazine.
Doublethink is a bit different from hypocrisy, because hypocrisy is when your actions and beliefs contradict, and you know it. Hypocrisy is probably the best adjective to describe any government or head of state. Take Prime Minister Francois Hollande, who criticized America for the NSA spying scandal despite that France (his nation) spys on its people themselves.
Religion is another place where you find a load of hypocrisy from some practitioners, if not most. On the far right, you have ultra-literalist Muslims that use scripture to defend something that the spirit of the scripture refutes. On the far left, you have people that believe in the whole nine yard of mainstream Christianity: Jesus is Jehovah in flesh and if you don’t listen to him you’ll be damned, while they themselves hardly practice! For the people that take religion “liberally”, I have a question: would Jesus act the way you do? If not, you have some serious work to do.
We live in a world of contradictions, hypocrisy, and doublethink, and we don’t even realize it sometimes. So let’s get past the incoherency. Let’s take a look at our values and beliefs and seriously consider what the hell we are doing with our lives. Let’s figure out why we contradict ourselves on a daily basis and solve that problem. Let’s fight the indoctrination and question why we spout secular dogma while being religiously conservative, or the other way around. Let’s talk to our politicians and government officials and try to figure out how to go about stopping the hypocrisy, if possible, and how to make the masses realize it. There are giant hypocrisies in our society, and I only named a few. Chances are, I’m a hypocrite myself and doublethink my thoughts without even realizing it, and I’ll be working on that like you should too.
1984
Orwell’s world is in a post WWIII dystopia. There are three world superpowers, and all 3 are totalitarian communist regimes that control about 90% of the Earth. The rest of the Earth is a bufferzone between the three superpowers that is fought for in an endless stalemate. The protagonist is someone who realizes that the world he lives in is god-forsaken, and there is literally nothing he could do about it. He goes about living, starts breaking some rules, gets caught, has problems, and the book ends with an equally dystopian world as in the beginning.
In other words, the novel was great. Sad, pitiful, and unbelievably pessimistic I found this book to be one of the best I’ve ever read. It deals with a number of philosophical elements – mainly dealing with the lack of freedom in society and the concept of “doublethink”. This is a word I’ve used a bit so far and will continue to use. Basically, the idea of “doublethink” is to believe in two contradictory statements simultaneously. I once read about a survey in which most Americans thought a nuclear war was inevitable, but that more nukes should be built anyways. That would be an example of doublethink, and every person of that world uses it in their everyday lives. ‘WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH,” a common motto of the people goes.
There is another theme that deals with the control of knowledge. The superpower the protagonist lives in, Oceania, controls all learning of history. In other words, they make history out to whatever they want to be and come a new generation, and no one knows what happened in the past at all. Soon, no one will even know that history was changed (not even the people at the very top of the government), because history was made to not say that. “He who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past,” a government motto goes.
Probably the most major theme of the book has to do with the lack of freedom. The protagonist is watched from television monitors that are basically everywhere, even in his house. He cannot trust anyone, even his own wife (who the government chose for him). Later in the novel, we find out that technology has come to the point where even his mind can be read. The sanctity of our universal human rights (I’ll talk about this term one day and how most of us have no idea what it means and just spout the concept because we’ve been taught to spout it).The lack of freedom in this society makes life completely meaningless for the protagonist – who cannot pursue any sort of happiness or pleasure (be it physical, emotional, academic…). In other words, a lack of freedom is a lack of purpose in life.
The biggest theme for me, though, was something I don’t think most people catch on too. It was basically the fact that in this world, no one was happy. There was no sole dictator at the top of the bureaucratic chain, and even the people up there are not happy. No one liked the society how it was, as it ruined everything for absolutely everyone. And yet, nothing could be done about it. For one purpose to revolt the system means for others to have him done away with. The others that do away with him do it solely because if they don’t, they’ll be done away with. And so on, you have a society that continuously destroys itself because people will never completely join together – because of the invisible hand we will call “fear”. people realize it, too, but there is always the fear that your peers may not realize it, which is far too risky. The structure of the society is made so that it will literally last forever.The three superpowers are in an endless stalemate, and there is no chance of revolution inside each one. Likewise, there is a perfect balance between population and resources that will last forever in an eternal structure with no happiness or joy amongst anyone. Beautiful.
“Then you will …
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” –John 8:32
This is a beautiful quote when ripped out of context from the Bible. It is still beautiful in context, but in a very different sense. Please realize that if you haven’t researched this quote you are wrong about its interpretation. It’s still a good quote though, either way.
There are multiple interpretations. Here is one.
I Know why the Terrorists Terrorize (Part 1)
This was originally going to be a poem modeled after I Know why the Caged Bird Sings. But I couldn’t get passed the first line, and I wouldn’t want to kill a good idea to a time when few will see it. So instead I will talk about what I know.
Yesterday I talked about what the “mainstream” really is. On one side we have the extreme right: Westboro. Al Qaeda. Bodu Bala Sena. But we have another, less violent, forgotten, extreme: Jesus Seminar Philosophers, the NOI, the secularists. In the spectrum of religion, the outward and inward ones, we have a massive middle ground that is lost. Some of them take on secular liberal worldviews. Some of them take on nationalist terrorist worldviews. Most of them a mix of the two. A stupid, incoherent mix that doesn’t make sense. This is the view of everyone I know. Honestly, everyone I know has a stupid, incoherent world view so mashed between a dividing line they think exists between reason and faith: “I don’t take it too far!” “I am modern!” To them, I say: on the contrary.
We are told today in the Modern West, reason and faith collide! Religion shall not publicized! Just be good, be moral, be happy! We are bombarded with secularist dogma: religion should be practiced lightly. Stop believing in hell. Ancient texts are no longer relevant. To them, I say: on the contrary.
The other day I was discussing religion to a far-right friend, and I asked him: should America be a Christian Nation? He said no. That would mean other religions would be oppressed. I talked to another liberal friend. He said no. Church and state should not mix. He probably doesn’t even know what that means. I asked another, about the applicability of the Old Testament. Old Jewish guys from back then were crazy, apparently. This is coming from Jesus loving Americans. As if Jesus would respond that way. To them, all of them, I say: on the contrary.
I am not saying the church and state should be one. I am not saying we should revive Biblical criminal justice. But we must ask ourselves why we refuse to even consider things because we are told not to. We must ask ourselves the relevancy of religion in the public sphere, earnestly, honestly. We must ask ourselves what church and state really are and what they mean, and how they build on each other, and how they compete against one another. We must ask ourselves how ancient texts play a role in the modern world, or how they should play a role, or if they should play a role. To claim the instantaneous answers most of is to say the very things we all spout from what we are indoctrinated to believe. We are told from day 1 in the west that they have no relevance, that religion should be private, that secularism is the way to go.
I ask you to question this, to go beyond our childish preconceptions and really question what should and should not be done about these issues. You may arrive at the same conclusions – but the journey of thinking must be taken.My questions must be toiled, by all of us, lest we fall into the trap of backwardness in following secularist dogma and refusing progress because we are told that is what is best. Should we not question, or should we take answers prematurely, we hit an extreme view on the spectrum without realizing even why. This is what the terrorists do, and that is why the terrorists terrorize.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Aladdin
You would think that one of the world’s most respectable film companies, Walt Disney, so widely known that the American public entrusts the childhood of their children too, wouldn’t make movies full of racist trash. Not so, apparently
To start off, do Jasmine and Aladdin look Arab at all to you? They appear Caucasian – with brown skin. They have American accents, American (should I say it?) values. And what kind of Arab name is Jasmine, anyway? Meanwhile the bad guys, Jafar, for one, has an Arab name, Arab dress, and Arab looks. Exaggerated Arab looks to be certain, for the purpose of making him look more ugly. Just like the rest of the bad guys. Good guys look American. Bad guys look Arab. Americans are beautiful. Arabs are ugly.
But it gets worse. The original release of the movie had a song lyric: “Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face/It’s barbaric, but, hey, it’s home” It was in reference to the Middle East, where in certain areas such as Saudi Arabia they have amputations as a form of criminal justice, something we’ll talk about later . Amidst controversy of getting politics involved in a children’s movie, they dubbed that over in the DVD release to “Where it’s flat and immense and the heat is intense/It’s barbaric, but, hey, it’s home”.
To add on to the calling the Middle East barbaric and to depicting Arabs as evil, why is it that every women in the movie has to be wearing as scanty clothing as possible? The women in the movie are practically sex objects. And the scene where Aladdin steals some bread and hides in a room with a bunch of women? People have speculated that was a brothel. Whatever it was, the fact that we can even speculate that in a children’s movie is disgusting. Jasmine wears the same stuff the women in the brothel were wearing too, which doesn’t help much.
One last thing for this rant: how great are the “morals” of it, anyway? Now this movie might be an extreme case, but the simple insistence of Disney to tell children to disobey their parents and do what they want is ludicrous. To make that a sort of moral maxim in the minds of Disney’s audience is all for an agenda – to get children hooked on Disney products, Disney ideals, Disney television. To think that most good parents would want the television to tell their children to not obey their parents is flat out stupid. We have a serious problem in this world where those ideals are treated as universal on children’s television shows. Certainly, challenging the ideals of our parents can be good, but to ingrain the thought into the minds of children that they are more correct then their parents is utterly insane. Mere children cannot reason as we can. When they heard “Don’t obey your parents,” they don’t.
Whispers of Satan 