“These are the times that try men's souls.”
- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead.”
- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
“The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.”
- Thomas Paine, A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right ... Time makes more converts than reason.”
- Thomas Paine, Common Sense
WHEN it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want. WHEN these things can be said, THEN may that country boast
-Thomas Paine
“If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves.”
- Thomas Paine
“Let them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.”
- Thomas Paine
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
- Thomas Paine
“...taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but that wars are raised to carry on taxes”
- Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
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"I had learned too much history not to know that the great masses always and at once respond to the force of gravity in the direction of the powers that be. I knew that the same voices which yelled “Heil Schuschnigg” today would thunder “Heil Hitler” tomorrow."
- Stefan Zweig
“The herd instinct of the mob was not yet as offensively powerful in public life as it is today; freedom in what you did or did not do in private life was taken for granted...toleration was not deplored as a weakness & debility, but was praised as an ethical force”
- Stefan Zweig
“It remains an irrefragable law of history that contemporaries are denied a recognition of the early beginnings of the great movements which determine their times.”
- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
"In sum, as highly skilled specialists, news manufacturers are more than merely conduits for official and moneyed interests. They help create, embellish, and give life to the news, with an array of stereotyped, often misleading, but well-executed images, tones, evasions, ...
1/?
nuances, suppressions, and fabrications that lend confirmation to the ruling class viewpoint in a process that is not immediately recognized as being the propaganda it is. Their authoritative voices on radio and television, their decisive...
2/?
wrap-ups and reassuring appearances before the camera, and their endless columns of system-sustaining stories and
commentaries help make us believe "that's the way it is." At the same time, this media message preempts the public agenda and crowds out...
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To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies,
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to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it,
2/?
to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again,
“[Mainstream] media serve to mobilise support for the special interests that dominate the state and private activity and their choices, emphases and omissions can often be understood best…by analysing them in such terms”
- Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent
“[Leaders of the media claim] that the media are independent and committed to discovering and reporting the truth and that that they do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it to be perceived”
SPOILER ALERT: what they claim is not generally true
Manu'ing Consent
"Censorship [in the mainstream media] is largely self-censorship" - Herman & Chomsky
Journalists internalise what is needed to get on
So, if a line of inquiry shows Corbyn in a good light, for example, journalists right across mainstream media KNOW not to pursue that story
Lord Neuberger, a former President of the Supreme Court, said something we should listen to
Govt’s Internal Markets Bill, which allows UK to breach international law and in vital respects removes right to challenge Govt, puts UK on a “very slippery slope” towards dictatorship
Since Lord Neuberger’s warning, a Bill passed its third reading in the Commons which may prove to be perhaps more dangerous to UK democracy and the Rule of Law than even the Internal Markets Bill
This was Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill. #SpyCopsBill
Covert human intelligence sources (“CHIS”) go undercover in order to collect intelligence.
Sometimes, to maintain their cover, CHIS commit crimes. There have been no cases where a CHIS has ever been prosecuted. However, Govt says needs to put protection on a statutory basis.
Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression
But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy. People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think
-Neil Postman
Orwell feared those who would ban books
Huxley feared that there would be no reason to ban books, for there would be no one who wanted to read one
- Neil Postman
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism
- Neil Postman