RAND Corporation - How To Breed Passive Consumers Instead of Engaged Citizens

I've been meaning to do some research into the RAND Corporation, as I usually focus on the CFR, Brookings Institution, Chatham House and Tavistock Institute for global think tank warmongering, manipulation of humanity and all round parasitical relationship between elites and workers.

This video of Alez Abella is a good introduction. He's unusual because most people who are clever can't see the wood for the trees, but he gets the bigger picture. If you don't have time to review the video, here's a good article he wrote about RAND.

Consumer Programming ™

It's hard not to feel deep sympathy for people so unhappy that consumerism is their only relief from the pain of living. 

Thanksgiving at Walmart?

It's like they're programmed.

Nice Consumer Electronics, Shame About The Genocide

It's probably unrealistic to ask people to demand their mobile phone isn't using rare earth Congo (DRC) Coltan but I think people should know what goes into making that smart phone. 

Every single mobile phone uses it and at least five million people died from the usual death and destruction the power elite use to amass wealth from exploiting the earth through division, war, death, misery and destruction.

Rwanda and Uganda come out of this looking bad. Not to mention the Western backing from Washington D.C. and London who as you know are silent over this genocide. 

The corporate media said so little. 

Banksy On Advertising

“People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like, wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.”

For further Banksy posts click the banksy tag below

The People's Artist - Banksy - One of a kind - Respect

North Korean Comment On Consumer Society Mind Control

Whatever one thinks of North Korea this is an essential deconstruction of Western cultural toxicity. It really is a North Korean production with obvious intelligence fingerprints on it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't land punch after punch after punch.

The US killed 30% of North Korea in the 50's. It's probably an unprecedented number for a country to suffer. Give them the dignity of listening to how we look from the other side of the fence.

Blurb:

Here is the formal statement I gave to Federal Police on 16 June 2012: 

On a trip to visit family in Seoul in April, I was approached by a man and a woman who claimed to be North Korean defectors. They presented me with a DVD that recently came into their possession and asked me to translate it. They also asked me to post the completed film on the Internet so that it could reach a worldwide audience. I believed what I was told and an agreement was made to protect their identities (and mine). 

Despite my concerns about what I was viewing when I returned home, I proceeded to translate and post the film on You Tube because of the film's extraordinary content. I have now made public my belief that this film was never intended for a domestic audience in the DPRK. Instead, I believe that these people, who presented themselves as 'defectors' specifically targeted me because of my reputation as a translator and interpreter. 

Furthermore, I now believe these people work for the DPRK. The fact that I have continued to translate and post the film in spite of this belief does not make me complicit in their intention to spread their ideology. I chose to keep posting this film because - regardless of who made it - I believe people should see it because of the issues it raises and I stand by my right to post it for people to share and discuss freely with each other.

Sabine

I have translated this film, laid in the English voice over and subtitles, and on legal advice have blurred the identity of the presenter and/or blacked out certain elements.

0:00 Introduction
6:54 Creating Ideas & Illusions
16:48 Fear
19:35 Religion
25:00 Beware the 1%
28:10 Emulating Psychosis
31:21 Rewriting History
41:15 The Birth of Propaganda
45:49 Cover Ups and Omissions
54:10 Complicity
58:05 Censorship
1:01:50 International Diplomacy
1:06:14 Television
1:08:11 Advertising
1:14:36 The Cult of Celebrity
1:22:34 Distraction
1:28:01 Terrorism
1:35:00 The Revolution Starts Now 

Please share and discuss with as many people as you can, and if you have questions for me or want to discuss the content further, please do so below or go to: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Propagandafilm/427263763965283

They Want You To Be A Docile Apathetic Consumer - Bill Hicks

Bill Hicks was appreciated more in the UK than in the US where telling the truth is increasingly an act of heresy in these interesting times. Bill was extraordinarily prescient about where we are today. He is great American hero and and extraordinarily funny. 


He was one of a kind and a huge gift to the United States when very little clarity is on offer in the mainstream corporatized media.

Unreal

Why settle for real when you can have unreal?

Infographic: How Much Money Is Printed To Save The Western Perpetual War/Central Banking Model?

The liquidity injections tell you everything you don't want to know. We're insolvent and our holographic fiat currency is propping us all up at the expense of the poor. We''re predatory around oil countries (Libya and Iran), and I say morally bankrupt. The full story is over at the Financial Times.


The comments below the article refuse to ask the 64 cent question. 


How much keyboard tap money can the fiat currency/federal reserve/central banking model take? 


We're going to find out.

Rupert Murdoch Joins Twitter

The epitome of hypocrisy for me is to whine about the system and then take part in it with a home delivery pizza and a couple of beers. Rupert Murdoch has been a back-room king-maker in British politics, such that I'm unsure if many even know the extent to which his media empire influences not just the outcome of elections but the policy that is formed prior to that. I always had the same feelings about the British faux  bereavement of Lady Diana Spencer who ostensibly died because of the hounding of the tabloids and was thus subject to flowers being thrown by the same people who subsequently returned to the tabloids that fuelled the paparazzi chases in the first place.

Adam Curtis is doing something very interesting with BBC archive footage. Rather than just one man doing an excellent job with access to old film, the BBC should open up this national treasure more widely. I understand there is more film of John Allegro who I blogged about the other day which researcher friends of mine are unable to access even though the topic of mycology related subjects is going to mushroom as a theme in the near future. In the mean time please enjoy Mr Curtis doing what he does best on the internet: 

Archive BBC blogging about a character that to my mind profits from the people who most deserve him while staring at the SKY.

Bill Hicks On Advertising & Marketing

By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. 

No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. 

Seriously though, if you are, do. 

Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself. 

Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi... Whatever, you know what I mean. 

I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart." 

Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! 

"Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." 

Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet! 

"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that." 

God, I'm just caught in a fucking web. 

"Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..." 

How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you? 

"What didya do today honey?" 

"Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight." [snores] "Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?" [snores] "Yeah, you know the mums will love it." [snores] 

Sleep like fucking children, don't ya, this is your world isn't it?

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace

Earlier, Mark pointed me to the ever interesting Adam Curtis' blog who reminds us that the Greeks have a lot more street-savvy awareness of elite rip-off techniques including rapid power swaps that we most memorably experienced when blue blood Alec Douglas Home needed to dump his title to run the UK after the Suez crisis. 

Or as The New Statesman puts it:

We British look complacently on the installation of Mario Monti and Lucas Papademos as unelected leaders of Italy and Greece respectively. Couldn't happen here, we say. But in 1963, when Harold Macmillan resigned, our unelected Queen, advised by mostly unelected Tory elders, sent for the unelected 14th Earl of Home and made him prime minister. He subsequently renounced his title, changed his name back to Douglas-Home and won a by-election in a safe Tory seat conveniently vacated for him. All that was stitched up in weeks.

I like Adam Curtis but I've not followed his latest work. He's not sussed out why 9/11 happened which makes me squirm a bit. Nevertheless I started to watch the first episode of Machines of loving Grace, and I remembered that he has a brilliant BBC film library at his disposal and a good enough brain to adumbrate a point of view that while not flawless is able to provoke new thoughts in my own. He also digs up bits of history I wasn't aware of. I knew of Alan Greenspan's Randian worship and I'm familiar with her work, but I didn't know he was part of her swivel eyed private circle. The lens on this period in New York was fascinating though once again we're reminded that the people who really took over the US after the first coup d'etat of Kennedy's death were all subsequently installed during the Ford presidency.

I put it to you that the people (string pullers/banksters) really in power used the Nixon downfall to set up a clique of players including Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and Greenspan to set up the game for later down the road. They cut their teeth during the tail end of a volatile period and then returned with a neoconservative agenda of nitrous oxide shock doctrine debt capitalism, false flag opportunism and empire expansionism under the quintessential puppet president. George Bush 43.

Brilliant really. We've been schooled by the best. If we get through this rollercoaster to the end we'll have picked up some very useful lessons in spotting the finest manipulation, trickery and mendacity in the galaxy. 

These will be essential skills to ensure the empire can never strike back to anywhere near the effectiveness they once had.

Terence McKenna - Eros & The Eschaton (Why Consumer Culture Is Brainless Culture)

"We have to stop consuming our culture. We have to create culture. Don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are -- NOW -- is the most immediate sector of your universe. And if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered. You're giving it all away to ICONS. Icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that, you want to dress like X or have lips like Y... This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion. What is real is you, and your friends, your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And, we are told No, you're unimportant, you're peripheral -- get a degree, get a job, get a this, get that, and then you're a player. You don't even want to play that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world."

Supersized Consumerism?

Not so long back Morgan Spurlock gained notoriety and acclaim with his award winning documentary Supersize me. His latest venture 'The Greatest Movie Ever Sold' is a powerful satirical documentary of product placement in movies using humour to portray the insidious way that brands have crept into the film making process. Funded by corporate sponsorship in exchange for the opportunity to feature in the movie, Spurlock creates a self referential odyssey of "fame creation" through funding in much the same way that famous for being famous is the critique of the modern X Factor celebrity obsession. 

That ability to brand that moment you thought was entertainment is really an opportunity for brands to intervene and hoover up the "mind sharing moment". Flowers brought to you by Interflora not humans>? Ejaculation facilitated by Durex not love? Oh Hollywood. You prostitute.

Where does brand intervention draw the line? Are we clinging onto old models in our own self interest at the expense of the misery of others as I pointed out in my last post regarding luxury advertising in Beijing? 


Something feels like the cogs are changing. Though not immediately given this movie was produced by Sony Entertainment and highlights that branded material consumerism is having the last laugh and begs the question. Do brands take the piss out of you? Does Morgan think you're an idiot by betting on you paying for the experience to be told so? I think he does.

Does Advertising Numb Basic Human Compassion?

China's capital has banned outdoor advertising that promotes hedonistic or high-end lifestyles as the government seeks to ease public concerns about the country's widening wealth gap. This seems quite timely on the heels of my, is advertising immoral or unethical post. How long can pimping luxury products blatantly in the face of people who cannot afford them but create the wealth that purchases them continue? Something is shifting in the world with respect to conspicuous consumption. Full story over here and hat tip to David for finding the story.

Pigs Buried Alive

Is this who we really are? How long can this kind of thinking continue? Indeed how long can we continue to daily wrestle our consciences away from the important matters under the pretence that we have no other option?. Are you part of the problem or part of the solution? At least watch it and have a clear moral position.

Is This The Voice Of Consumerism?

7 Billion Reasons 2 Think Twice

The Business Of Skin Whitening In Asia

I've been talking about this for so long that the only thing that really interests me is why anybody in marketing and advertising who would want me do for some work with them, might not have googled my name and Unilever + Skin whitening. 

In any case it's still worth making a quick summary because money doesn't come first in my universe. Skin whitening creams in Asia are broadly speaking about hierarchy. The whiter the skin the less likely you are to be fresh from the rice paddies. The less likely you come from the rice paddy, the more likely you are to be hired, promoted, secure a Blu Ray DVD player, iTablet, BMW 3 series and/or shiny white teeth.

Though it strikes me that for someone who argues a woman is entitled to make her own decisions about abortion that the final decision on what colour one wishes to be is down to that person. So I'm not anti skin whitening.

They say that holding opposite and conflicting thoughts in our heads at the same time is a mark of evolution and so the only position I can take when thinking about this category is that it behooves the multinationals; that is the onus is upon them. That they bear the responsibility that there is a clear responsibility to fulfil and articulate, that melatonin expectation transactions should come with an unambiguous message that Unilever, P&G, Johnson & Johnson et al respect all people of all colours. The reverse isn't true for tanning lotions because that hierarchical imposition isn't present within that context. I maintain it's a great communication opportunity of the win win variety - if it's with sincerity.

Anyway, above are a series of ads by Ogilvy & Mather Hong Kong regional office. They look innocuous and in some markets they may well lean more towards the beauty end of the spectrum than concealment but as I've mentioned over here in the comments; the focus groups are revealing because with skilful moderation, the kind where dirty secrets surface...well they tell the story of skin whitening. 


And it aint pretty.

The Bird's Nest

One of the great experiences of Beijing is the sheer velocity of construction which has had me pondering for quite some time on the implications of whole neighbourhoods flattened overnight with new superstructures going up faster than I've ever seen in my life. I've already talked about the CCTV building by Rem Koolhaas which we will never see its like again (and he knows it) but the other supermodel on the catwalk is the Birds Nest, or the Olympic Stadium. It's awesome. Period.

Here it is from some photography I took the other day. Notice the traditional peasant (migrant worker) in the foreground. I chose this pic out of the 30 or so I took because like the washing below it represents something about modern China that Noam Chomsky talks about a lot in this podcast here; the human development index for China is still quite low, around 70th if I'm not mistaken. 

There's a lot of people still running around on loose chained tricycles shifting bricks from one place to another. 

Wait till all those have offspring that want to go to college, drive a car and double China's GDP with the 'Chinese Dream' (One World One Dream).........Yeah, we need to rewire our economies and the answer might be most candid in Asian economies today. 

Not tomorrow.

I live only a stones throw from the Forbidden City and a short walk from Tiananman Square. Beijing is often a sooty and polluted overcast metropolis. It's also, in its own way the most tidy I've ever come across for its size. I've never seen a broken glass, a crisp packet or an empty packet of cigarettes on the road and that's because there is no litter. But still there are quaint signs of a rapidly disappearing life, and though I live amongst the political elite (and those who did them favours) The washing is still out on the road drying in the occasional spell of glorious sunshine. For when Beijing shines. It really does shine beautifully.

 

Sorry about the lack of links and layout at the moment as I'm using the new version of blogger and playing with new features.

Cheap is at somebody else's expense

Its been cropping up a fair bit recently but the idea that cheap is good is particularly obscene while we sit out this peak oil consumption frenzy. Cheap is only good if you can't afford anything else, otherwise it's just somebody else on the other side of the world scraping a living out of our frequent impulse-buys that end up as the pile of junk that heats the world while our collective urges are sated. I'm quite confident that oil at 200 dollars a barrell is the only answer for those oil junkies who are in complete denial about where we are. I will be having a little party around then but in the mean time here is the culture of our times on plastic bags. We worship cheap when in actual fact, we can't really afford it.