From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos   
   From Address: kenpisano@gmail.com   
   Subject: Re: My biggest problem with Star Trek (2009)   
      
   On Jan 5, 11:50apm, Quadibloc  wrote:   
   > On Jan 5, 1:18apm, "AMUN"  wrote:   
   >   
   > > Don't go there.   
   > > The only justification for ANY war is that a few people want to profit from   
   > > it.   
   >   
   > > When there is no money to be made, or another way to make it, there are no   
   > > wars.   
   >   
   > Wars are started by evil aggressors like Hitler and Stalin. People   
   > resist them in order to remain alive and free.   
   >   
   > Claiming that some big conspiracy is really behind all the wars just   
   > discourages free men from defending themselves and staying free.   
   >   
   > John Savard   
   .Claiming that NO big conspiracy is really behind all the wars is what   
   actually discourages free men from defending themselves and staying   
   free . . . or even giving any serious thought to the matter.   
   The War Conspiracy (SpikeTV):   
   .http://www.spike.com/video/war-conspiracy/2411460   
   The selling of fear and the purpose of propaganda:   
   .http://www.globalissues.org/issue/245/war-on-terror   
   .http://www.globalissues.org/article/352/mainstream-media-and-propaganda   
   Fall of the Republic HQ full length version:   
   .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU   
   =-=   
   "A classic axiom of propaganda is that people shouldnAt be allowed to   
   think too much about what the government is doing in their name. After   
   all, thereAs more to life than politics, right? So while the power   
   group has its cozy little war going on, the people need to have their   
   attention diverted.   
    All the strong men of history would have given their eyeteeth to have   
   at their disposal the number and types of distractions available to   
   todayAs regimes:   
   - TV sports, its orchestrated frenzy and spectacle   
   - Super Sunday   
   - An endless succession of unspeakably boring, inane movies, short on   
   plot, long on CGI   
   - The wanton sexless flash of MTV with its uninspired lack of talent,   
   a study in split second phony images   
   - Colossally dull TV programs which serve the secondary purpose of   
   instilling proper robot attitudes into people who have little other   
   instruction in life values   
   - The artistic Mojave of modern music, with its soulless cyber-   
   droning, a constant quest for the nadir of reptilian brain   
   stimulation, devoid of lyrical competence, instrumental proficiency,   
   or passion   
   - The ever-retreating promise of financial success, switched now to   
   the trappings and toys that suggest success, available to anyone with   
   a credit card   
   - Organized superstitions of all varieties, with their requisite   
   pseudo-spiritual trappings   
   - The constant dramatization of crimes and 'issues' throughout the   
   world whose collective goal is the humble and grateful acknowledgement   
   of 'how good weAve really got it'   
   - Dwelling for months on the minutiae of unsupported allegations of   
   impropriety, preferably sexual, of a celebrity personality   
    With these noisy, banal distractions the forces promoting the general   
   decline in intelligence and awareness jubilantly engulf us on all   
   sides. Media science holds the advantage: as people get dumber and   
   dumber year by year it gets easier and easier to keep them dumb. The   
   only challenge is that their threshold keeps getting lower. So in   
   order to keep their attention, messages have to become more obvious   
   and blatant, taking nothing for granted.   
   .*.*.*   
   Here are some indicators of our declining intelligence:   
   - Flagrant errors of grammar and spelling rampant in advertising,   
   which go unnoticed   
   - Declining SAT scores and the arbitrary resetting of normals, which   
   has occurred at least twice in the past 8 years, in order to cover up   
   the how dumb our kids are really getting   
   - Increased volume and decreased speed of the voices of newsreaders on   
   radio and TV   
   - The limited vocabulary and clichod speech allowed in radio programs;   
   the obvious lack of education and requisite pedestrian mentality   
   required of the corporate simians who are featured on radio   
   - Increasing illiteracy of high school graduates, both written and   
   spoken   
   - The unwritten policy requiring school teachers, especially math and   
   English teachers, to pass students who have failing marks, especially   
   if theyAre a certain race or other, so that the school wonAt "look   
   bad"   
   - Decreasing requirements for masters theses and PhD dissertations in   
   both length and content   
   - Increasing oversimplification of movie and TV plot lines - absence   
   of subtlety in conceptual and dramatic content; blatant moralizing of   
   compliant robot values   
   - The speed at which images on TV are flashed, giving the viewer   
   barely enough time to recognize which sledgehammer idea they are   
   referring to before the next one appears, about 2 seconds later. That   
   way there is no possible way the brain can follow a train of thought   
   in any kind of depth. From childhood the brain learns that it is not   
   to be tasked with understanding abstractions or concepts of any   
   subtlety from the information presented. All the brain has to do is   
   react to the incessant bombardment of fragmented ADD-generating visual   
   stimuli without trying to derive sense or logic from it. This is why   
   TV should be watched only with the sound off, since it has generally   
   the same educational value as a lava lamp.   
   - The enormous proportion of time spent by TV channels telling the   
   viewer what will be shown in the future, leaving no time for actually   
   delivering what they have already endlessly promised in the recent   
   past, which should be airing at the present moment.   
   - Newspaper articles that are not written by reporters but that are   
   scientifically crafted phrase by canny phrase by the PR industry and   
   placed into the columns of syndication in the guise of ahard newsA   
   - Jerky, clumsy news clips, loaded with coarse innuendo and non   
   sequitur, ridiculously brief: most news clips evoke only the most   
   superficial suggestion of events which may or may not have transpired,   
   resulting generally in the transfer of no information   
   - The downward spiral of the level of ordinary conversations, which   
   are commonly just exercises in stringing together random clichos from   
   the very finite stock of endlessly repeated homogeneous bytes. ItAs as   
   though weAre only allowed to have 50 thoughts, and most conversation   
   is just linking these 50 programmed audio clips together in a   
   different order. Listen to what people say, the way they say it. Or   
   worse yet, visit a chat room."   
    From: "Programming The Sheep", By Tim OAShea (2007)   
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