This is exactly the appropriate response to exclusive government and bogus political pledges.
Labour needs to develop a way of talking about politics that is metaphorical, empathetic and tangible [sic].... The left must do metaphor better.
This remark is just offensive. It insults the intelligence of people who have decided that they cannot be induced by platitudes to participate in the organization of a government structurally unsuited to equitable welfare. Really, it's one in a series of exhortations to avoid political action that establishes organizations designed to supply essential, "community" experience and services that the bureaucracy does not. It instead directs "Labour" [!] to apply energy to composing propaganda that "frames" the "responsibility-for us all" in propaganda of the designated opposition. Such industry, Lakoff insinuates 400 years too late,
tempts us to believe our own propaganda.
He's a rotten preacher, because "cognitive science" is a rotten god. He's a rotten teacher, because all he lectures is How To Write Propaganda. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Ploughshares' adviser and propagandist Jeff Skoll is president of Participant Media, one of the production companies behind Countdown to Zero. The film's Co-producer, the World Security Institute (a major recipient of Ploughshares Fund dollars), tapped its Global Zero project membership to narrate the film through dozens of interviews with the likes of elder statesmen, and NGO executives like Cirincione who are very friendly to the Obama administration's nuclear buildup. Participant Media is a full service propaganda shop for liberal campaigns, producing both documentaries and dramas. In addition to the benchmark documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Participant is responsible for some very excellent and thoughtful films like Syriana, Food, Inc., and The Cove. And this is where complexity comes in. Some of the producers and voices featured in Countdown to Zero have wonderful intentions, and all of them are probably genuinely concerned with, and fear, the possible day that nuclear weapons might be used, whether by a state or by a criminal group. Herein also is the propagandistic danger of Countdown to Zero. Albert Camus once wrote that "the evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding." Backed with a lot of foundation money, the producers of Countdown to Zero have paid organizers across the US to do considerable outreach for the film, whipping up interest on Facebook and other social media and generally co-opting the energies and intentions of many anti-nuclear activists. Countdown premiers July 23 and will be shown in theaters across the US. Many screenings are being organized by activists whose intentions are unimpeachable, if naive. What audiences are going to learn from Countdown to Zero is that nuclear weapons are a threat today because the bad guys might get a hold of them. They'll learn that al-Qaeda is seeking nuclear weapons, that it is their sworn duty; That highly enriched uranium is easy to smuggle; That "we are on the verge of a nuclear 9-11"; That tens of thousands of pounds of uranium are stored under virtually no security around the globe. In other words they'll learn that dark scary men, muslims, "terrorists" and anarchists are trying to kill them with nuclear weapons, and that nations like Iran and North Korea will gladly assist them. Their feelings of revulsion for nuclear weapons will be stimulated and channeled against these dark enemies of civilization. Read more...
Participant Media is a full service propaganda shop for liberal campaigns, producing both documentaries and dramas. In addition to the benchmark documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Participant is responsible for some very excellent and thoughtful films like Syriana, Food, Inc., and The Cove. And this is where complexity comes in. Some of the producers and voices featured in Countdown to Zero have wonderful intentions, and all of them are probably genuinely concerned with, and fear, the possible day that nuclear weapons might be used, whether by a state or by a criminal group. Herein also is the propagandistic danger of Countdown to Zero.
Albert Camus once wrote that "the evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding." Backed with a lot of foundation money, the producers of Countdown to Zero have paid organizers across the US to do considerable outreach for the film, whipping up interest on Facebook and other social media and generally co-opting the energies and intentions of many anti-nuclear activists. Countdown premiers July 23 and will be shown in theaters across the US. Many screenings are being organized by activists whose intentions are unimpeachable, if naive.
What audiences are going to learn from Countdown to Zero is that nuclear weapons are a threat today because the bad guys might get a hold of them. They'll learn that al-Qaeda is seeking nuclear weapons, that it is their sworn duty; That highly enriched uranium is easy to smuggle; That "we are on the verge of a nuclear 9-11"; That tens of thousands of pounds of uranium are stored under virtually no security around the globe. In other words they'll learn that dark scary men, muslims, "terrorists" and anarchists are trying to kill them with nuclear weapons, and that nations like Iran and North Korea will gladly assist them. Their feelings of revulsion for nuclear weapons will be stimulated and channeled against these dark enemies of civilization.
Read more...
