there is something to be said for understanding the enemy's methods by observing him. The better they do it, the more dangerous it is as propaganda. So I remove myself from the audience. If everyone did that, the ratings would drop and the enemy would be stuck with a white elephant and a drain on his resources.

Yeah, lots of folks do that (stop watching after part of the pilot or first episode.

As a non-Democrat/non-Republican, I enjoyed the writing and acting by just about everyone in the cast, and was sorry when the program ended.

I could tell the propaganda from the writing and would often make comments about what came out of the cast members' mouths (to my quite-liberal (relatively) wife) but the show was, imnsho, quite well-done.

Your last statement is why I stopped watching TWW before the first episode was over. Just a propaganda tool to give the impression that the POTUS and his minions are concerned public servants. Their only concerns are increasing their own power and loot. All decisions of consequence are politicised in the real WW.
(Shatner's bud, James Spader, is still doing well as Red in the Blacklist, another weird wealthy character. He's been doing off the wall characters well his entire career, from Daniel Jackson in Stargate movie to (shades of) Grey in Secretary.)

Oh, come on... Shatner and his bud looked great in drag (at least his buddy did) and I suspect that's why they did the show... for those kinds of opportunities... The show was a fun watch for most of the situations encountered, but if you let the politics scare you away, you would have also missed some great acting and characters in shows like The West Wing.

At least on TWW, the Prez had balls and occasionally sensible reactions to events, unlike 'what's his name' who's in the Big Oval today.

I, too, agree, Jan... it's what I've referred to as the "Catastrophization of America", where anything and everything is first 'extrapolated to infinity' and then 'reacted to as if the extrapolation has actually occurred already.'

I first noticed this kind of reaction in my first wife in the 1970s, so I think the roots may be that deep or deeper.

Today, the MainScream Media carries the banner, making every non-event seem as if it directly will affect everyone's life, and that's simply not the case.

My (new) wife and I love the mysteries and situationals and sci-fi series on TV and rarely, if ever, watch the Talking News Heads such as "Woof Blister."

Life's too short for that shit.

Voting for the lesser of two evils supports the continuing abomination. Only action by thoughtful people against evil can bring it to an end.

You wrote what the article/review's author should have written. Well expressed, Herb, and agreed.

I only see Revolution as the only alternative! Even if half of what the author is saying is true, organized mass violence will waked up the rest of the pathetic citizens living in their electronic propagandized limbo. There will come a time that those who wish to be free will see no other alternative but to physically clash with the paranoid government. I'm afraid it will be our children and their children to rebuild this country after their parents have brought it to it's knees.

precisely my thoughts, sir, and Thank You!!! -- j

I've been calling BHO the "Dark Lord" for some time, now. It's only fitting that someone make the connection between Washington and Mordor.

Agree. Only they see themselves as Robin Hood, and really believe they are doing good, when in fact they are not. We all know what the road to hell is paved with.

Ayn Rand certainly nailed Robin Hood for what he was.
Robin Hood is Evil
Ragnar Danneskjold: "But I’ve chosen a special mission of my own. I’m after a man whom I want to destroy. He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men’s minds, we will not have a decent world to live in."

Hank Rearden: "What man?"

Ragnar: "Robin Hood."

Ragnar: ". . . [Robin Hood] is not remembered as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became a symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, had demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures – the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich – whom men have come to regard as the moral idea." ". . . Do you wonder why the world is collapsing around us? That is what I am fighting, Mr. Rearden. Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive."

The Pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld
From Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

You should hear PCR talk about his time in the Reagan administration.(see the link below)
He was giving the host a primer on free markets and a results oriented understanding of the economic policies they followed.
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/26...

Ha! I LIKE my tinfoil hat - it keeps the alien thought waves out of my brain. (But I do not eat margarine...I think that was an alien thought wave from the beginning.)

I suspect that I might agree with Paul Craig Roberts on many of his conclusions: Certainly I agree that government needs to be limited and that police actions need to be constrained by the Bill of Rights. By using examples that are contrary to our daily experience, the article distances us from the subject matter, which is not its purpose. I think we need to keep a heightened awareness of this factor when we write for publication.

Jan, no margarine

Well put. Exaggeration is a word I should have been looking for.

Such incidents as quoted are very much the exception. However, the atrocities illustrated are new to our recognition. Such actions were unheard of 20 years ago. If they did occur, they were so rare that they never became an object of public attention. It is my judgment that we are living in a changing world -- changing not for the better. It is a coarser, less empathic world, where everything from humor to drama is set out in language and action that would have disgusted the generation before mine, and does so to the generation I represent. This uncaring embrace of what was said under one's breath 20 years ago, is not only said, but acted upon. And even the police have become a part of it.

Agreed. Thanks for the clarification. I think this review may have been written with some time constraint or distraction. Exaggeration is not objective.

Indeed, the level of TV propaganda has changed over the years. And hardly for the better. I'd hate to be a millenial or younger trying to sort anything out. But it can be done. What is on TV is hugely responsible for our current Age of Cognitive Dissonance.

So they are words that agree with your hunch.
Sometimes people who have made points in articles repeatedly get lazy and forget that the reader may not have seen the other 75 times details were included. I can much easier forgive the statements in this review than recent statements from Penn Jillete, but that's because I have more experience with Paul Craig Roberts. Others will give Penn a pass because of familiarity with his work, too.

I understand your reticence and I have that sort of response to some sources, for example, rantings from Alex Jones. That said, if you just assume someone wearing a tinfoil hat is always wrong you may find yourself eating margarine for decades unnecessarily.

Well; I have followed both Paul Craig Roberts and John Whitehead's writings for awhile because of some of the insights. Usually quite good and as I mentioned covering legitimate concerns. But such outlandish and contradictory statements are not justified, be it a book review or the book itself. It causes the credibility problem and creates a "check your premises" situation.

The "article" in question is a book review so it lacks details.
Perhaps you should read more than this book review and book titles.
I suggest listening to this interview for a start on his views and experience:
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/26...

Thanks for the additional info and analysis. Yes, I think you have put words to my hunch.

Jan

I agree. Over the top. While giving voice to many legitimate concerns, there are just too many unsubstantiated claims that erode credibility.

"It is now routine for a traffic stop, whether justified or not, to result in the confiscation of your cash, other possessions, and your car itself. You can be robbed by police on the basis of their assumptions without being ticketed or charged with a crime."

Routine? In Northern Nevada it has come to light there has been a rogue cop out of Winnemucca that was abusing civil forfeiture procedures and confiscating cash from Interstate drivers he was stopping. That cop is under investigation now.

"It is now routine for police to amuse themselves by carrying out strip searches and vaginal searches of women." Really? Routine?

Then how can the following statement be true?

"In my opinion, as I so often write, Americans are distracted by sex, entertainment, the difficulty of providing for themselves and for families. Americans simply have no clue."

I really don't think a distracted populace would ignore such "routine" searches.

There is a strange underlying negativity to this article and some of the others written by the same guy. The other article about the Dying Oceans is primarily predicated on climate change, plastic debris, and overfishing. While there may be some issues that need addressing, buying into the climate change rigmarole is problematic, but, there is more in there:

"From my perspective the human destruction of the oceans is yet more evidence of the ruinous nature of private capitalism."

Alarm Bells! And then the Titles of some of his books: "The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism" and "How America Was Lost".

Something is off here.

And what do find in a swap?

Blood suckers, Parasites and Carnivores. Surrounded by lots of rot and decay.

Heheheh.
No tv for about 20 years, although I look in just to observe the current state of propaganda regularly. I think the obvious bias of the news chased me away more than program content propaganda. That makes the propaganda so much more obvious to me now.
I recall watching Boston Legal on occasion starting just after 9/11. Their Bush hating was so obvious and conclusions so hypocritical. I was really wondering what they would do when a Dem was elected and he/she didn't change anything they had criticized.
The answer? Although their ranking hadn't changed in 4 years, suddenly the demographic was wrong and they cancelled the show although a strike of union workers was also used as an excuse. Clever using a socialist problem to cancel a socialist leaning show just before it might be exposed as hypocritical by conservatives.