Cyre2067
The Living Force
Originally I wrote the below for my blog, but I thought it would get some interesting feedback here, and perhaps show me if I'm wearing some blinders myself. The first link is somewhat crucial, but I didn't want to link there from here, but I'll copy paste it here for convenience:
I was thinking about throwing it up on newsvine itself, but that seemed to me to be fanning the flames a bit. Do you think it's apropriate? And if you could come up with a title for the piece - what would you call it? I haven't come up with a name that I like and encompasses all aspects of the story. As always, feedbacks appreciated.
Recently I've been engaged in an enlightening discourse on a seed I planted at Newsvine (_http://cyregray.newsvine.com/_news/2008/12/16/2219085-israels-crimes-against-humanity). I've been somewhat active on the 'vine, and for awhile now have noticed that there seem to be some rather trollish individuals who staunchly defend the government of Israel and it's actions re: the Palestinian Question. One thing that seems to be continuous across the spectrum is that no matter what information is presented, the argument is shifted (hijacked), data is denied, and statements of fact are labeled 'inflammatory', 'derogatory' or my personal favorite, 'anti-semitic'.
On that thread I linked above, you'll notice that the second comment was from a poster who immediately uses the 'anti-semite' slur in the first line of his/her post. He/she also states: "Hamas is targeting the crossings."
This implies that Hamas is enforcing the Israeli blockade, right? If you read this comment correctly, in context - the speaker is claiming that is it Hamas who is preventing supplies from being delivered - not Israel. Personally I found that statement to be absurd, and thus my reply.
Then another poster jumped in and supplied 'ample evidence' that Hamas is targeting the crossings. I visited the links, and found most of them to be relatively old, the blockade was only recently stepped up to cut off food, medicine and fuel (November 4th). The only one that was recent gives us details of the on-goings in Gaza - but since reporters have been denied access to the strip, I was left doubting the credibility of the information.
There was also an attempt to use this article (_http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/19/content_8011177.htm) to demonstrate Hamas is 'targetting the crossings'. When you visit the link you'll see that they are indeed engaging in violence at the crossings, but that their target is the occupying regime, not humanitarian aid.
"The attack on Kerem Shalom is the beginning of breaking the siege," Abu O'baida said, adding that Hamas "is not interested in targeting Gaza crossings, and the targets will be always the Israeli soldiers."
This point is key, the crux of the matter, and it seems that when pushed to realize some individuals are incapable. So when individuals claim that Hamas is targetting the crossings they are only correct as long as they realize their targets are the Israeli Occupying Forces - which is conveniently left out of the discussion most of the time it is brought up.
I recently seeded this article (_http://www.americanbuddhist.net/conspiracies-and-confabulation-tales-two-naomis) as well, it discusses denial and 9-11 and how our minds allow us, when confronted with emotionally uncomfortable information, to deny the facts and create a 'world-view' that effectively lets us believe what we wish.
Learning about self-deception is important for all people today. That’s because many of our problems, both as individuals and as a society, are rooted in self-deception, and many of the ways in which others abuse us relate to our inherent tendency to self-deceive. We can overcome these problems, and have a decent chance at long-term survival as a species, only if we learn about such limitations, and strive to control them.
...
Hirstein [author of Brain Fiction: Self Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation] explains that normal thinking patterns involve the creation of multiple mental representations for any given situation, which can be either image-like or concept-like in nature. Those representations that are false, or that do not fit with our sense of reality, are culled out before being articulated, by a checking process. Sometimes these critical checking processes do not work, and the affected person can lie easily and with full belief that the false statements he or she is making are in fact true. In those cases, the person is said to be confabulating. But when the checking processes do work, and for whatever reasons false claims are still made, tension is created and the person is considered to be self-deceived.
Coincidentally the very same phenomenon was on display here, and in real-time we can watch the mental maneuvers made in order to avoid realization of the truth. This is also part and parcel of Political Ponerology, and thus SOTT's comment attached at the end of this article bears repeating:
In his seminal work, Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes, Andrew M. Lobaczewski examines in depth and in length the psychological constructs of self-deception, as well as the pathocratic elite's spellbinding abilities. He discusses how common people's minds create moralizing interpretations when confronted with pathological actions, in an attempt to make sense of something so out of their human nature, unfortunately resulting in permitting
'these [pathological] factors to continue their ponerogenic activities, both within ourselves and others. Nothing poisons the human soul and deprives us of our capacity to understand reality more objectively than this very obedience to that common human tendency to take a moralistic view of human behaviour.'
And so our humaneness is also our weakness in the hands of pathological individuals. Really, how easy is for anyone to first understand and then accept that their own government murdered thousands of its citizens in order to create a reason to invade and destroy another country and its citizens? And even though the official story of 911 is full of holes, the arrogant and self-assured lies and paramoralisms spelled by the psychopathic rulers and distributed through the mainstream media, cause the phenomenon of reversive blockade in the minds of those uneducated in human psychology and studies on pathologies. From Lobaczewski:
'Reversive blockade: Emphatically insisting upon something which is the opposite of truth blocks the average person's mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in the "golden mean" between the truth and its opposite, winding up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like this do not realize that this effect is precisely the intent of the person who subjects them to this method... Use of this method can be included within the [previously] mentioned special psychological knowledge developed by psychopaths concerning the weaknesses of human nature and the art of leading others into error.'
The spellbinders and snake charmers can and do lie insistently in order to meet their plans. But what about us? Why is it that we can't see the truth even if it's under our noses? Again Lobaczewski gives the answer through psychological phenomena:
'Information selection and substitution: [...] unconscious psychological processes outstrip conscious reasoning, both in time and in scope which makes many psychological phenomena possible: including those generally described as conversive, such as subconscious blocking out of conclusions, the selection, and, also, substitution of seemingly uncomfortable premises.
[...]
This is a primitive prevention of personality disintegration, which may seem advantageous; however, it also prevents all the advantages which could be derived from consciously elaborated conclusion and reintegration. A conclusion thus rejected remains in our subconscious and in a more unconscious way causes the next blocking and selection of this kind. This can be extremely harmful, progressively enslaving a person to his own subconscious, and is often accompanied by a feeling of tension and bitterness.
We speak of selection of premises whenever the feedback goes deeper into the resulting reasoning and from its database thus deletes and represses into the subconscious just the piece of information which was responsible for arriving at the uncomfortable conclusion'
So in summation it was enlightening and yet severely disturbing to witness the subtle maneuvers made by the individuals in order to avoid the realization that something terrible is happening in Gaza, that innocent people are suffering, dieing - or worse - because the political and economic masters of Israel want it that way. It's eerily similar to the maneuvers made when one considers 9-11, and after seeing all the facts on the ground, cannot conclude that individuals in the government and in our military were involved in planning and executing the attacks. As an citizen of planet Earth, it behooves all of us to studying this phenomenon and gain an understanding of it, because if we and our brethren are capable of denying the most horrible atrocities, then we are logically doomed to suffer them ourselves.
I was thinking about throwing it up on newsvine itself, but that seemed to me to be fanning the flames a bit. Do you think it's apropriate? And if you could come up with a title for the piece - what would you call it? I haven't come up with a name that I like and encompasses all aspects of the story. As always, feedbacks appreciated.
