Constitutional Court # 23-10 Human Consciousness Rule-of-Law Freedom Charter “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect; has intended us to forego their use” – Galileo Galilei
Brincibia SumMary of a Bushido Dischordian Futilitarian
Lysistrata Tsedeq Rule-of-Five Eco-Family Consciousness
If the only ultimate check on the growth of population is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop its growth. If something else, other than misery and starvation, can be found which will keep a prosperous population in check, the population does not have to grow until it is miserable and starves, and it can live ecologically and lovingly, and be stably prosperous. To advocate for human rights, peace & social justice; while ignoring their ecological basis -- a stable human population at the eco-system’s long term carrying capacity -- is intellectual dishonesty & hypocrisy.
Constitutional Court of South Africa Case No. CCT 23/10 In the Matter Between: THE CITIZEN 1978 (PTY) LIMITED
First Applicant
KEVIN KEOGH
Second Applicant
MARTIN WILLIAMS
Third Applicant
ANDREW KENNEY
Fourth Applicant
And ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE
First Respondent
And LARA JOHNSTONE
First Amicus Curiae
THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION INSTITUTE
Second Amicus Curiae
THE SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL EDITORS FORUM
Third Amicus Curiae
Subject to Petition for Declaratory Order: Ubuntu Brief of Amicus Curiae Lara Johnstone, Bushido Dischordian Futilitarian In Support Of: Radical Honesty Common Sense Population Policy Social Contract Interpretations of Promotion of National Unity & Reconciliation Act, 34 of 1995
Outline & Index: Issues: Amicus Curiae Brief: “Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth.” -- World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, signed by 1700 leading scientists from 70 countries, including 102 Nobel Prize laureates, November 18, 1992, Union of Concerned Scientists
Index & Summary of Argument I. II.
Note: Argument in Simple Justice: Re: Petition for Declaratory Order1 Ubuntu Radical Honesty Amicus: Summary & Overview of Argument2 3
AA. A PURPOSIVE SUI GENERIS ABSURD NECESSITY
A.001
A. NECESSITY: I AM NOT SURE OF MY EXISTENCE, BUT I AM SURE OF MY INTENTIONS
A.012
1
Critical Literacy’s role in Purposive Legal Interpretation
A.012
2
Secrecy and Deception as Strategic & Tactical Meme’s of Conquer & Multiply Memeplexes
A.014
3
Political Necessity of Freedom of Speech: ‘TRC was a fraudulent PR publicity stunt’
A.018
4
Civil Disobedience Free Speech Necessity Defence
A.028
5
‘I am, therefore I think’ Common Law Reasonableness Test Skills & Competencies
A.035
6
‘I am, therefore I think’ Common Law Radical Hon(our)sty Reasonableness Test Skills
A.037
7
Dr. Blanton vs. SA’s Political & Media Elite: ‘TRC was a fraudulent PR publicity stunt’
A.039
8
Population Policy Common Sense: Exponential Functions, Eco-Laws & Eco-Literacy: Limited World, Limited Rights
A.052
9
Lysistrata Tsedeq: Ecolaw 101: Laws of Sustainability
A.075
10
Radical Honesty Law of Limited Competition Code: ‘I am not sure of my existence, but I am sure of my intentions’
A.095
11
Practicing Radical Honesty: Being Specific about Anger & Methodology of Forgiveness
A.100
12
Judicial Enquiry: Simple Justice Tribal Consciousness
A.117 4
BB. SUI GENERIS ME-ISM SYCOPHANCY DECEPTION
B.001
B. DIGNITY: RIGHT TO PSYCHO-INFANCY DECEPTION
B.002
1
Dignity: Abstract conceptual belief in a Existential Self
B.002
2
Philosophical Concepts of Self: ‘I think, therefore I am’ et al
B.005
3
Sui Generis: Word Stays the Same, Meaning Changes?
B.008
4
Sui Generis (I think, I am Unique) Meme Dream
B.011
5
Respondents ‘Dignity’ Meme not Sui Generis,
B.016 5
C.C. CORP-ABSTRACTISM JUST WARHOOD DECEPTION
C.001
C. RIGHT TO ‘FREE SPEECH’ PROPAGANDA PROFITS DECEPTION
C.002
1
Corporations Intentions: Power and Profit
C.003
2
How Corporations Became Cogito Ergo Sum People!
C.006
3
Corporate News as Discourse
C.008
4
News Reports & the Reproduction of Memeplexes
C.010
5
Engineering of Consent: Adult Citizens to Infant Consumers & Cultural Commodification
C.012
1
PDF: www.scribd.com/doc/32892738/10-06-08-CCT-23-10-1st-Amicus-Curiaes-Note-Re-Declaratory-Order PDF: www.scribd.com/doc/32739573/CCT-23-10-Ubuntu-Brief-of-Amicus-Curiae-I-Summary-Overview 3 PDF: www.scribd.com/doc/32739370/A-Purposive-Sui-Generis-Absurd-Necessity-Existential-Intentions 4 PDF: www.scribd.com/doc/32739383/B-Sui-Generis-Me-Ism-Sycophancy-Deception 5 PDF: www.scribd.com/doc/32739403/C-Corp-Abstractism-Just-Warhood-Deception2
6
‘If it Bleads, It Leads,’ Editorial Maxim
C.017
7
How and Why Journalists Avoid Population-Environment Connection
C.021
8
Freedom of the Press vs. Intellectual Prostitutes
C.024
DD BRINCIBIA JUST WAR MEMEPLEX SUMMARY
6
D.001
D. GREAT TRIBAL FORGETTING: SALVATION FROM LAW OF LIMITED COMPETITION
D.002
1
The Truth About All Cultures & Their Mythologies
D.003
2
Judaism X Manifesto Mythology: Divine Law of Melchizedek – Ecological War
D.005
3
Eve’s Mission Impossible: Cracking the Lebensraum Right-to-Breed Code
D.009
4
An ABC’s of Ecology Systems Approach to a Sui Generis Agriculture Mythology When did We become We?
D.015
5
Identity and Dignity in Ubuntu Mythology
D.043
6
Black Liberation Mythology and Black Power
D.047
7
Liberating Black Victim Theology
D.058
8
Black Liberation Theology: Kairos & Reconciliation
D.061 7
EE. RADICAL UBUNTU HONESTY INTERESTS OF AMICI
E.001
E. SOCIO-LEGAL-POLITICAL ILLEGITIMACY OF TRC SOCIAL CONTRACT
E.005
1
Cultures of Secrecy: Unconscious and Conscious Secrets
E.008
2
Definitions : Fundamental Concepts Not Defined
E.014
3
Did Amnesty mean Amnesty, or was legal meaning changed?
E.016
4
Was Truth and Reconciliation Seen to be Done?
E.017
5
Rainbow Truths: Were all Contextual Struggle Violence Truths Told?
E.020
6
Cold War Ethno-Cultural Psychological Warfare
E.031 8
FF: TSEDEQ LOVE THEOREM INTEREST OF AMICI
E.038
F: TRC SECRET: APARTHEID: A JUST WAR FOR DEMOGRAPHIC SURVIVAL FROM ‘MARXIST’ ‘SWART GEVAAR’
E/039
1
Population Explosion Concerns During Apartheid
E.040
2
Population Pressures & Apartheid Political Fears
E.043
3
Does Africa have an Overpopulation Problem?
E.044
4
Apartheid, the Struggle, Just War Doctrine & Competitive Exclusion Principle
E.048
5
Radical Honesty Analysis: TRC ACT written by People who can’t, or don’t know how to handle their anger, forced SA’s to make Politically Correct Agreements, while still angry
E.054
CONCOURT 23-10: PDF FILES:
6
1st Amicus: Court Filings 9 1st Amicus: Evidentiary Documents10
PDF: www.scribd.com/doc/32739488/D-Brincibia-Just-War-Memeplex-Summary-Great-Tribal-Forgetting PDF: www.scribd.com/doc/32739548/E-Radical-Ubuntu-Honesty-Tsedeq-Love-Theorem 8 PDF: www.scribd.com/doc/32739548/E-Radical-Ubuntu-Honesty-Tsedeq-Love-Theorem 9 PDF File: www.scribd.com/my_document_collections/2303313 10 PDF File: www.scribd.com/my_document_collections/2308879 7
CC: Corp-Abstractism Just Warhood Deception The Moslems developed the greatest of the world’s non-ideographic calligraphies because they saw the presence of God in an utterance: the Koran is, in effect, God made Word, just as Jesus is the Word made flesh. The Jews, however, see God in the relations between people in this world (you know, laws and all that), and that’s a concept for which it is harder to find an art form. So the creativity went into morality and literature instead. (A good parallel comes from chess, where all the genius went into the game and none into the pieces.) This doesn’t mean that a Jewish aesthetic can’t exist. And I believe that if it doesn’t, and soon, we’re finished.. 11 ***** “To clarify, “religion” as I use it here does not refer to a system that has necessarily to do with a concept of God or with idols or even to a system of perceived religion, but to any groupshared system of thought and action that offers the individual a frame of orientation and an object of devotion. A religion may be conducive to the development of destructiveness or of love, of domination or of solidarity; it may further their power to reason or paralyze it. The question is not one of religion or not? but of which kind of religion? – whether it is one that furthers human development, the unfolding of specifically human powers, or one that paralyzes human growth. Thus, our religious attitude is an aspect of our character structure, for we are what we are devoted to, and what we are devoted to is what motivates our conduct.” 12 ***** “All men are enamored of decorations, they positively hunger for them.” - Napoleon Bonaparte13 If I reduced history to one sentence, it would be: ‘Hell hath no fury like a man devalued’. 14 ***** The male does not have an erection, like a property or a permanent quality (although how many men wish to have one is anybody’s guess). The penis is in a state of erection, as long as the man is in a state of excitement. If for one reason or another something interferes with this excitement, the man has nothing. And in contrast to practically all other kinds of behaviour, the erection cannot be faked. George Groddek, one of the most outstanding, although unknown, psychoanalysts, used to comment that a man, after all, is a man for only a few minutes; most of the time he is a little boy. Of course, man does not become a little boy in his total being, but precisely in that aspect which for many a man is the proof that he is a man.15 It is not, then, surprising that the anxieties of men and women refer to different spheres; the man's concerning his ego, his prestige, his value in the eyes of the woman….16 ***** “We cannot make ourselves understand; the most we can do is to foster a state of mind, in which understanding may come to us.” - Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
11
p 272: The Judaism-X Manifesto: A Rock for Chagals Window; Yakov Rabiinovich: Stairway to Nowhere, Invisible Books To Have or to Be, by Erich Fromm, published in World Perspective Series, by Harper & Row. War Is A Racket, by Major General Smedley Butler; The Anti-War Classic written by Americas most decorated General 14 Eve’s Seed: Masculine Insecurity, Metaphor, and the Shaping of History, by Robert S. McElvaine, 15 p 116: Further Aspects of Having vs. Being, Fromm, Erich: To Have, or to Be 16 Sex and Character: Erich Fromm, by Martin Grotjahn; Psychiatry, VI, 1943, pp. 21–31; Psychoanal Q., 14:133-134. 12 13
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C: Right to ‘Free Speech’ Propaganda Profits Deception “The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act” -- Walter Lippmann, 192217 We demand zero tolerance of violence against journalists and press freedom. But today more subtle threats to freedom of expression come from within media as a result of media concentration, globalization and a culture of greed within the industry." —International Federation of Journalists, May 2001 According to the Press Code of Professional Practice, of the SA National Editors Forum: The basic principle to be upheld is that the freedom of the press is indivisible from and subject to the same rights and duties as that of the individual and rests on the public's fundamental right to be informed and freely to receive and to disseminate opinions. The primary purpose of gathering and distributing news and opinion is to serve society by informing citizens and enabling them to make informed judgments on the issues of the time. The freedom of the press to bring an independent scrutiny to bear on the forces that shape society is a freedom exercised on behalf of the public. The public interest is the only test that justifies departure from the highest standards of journalism and includes: (a). detecting or exposing crime or serious misdemeanor; (b). detecting or exposing serious anti-social conduct; (c). protecting public health and safety; (d). preventing the public from being misled by some statement or action of an individual or organisation; (e). detecting or exposing hypocrisy, falsehoods or double standards of behaviour on the part of public figures or institutions and in public institutions. The code is not intended to be comprehensive or all embracing. No code can cover every contingency. The press will be judged by the code's spirit--accuracy, balance, fairness and decency--rather than its narrow letter, in the belief that vigilant selfregulation is the hallmark of a free and independent press. According to Noam Chomsky’s Propaganda Model18 of News, the corporate-owned news mass communication media — print, radio, television — are businesses subject to commercial
17 How and Why Journalists Avoid the Population-Environment Connection, by T. Michael Maher, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Population and Environment, Volume 18, Number 4, March 1977; Reprinted in 1997 by the Carrying Capacity Network, Focus, 18 (2), 2137. (Lippmann, W. (1922). Public opinion. New York: Mamillan)
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competition for advertising revenue and profit. As such, their distortion (editorial bias) of news reportage — i.e. what types of news, which items, and how they are reported — is consequence of the profit motive that requires establishing a stable, profitable business; therefore, news businesses favoring profit over the public interest succeed, while those favoring reportorial accuracy over profits fail, and are relegated to the margins of their markets (low sales and ratings). The documentary, The Corporation19, based on The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power shows the development of the contemporary business corporation, from a legal entity that originated as a government-chartered institution meant to effect specific public functions, to the rise of the modern commercial institution entitled to most of the legal rights of a person. One theme is its assessment as a "personality", as a result of an 1886 case in the United States Supreme Court in which a statement by Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite20 led to corporations as "persons" having the same rights as human beings, based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The film's assessment is effected via the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV; Robert Hare, a University of British Columbia psychology professor and a consultant to the FBI, compares the profile of the contemporary profitable business corporation to that of a clinically-diagnosed psychopath. Considered in the context of ‘I am not sure of my existence, but I am sure of my intentions’; what are corporate intentions? Peace’, ‘forgiveness’, ‘justice’, or profits? In a battle between nature, the ecology, the environment, species extinction and corporate profits, corporate profits are the ‘social trap’ winners.
C.1: Corporations Intentions: Power and Profit In Stalking the Wild Taboo, by Garrett Hardin: Part 4: Competition: (20) Competition, a Tabooed Idea in Sociology; (21) The Cybernetics of Competition; (22) Population, Biology and the Law; (23) Population Skeletons in the Environmental Closet; (24) The Survival of Nations and Civilisations, he deals with the concept of Competition, a process that is inescapable in societies living in a finite resource world, and the competitive exclusion principle. According to Harden, omitting competition from a study of group processes is like leaving gravity out of a treatise on space travel. Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that is used in the social sciences, most notably in economics, as well as in biology (most notably evolutionary biology and ecology), engineering, political science, international relations, computer science, and philosophy. Game theory attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others. While initially developed to analyze 18 Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, is an analysis of the news media as business. The title derived from “the manufacture of consent” by essayist–editor Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) in his book Public Opinion (1922). 19 The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary film written by Joel Bakan, directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. 20 "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." However, the Supreme Court decision did not itself address the matter of whether corporations were 'persons' with respect to the Fourteenth Amendment; in Chief Justice Waite's words, "we avoided meeting the question". (118 U.S. 394 (1886) - According to the official court Syllabus in the United States Reports)
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competitions in which one individual does better at another's expense (zero sum games), it has been expanded to treat a wide class of interactions, which are classified according to several criteria. Game Theory brought us the doctrine of Military Strategy and Nuclear Cold War acronym, known as: MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction. In Game Theory a Zero-Sum Game is one in which the losses of one person are exactly counterbalanced by the gains of others, such as Poker, the balance is zero. In a Non Zero Sum game the losses and gains are not zero, like Russian Roulette. Non Zero Games come in two varieties benign and malign. A game where academics share their scientific research and everyone benefits from sharing research information is generally positive. Long story short; the end result of perfect laissez-faire, competition’s end result reduces all competitors until there is only one left. The monopolist will try to manipulate the machinery of society in such a way as to extend his powers everywhere, without limit. The same applies to labour monopolies. Under these conditions it is important to seek the boundary conditions within which the rule of laissez-faire can produce stability.
a: Law of Stability in a Finite Eco-System An Act that may be harmless when the system is healthy and strong may be quite destructive when the system is stressed near its limits. To promote the goal of stability, a law must take cognizance not only of the act but also of the state of the system at the time the act is performed. Economic man, Harden predicted would try to defend his actions in terms of some tradition-hallowed “absolute” principles that take no cognisance of the state of the system. Absolutists of all sorts, may be defined as men who reject systemic thinking. An example of such a law on behalf of political stability could be that of ostracism21 in ancient Athens, to deter overweening political ambition. It was a device aimed at stopping the positive feedback of power, to maintain a political system on a stable plateau. The political and economic system of Conquer and Multiply work on the same exponential growth principles: exponential growth of economy and population; for the benefit of only politicians and large corporations. Infinite economic and population growth are impossible in a finite environment. As stated by the editor of From the Wilderness, in a Wall Street Journal interview, about Mr. Ruppert’s book Confronting Collapse: The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post Peak Oil World22 to discuss oil, Wall Street and the “imminent collapse of human industrialized civilization”: It is not possible to continue infinite consumption and infinite population growth on a finite planet.
21 22
S. Barr, The Will of Zeus, p. 78. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1961 Confronting Collapse: The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post Peak Oil World, by Michael C. Ruppert
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It is therefore crucial that human beings begin to openly and honestly discuss the issue of population and commit to reducing it through means that are as humane as possible lest through our resistance to doing so, nature takes the matter into its hands and reduces population in ways that are horrific and unimaginable. Unless a fundamental change is made-and quickly-the only available option is collapse and implosion; the bursting of the human population bubble; or, as people in the Peak Oil movement call it-the Dieoff. In Media Monopoly23, by Ben Bagdikian24 described the systemic process of corporate media cannibalism: In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. In 1992, he wrote "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media" -- controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. In 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth. In GlobalCorp: I am not a Politician; The Fire is No Longer on its Way, it Has Begun: An Important Announcement, by Michael C. Ruppert, editor of From the Wilderness, he describes the endgame of Corporate Cannibalism, as: The bottom line turns out to be the suicide of the human race as mergers and acquisitions lead to the final moment of malignant capitalism: "the last corporation standing." GlobalCorp becomes Global corpse. Hurray, we did it! In When Corporations Rule the World, Korten critiques current methods of economic development led by the Bretton Woods institutions and asserts his desire to rebalance the power of multinational corporations with concern for environment sustainability. He advocates a 50% tax on advertising to counter-attack what he calls "An active propaganda machinery controlled by the world's largest corporations constantly reassures us that consumerism is the path to happiness, governmental restraint of market excess is the cause of our distress, and economic globalization is both a historical inevitability and a boon to the human species."25 Korten criticises consumerism, market deregulation, free trade, privatization and what he sees as the global consolidation of corporate power. Above all he rejects any focus on 23
The Media Monopoly, Boston: Beacon Press, 1983. In 1971, whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg gave Bagdikian — then an editor at the Washington Post — portions of the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret classified history of the Vietnam War. Bagdikian passed a copy of the documents to Senator Mike Gravel, who promptly read them into the Congressional Record. 25 Stylus/Kumarian Press - When Corporations Rule the World 2001 Second Edition, 408 pp 24
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money as the purpose of economic life. His prescriptions include excluding corporations from political participation, increased state and global control of international corporations and finance, rendering financial speculation unprofitable and creating local economies that rely on local resources, rather than international trade. In Population, Biology and the Law, Harden describes the population control laws of competition necessary to achieving a peaceful society, where two or more cultures, racial groups or ‘tribes’ inhabit the same ecological niche; i.e. where a tribe is any group that perceives itself as a distinct group, which is so perceived by the outside world. For example the Mafia could be a tribe, as can Taker corporations vs. Leaver ecological societies. Suppose that one introduces into the same region two different species that inhabit the exact same “ecological niche”... then all that one needs to know to predict the ultimate outcome of their competition is the rates at which they reproduce in this ecological niche. If one reproduces at a rate of 2% and the other at 3%, then their rates of reproduction, like compound interest, are exponential functions: the ratio of the faster species to the slower species increases without limit. If the environment is finite – and it always is finite, the total number of organisms that this environment can support is also finite. This means the slower breeding species will be completely eliminated from the environment. In our world of reality, Corporate Tribes insist on exponential economic growth, and Black Power Tribes insist on exponential population growth; and the rest are ignored. Corporations and their absolutist adherence to exponential economic growth and Politicians and their adherence to exponential welfare Population Growth of their slave and cannon fodder breeding tribe, are surely infected with the “I think I am Unique” Conquer and Multiply26 Memeplex?
C.2: Corporate Cogito Ergo Sum Persons Social Trap? "No state make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." -- 14th Amendment to the Constitution The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted on July 9, 1868, granted equal rights to slaves immediately following the Civil War. It is obvious to anyone who reads the 14th Amendment that its intention was that it be applied to natural (then believed to be ‘I think, therefore I am) people and not fictitious people (corporations)... obvious to everyone except corporate lawyers at least.
a: Before Corporations Were People The first Corporate Charters that were granted in America were usually granted for things that specifically served the public good. For example a University or a Railroad. They had specific disollusion dates, and were created with a specific goal in mind. States had the right to revoke the charter if it felt the corporation was not acting in the public's best interest. States also had the right to tax corporations in whatever manner they pleased, and 26
See: [D] [4] An ABC’s of Ecology Systems Approach to a Sui Generis Agriculture Mythology When did We become We?
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they often did in order to favour local business interests over the interests of large out of state corporations. Since then the States and the people have lost many of these rights, while the corporations have made huge gains in their ability to dominate society.
b: Corporate Personhood: The Rise of Corporate Dominance: A critic of corporate personhood, in Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights, Thom Hartmann claim that there was an intentional misinterpretation of the Supreme Court case on behalf of Corporate Personhood inserted into the Court record by reporter J.C. Bancroft Davis. Bancroft Davis had previously served as president of Newburgh and New York Railway Co. According to Hartmann ih the May 10, 1886: Santa Clara County vs. the Southern Pacific Railroad Company - Supreme Court Case The entire case was not even decided by the Supreme Court Justices, what happened was that the headnotes, which are not legally binding and which were written by a clerk of the court (not a Justice) said that the case had decided the issue of corporate personhood in the favor of the railroad company, even though it had not. This decision however, influenced future court cases for many years to come. Once it had been embedded in the US court system, there was no turning back. So what was the case about, that ended up being decided by headnotes from a clerk of the court? One, aspect of the concentration of wealth that worried Jefferson and most American legislatures in those decades was that with enough wealth, a corporation can keep trying in the courts for centuries (literally centuries, because they don't die), no matter how much it costs until they get what they want. And ultimately that's what happened... In the decade leading up to this May Day in 1886, the railroads had lost every Supreme Court case that they had brought seeking 14th amendment rights. To this day there has been no Supreme Court ruling that could explain why a corporation -- with its ability to continue operating forever -- a legal agreement that can't be put in jail and doesn't need fresh water to drink or clean air to breathe -- should be granted the same constitutional rights American founders explicitly fought for, died for, and granted to the very mortal human beings who are citizens of the United States [and the world] to protect them against the perils of imprisonment and suppression they had experienced under a desperate king. But something happened in 1886, even though nobody to this day knows exactly what or why. That year, Sanderson [the lawyer for Southern Pacific Railroad] decided to again defy a government agency that was trying to regulate his railroads activity. This time he went after Santa Clara County, California. His claim in part was that because a railroad was a person under the Constitution, local governments couldn't discriminate against it by having different laws and taxes in different places. In 1885, the case came before the Supreme Court... The railroad was being sued by the county for back taxes. The railroad claimed six different defenses. The specifics are not important because the central concern is whether the court ruled on the 14th amendment issue. As will be shown below the Supreme Court's
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decision clearly says it did not. But to put the railroad's complaint in perspective consider this: On property with a $30 million mortgage, the railroad was refusing to pay taxes of about $30,000. (That's like having a $10,000 car and refusing to pay a $10 tax on it ... and taking the case to the Supreme Court.) One of the railroad's defenses is what is that when the state assessed the value of the railroad's property, it accidentally included the value of the fences along the right-of-way. The county, not the state, should have assessed the fences. So the railroad withheld all its taxes. Yes this is an exceedingly picayune distinction. All the tax was still due to Santa Clara County; the railroad didn't dispute that. But they said that the wrong assessor assessed the fences -- a tiny fraction of the whole amount -- so they refused to pay any of the tax, and they fought it all the way to the US Supreme Court. As it happens, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed: '... the entire assessment is a nullity, upon the ground that the state Board of equalization included... property [the fences] which it was without jurisdiction to asses for taxation ... ' The court rejected the county's appeal, and that was the end of it. Except for one thing. One of the railroad's six defenses and involved the 14th amendment. As it happens, since the case was decided based on the fence issue, the railroad didn't need those extra defenses, and none of them were ever decided by the court. But one of them -- related to the 14th amendment -- still crept into the written record, even though the court specifically did not rule on it.
c: The Multi-National Corporation Personhood Monster Goes Global Unfortunately much of the rest of the world followed America's lead. Corporate personhood is now a worldwide standard. In many newly forming democracies the issue is even addressed directly in their constitution. Maybe, if we lead the other direction, they will follow as well.
C.3: Corporate Persons News as Discourse Discourse (L. discursus, “running to and from”) means either “written or spoken communication or debate” or “a formal discussion of debate.”27 The term is often used in semantics and discourse analysis. Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is a general term for a number of approaches to analyzing written, spoken, signed language use or any significant semiotic event. The objects of discourse analysis— discourse, writing, talk, conversation, communicative event, etc.—are variously defined in terms of coherent sequences of sentences, propositions, speech acts or turns-at-talk. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social practice and focuses on the ways social and political domination 27
Compact Oxford Dictionary, Thesaurus and Wordpower Guide [2001], Oxford University Press, New York
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are reproduced by text and talk. The single shared assumption uniting CDA practitioners is that language and power are entirely linked. The approach draws from several disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, such as critical linguistics. In addition to linguistic theory, the approach draws from social theory in order to examine ideologies and power relations involved in discourse. Ideology has been called the basis of the social representations of groups, and, in psychological versions of CDA developed by Teun A. van Dijk and Ruth Wodak, there is assumed to be a sociocognitive interface between social structures and discourse structures. Continuing with Critical Discourse Studies, he considers the relationship between ideologies and dominance: “Dominance, defined as power abuse, is often based on, and legitimated by ideologies, that is, by the fundamental social behaviours that organize and control the social representations of groups and their members. He suggests that ideologies perpetuate themselves and their dominance by means of • membership devices (who belongs to us?); • typical acts (what do we do?); • aims (why do we do it?); • relations with other (opponent) groups; and • resources, including access to public discourse. Access to public discourse would represent the ideology’s access to reproduce itself and thereby gain more members, to believe in it, as superior to its competing ideology. In Power and the News Media28, van Dijk distinguishes legitimate or acceptable power from power abuse (dominance), which he says involves processes of ideological reproduction that involve strategies aimed at the continued preferential access to social resources (which include access to public discourse) and the Legitimation of such inequality. Another important notion in the analysis of (media) power is that of access. It has been shown that power is generally based on special access to valued social resources. This is quite literally also true for access to public discourse, for example, that of the mass media. Thus, controlling the means of mass communication is one of the crucial conditions of social power in contemporary information societies. Indeed, besides economic or other social conditions of power, social groups may be attributed social power by their active or passive access to various forms of public, other influential, or consequential discourse, such as those of the mass media, scholarship, or political and corporate decision making.29
28
Power and the news media, D. Paletz (Ed.),Political Communication & Action. (pp. 9-36). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1995. There are not many studies that examine the role of access in much detail, either within a general theory of power or more specifically for the news media. For details of this discourse analytical approach to access, see Van Dijk, T.A. 1988. News as Discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.; and (ii) Van Dijk, T.A. 1995. Discourse, Power and Access. In Critical Discourse Analysis, eds. M. Coulthard and C. R. Caldas-Coulthard. London: Routledge. 29
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Thus, ordinary people usually have active and controlled access only to everyday conversations with family members, friends, or colleagues. Their access to dialogues with officials or professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, or civil servants, is usually constrained in many ways. Although ordinary people may make use of the news media, they generally have no direct influence on news content, nor are they usually the major actors of news reports. Elite groups or institutions, on the other hand, may be defined by their broader range and scope of patterns of access to public or other important discourses and communicative events. Leading politicians, managers, scholars, or other professionals have more or less controlled access to many different forms of text and talk, such as meetings, reports, press conferences, or press releases. This is especially true for their access to media discourse.30 Journalists will seek to interview them, ask their opinion, and thus introduce them as major news actors or speakers in news reports. If such elites are able to control these patterns of media access, they are by definition more powerful than the media. On the other hand, those media that are able to control access to elite discourse, in such a way that elites become dependent on them in order to exercise their own power, may in turn play their own role in the power structure. In other words, major news media may themselves be institutions of elite power and dominance, with respect not only to the public at large, but also to other elite institutions. The social power of elite groups and institutions as defined by their preferential access to discourse and communication is effective only if it is further assumed that such discourses are important or influential. Thus, controlling access to the discourses of government sessions, board meetings, or court trials is a manifestation of power because of the consequentiality of such discourse and decision making, that is, because they may seriously ‌ affect the minds of many people. Hence, the degree or modes of access to the news media are usually also a measure of the degree of elite power. 31
C.4: News Reports & the Reproduction of Memeplexes According to the Press Code of Professional Practice of the SA National Editors Forum: (1) The press shall be obliged to report news truthfully, accurately and fairly. (2) News shall be presented in context and in a balanced manner, without an intentional or negligent departure from the facts whether by: (A) distortion, exaggeration or misrepresentation; (B) material omissions; or (C) summarisation. (3) Only what may reasonably be true having regard to the sources of the news, may be presented as facts, and such facts shall be published fairly with due regard to context and importance. Where a report is not based on facts or is founded on opinions, allegation, rumour or supposition, it shall be presented in such manner as to indicate this clearly.
30
Many studies detail, although usually rather informally or anecdotally, this media access power of the elites (see also the references in Note 6). For more systematic and theoretically oriented studies on the routines of news production and the role of elite sources and news actors in newsmaking, see Cans (1979) and Tuchman (1978). 31 Power & the news media, In. D. Paletz (Ed.), Political Communication & Action. (pp.9-36). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1995.
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(4) Where there is reason to doubt the accuracy of a report and it is practicable to verify the accuracy thereof, it shall be verified. Where it has not been practicable to verify the accuracy of a report, this shall be mentioned in such report. (5) A newspaper should usually seek the views of the subject of serious critical reportage in advance of publication; provided that this need not be done where the newspaper has reasonable grounds for believing that by doing so it would be prevented from publishing the report or where evidence might be destroyed or witnesses intimidated. (6) A publication should make amends for publishing information or comment that is found to be harmfully inaccurate by printing, promptly and with appropriate prominence, a retraction, correction of explanation. According to van Dijk in Power and the news media, the concept that is crucial in the study of news understanding is that of a model. “A model is a mental representation of an experience that is, an event people witness, participate in, or read about. Thus, understanding a news report� means that readers are able to construct a model in their minds of the events the news report is about. Such a model may also include their opinions about the event. Although such models represent readers subjective understanding of events, for example, those in Los Angeles, they embody particular instances of socially shared knowledge and opinions, about such things as riots, inner cities, poverty, blacks, or racism. Thus, the knowledge and attitudes of the social group of the reader will determine the models of what he or she reads in the newspaper. We are now better able to define the informational and persuasive functions of news. It is the aim of a news report and its authors that the readers form a model of the news event in the report. Essential for this discussion is the fact that the structures and contents of such models may be manipulated by the structures and contents of news reports. Journalists themselves have a model of each news event, and they will generally write their reports in such a way that readers form a model that is at least similar to their own model of such an event. Well-known notions in critical news analysis such as preferred meaning or preferred understanding may be explained in terms of such models. Indeed, we may henceforth simply speak of preferred models. Such preferred models form the core of processes of persuasion, disinformation, and the media control of the public, especially if they are inconsistent with the best interests of the readers, but consistent with the interests of the elites.
a: Ideological Mental Models, aka Meme’s32 One of the many ways to influence the structure of a model (and hence, the understanding of a news event) is to manipulate what information is important, by displaying it more or less prominently in the news report, headlines, leads, or
32 Waking from the Meme Dream: Who Am I? Do I Exist?; by Susan Blackmore; Paper presented: The Psychology of Awakening: International Conference on Buddhism, Science & Psychotherapy Dartington 7-10 November 1996; also The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Science & Our Day-to-day Lives. Ed. G.Watson, S.Batchelor and G.Claxton; London, Rider, 2000, 112-122
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photographs. Conversely, if journalists or their elite sources want less or no attention paid by the public to certain aspects of a news event, they will make sure that such information is less prominent or absent in the news report, so that it will most likely lack prominence in the model of the news event. In the same way, news texts may emphasize or deemphasize the causes or consequences of events or the properties of news actors. Thus, news about the events in Los Angeles may play down the racist causes or backgrounds of the events and emphasize the criminal character or activities of young black males, in such a way that the models of the readers are influenced in that direction. If news understanding or mental model building is a function of general, socially shared knowledge, then control of such knowledge may indirectly control understanding. Thus, if the news media and those political or other elites that have access to it do not provide detailed information about the interests of the root causes of [the news report event], the readers knowledge, and hence their understanding of the news about [the event being reported on], may be limited. Indeed, it may well be in the best interests of these elites that such public understanding be minimal. In sum, controlling attitudes may be a result of controlling the discourses of mass communication, as well as their topics, meanings, style, and rhetoric, whether by the journalists themselves or, indirectly, by those they accept as credible sources. Obviously, such results depend on the access to alternative sources of information, oppositional knowledge and beliefs, and more fundamental ideologies. Such ideologies are here defined as the basic mechanism of the social cognitions of a group, that is, as systems of norms and values that control the coherence and the development of more specific social attitudes. Once such fundamental patterns of knowledge, attitudes, and ideologies are firmly in place due to repeated news reporting and other forms of public discourse (e.g., in education), they will further act on their own when people have to evaluate news events. After some time, there is little need for conspicuous manipulation of specific knowledge and opinions of the readers for each case. Once given the (carefully selected) facts, although presented in a seemingly objective fashion, the readers will themselves produce the preferred models of the elites and may even act accordingly: An active consensus will replace passive or tacit consent. Ideological control in that case is virtually total, or hegemonic, precisely because persuasive text and talk are no longer seen as ideological but as self-evidently true‌
C.5: Engineering of Consent: Adult Citizens to Infant Consumers & Cultural Commodification Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
a: Creation of the All Consuming ‘I think I am Unique’ Infant Self Page C.12
In his award winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self33, Adam Curtis describes his documentary about how Sigmund Freud's family, exerted a surprising amount of influence on the way corporations and governments throughout the 20th century have thought about, and dealt with, people; as a “series about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.” The Century of the Self, makes an investigative enquiry about the root causes and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy, commodification and its implications. When and how was the identity of individuals moulded from ‘citizens’ (an idea which represents individual authority from an inner power of personal decision-making) to ‘consumers’ (an empty vessel addicted to consumption of external ideas and products for his sense of identity and acceptance)? When and how were the common sense values of living within your means, hard work, delaying gratification and sincerity in relationships; replaced by fashionable clothing, politically correct opinions and superficiality? He describes how the business and, increasingly, the political world uses psychological techniques to read and fulfill our desires, to make their products or speeches as pleasing as possible to us. Curtis raises the question of the intentions and roots of this fact. Where once the political process was about engaging people's rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their needs as a society, the documentary shows how by employing the tactics of psychoanalysis, politicians appeal to irrational, primitive impulses that have little apparent bearing on issues outside of the narrow self-interest of a consumer population. The Century of the Self provides an extraordinary untold and controversial story about how the people have been psychological engineered to believe that the power is finally in their hands; that they are in charge, while their sense of identity has been subconsciously manipulated from that of citizen to consumer, fueling the massive growth of the massconsumer society.
b: Economic & Political Infant Consumers and Obedience to Belief Edward Louis Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, referred to in The Century of the Self, as the ‘father of public relations’, who combined his ideas of crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, to manipulate the subconscious of the masses on behalf of corporations and goverments. He believed that manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the herd instinct. What Stanley Milgram subsequently described as the blind obedience to authority or belief herd instinct34. As the editor of From the Wilderness publications, Michael Ruppert 33 2002: The Century of the Self (BBC Four) documented how Freud's discoveries concerning the unconscious led to Edward Bernays' development of public relations, the use of desire over need and self-actualisation as a means of achieving economic growth and the political control of population. It received the Broadcast Award for Best Documentary Series and the Longman/History Today Awards for Historical Film of the Year. It was released in the US through art house cinemas and was picked as the fourth best movie of 2005 by Entertainment Weekly. 34 Dr. Brad Blanton: The Work of Stanley Milgram: Suffering as Attachment to Belief; is a chapter excerpted from Dr. Blanton’s book, Practicing Radical Honesty. The issues prominently feature in (i) Affidavit of Brad Blanton, Ph.D, evidencing the legal, psychological,
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writes about the corporate infinite economic growth and population growth media, “Those who play in a rigged game, get stupid.” Creating a conformist economic and political infant consumer society blindly obedient to belief, is frequently led by a political, academic, corporate and media elite, who subscribe to such blind obedience to belief realities. The same South African Corporate Media (Applicants and Second Amici)35 whose editors share the editorial maxim is ‘If it bleads, it leads’ (unless they have educated their readers and distanced themselves therefrom), who profit from publishing violent terrorist bombings and maimings, who ignore the documentation of 20,000 scientific experiments, which the chief scientist admits could probably have resulted in AIDS, which – thanks to African sexual practices – kills 5,500 people per day; think Robert McBride is a murderer and the scum of the earth, for killing three people, in a rage of youthful ignorance and blind belief to Black Liberation Theology. These media inform us they are in favour of non-violence. Are they really? What was their response to the non-violent civil-disobedience Freedom of Speech to strengthen the TRC SOCIAL CONTRACT and imbibe the spirit and practices of truth telling and sincere forgiveness into the hearts and minds of South African citizens, and to co-create a social contract founded on truth and sincere forgiveness SOCIAL CONTRACT a living constitution in the hearts and minds of SA citizens, is not freedom of speech that SA citizens are worthy of being informed of? So it is important for media corporations, who profit from violence, to have freedom of speech, to call soldiers murderers on their front pages; to manipulate the people’s emotions; but it is not important for non-violent activists to have freedom of speech to accuse a politician of being a two-faced hypocrite and covering up the biological warfare origins of aids, in a private SMS, with the intention to share her honest truth and remain in the conversation until sincere forgiveness has occurred? The media couldn’t care less that a citizens actions of free speech on behalf of Truth, and forgiveness, the principles of the TRC SOCIAL CONTRACT; but they insist it is important that the TRC SOCIAL CONTRACT provide corporations the right to freedom of speech, to accuse soldiers of being murderers, for their own profit? How committed are the South African corporate media to the principles of freedom of speech for non-violent activists, whose free speech is conducted in accordance with, and motivated by truth and sincere forgiveness? In Bernays’s 1928 book Propaganda36, he described the function of public relations, much of which is currently found under the heading of ‘news’ as: The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the and socio-political ‘citizens privilege’, Nuremberg Principles skills and competencies of Individual Responsibility, required for acts of civil disobedience to perceived illegitimate authority; and their application to the common law ‘reasonableness test’; HC-WC # 1996309; and subsequent thereto in (ii) 21 March 2010: Educate to Liberate: Human Consciousness Rule-of-Law Freedom Charter: 140 of SA Political, Academic and Media Elite, say ‘No Thanks’ to the ‘Rule-of-Law. 35 See: [a] [7] Dr. Blanton vs. SA’s Political & Media Elite: ‘TRC was a fraudulent PR publicity stunt’ 36 Propaganda, by Edward L Bernays (Horace Liveright, 1928)
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way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.” The Engineering of Consent is an essay by Edward Bernays first published in 1947. He defines "engineering consent" as the art of manipulating people; specifically, the American public, who are described as "fundamentally irrational people... who could not be trusted." It maintained that entire populations, which were undisciplined or lacking in intellectual or definite moral principles, were vulnerable to unconscious influence and thus susceptible to want things they do not need. This was achieved by linking those products and ideas to their unconscious desires. Ernest Dichter, who is widely considered to be the "father of motivational research," referred to this as "the secret-self of the American consumer." In other words, consumer psychologists have already made the choice for people before they buy a certain product. This is achieved by manipulating desires on an unconscious level. The central idea behind the engineering of consent is that the public or people should not be aware of the manipulation taking place. The Engineering of Consent also applies to the pioneered application of Freudian psychoanalytic concepts and techniques to business—in particular to the study of consumer behavior in the marketplace. Ideas established strongly influenced the practices of the advertising industry in the twentieth century. What were the South African elite’s responses to the ‘TRC was a fraudulent PR publicity stunt’ allegations by Dr. Blanton37? Predominantly: “Deliberate Indifference: Martin Williams (Editor, The Citizen) is deliberately indifferent to certain people of certain ethnicities and/or ideologies and/or cultures and/or religions being politically and legally persecuted and prosecuted; and your fit one or more of those particular ethnic, ideological, cultural or religious categories, towards whom, The Citizen is deliberately indifferent.”38 Are the South African elite remotely interested in a nation of adult citizens, or are they more interested in a nation of psychological, intellectual and political infant addicts to consumption of products and obedience beliefs, pretending to be adults? If the former, they may need themselves a mommy who can tell the difference, between reality and illusion? So where do we find citizen Daddy’s, who want citizens, instead of our current political Daddy’s who want psychological infant political cannon fodder? ‘I'm sick of answering this fucking question. I'm a Republican only as far as I want a smaller government, I want less government intrusion. I want them to stop shitting on my money and your money and tax dollars that we give 50 percent of... every year. I want them to be fiscally responsible and I want these goddamn lobbyists out of Washington. Do that and I'll say I'm a Republican... I hate the government, OK? I'm
37
See: [a] [7] Dr. Blanton vs. SA’s Political & Media Elite: ‘TRC was a fraudulent PR publicity stunt’ Correspondence: The Citizen: Mr. Martin Williams: Request The Citizen Official Comment on Free Speech Legal Issue: Non-violent civil disobedience Radical Honesty expression of Dissent to Politically Correct Tyrannical Insanity.
38
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apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican. I’m a Soldier’ -- Colonel William A. McNamara, Harts War How does Colonel McNamara define Honour at the end of Harts War????? If Robert McBride’s conception of Honour at the time of his murder was to be a soldier, to fight a war, what are the Applicants Citizen’s conception of honour as journalists? Or is their conception of honour similar to McBride’s dignity? As Infants? Jessep: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom! You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall! You need me on that wall! We use words like "honor", "code", "loyalty". We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline! I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "Thank you," and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to! Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red? Jessep: I did the job that—Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?! Jessep: You're goddamn right I did!! Are there any Editor Mommy’s or Daddy’s who want to have an honest conversation about why we have Rights-to-Breed and Rights-to-Psycho-Infancy, and Corporate Media Rights to Profit from Propaganda; but no editors, or lawyers, or journalists with any interest in Daddy’s or Mommy with Crisis Management skills, who say we should address the root causes of problems? Or is it just easier to blame the soldiers for solving the symptoms of the problems of overpopulation; hence our silence about 5,500 less useless eaters every day?
c: Engineering of Consent: Cultural Commodification The techniques applied developing the "consumer lifestyle" were also later applied to developing theories in cultural commodification; which has proven successful in the later 20th century (with diffusion of cultures throughout North America) to sell ethnic foods and style in popular mainstream culture by removing them from geography and ethnic histories and sanitizing them for a general public. Ernest Dichter applied what he dubbed "the strategy of desire" for building a "stable society," by creating for the public a common identity through the products they consumed; again, much like with Cultural Commodification, where culture has no "identity," "meaning," or "history" inherited from previous generations, but rather, is created by the attitudes which are introduced by
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consumer behaviors and social patterns of the period. According to Dichter: "To understand a stable citizen, you have to know that modern man quite often tries to work off his frustrations by spending on self-sought gratification. Modern man is internally ready to fulfill his self-image, by purchasing products which compliment it." The dispute between the terms of commodification (Marxist political theory) and commoditization (business theory) was first highlighted by Douglas Rushkoff. Douglas highlighted that the words Commodification and Commoditization were used to describe the two different processes between the assignment of value to a social good and the movement towards undifferentiated competition. Rushkoff's outlined an approach which is closer to the common usages of the words. Commodification (1975, origins Marxist political theory.) is used to describe the process by which something which does not have an economic value is assigned a value and hence how market values can replace other social values. It describes a modification of relationships, formerly untainted by commerce, into commercial relationships. Commoditization (early 1990s, origins Business theory) is the process by which goods that have economic value and are distinguishable in terms of attributes (uniqueness or brand) end up becoming simple commodities in the eyes of the market or consumers. It is the movement of a market from differentiated to undifferentiated price competition and from monopolistic to perfect competition. In Rushkoff’s book Life, Inc: How the World became a Corporation and How to Take It Back 39 Rushkoff takes a look at physical currency and the history of corporatism. Beginning with an overview of how money has been gradually centralized throughout time, and pondering the reasons and consequences of such a fact, he goes on to demonstrate how our society has become defined by and controlled by corporate culture. Douglas Rushkoff’s philosophy views everything except for intention as media, he frequently explores the themes of how to make media interactive, how to help people (especially children) effectively analyze and question the media they consume, as well as how to cultivate intention and agency.
C.6: ‘If it Bleads, it Leads,’ Editorial Profit Maxim “For revolutionary groups, the more murderous the deed, the more certain the media coverage.” -- Nicholas Partridge, ANC: VIP’s of Violence “The news – whether printed, online, or broadcast on television or radio – is full of violence. Just pick up any newspaper or tune in to any news program. You’ll learn what horrible acts have occurred worldwide. The saying “If it bleeds, it leads” shows the importance that the news media place on stories that include violence and explains that they lead off their programs with violent stories because they’re shocking and extraordinary. Reporters hope to gain people’s attention because they want more people to read or watch their news program. This means more advertising dollars for them.” -- Violence in the News40 39 40
2009. Life, Inc.: How the World Became A Corporation and How To Take It Back, by Douglass Rushkoff Everything You Need to Know About Media Violence, by Kathleen J. Edgar (Page 34)
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"The inescapable conclusion is that society secretly wants crime, needs crime, and gains definite satisfactions from the present mishandling of it. We condemn crime; we punish offenders for it; but we need it. The crime and punishment ritual is a part of our lives. We need crimes to wonder at, to enjoy vicariously, to discuss and speculate about, and to publicly deplore. We need criminals to identify ourselves with, to envy secretly, and to punish stoutly. They do for us the forbidden, illegal things we wish to do and, like scapegoats of old, they bear the burdens of our displaced guilt and punishment -"the iniquities of us all".” -- Dr. Karl Menninger, in The Crime of Punishment (p181)41 “Between 1970 and 1999, 80% of civil conflicts occurred in countries where 60% of the population or more were under the age of thirty… Today there are sixty-seven counties with youth bulges, of which sixty of them are experiencing social unrest and violence.” – Council on Foreign Relations42 According to Mathew Kerbel, the author of If It Bleads, It Leads43, a fundamental rule of television is: “It is a pretend medium.” He refers to how journalists love stock phrases, and asserts that television news adopted their news reporting formulae from the Jerry Springer handbook, to titilate their viewers with confrontation and violence; with very little interest in thoughtful analysis. They prefer brevity, simplicity and shock value to depth, to explaining complexity and finding sincere resolutions to problems. ANC: VIP’s of Violence44, is a British documentary made in 1987. It briefly documents how liberation movements had turned into terrorist organisations focussed on violent terrorist bombings, to attract national or international media attention to their causes. It documents how the terrorist organisations used similar slogans. Many of their atrocities are conducted with deliberate intent to attract media attention. Nicholas Partridge, Presenter: “For the media, the more sensational the event, the more certain of high ratings. It makes no difference if the event was created simply to attract media attention. By such means extremist groups are able to publicize their causes, before world audiences. While more moderate groups are largely ignored. One of the growing number of countries plagued by terrorist atrocities, is South Africa. There the organisation principally responsible is the African National Congress. Its present leader is Oliver Tambo. Rev. John Gogotya: “The moderate blacks were not selling the papers. We were presenting a non-violent strategy, that did not say ‘Burn, baby Burn’. A strategy that said people must come together and sit down around a negotiating table. And this is not sensational stuff; it does not sell the papers. Ronald Reagan: “It’s a tragedy that most Americans only see the dead and bloody from South Africa of the terrorism, violence and repression. For behind the television pictures lies another truth. South Africa is a complex and diverse society, in a state of transition.”
41 As quoted in An Essay on Proudly South African Parasite Hypocrisy: Fraudulent 'Rehabilitation' Boomerang: Correctional Services Prison Policies As A Major Intentional Source of New South Africa's 'Kaffirs' AKA 'Criminals', by Lara Johnson; 42 The Effects of ‘Youth Bulge’ on Civil Conflicts, by Lionel Beehner, Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder, April 27, 2007 43 If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy Of Television News, by Matthew Robert Kerbel 44
ANC: VIP’s of Violence, 1987 British documentary presented by Nicholas Partridge http://why-we-are-white-refugees.blogspot.com/2009/12/anc-vips-of-violence-documentary.html
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Partridge: “In the course of our research, it has become abundantly clear, that the situation in South Africa is very different, in South Africa for example, than many in contemporary media orthodozy would have us believe. Rev. John Gogotya: “We have seen allot of violence and allot of bloodshed in the past, and I would hate to see a South Africa built on violence and more bloodshed.” Partridge: “The Rev. and Dr. John Gogotya is Director of a black self help organisation of 260,000 members. I asked him about the ANC’s role.” Gogotya: “The ANC is not the authentic leader of the authentic voice of the black people in South Africa. It is one of the voice yes, and secondly the ANC does not represent the majority of blacks in South Africa. Unfortunately the Western Media and media, has made it that the ANC is the sole representative of black South Africa. It isn’t, it does not represent the majority of black South Africans. If it did, then there would have been no need for the ANC to embark on violence to win the hearts of the people, because they would have already won them.” Partridge: “What is the true nature of this organisation? I asked Craig Williamson, a former South African Intelligence Officer, who spent ten years as a member of the South African Communist Party, working closely with the ANC, many of whose leaders, he came to know personally. ” Williamson: “The answer is that the ANC is a terrorist organisation, an international terrorist organisation, exactly the same as the IRA, the PLO, the Red Brigade, and the Baader Meinhof Gang. It is an organisation made up of people such as the Joe Slovo’s of the world , people who have been trained in the Soviet Union as international terrorists. Trained to carry out the most horrendous act of violence that I have ever seen in my life. Beazly: “The comrades are probably a minority, but a very determined and ruthless minority. And they have decided by terrorism to impose their will on the black community. And in fact they have done so. Gogotya: “The ANC strategy was to intimidate black moderate leaders. When the riots started and the violence escalated in the townships, the people who were targeted were all professional blacks, teachers, doctors, lawyers, black businessmen. This was the reason why most of the black businesses in the townships were burnt down. And only those blacks who decided to fall in line with them, had their businesses saved. Their strategdy of intimidate was such that to scare the other people into the fold of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and then the ANC laager. Beazly: “If you are a city councillor in Sowetho you got killed, or you resigned. So there are no councils looking after the roads or doing anything. Gogotya: “All moderates are targets. This has been said by the ANC themselves, that the black moderates should be eliminated so that they can make way for radical leadership. All of us are targets, we live in fear. We have to shunt around our children from school to school some times. We never travel the same road twice in the township. This is just normal for us. All of us, we know it just may happen anytime. Beazly: “Now they are the ones who have invented the terror method of necklacing.
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Reagan: “In this barbaric way of reprisal, a tyre is filled with kerosyne and gasoline and placed around the neck of an alleged collaborator and ignited. The victim may be a black policeman, a teacher, a soldier, a civil servant. It makes no difference. The atrocity is designed to terrorise blacks into ending all racial cooperation and to polarise South Africa as prelude to a final climactic struggle for power.” Beazley: “Now Franklyn Sonn, who is the leader of the Cape Coloureds, the principal of a Polytechnic, an outstanding man, has said long before a simple thing, which I think just has to get into western skulls, and I think it has to get into Oliver Tambo’s skull. And that is, people who dance on charred corpses have nothing to offer South Africa, but what they are trying to do, or the people behind them are trying to do, because they are mostly ignorant high-school dropouts, is to stop anyone having any conversations to make any kind of settlement, with the South African goverment. Partridge: “Even after the most preliminary examination of the facts, it is beyond reasonable doubt that the ANC is but one element in black South African politics. Many and various spokesmen for non-violent change were to be found. They speak with authority, reason and very great courage. They spoke to me at the risk of their lives. Dr. Lucy Mvubelo (Gen. Sec. Nat. Union Clothing Workers) is one of them. She has been active in the black trade union movement for more than 40 years, and is a former member of the ANC. Mvubelo: “You know I am one person who believes that you can lose so much through violence. This is what I told one Dominee in Holland, when he said Violence should come to South Africa, and this generation should die and the new generation would be born and be free. I said No, black violence has never been beneficial to anybody.” In GlobalCorp: I am not a Politician; The Fire is No Longer on its Way, it Has Begun: An Important Announcement, where Michael C. Ruppert describes the endgame of Corporate Cannibalism, he describes the political elite as follows: Politicians come in varieties. They are in business. They are sometimes activists. Many pose as journalists. Some are economists and academics. They work in think tanks and manage the editorial decisions of major press outlets. Many average citizens behave and think like politicians because they accept as their primary mantras: "Don't rock the boat," and "Don't offend anyone." Politicians are more deadly than any weapon. They see their primary mission as building consensus to improve outward appearances. For a politician the questions are always: "How can I superficially address an immediate problem without going to its root causes? What is the least amount of work I have to do to make this go away while I'm on duty? How can I deal with this problem without burning bridges?" Lately, economists, business and religious leaders, and everyday people have been behaving more like politicians than politicians themselves. Refusing to make policy is also a policy. In fact, most people have become politicians and it may well be that political correctness (including the fear of speaking out) - to whatever degree it is observed - will be the sword on which we now (not tomorrow) impale ourselves.
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C.7: How & Why Journalists Avoid Pop-Env. Connection “Media bosses are often holier than thou about the important role the media play in our democracy, arguing that they fulfil a vital function to keep the public informed and to help create active citizens that are empowered to make proper decisions on who to vote for and what to think and believe. Sadly they often do not do their job properly because they want to make fat profits in the short term. Who cares about educating readers to become more intelligent and informed consumers of news and opinion in the long run if one can make a quick buck?.” -- Pierre de Vos, Anti-intellectual South Africa deserves the media it has45 “Future wars and violent conflicts will be shaped by the inabilities of governments to function as effective systems of resource distribution and control, and by the failure of entire cultures to compete in the post-modern age. The worldwide polarization of wealth, afflicting continents and countries, as well as individuals in all countries, will prove insurmountable, and social divisions will spark various forms of class warfare more brutal than anything imagined by Karl Marx. Post-state organizations, from criminal empires to the internationalizing media, will rupture the integrity of the nation-state. Niche technologies, such as post-modern means of information manipulation and dissemination, will provoke at least as often as they produce, and will become powerful tools of conflict.” -- Ralph Peters, The Culture of Future Conflict46 In How and Why Journalists Avoid the Population-Environment Connection47, Prof. Michael Maher states that How Do Journalists Think?48, “offer a cognitive psychology model that suggests that journalists construct hypotheses in pursuing news stories, but that reporters tend to indulge in a host of causal attribution errors. Among these are the tendency to oversimplify, to prefer anecdotal information over more valid statistical information, and the "fundamental attribution error" —the "tendency to weigh personal causal variables more than situational variables" (p.47). Since population growth is a situational force, this model suggests why journalists might attribute urban sprawl to developers rather than to population growth. 45
Anti-intellectual South Africa deserves the media it has, Pierre de Vos, Constitutionally Speaking May 18th, 2010 The Culture of Future Conflict: Overpopulation and Resource Scarcity will be the Direct Cause of Confrontation, Conflict and War;, Ralph Peters, Parameters, Winter 1995-96, pp. 18-27; the US Army War College Quarterly, The United States Army’s Senior Professional Journal. Major Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for evaluating emerging threats. He is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College and holds a master's degree in international relations. 47 How and Why Journalists Avoid the Population-Environment Connection, by T. Michael Maher, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Population and Environment, Volume 18, Number 4, March 1977; Reprinted in 1997: Carrying Capacity Network, Focus, 18 (2), 21-37. 48 How Do Journalists Think?: A Proposal for the Study of Cognitive Bias in Newsmaking, S. Holly Stocking & Paget H. Gross; Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 17, No 1 (1992) 46
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The shallowness of media coverage has attracted scholarly comment as early as Lippmann (1922), who pointed out that journalists must deal in stereotypes because of deadline pressures and readers’ preference for simplicity. Many other scholars have commented on the shallow, episodic nature of the news. "The news we are given is not fit for a democracy; it is superficial, narrow, stereotypical, propaganda-laden, of little explanatory value, and not geared for critical debate or citizen action," Bennett (1988, p. 9) wrote. Linsky (1988) noted, "The event-orientation of news is a particular problem, for it steers coverage away from ideas and context and does nothing to encourage the drawing of connections between stories" (p. 216). Entman (1989) identified three production biases common to media stories: 1. simplification —audiences prefer the simple to the complex; 2. personalization — individuals cause events rather than institutional, historical or other abstract forces; 3. symbolization —audiences want dramatic action, intriguing personality, and stirring slogans, and the media provide them. Bennett (1988) offered a similar list of weaknesses in media content: emphasis on people rather than process, and on crisis rather than continuity; isolation of stories from each other, and official assurances of normalcy. In sum, many existing theories can explain the consistent tendency by journalists to avoid mentioning population growth as a source of the problems they cover. Without further evidence, we really cannot tell. Graber has called for more study on the etiology of content: “Why are particular events selected from the large number of events that might be publicized and why are events cast into particular story frames that supply the interpretive background by which the story is judged?” (1989, p. 146). Dr. Michael Maher concludes his How and Why Journalists Avoid the PopulationEnvironment Connection49 study as follows: “As we have seen, both land development economists and environmental experts acknowledge population growth as a key source of environmental change. But journalists frame environmental causality differently. Why? Communication theory offers several possibilities. First is the hegemony-theory interpretation: reporters omit any implication that population growth might produce negative effects, in order to purvey the ideology of elites who make money from population growth. As Molotch and Lester (1974) put it, media content can be viewed as reflecting "the practices of those having the power to determine the experience of others" (p. 120). Since real estate, construction and banking interests directly support the media through advertising purchases, this interpretation seems plausible. A number of media critics (e.g., Gandy, 1982; Altschull, 1984; Bennett, 1988) have suggested that media messages reflect the values of powerful political and commercial interests. Burd (1972), Kaniss (1991) and others have pointed out that newspapers have traditionally promoted population growth in their cities through civic boosterism. Molotch (1976) even suggested that cities can best be understood as entities competing for population growth, with the city newspaper as chief cheerleader. Certainly most reporters would be incensed at the suggestion that they shade their reporting to placate commercial interests. But Breed's classic study of social control in 49 How and Why Journalists Avoid the Population-Environment Connection, by T. Michael Maher, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Population and Environment, Volume 18, Number 4, March 1977; Reprinted in 1997 by Carrying Capacity Network, Focus, 18 (2), 21-37.
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the newsroom (1955) showed that news managers' values are transmissible to journalists through a variety of pressures: salaries, story assignments, layout treatment, editing, and a variety of other strategies that effectively shape news stories in ways acceptable to management. Another possible explanation for why journalists omit population growth from their story frame is simple ignorance of other explanations. Journalists who cover environmental issues may not be aware of any other possible ways to frame these stories, thus they derive their framing from other journalists. Journalists frequently read each other's work and take cues for coverage from other reporters, particularly from the elite media (Reese & Danielian, 1989). Perhaps the pervasive predictability of the story frames examined in Part I is another example of intermedia influence. On the other hand, it seems difficult to believe that journalists could be ignorant of the role population growth plays in environmental issues, because media coverage frequently ties population growth to housing starts and business expansion. Furthermore, "Why" is one of the five "W's" taught in every Journalism 101 course. A public affairs reporting textbook, Interpreting Public Issues (Griffin, Molen, Schoenfeld, & Scotton, 1991), admonishes journalists: "A common journalistic mistake is simply to cover events—real or staged—and ignore underlying issues" (p. 320). The book identified population trends as one of the "big trouble spots," and listed world population as the first of its "forefront issues in the '90s" (p. 320). Hence, we cannot say that reporting basic causality is beyond the role that journalists ascribe for themselves. Indeed a panel at the 1994 Society of Environmental Journalists discussed "Covering Population as a Local Story" (Wheeler, 1994). But ignorance remains a possible reason, for not all reporters have training in environmental issues. A third possible explanation comes from the "spiral of silence" theory by German scholar Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (1984): The fear of isolation seems to be the force that sets the spiral of silence in motion. To run with the pack is a relatively happy state of affairs; but if you can't, because you won't share publicly in what seems to be a universally acclaimed conviction, you can at least remain silent, as a second choice, so that others can put up with you. According to Noelle-Neumann, “the media influence the individual perception of what can be said or done without danger of isolation”. Media coverage legitimates a given perspective. Lack of media coverage—omitting a perspective consistently from media stories—makes the expression of that perspective socially dangerous. Noelle-Neumann also suggested that the media serve an articulation function: “The media provide people with the words and phrases they can use to defend a point of view. If people find no current, frequently repeated expressions for their point of view, they lapse into silence; they become effectively mute”.
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C.8: Freedom of the Press vs. Intellectual Prostitutes “What [Hansie Cronje] doesn’t understand is that cheats don’t belong in the cricket establishment, and that they are not entitled to participate in the activities of the UCB and its affiliates. There was a time when the game of cricket epitomized the values of honour and fair play. There is little doubt that he is guilty of corruption and of fraud.” -- Adv. Wim Trengrove50 John Swinton was born in Scotland, emigrated to Canada and, later, to the United States, where he learned the printer's trade. He eventually became managing editor of the New York Times, and, later, the New York Sun. Passionate about labor reform, he began to publish his own weekly labor sheet, John Swinton's Paper. Swinton is especially known for a speech that he gave one night in 1880. At a dinner that was given in his honor, a colleague toasted the independent press. Swinton was outraged and responded: “There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” - John Swinton, (1829-1901) Head of Editorial Staff, NY Times, 1880, at a banquet in his honor51 In Stalking the Wild Taboo, by Garrett Hardin: Part 4: Competition: The Survival of Nations and Civilisations, he deals with the concept of Competition, a process that is inescapable in societies living in a finite resource world, and the competitive exclusion principle, he ends the series with a description of his efforts to getting editors to inform their readers about population policy matters to become educated active citizens. I think I erred in my understanding of what an editorial is. Its brevity and lack of documentation make an editorial a dangerous place to expose minority views, for the refutation of which the conventional wisdom has a ready battery of knee-jerk responses of the sort so well described by George Orwell in his essay, Politics and the English Language. Like it or not, we must recognize that the editorial is really suitable only as a vehicle for views so conventional that the average reader murmurs ‘How true” while his blood pressure rises by not so much as a millimeter. 50
01-09-27: Tribune, India: Cronje is a self-confessed cheat, says UCB Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979
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