Quote: FP123 wrote in post #15

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Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #14

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Too bad the MSM, where most get there news hasn't been paying attention to or reporting on the 'bass ackwards' seasonal adjustments. It's a shame more don't regularly check out ZH or KD on Government stats.

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I've been doing a little bit of "research" of late -- sending links to ZH and KD type articles to some very "smart" folks that I know. People that attend Tea Party meetings and are pretty well versed on the Constitution and what has been happening in government for decades. I find that most of them have no interest in most of the topics discussed, don't go to the sites to read more often on their own, will usually agree with the article in question but sort of shrug their shoulders and want to change the subject. I'm no sociologist or social psychologist by any stretch, but I am beginning to get the impression that there are certain (many) truths that are just too damn "uncomfortable" for a lot of people to accept, including those that do indeed "know" better. (Yes, this is just more Normalcy Bias stuff, but I am finding out that there is a segment of the population that has a fierce "allegiance" to it in ways that are almost too profound to comprehend.)

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Thanks for the interesting observation.

I began noticing the type of reactions you are describing when I first starting doing research on 'guest workers' being brought in to do jobs Americans 'can't/won't' do while paying no or very partial taxes, yet fully participating in the safety net. "Smart", "informed" people flat out refused to believe that educated, proven, skilled, talented Americans were being replaced by entry level people who were paid less than the Americans paid in taxes.

I began chalking this "allegiance" up to a combination of the success of Cultural Marxism and difficulty in accepting the profound betrayal of the American people by their 'leaders'.

I wonder if this trait, normalcy bias, is what underlies the success of Cultural Marxism's tales for both the left and the right. If so, how does one go about countering or breaking through the "allegiance" ? Is it possible to do so ?

Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #16

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Quote: FP123 wrote in post #15

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Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #14

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Too bad the MSM, where most get there news hasn't been paying attention to or reporting on the 'bass ackwards' seasonal adjustments. It's a shame more don't regularly check out ZH or KD on Government stats.

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I've been doing a little bit of "research" of late -- sending links to ZH and KD type articles to some very "smart" folks that I know. People that attend Tea Party meetings and are pretty well versed on the Constitution and what has been happening in government for decades. I find that most of them have no interest in most of the topics discussed, don't go to the sites to read more often on their own, will usually agree with the article in question but sort of shrug their shoulders and want to change the subject. I'm no sociologist or social psychologist by any stretch, but I am beginning to get the impression that there are certain (many) truths that are just too damn "uncomfortable" for a lot of people to accept, including those that do indeed "know" better. (Yes, this is just more Normalcy Bias stuff, but I am finding out that there is a segment of the population that has a fierce "allegiance" to it in ways that are almost too profound to comprehend.)

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Thanks for the interesting observation.

I began noticing the type of reactions you are describing when I first starting doing research on 'guest workers' being brought in to do jobs Americans 'can't/won't' do while paying no or very partial taxes, yet fully participating in the safety net. "Smart", "informed" people flat out refused to believe that educated, proven, skilled, talented Americans were being replaced by entry level people who were paid less than the Americans paid in taxes.

I began chalking this "allegiance" up to a combination of the success of Cultural Marxism and difficulty in accepting the profound betrayal of the American people by their 'leaders'.

I wonder if this trait, normalcy bias, is what underlies the success of Cultural Marxism's tales for both the left and the right. If so, how does one go about countering or breaking through the "allegiance" ? Is it possible to do so ?

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It's a very difficult thing for people to accept - that many of their basic understandings of the way the world works and who/what can be trusted are incorrect, and not only incorrect but that they are being actively betrayed by those people/institutions. It takes different people a different level of evidence and time. Some are faster and some never get there. Heck, we saw that in this group in microcosm with, first the EC situation, and then the whole TBL situation.

How does one "counter or break through" the self deception and/or unawareness? Great question and one worthy of more discussion. Right off the top of my head, I don't have a good answer. Maybe some one else does.

Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #17

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Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #16

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Thanks for the interesting observation.

I began noticing the type of reactions you are describing when I first starting doing research on 'guest workers' being brought in to do jobs Americans 'can't/won't' do while paying no or very partial taxes, yet fully participating in the safety net. "Smart", "informed" people flat out refused to believe that educated, proven, skilled, talented Americans were being replaced by entry level people who were paid less than the Americans paid in taxes.

I began chalking this "allegiance" up to a combination of the success of Cultural Marxism and difficulty in accepting the profound betrayal of the American people by their 'leaders'.

I wonder if this trait, normalcy bias, is what underlies the success of Cultural Marxism's tales for both the left and the right. If so, how does one go about countering or breaking through the "allegiance" ? Is it possible to do so ?

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It's a very difficult thing for people to accept - that many of their basic understandings of the way the world works and who/what can be trusted are incorrect, and not only incorrect but that they are being actively betrayed by those people/institutions. It takes different people a different level of evidence and time. Some are faster and some never get there. Heck, we saw that in this group in microcosm with, first the EC situation, and then the whole TBL situation.

How does one "counter or break through" the self deception and/or unawareness? Great question and one worthy of more discussion. Right off the top of my head, I don't have a good answer. Maybe some one else does.

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I certainly don't know of any simple answer. The problem is complex, and operates at more than one level. Many have puzzled over the more general question "How do we get people to wake up?" for some time now.

There are some folks that exist in a state of ignorance. This has nothing to do with their native intelligence or even degree of "common sense." It is simply that they choose to be ignorant of what is happening around them. It is almost hard for people like us that read for information as much as we can, and even participate in an online discussion forum, to comprehend this style of existence. But there are indeed people that somehow have limited their lives to the basic human necessities (including either a job or collecting government funds) and entertainment. Some are sports addicts, others may be addicted to other forms of pop culture. Aside from checking on the weather or having a mainstream "news" broadcast on in the background at some point in the day, these folks are pretty much clueless as to what is going on, and has gone on, in the world around them. Think about those "man on the street" interviews where the folks can't recall the name of the sitting VP or any cabinet members. How about all the folks "surprised" last week that their SS withholding went back up 2% to the prior rate? It is likely that most of these folks will remain ignorant until the point in time that some major event strikes, even if it doesn't impact them directly. At they point they will become "aware" of the event based on some light consumption of mainstream "news" until the story fades after a few days. These aren't the people that I believe that a lot of us spend time wondering about, they are who they are, mostly by choice, and will never be "awakened" until it is far too late.

The other category of people that I often wonder about is the category of people that apparently "should know better." These are the folks that I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread. They are far less ignorant about a great deal of the "what" is happening around them. You may know them from Tea Party meetings, maybe they are family members. They listen to a lot of talk and news radio, many of them will watch Fox News very regularly. Almost of all of them are still heavily invested in the "right-left" paradigm and strongly identify with being on the "right." (I'm sure that there is a corresponding group on the "left" that are watching MSNBC, listening to lefty talk radio, and you might meet them at local Democrat Party functions. I just personally don't know any of them, but I am sure that they exist.)

What I've come to realize about a lot of these folks is that they are plugged in as to the "what" that I mentioned above (and perhaps even some of the "where"), but far less aware of the underlying "who," "how," and "when" questions. These are the areas that hold a lot of the truth behind the "whats." (Although there is a lot of partial truth and outright lies in some of the "whats" as well in our current age.)

So for these folks what are the primary barriers to the truth or "waking up?"

I think that the answer can be found in looking at the situation in terms of 3 planes of existence:
1. Physical Plane
2. Emotional Plane
3. Spiritual Plane.

In my opinion, the Emotional Plane is the most difficult, and I think the area that deserves the most further thought and consideration. Let's briefly look at each of them:

Physical Plane - this has to do with the physical reality of information access and the effort required to obtain it. Right now, we are near a zenith as far as information availability. Sure there have been many books and articles available for decades that discussed "truth" in terms of world and US history, government activity, etc. A person would have to become aware of these sources and make an effort (and financial outlay) to obtain the information, many have been doing just that for decades. But with the emergence of the (still open, at least in most of the Western world) public Internet, the amount of information and free/cheap access to it has never been higher. (Sadly I believe that a lot of that access will be disappearing globally in fairly short order. Hence it is a good idea to download and store (digitally and on hardcopy) as much valuable information and data as possible now.)

In some senses, over the past couple of decades there has been almost "no excuse" for folks to become more aware and awakened to the world around us. But this information for the most part must be actively pursued in order to obtain it. (More passive forms of information attainment are those that require only switching on a radio or TV, or picking up a magazine or newspaper, to consume the mainstream (and other "establishment") "news" broadcasts and/or publications.)

Because one has to actively seek out the information by either reading certain websites (e.g., Karl Denninger, Zerohedge, even sites like this one, FR, or Drudge, etc.) or making a choice to subscribe to a network like BlazeTV or PrisonPlanet (as 2 examples), there will be far less people that are exposed to truth. More folks are simply content to accept their news and information from passive sources, and these sources know making their message "softer" and more "comfortable" to consume is a chief element of maintaining/increasing their audience.

The Physical Plane is also tightly coupled with the Intellect of people. (In fact maybe this category could be better described as the "Physical-Intellectual Plane.") Some people do have their Intellectual "sparks" ignited once they are exposed (made aware of) the type of information that is readily available with a few mouse clicks on a daily basis. Witness the growing numbers of people regularly visiting good websites and forums. However while these numbers are growing, they remain small compared to more mainstream sites and even pop culture sites like "Entertainment Tonight" or ESPN. But again consider those folks that we are talking about here, we send them links to ZH articles, we know they understand what they read, they will often strongly agree with the side of the issue being discussed, but they will never venture there again until they receive another link or some other form of active encouragement. Why is that? That is one of the primary questions.

In short, while there are some Physical/Intellectual plane barriers to truth, they have been decreasing in strength and number for quite some time now, and aren't the primary impediments to more people waking up to truth. However, these barriers are likely to gain in strength quite quickly as government clamps down harder on the free dissemination of truth in the near future. If you couple that with what we informally call the "dumbing down" of our society, the Physical/Intellectual plane barriers could become quite formidable, quite quickly.

I am going to skip to a brief commentary on the Spiritual Plane since I have a lot less to say about that here and now, perhaps others would care to delve more deeply into that aspect.

Spiritual Plane - Obviously this is highly personal and is more or less developed (and hence operative) for some folks than others. I believe that the more one focuses on their Spiritual nature, the more they will be drawn to truth. (I think that it also works in the reverse, if one choses to abandon their Spiritual nature or even worse, seeks evil on the Spiritual Plane, they are led further and further away from truth.) For me personally, I am firm in my belief that my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, always wants me to pursue truth and gives me encouragement and discernment to help me in this regard. I also believe that Christians have been blessed with the Holy Bible as a source for ultimate truth at the universal level.

However, folks that are not Christian but somehow work to maintain and improve their Spiritual lives by whatever means they choose will also be led to the pursuit of truth and clarity; certainly it doesn't lead to ultimate truth and salvation, but in my opinion, it provides progress. (I realize that all may not agree with this statement but it isn't one that I wish to argue/discuss at any length in this topic.)

So having dealt with the Physical-Intellectual and Spiritual planes, lets move into the heart of the matter (in my opinion):

Emotional Plane - this is where the resistance (Normalcy Bias for short) really is found. I think that there are two primary emotional areas that greatly affect a person's willingness to pursue truth (that is, delve into those how, who, when, and where questions). Maybe there is really only one emotion at play here, Fear, but I think that breaking it out into 2 separate emotions is helpful in discussing the impacts and effects.

Fear - simply put, it is damn scary to begin to unearth the truth about so many substantive aspects of our lives. The role and actions of government, the state of the economy, the decline of our culture and society, to name a few, are outright frightening. If one seeks "comfort" and "softness" in life, these types of truth certainly don't provide that sort of relief. We all know how powerful a motivator/de-motivator Fear can be in all aspects of life, from the trivial to the most weighty.

It is my belief that the more consequential an issue is, the more Fearful we all are from examining it fully. Fear provides a cloaking mechanism that serves to keep the truth buried deeply behind dark curtains and walls. Simply put, until we are aware of the role that Fear plays in shielding us from the truth, and make a deliberate and conscious commitment (that often needs to be done over and over!) to ourselves to work to overcome that Fear, it is highly unlikely that we will aggressively and tirelessly pursue truth in any but the most inconsequential aspects of our lives. I suppose that it is what we often refer to as "human nature" to avoid the frightening and uncomfortable truths about ourselves and the world around us. Hence Fear plays an incredibly powerful role in supporting the Normalcy Bias in all of us, to some degree or the other.

Abandonment/Isolation - this is the other main category that I believe is worth discussing separate from Fear. (I accept that Fear is the underlying emotion operative in this category as well, but I think treating it separately can be helpful in identifying and countering its impacts.) The sense or feelings of Abandonment and/or Isolation can be usefully categorized by time:

- Past: when confronted by layers upon layers of truth, that is often diametrically opposed to what we have been taught and/or socialized to believe about ourselves, our government, our society, our world, all of us immediately feel a sense of being betrayed, "lied to," in many ways. How come those teachers told us this? (and not that)? Why did my parents tell me this? How come the government never told us this, or that?

Ouch, ouch, and ouch! That is very painful! And I believe that the older a person is, the more painful all of this becomes! Certainly we can accept the fact that a person with 5, 6, 7+ decades "invested" in living and believing a pack of lies will have a lot more difficulty dealing with it than a person with only 2 or 3 decades "invested." Even if it is purely at a subconscious level (but I suspect that is rare), learning that a great deal of the "facts" and "history" that we were taught (most often by authorities that we loved, respected and trusted) causes us to feel Abandoned by those that we (often unwisely) thought that we could (and should) trust implicitly! How alone do we feel when we being to be confronted by this truth?

- Present/Future - OK, so what now? We begin to accept the fact that we have all been lied to, that so much of what we "took for granted" about life has been a shameful farce. How does that makes us feel? Quickly we all learn that there are still not many folks out there (and around us) with which we can openly discuss our new found information. We've all experienced that "rejection" when we discover some new tidbit (or giant fact) that we eagerly want to share with our compatriots, those that we just "know" will also "get it!"

So here we are, we feel a sense of empowerment in some ways that we are finally beginning to learn the truth about things, but that there are very few that are sharing this experience with us at the present. How far do we want to "press it" with our loved ones and others? Are we sure that we want to be further isolated and abandoned now, and in the future? That takes a level of commitment and resolve that is often hard to muster frequently and comprehensively.


[Editorial note: I realize that as I have been just hacking away here in a largely stream of consciousness manner that I have moved from a "3rd person" description at the beginning to more of a "1st and 2nd person" point of view. I won't go back and edit any of it at this point because I know for myself that as much as I like to believe that I am "very awake" and often fearless in my willingness to "speak the truth" on a lot of matters, regardless of the impacts on any relationships, I understand that I am still very much subject to the impact of the Normalcy Bias. I'm not "cured" by any stretch! I think that if we are all honest about it, many of us have certainly come a long way in regards to recognizing and attempting to fend off the Normalcy Bias in our own lives, but are still subject to being fearful and feeling abandoned on many levels.]


OK, so having gone through all of that (which is my view on what the barriers are and how they operate), we go back to the original question: how is this most effectively countered? And again, I will say that I know of no easy answer to that question. What I can offer is an observation. What I have noticed in the brief time that I have been "studying" this phenomenon is that each individual seems to begin to "break through" based on a very PERSONAL circumstance or situation. What may appear to be outlandish and "crossing the line" revelations to some, won't even ruffle the feathers of others. I believe that a lot of that has to do with how each person feels that they are personally affected by an issue or discovery of a nugget of truth about that issue.

Here is one particular observation that I noticed with more than a few folks that I know fairly well (mostly family members). To sum it up, I watched as a lot of them began to become more and more aware over the past 4 years as to how terribly bad this regime has been for the country. Since there are countless ways that this has been manifest, there are countless ways that folks have been affected and have reacted. A lot of these folks (and myself included for periods of time here and there) really began to put a lot of stock in having Romney elected (and perhaps a Republican Senate to go along). Even though so many of us knew that Romney wasn't likely to change all that much, I think that a lot of us wanted to believe that more would change than we rightly should have expected. At the least, many people believed that getting this current regime deposed would at least slow things down somewhat, and give us all a bit more time to prepare.

When those "results" began to filter in on election night, and many of us saw that our worst fears about the election were being confirmed (regardless of the "hows" of it), I think that a great deal of folks were "shocked into" letting go of a lot of myths and beliefs at the same time. Sure, the timeframe varied greatly, some went to bed that night with a "whole new outlook" on things, and others came to that point in a matter of days or weeks later. And of course, many did not. But it has been my observation that those election results caused a lot of scales to fall from many eyes. And now, as we see this tyranny hardening around us each day, there are more people that are continuing to wake up to reality, far more than there were 4 short years ago. And that's a "good thing!"

Quote: FP123 wrote in post #18

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I certainly don't know of any simple answer. The problem is complex, and operates at more than one level. Many have puzzled over the more general question "How do we get people to wake up?" for some time now.

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Well..I certainly wouldn't use whether or not someone believes something they read at Zero Hedge as criteria.

Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #19

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Thank-you for that very thoughtful reply.

I found the comments about Romney especially interesting. I was under no delusion from the beginning that he would do anything to stop or turn around the destruction. The MOST I believed Romney would do was slow things down a nano-second. I could not fathom how people saw him as some kind of savior.

Yet I was surprised at how sad I was when Romney lost. It was the loss of that last vestige / illusion of hope there would be a smidge more time to prepare for whatever is coming.

As an aside I always thought the internet's ability to provide access to information slipped by 'the suits'. . . at least temporarily. I can already see things becoming more difficult to research and access.

External storage has become so much cheaper. I would recommend to anyone to take advantage and keep two back up external drives or cut to DVD.

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Yes, I understand about Romney. What I found happening as time went on (and things kept getting worse and worse) that I desperately wanted to believe that somehow, his election would make it better. Of course, it would have, to some degree. How much, we'll never know at this point. But looking back in hindsight I can clearly see that I was willing to allow myself to believe far more than I should have.

And yes, the defeat was far more saddening and sobering than I ever thought it would be. It was certainly (to me) seeing that last bit of hope disappearing into blackness, as you note above.

Quote: Thunderbird wrote in post #20

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Quote: FP123 wrote in post #18

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I certainly don't know of any simple answer. The problem is complex, and operates at more than one level. Many have puzzled over the more general question "How do we get people to wake up?" for some time now.

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Well..I certainly wouldn't use whether or not someone believes something they read at Zero Hedge as criteria.

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Yes, I agree. It is certainly not as simple or easy as that. Reactions to a particular ZH article (or similar content) may just be a small symptom, in some cases, of a larger set of issues.