January 1, 2013
The Socialist Mind Game: A Brief Manual
By Oleg Atbashian

We are being played; it's time we learned the game.

Conservatives have their Constitution. Progressives have their Narrative. The current battle for America is between these two concepts, and each side uses different rules to fight it.

One set of rules is consistent with an unchanging objective: limited government and individual freedoms. The other side's rules are as fickle as their goals, which are never fully disclosed beyond the equivocal references to fairness and hyphenated forms of justice. They will have to remain vague and deny their true allegiances until a time when American voters will no longer squirm at the word "socialism."

And yet spotting them isn't that hard. As a bird is known by his feathers, socialists are known by their Game.

First tried and mastered in the USSR, the Game has since been popularized around the world, assuming various forms, names, and colors -- from red to brown to green. It is now taking hold in the United States under the blue web banners of Obama's campaign infomercials.

The laws of society and human nature are such that socialism can only be achieved through a certain sequence of steps and manipulations. For instance, the only way to attain material equality is to confiscate someone's property and give it to others. That necessitates a centralized mechanism of coercion, redistribution, and control. Such a system gives extraordinary corrupting powers to a small centralized elite, while turning the rest of the citizenry into a compliant, obsequious herd.

All those who claimed they can do it differently were doomed to retrace the same path. Once you unleash the ancient powers of collectivism, you have only two options: control the human herd or be trampled underfoot.

Drawing blood is always an option, but there's also a "cleaner" way to control the crowds by manipulating their minds with the cattle prods of collectivist morals and a fictional narrative that supplants the reality.

Let's call it the Mind Game of Manipulative Illusions.

The Game existed since Cain and Abel, but it developed into an art form in the 20th century, with the rise of totalitarian regimes armed with state-controlled education, entertainment, and the media.

For a dictatorship to run efficiently, a sufficient number of people must give the regime a moral license to rule over them. The Mind Game of Manipulative Illusions secures and extends such a license.

Even the Soviet Communists, with all their tools of repression and fear, with all their power over anyone's life and death, were still pressed to play mind games to make the people feel good about the Party rule. Towards the end they went easy on the Game and relaxed their grip on the media, entertainment, and education, accepting the policies of Glasnost. Once they lost the ability to control people's hearts and minds, they also lost their moral license and, with it, the country.

The Game can mutate and adjust to different cultures, but its basic rules always remain as follows:

Socialism is not just about taking away your money; it's also about making you praise the takers as your saviors. You are expected to feel good about being robbed of opportunities, talents, and success. You must agree that "you didn't build that." There must be a popular consensus that the crumbs you are getting back from the government are a sign of caring and largess -- not a meager fraction of your actual earnings. Last but not least, you must sincerely believe that those who are trying to protect you from the thieves are really your enemies and deserve to be destroyed.

Building up and maintaining such an illusion on a massive scale requires participation of the media, education, and entertainment industries in a coordinated, long-term propaganda campaign.

Once the illusion reaches a critical mass, those afflicted by it become immune to facts, numbers, or rational arguments. Confronting them with logic will only cause more resentment, name-calling and, sometimes, violence.

The little game of illusions that President Obama is running under the name of "tax cuts for the middle class" is part of the larger Game; it contains all of the above elements.

The plan is to pass yet another extension of Bush's tax cuts - i.e., to keep the status quo for the most -while excluding families with a joint income of over $250,000. In plain speak, it's a tax hike. But calling things by their real names would be against the rules; this isn't how the Game is played.


Read more:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/t...l#ixzz2Gl79O0F4

Zitat

---

Socialism is not just about taking away your money; it's also about making you praise the takers as your saviors. You are expected to feel good about being robbed of opportunities, talents, and success. You must agree that "you didn't build that." There must be a popular consensus that the crumbs you are getting back from the government are a sign of caring and largess -- not a meager fraction of your actual earnings. Last but not least, you must sincerely believe that those who are trying to protect you from the thieves are really your enemies and deserve to be destroyed.

Building up and maintaining such an illusion on a massive scale requires participation of the media, education, and entertainment industries in a coordinated, long-term propaganda campaign.

Once the illusion reaches a critical mass, those afflicted by it become immune to facts, numbers, or rational arguments. Confronting them with logic will only cause more resentment, name-calling and, sometimes, violence.

---

This is the truth. I was checking facebook when my progressive sister liked a pic posted on The Christian Left, mostly an oxymoron I know, but it's a good illustration of the current state of things. The pic is kind of benign but the rabid comments are enlightening.