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twitter-america-scam-header.jpg

Twitter Ponders Things That Are Clearly Scams But That Americans Have Been Conditioned To Believe Are Normal

By Petr Navovy | Social Media | December 7, 2020 |

By Petr Navovy | Social Media | December 7, 2020 |

twitter-america-scam-header.jpg

One day. One day I’m sure I’ll get bored of quoting this film.

Aragorn But Notthis Day GIF from Aragorn GIFs
Barack Obama (on TV): [on TV delivering his election victory speech] … to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many, we are one.

Driver: You hear that line? Line’s for you.

Jackie Cogan: Don’t make me laugh. We’re one people. It’s a myth created by Thomas Jefferson.

Driver: Oh, now you’re gonna have a go at Jefferson, huh?

Jackie Cogan: My friend, Jefferson’s an American saint because he wrote the words, “All men are created equal.” Words he clearly didn’t believe, since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He was a rich wine snob who was sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So yeah, he wrote some lovely words and aroused the rabble, and they went out and died for those words, while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we’re living in a community. Don’t make me laugh. I’m living in America, and in America, you’re on your own. America’s not a country. It’s just a business. Now fucking pay me.

The US has got to be one of the most propagandised countries in the world. I remember when I learned that the pledge of allegiance was a real thing, for example, and not just some made up sh*t they stuck in American films. That blew my mind. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But it all makes sense. When you live in the heart of a globe-spanning capitalist empire, you’re gonna be subject to a never-ending stream of relentless myth-making and arsebackwards hogwash. That’s just the way it is. Otherwise you run the risk of revolution. When you consider that modern propaganda as we know it—and as we so often call it: ‘public relations’—was invented in the States, then it starts to make even more sense that the country’s citizens have been re-wired to a degree that would make fictional dystopias jealous. As the father of PR himself, Edward Bernays, once said:

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 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. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

And on that note, here’s a fun Twitter thread prompted by the question: ‘What’s something that’s clearly a scam but that Americans have been conditioned to believe is ‘normal?’

I feel like there’s another quote here that is pretty relevant… Oh yeah, of course! Here it is, straight from the one and only:

And hey, lest it looks like I’m being mean by singling out the evil empire for some light ribbing, here’s the same thing but for the old, has-been one: