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it is useful to know the extent of such operations.
of questionable legality, problematic in the context of a democracy--sure.
what states do--sell their politics---obviously.
the question is what relation do you adopt to such practices.
nothing gets us off the hook--we have to sort, evaluate, interpret, consider information.
all the more so now in that so much information is generated by institutions that use the surface features of legitimate modes of inquiry to advance particular, usually profit-driven--agendas (the new widepsread practice of corporations hiring pet scientists to generate experimental "confirmation" of corporate actions/products--particularly active in areas that involve assessments of environmental impact of production practices/products, etc.)---the assumption sems to be that an informed polity is a problem---so flood the polity with often bogus information mingled with other than bogus information and you'll disable debate--while debate spins in circles, hamstrung by problems of information quality, institutions can do as they like...it is a nice feature of living in the states today, this kind of contempt for thinking.
if information is problematic, then it become easier to treat political committments are arbitrary. the treatment of political committments as arbitrary explains something of the surreal character of much conservative "thinking"....it is easier to draw hard lines between positions if these positions are as much based on faith as on descriptive power of political positions. such beliefs also make it easier to draw a clear line between "us" and "them"---and in this you see traces of the general trajectory left to right of many of the neocons--this emphasis on clear organizational boundaries comes straight from lenin.
no matter, though: state ideology can form the basis for a wrap-around world, prechewed, given in advance, the adoption of which requires no effort.
i do wonder, however, if ustwo and irate would hold to the same blase line about this that each outlined above if they disagreed fundamentally with the politics of the administration in power.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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