Killing The Right To Think, One Public Crisis At A Time
Saman Mohammadi
The Excavator
March 20, 2012
“The right to think is a battle being fought today.” – Richard Stallman: “The Right to Think: Existential Education in the era of Personal Cybernetics,” 1997. Communications of the ACM, Volume 40, Number 2.
“The repression and revised imposition of September 11th and the attendant “war on terror” on the public mind have important implications not only for the integrity of public discourse, but also for the collective sanity of western culture and civilization. As crafted by dominant news media 9/11 has become the cracked lens through which we view and conceive of our own history, identity, and purpose.” – James Tracy: 9/11 Truth, Inner Consciousness, and the “Public Mind,” March 18, 2012.
“It’s massive. And I think that focuses the mind. It makes you think in a different way. It makes you think anew.” – International terrorist, war criminal, and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz speaking about the 9/11 attacks on PBS on September 14, 2001.
“I assume you all know what I mean by fundamentalist materialism. It is that school of materialism which is like unto fundamentalist religion in that it is absolutely dogmatic and sure of itself in all respects, and has no doubts about anything. It’s main propaganda arm in the United States is the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, otherwise known as CSICOP for short. And although they are opposed to all forms of mysticism, they have their own mantra, and it works just like an ordinary Hindu mantra. It quiets anxieties, it stills the restless mind, it ends the perpetual inquiring and questioning and wondering, and eventually it stops thought entirely. Their mantra is: It was only a coincidence. It was only a coincidence. It was only a coincidence.” – Robert Anton Wilson, from, “RAW Explains Everything: The New Inquisition,” 1988.
“We need to turn off the metaphorical televisions which are hooking us into the network of cultural assumptions dictated from the Pentagon and Madison Avenue and what-have-you. We need, instead, to turn on our terminals, and to begin to interact with like-minded people throughout the world and establish this new intellectual order, which will be then the salvation of mankind, I firmly believe– because it is a collectivity, and people will then feel the interrelatedness of their fates, feel the interrelatedness as a thing which transcends national divisions, ideological divisions, feel the primacy of being part of the human family.” – Terence McKenna, from a speech in 1984 called, “Psychedelic Society.”
“It is this history of government deceit and wrongdoing that renders Sunstein’s desire to use covert propaganda to “undermine” anti-government speech so repugnant. The reason conspiracy theories resonate so much is precisely that people have learned — rationally — to distrust government actions and statements. Sunstein’s proposed covert propaganda scheme is a perfect illustration of why that is. In other words, people don’t trust the Government and “conspiracy theories” are so pervasive precisely because government is typically filled with people like Cass Sunstein, who think that systematic deceit and government-sponsored manipulation are justified by their own Goodness and Superior Wisdom.” – Glenn Greenwald, “Obama confidant’s spine-chilling proposal,” January 15, 2010, commenting on the totalitarian idea of “cognitive infiltration” by President Obama’s Information Czar Cass Sunstein.
“The inauthentic man lives in a tower, let’s say he lives in this tower of Babylon, this ivory tower, that’s constantly wobbling because it wasn’t built on a straight foundation. So no matter what wind comes, the tower is always moving precariously moving back and forth, and to and fro. It’s very frightening to live in the realm of the ego, because no matter what addition you put or how you maneuver the furniture, or how many more tiers you build onto that [tower], or how much embellishment, the tower itself is teetering. And we are in that period now, the whole of civilization is teetering.” – Author, lecturer, and scholar Michael Tsarion, from his interview on Red Ice Radio on September 19, 2011, called, “Michael Tsarion: Inauthentic Man, Outsider, Enlightenment, Ego, Self, Mass Insanity.”
“Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.” – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis.
“If the man doesn’t believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it. I mean, it does nowadays, because now we can’t burn him.” – Mark Twain.
“Sanity is not statistical — Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad.” – Winston Smith, from George Orwell’s 1984.
“The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.” – Justice Anthony Kennedy.
“It hurts more to have a belief pulled than to have a tooth pulled, and no intellectual novocain is available.” – Elmer Davis.
You’re probably wondering: why all the quotes above? Answer: to get you thinking. To get your mind fired up.
The Rest…HERE
