Media Strategies To Thwart Federal Oversight, And The Rise Of A Control Fraud Industrial Congressional Service Complex

(Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

Move over MICC, a meaner dog's movin' in. It's purpose? To help the USA better target it's own foot. Indirectly, of course. There's big money in this industry, so it SEEMS better to not ask questions. Besides, if you do stop and think, you won't like what you perceive, and you'll never be happily ignorant again. Don't say you weren't warned.

Would your business like to have a professional Media Strategy to Thwart Federal Oversight? There are companies that specialize in this service ... regardless of the industry sector. Google terms like "Avoiding Federal Oversight" or "Hiding From Regulation" or even "Swaying Public Opinion" - or simply "Lobbying" ... and see what pops up. There are endless techniques for obscuring one's activities in plain sight, and methods for promoting the legality and/or utility of each of those methods. Who specializes in promoting public acceptance of any and all narrow-purpose methods - regardless of the net outcome?

Meet the CFICSC - which "ads" up to a Control Fraud Industrial Congressional Service Complex. Like banking, it's HQ has also traditionally been in NY city, although it keeps notable colonies in places from Hollywood to Miami, and every media outlet in between. That is the industry which is largely responsible for ensuring that justice remains blind ... and distracted too. If confused, divided and conquered sometimes follows - no matter  how often - do they have any responsibility to care? Maybe not as long as Swiss bank accounts remain secret, legal and even publically approved.

Dwight Eisenhower and his warning about the MICC? A piker! For decades before that, Edward Bernays and others had already been advising political parties to get good at propaganda, so that they could operate beneath the bounds of their own public regulations, and be hidden above the law. Of course, Bernays himself always claimed to be "shocked" that such techniques were continuously misused for significant profit extraction dedicated to narrow purposes - including his own income. C'est la Vie. Whaddya gonna do?

Nothing? Or something?

Let's get to the central question. Is unselective, self-manipulation of our own teams - instead of teamwork - really necessary for successful growth of a culture? Narrow competition by any & all system components to manipulate team resources may be a key method of capitalism. Yet a method does not address the ultimate purpose of capitalism, which has never existed in a vacuum. Excessive, uncoordinated pursuit of capitalism's methods absent alignment with evolving group strategies only produces mob behavior rather than organized culture. What would John Calvin and Max Weber think of today's interpretation of Bernay's Sauce as a "Calvinistic" way of further evolving "God's Work?" Clearly, a given method cannot define strategy or purpose. The word "capitalism" cannot adequately define tactics, strategy, goals and desired group outcomes simultaneously. The concepts vary too richly for description by one word.

Yet how do we make it more natural to select adaptively? Oh, just try enough interaction to generate affinity and feedback with all team members? Then see what outcome options pop up? That's what social species do, folks. That's what we do.

There are many who didn't see any adaptive logic when Bernays advised Central Planners to pursue unregulated efforts to manipulate rather than align team members. Yet today, many citizens still remain confused, and use their critical thinking skills only sporadically, if at all. For instance, one has to wonder why so many sports coaches are unthinking capitalists. There's no "I" in team, but apparently a few too many in unexamined capitalism! 

An unregulated collection of gangsters irrationally competing to manipulate one another produces only parasites consuming the decaying remains of their team, community or nation. Such mob outlooks can only produce a whole less than the sum of it's parts. Group success tracks a better way, but it requires a deliberate, informed policy choice.

Please remember that, next time you read an advertisement that targets YOU as nothing more than an irrational component ruled by herd instinct.

“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.”
Mr. Invisible

How does that pull YOUR mind? As an alternative, there are 30-70 Trillion cells in the average human body, and they are NOT ruled by a few. Rather, their amazing, net agility - you - is a product of all your cells coordinating with all your cells. There is no Central Planner cell, or even a central committee. When agile teams work together, they accomplish truly amazing things. Bernays' version of this sauce has certainly gone rancid. In fact, it was toxic from the beginning. If used in food, Bernays' Sauce would have been outlawed, for failing all Clinical Trial testing.

Perhaps we really do need a more formal Civic Trial proof of concept, for all proposed policy changes randomly suggested by citizens. An Outcomes Impact Statement? Maybe that's how we the people may more quickly SELECT adaptation from cultural-auto-immune social diseases, or self-parasitism. Simply by making the effort to have all of us receive influences from all of us. Surely that is the foundation of an informed electorate?

Instead of attempting the oxymoron of a Centrally Planned mob rule, can the Unseen Affinity of a democracy's Middle Class stay continuously one step ahead of it's own, inevitable, fraud faction, and thereby rule itself more rather than less adaptively?

Only if we inform our electorate well enough to see through the anti-self-regulation advice of Ed Bernays, the Father of Control Fraud Protection Services.

We Do Stupid Bigger/Faster Than Anyone Else!

commentary by Roger Erickson

Fabius Maximus writes About the violent mobs in the Middle East. And in America

"Every large event, every fork in the road, signals the need to stop and think about our course of action. America today is defined by our refusal to do so, as we see in our reaction to the riots. Our mob psychology mirrors theirs, but we tend to reply with greater firepower."

***

There's a lot of truth in that statement. The insight applies to other fields, and certainly to orthodox economics.  Eventually, the loser in any repetitive competition will be the one who can be manipulated into getting angry, losing control of their own actions, and refusing to think.  After that, the winning opponent is inside the losers decision-cycle, and outmaneuvering the loser.

What was the orthodox response to the operational invention of an agile, scalable, fiat currency regime?  The orthodox economic community fought back with an overwhelming volume of academic BS.  They tried to silence revolutionaries with greater volume if not quality of firepower.  And, of course, there's a lot of anger still be slung around.  That's not science, where answers, not argument is the key concept.

When all sides lose their temper?  There is no long term improvement.  There is only failure to make a more perfect union.