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The West’s War on Critical Thinking
American Thinker ^ | 20 Jun, 2024 | J.B. Shurk

Posted on 06/20/2024 3:44:46 AM PDT by MtnClimber

The human mind is now the primary focus of global military planners.

Nobody enjoys being manipulated. I have never met anyone who remarked, “I’m so glad people cleverer than I tricked me into doing what they wanted.” Yet we are all bombarded each day with messages from people and institutions vying to shape our thoughts and control our behaviors.

Television commercials push us to buy certain products. Politicians describe domestic and foreign threats in such ways that only they can provide necessary solutions. Religious leaders choose which doctrines of their faiths must be diligently observed and which ones can be casually overlooked. More open societies might be marketplaces for competing ideas, but the most effective salespeople within any society are the ones who know how to magnify their own messages while silencing others.

Given that this is the case, a society interested in protecting its people from manipulation would be highly invested in educating citizens from a young age how to use reason, rationality, and logic to filter truth from falsehood. Aside from a smattering of classical and religious schools that focus on how to assess information and judge its credibility, it is evident that Western educational systems have been designed with no such purpose in mind.

SNIP

The U.S. Pentagon, the NATO military alliance, and Western espionage agencies spend a great deal of their resources influencing human minds. “Great,” you might say. “They should be actively shaping the opinions of civilians in adversarial nations.” Except I’m not talking about “winning the hearts and minds” of foreigners living under dangerous dictatorships. When I say that the military and Intelligence Community are currently fighting an undeclared war in what they call the “cognitive battlespace,” it is your mind that they are fighting to influence.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Military/Veterans; Society
KEYWORDS: criticalthinking; marxisttyranny

1 posted on 06/20/2024 3:44:46 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

The propaganda has definitely increased in volume and in quantity. That seems to be the way under marxism. The citizens are livestock to be managed and culled by the “wise” farmer who jabs them with shots, shears them for profits and culls those who won’t stay inside the fence.


2 posted on 06/20/2024 3:44:55 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber
I quit TV watching more than 10 years ago...

Once there were nothing but sex deviates, foul language, promotional memes for the Agenda, etc. in ALL the shows, I didn't see anything left for common sense viewing.

Worse, the phony commercials with the same type of sex promotion, inter-racial white women almost exclusively with black men, NO heterosexual white fathers shown, nearly-extinct white hetero males in commercials, etc., I couldn't stomach the Agenda-driven crap anymore.

There are no Ad Agencies that are ALLOWED to produce non-Agenda advertising, for fear of losing their banking support, being black-balled for non-approved REAL content, etc.

ANYONE who regularly watches TV anymore has already been indoctrinated in the public "school" systems, and/or public "colleges", to join the woke, DEI, CRT, etc. lifestyle and philosophy.

3 posted on 06/20/2024 3:56:50 AM PDT by traditional2 (lets go B*and*n)
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To: MtnClimber

Article is spot on MC.

Arguably if you greatly diminish critical thinking in a population then they will welcome being told what to do, and how to think/not think. Ie, manipulated.

Also this phrase “Religious leaders choose which doctrines of their faiths must be diligently observed and which ones can be casually overlooked” is soooo true, even in the Christian faith.


4 posted on 06/20/2024 3:58:30 AM PDT by Blueflag (To not carry is to choose to be defenseless.)
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To: MtnClimber

Very good article. Thanks for posting. FOX news - “We report. You decide.” Reality - We DECIDE what to report so that you can decide. One way programming. No questions allowed. The rest of my response is under a “gag order” and “classified”.


5 posted on 06/20/2024 4:07:07 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: MtnClimber
People are increasingly aware of the propaganda and increasingly have a negative reaction to it.

I notice that having people of minority races shoved down my throat in ad after ad is really beginning to p!ss me off. I am developing a bad attitude toward the companies whose ads do that.

6 posted on 06/20/2024 4:20:47 AM PDT by RoosterRedux (It's funny that the harder I work, the luckier I get.)
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To: MtnClimber

.


7 posted on 06/20/2024 4:25:36 AM PDT by sauropod ("This is a time when people reveal themselves for who they are." James O'Keefe Ne supra crepidam)
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To: Taxman

ping


8 posted on 06/20/2024 4:53:17 AM PDT by Taxman ((SAVE AMERICA! VOTE REPUBLICAN IN 2024! SAVE AMERICA!))
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To: MtnClimber
The one publication that enabled a well-developed and healthy skepticism in me was the MAD Magazine of the 60's and 70's.


9 posted on 06/20/2024 5:10:17 AM PDT by equaviator (If 60 is the new 40, then 35 must be the new 15.)
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To: MtnClimber
Television commercials push us to buy certain products.

And to believe that 90% of the population is black, and/or homosexual, and that all white men are bumbling fools.

10 posted on 06/20/2024 5:49:17 AM PDT by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell>)
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To: MtnClimber

11 posted on 06/20/2024 5:52:19 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: dfwgator

They Live.... a classic.


12 posted on 06/20/2024 7:49:08 AM PDT by LastDayz (A blunt and brazen Texan. I will not be assimilated.)
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To: MtnClimber

Scary but beautiful analogy there, MtnClimber: Under marxism, We The People are merely livestock to be managed and kept inside the fence around us.


13 posted on 06/20/2024 5:24:47 PM PDT by poconopundit (MAGA isn’t a slogan it’s a matter of Americas survival.)
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To: equaviator; GOPJ; Liz; rlmorel
Well done. equaviator. Yeah, it's true. A healthy bit of skepticism is healthy for a free people.

I miss Mad magazine.

Of course, while it's not mass media like Mad magazine was, we do have Ben Garrison and his spectacular political GRRRaphics!

14 posted on 06/20/2024 6:19:37 PM PDT by poconopundit (MAGA isn’t a slogan it’s a matter of Americas survival.)
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To: poconopundit

Hahahaha...”Spy Vs. Spy”!


15 posted on 06/20/2024 7:33:01 PM PDT by rlmorel (In Today's Democrat America, The $5 Dollar Bill is the New $1 Dollar Bill.)
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To: poconopundit

Thanks for the ping...


16 posted on 06/21/2024 3:28:32 AM PDT by GOPJ (WOKE DEI hires - an easy way to place hard core commies and sexual weirdos in top corporate spots.s)
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To: poconopundit
MAD Magazine was an independent publication and despite claims that it was just another comic for kids, it was mostly adult humor with subject matter for politically astute and mature individuals.


17 posted on 06/21/2024 4:00:33 AM PDT by equaviator (If 60 is the new 40, then 35 must be the new 15.)
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