{"id":225321,"date":"2022-12-19T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=225321"},"modified":"2022-12-13T06:51:45","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T06:51:45","slug":"our-authentically-fake-and-hypocritical-society-of-copies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/12\/our-authentically-fake-and-hypocritical-society-of-copies\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Authentically Fake and Hypocritical Society of Copies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cDitto,\u201d said Tweedledum.
\n\u201cDitto, ditto!\u201d cried Tweedledee.
\n\u2013 Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking-Glass<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

4 Dec 2022 – <\/em>Sometimes a trifling contretemps can open a window onto significant issues.<\/p>\n

As a case in point, The New York Times, <\/em>a newspaper that regularly publishes U.S. propaganda without a bit of shame or remorse, recently reported<\/a> on a controversy involving Simon & Schuster and Bob Dylan\u2019s new book, The Philosophy of Modern Song.<\/em> The report with the same information was repeated across the media.<\/p>\n

The publishing company had offered limited-edition, authenticated, hand-signed copies of the book for $600 each.\u00a0 Nine Hundred collectors and die-hard fans bought a copy, many, no doubt, caught in hero worship and the thought that a Dylan-penned signature would grant them a bit of his fame through the touch of his hand upon their lives.<\/p>\n

The quest for immortality takes many forms, and the laying on of hands, even when done remotely through a signature, has long been a popular form of sleight-of-hand.<\/p>\n

I once shook hands with an Elvis hologram impersonator and the thrill vibrated for days.<\/p>\n

But these Dylan aficionados noticed something strange about the signatures: They didn\u2019t seem to be actual signatures individually written with a pen by Dylan. As anyone knows from their own handwriting, no two signatures are the same, since the human hand is not a copy machine.\u00a0 These signatures were identical.<\/p>\n

It turned out that those who smelled a deception were right.\u00a0 Under pressure from astute purchasers, Simon & Schuster had to come clean \u2013 sort of.\u00a0 They offered to refund all purchasers for the deception. They released the following statement:<\/p>\n

To those who purchased The Philosophy of Modern Song limited edition, we want to apologize. As it turns out, the limited editions books do contain Bob\u2019s original signature, but in a penned replica form. We are addressing this immediately by providing each purchaser with an immediate refund.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This statement is a perfect example of double-talk, and more.<\/p>\n

Then Dylan also apologized, saying that he used an auto-pen since he was suffering from vertigo and \u201cduring the pandemic, it was impossible to sign anything and the vertigo didn\u2019t help.\u201d\u00a0 His apology seems sincere compared to the publisher\u2019s double-talk, but then again, so did his signatures.\u00a0 And the controversy has spread to the limited edition prints of his artwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cLimited edition prints\u201d \u2013 a deception in itself, as if limiting the number of copies of an original painting makes them more original.\u00a0 Ten dittos instead of eleven.<\/p>\n

However, I am not primarily concerned with the nuances of this tempest in a teapot, which might disappear as fast as yesterday\u2019s bluster, or it may forever tarnish Dylan\u2019s reputation, which would be a shame if it also damaged the genuine greatness of his songs.<\/p>\n

I would like to focus on the following matters that I have seen through its window: language usage, a society of copies, reading texts closely, and the degradation of literacy, all of which are tangled together with non-stop government propaganda disseminated by the corporate mass media to form a major social issue.<\/p>\n

First, language.\u00a0 Note in the Simon & Schuster apology the words: \u201cAs it turns out, the limited editions books do contain Bob\u2019s original signature, but in a penned replica form.\u201d\u00a0 This is a clear deception twice over.\u00a0 The books do not<\/strong> contain original signatures; they contain machine copies of it.\u00a0 Phrasing it that way allows the company to plead innocent while also apologizing for its innocence as if they consider themselves guilty.\u00a0 What exactly are they saying they are apologizing for?\u00a0 Deceptions dittoed?<\/p>\n

And the phrase \u201cAs it turns out,\u201d implies that Simon & Schuster was surprised that the signatures were machine generated, which is highly improbable.\u00a0 It also suggests they are not responsible; such verbiage approximates the common, passive introductory phrase \u201cit so happens\u201d or the equally non-literate \u201chopefully\u201d to begin a sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt so happens\u201d that I am writing these words and \u201cit so happens\u201d that you are reading them\u2026as if we are victims of our own free choices.\u00a0 Passive language for victims of fate who have learned to write and talk this way to avoid responsibility even for their own hope, as in: \u201cI hope.\u201d\u00a0 Or maybe the widespread copycat use of \u201chopefully\u201d is an unconscious attempt to deny pervasive hopelessness.\u00a0 No matter how many times you repeat something doesn\u2019t make it true.<\/p>\n

The use of such language is a reflection of an age in which determinism has for decades been repeatedly promulgated to extinguish people\u2019s belief in freedom.\u00a0 Ditto: Saying \u201cthe exact same\u201d doesn\u2019t make the same more same through redundancy.\u00a0 You can\u2019t get any more same than same since same means identical, or any more opposite than opposite even if you say \u201cthe exact opposite.\u201d\u00a0 The English language is suffering.<\/p>\n

To top it off, an esteemed book publishing company nearly a century old concludes with a sentence that a high school freshman \u2013 circa 1960 before all the dumbing-down of schooling \u2013 would realize was redundant with the words \u201cimmediately\u201d (misplaced) and \u201cimmediate,\u201d as if repetition would emphasize their contrition. \u201cWe are addressing this immediately by providing each purchaser with an immediate refund.\u201d\u00a0 Ditto.<\/p>\n

But who notices these things?<\/p>\n

Discerning readers \u2013 whether of the examples above or of a subtle controlled- opposition media article suggesting one thing while meaning another \u2013 are becoming rarer and rarer. Ideology, political party allegiances, and plain stupidity block many from grasping propaganda and media claims made out of thin air.<\/p>\n

Anonymous sources, subtle phrasing, real or imagined intelligence sources, the use of words such as may, might, possible, could be, etc., are a staple of so much writing and broadcast news that they fly by people used to the speed of the digital life with texting and internet browsing where repetition and copying are king. \u00a0Yes, speed kills in so many ways.\u00a0 The repetition of talking points across the major corporate media, something carefully studied and confirmed years ago, has become so obvious to anyone who chooses to take the time to investigate.\u00a0 It\u2019s not hard to do but few bother; they are too \u201cbusy.\u201d \u00a0Thus propaganda and gibberish pass unnoticed.<\/p>\n

Just as \u201cThe Real McCoy\u201d (see the opening \u201cRefrain\u201d of Hillel Schwartz\u2019 The Culture of the Copy<\/a>) was a fake and the phrase came to represent the genuine to supposedly confirm authenticity, we are now living in an era of the counterfeit everywhere. Counterfeits of counterfeits.\u00a0 Imposters.\u00a0 Actors playing actors. Counterfeit traitors. Fabricated reality and copies of copies.\u00a0 Ditto.\u00a0 Ditto.\u00a0 Ditto.\u00a0 Lies about not lying.\u00a0 (See The New York Times\u2019, The Guardian\u2019s, <\/em>etc. <\/em>deceptive, hypocritical, and self-serving joint letter<\/a> asking the U.S government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets.)<\/p>\n

The Dylan controversy is a very minor example of a major issue that is little appreciated for its devastating impact on society.<\/p>\n

For another minor example, we may ask how many times does one have to see the replay of Christian Pulisic\u2019s recent goal against Iran in the 2022 World Cup to grasp its brilliance and to see that he was injured?\u00a0 Two, three, five, ten?\u00a0 And this is a sporting event, not some mall shooting or serious issue of war.\u00a0 In a digital high-tech world repetition is the norm.\u00a0 What does repetition do to the mind?<\/p>\n

What does repetition do to the mind?<\/p>\n

Despite the great sportsmanship shown by the players from both the U.S. and Iran on the pitch, U.S. Men\u2019s Soccer executives, by deleting the Islamic Republic emblem from Iran\u2019s flag on its social media sites, and the U.S. media tried repeatedly to politicize the game into a battle between the good Americans and the evil Iranians, even while a U.S. regime change color revolution<\/a> was being attempted on the streets of Iran.<\/p>\n

What does repetitious propaganda do to the mind?<\/p>\n

Technology has not just allowed for machine signatures but has made us in many ways machine people who need to be hammered over the head time and again \u2013 and to like it. To go back again and again for more.\u00a0 Everything but life has become repeatable.<\/p>\n

Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s Gatsby\u2019s reply to Nick\u2019s statement In The Great Gatsby<\/em> \u2013 \u201cYou can\u2019t repeat the past,\u201d Nick tells Gatsby, who responds, \u201cCan\u2019t repeat the past? Why, off course you can!\u201d \u2013 perfectly captures the \u201creality\u201d of a digital screen culture of illusions in which many people have unconsciously come to believe that you can instantly replay life as well.<\/p>\n

Indeed, to make people into machines is the goal of trans-humanists Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum with its Great Reset and the U.N.\u2019s 2030 Agenda. Artificial intelligence (AI) for artificial people.\u00a0 While there are innocent examples of repetition, the use of it is a fundamental tactic of propaganda, whether that be through words or images. And we are drowning in repeated media\/government propaganda about the U.S. war against Russia in Ukraine, Covid19, Iran, China, Syria, etc.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as easy as pie to innocently repeat, as I learned recently when my wife asked me to use her cell phone to take a photograph. Bumpkin that I am who despises these machines, rather than briefly hitting the button I held it down for a few seconds and took the same photo 67 \u00bd times.\u00a0 It just so happened.<\/p>\n

But the propagandists\u2019 repetitions are no accident.\u00a0 You can\u2019t condemn Julian Assange year after year for posting U.S. war crimes \u2013 the Afghanistan War Logs \u2013 and then try to save your own ass after the man has been persecuted for more than a decade and counting.\u00a0 The media who did this and then wrote the recent letter are counterfeit traitors to the truth and agents of the war criminals.\u00a0 To call them journalists is to misuse language: They are imposters.<\/p>\n

What does repetition do to the mind? asked Tweedledum to his identical twin Tweedledee.<\/p>\n

Tweedledee replied, Look what it\u2019s done to us.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Edward Curtin is a widely published author and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. His new book is <\/em>Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies<\/a> \u2013 His website: Behind the Curtain<\/a> – email: edcurtinjr@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 edwardcurtin.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4 Dec 2022 – Indeed, to make people into machines is the goal of trans-humanists Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum with its Great Reset and the UN’s 2030 Agenda. Artificial Intelligence for artificial people.\u00a0 While there are innocent examples of repetition, the use of it is a fundamental tactic of propaganda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":108249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[372],"class_list":["post-225321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-propaganda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}