News you can use

If you look at the way traditional news organizations work, whether they be newspapers or television, delivered by cable, in print or over the web, you will notice the lifespan of the news item is measured in hours and occasionally days. You will notice little criticism of major advertisers.

In the current news cycle you will also notice a massive effort to shape public opinion to accept government edicts and policies based on the idea it is the virus Covid 19 that is causing irreparable harm to most people. Just how deadly Covid 19 is and to what groups has yet to be determined accurately, while the economic damage to the population and the consequences of the economic disaster are already being felt. I expect history will not treat the total shutdown crowd well when comparisons between nations and the way they handled the outbreak are studied. One thing that has been exposed is the lie of the benefits of off shoring manufacturing of key industries to foreign nations. That lie will keep unraveling and what you need to pay attention to is how businesses and the Chambers of Commerce are already trying to blame others for their own failures.

The shortage of medical supplies laid bare the business decisions to offshore production to China and keep inventories at just in time levels. While it makes sense in the case of fashions to build it as you need it and at the lowest cost possible because as reported years ago if it is not sold it eventually goes to the dump, (SI-Q) (SI-G) critical supplies to the nation have to be there when needed. You buy insurance you hope you never need, knowing it is a cost you bear for the protection it offers. So it is with certain products. Having them available is like an insurance cost.

I am not sure how we got to the point that news is thrown out in little bursts like the rattling of bells on a slot machine, with the extensive information behind a news item not available. But I think it is a safe bet to assume combining the amazing and instantaneous availability of information electronically delivered makes vastly more sense than hording it in buildings of higher learning where it is costly to deliver, available to smaller audiences, and perhaps worst of all, much slower to access. Delivering information in this way creates the illusion that it is more valuable because of the visible cost of the delivery mechanism which includes buildings, people, campuses and support facilities. The reality is however curious people's minds can process information much faster than these outdated systems can deliver it. What we need to come up with is a way to make sure the fundamentals of knowledge in mathematics, science, chemistry, composition and grammar are being acquired to optimal standards, while unleashing the capacities of readers minds to extend their knowledge far beyond the basics, and as quickly as they can internalize it.

Readers/viewers have different expectations of their news sources than their news providers think they do and they want factual news reporting with less commentary. Readers/viewers are also less worried about fake news than news organizations think they are. Since 2016 it is abundantly clear, factual news reporting has been replaced by biased coverage that is actually nothing more than propaganda, almost all of it aimed at the majority of people who do not agree with investors in companies profiting before the people that actually work there, those that do not agree with flooding the nation with illegal immigrants to lower wages for everyone and increase profits for investors, and people that do not agree that the government should control how people think and act. It is a mission that will eventually fail just like abusing people of a different color, people that are poor, people that have not gone to college will do. History has shown people will put up with it for a long time but when it is over, they will do something about it.

If you read or watch reportage on the same subject in the news it is clear that a news organization’s bias colors their reporting of stories, and may even reflect deliberate misrepresentation of the facts to manipulate their audiences. Understanding that, it is a simple matter to read more broadly to get multiple viewpoints and think things through on your own. I am constantly surprised how the media, the military and the intelligence community think they can bamboozle people forever. You can con and hustle the lazy, the compliant and those that are fearful, but history shows it does not take many Patrick Henrys to put an end to it. At some point the constant bleating becomes so obvious it is no longer an asset but a weapon that can be turned against its deliverers. Don't believe it, try to get the police and the soldiers to start killing American's with a legitimate grievance in the street. If they fragged you in Vietnam, you are not far from the line abusing citizens with a legitimate complaint in America Rioters and opportunists who rob are another matter. Moreover, there is a syndrome that enables deceivers to delude themselves until the tables turn and you can see the shock in their eyes that they have been unfairly treated, when in fact they were to blame all along.

No one should rely on a single news organization to be their only source of information. It seems their audiences realize that too and it only self-fooling on the part of journalists that prevents them from seeing it.

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” - Richard Feynman

The news is also served up as an offshoot of entertainment. What does being beautiful with big breasts have to do with the news?

For example, Watergate was a massive scandal that brought down the Nixon White house. It involved lies from the top of government on down. It exposed the complicity of Attorney General Mitchell, the perpetuation of wars responsible for the deaths of millions of people for political gain, and it involved an FBI number 2 official leaking files to the media for spite and revenge. Watergate reporting involved the use of junior reporters to report on the story in a newspaper that apparently used its senior reporters as mere mouthpieces for the FBI, and it involved claims of the wonders of American journalism rather than the skulduggery of a scorned FBI official.

Watergate offers practical insight into criminality, greed, naked ambition, corruption, abuse of the law, human behavior, and most importantly, the complete lack of concern for human lives. The story of Watergate is not a movie ending, but an opportunity to understand human behavior and tactics so we can develop skills and strategies to do something about it.

Another newsworthy item is how behavior change takes place although it seldom covered. Everyone talks about New Year’s Resolutions and makes light of breaking them. Yet no one covers the astounding effectiveness of the military’s use of behavior change to turn millions of totally average people into potential killers in a matter of months. In addition to the military effectiveness in rapid behavior change for individuals, their skill in hoodwinking recruits into murdering people in illegal wars, and then in getting these people to stand like trained monkeys in arenas around the country accepting adulation from a public equally as conned in is nothing short of miraculous. That is a process worth studying, for two reasons.

Given the critical importance of people being able to understand and change our own behavior, the mechanics of doing so should be taught in school. If we learn how to change our behavior we can change who we are and what we can do with our lives. Secondly, it is important to understand how we can so easily be conned in. We need to understand what propaganda is, how to recognize it and defend against it. War propaganda is selling America alone an $1,800 per person annual contribution to military spending. That's a lot of money to give to support the wet dreams of seriously deranged people.

Another newsworthy item is the effectiveness of the Jews. They have been scorned and persecuted for centuries, their land has virtually no resources, it's a desert, and yet they are one of the most effective groups on earth. Where is there a course on Jewish effectiveness, with a step by step guide to replicating it? There are a lot of people in the world that would benefit from the lessons.

And in one last example, look at our economic system. Our entire economy is based on buying an endless stream of goods and services we can do without. Ingvar Kamprad, the billionaire founder of IKEA wore second hand clothes to set a good example for the rest of us. José "Pepe" Mujica was the 40th President of Uruguay and his views on leadership offer a completely different view of how a politician should behave. And here is a sobering thought about goods produced that never get sold. Do a search for “what happens to unsold clothing” and you will get a huge number of results. Most of them get sent to landfills so they do not end up in second hand stores and discounters which would undermine their value. When I was a student I worked for a major retailer in the toys department. All of our unsold and returned items were compacted in trash compactors for the same reason. The bottom line is we are never supposed to understand how much less something is worth than we are asked to pay for it. I worked with people from EDS who were part of GM and GM cars cost of production for Cavaliers at that time was roughly 18% of the retail price of $12,500. All the rest of the price difference was in overhead for sales, finance, administration, and the dealer network.

Today, everything being made is made with software designed to put the least amount of material in the product for the estimated lifespan. The lifespan is a matter of the manufacturer deciding how little quality he can add to the product before it falls apart so you can be made to buy more. It’s called planned obsolescence. The author of the article says:

“Consumers sometimes see planned obsolescence as a sinister plot by manufacturers to fleece them. But Philip Kotler, a marketing guru (see article), says: “Much so-called planned obsolescence is the working of the competitive and technological forces in a free society—forces that lead to ever-improving goods and services."

I will be free to call BS on that. Here is why. A large percentage of American families have minimal savings, have jobs undermined by foreign workers, robotics and AI, and are told in the future they will live on some form of guaranteed income provided by the government. And businesses want people to spend needlessly for goods deliberately designed to fail so they are compelled to buy more? Please!

It’s time to get educated, and since everyone is too poor to stop working and borrow money to go to school, hopefully “News You Can Use” can help you extract knowledge from the world to build your own curriculum.

"It is also in the interests of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion." - Aristotle in Politics (J. Sinclair translation, pg. 226, 1962)

I have a new form of entertainment, and it is hilarious. Once you understand the game of manipulation, lying and BS, it is highly entertaining to look for it and expose it. Like the Ram trick truck ad for the last Superbowl, implying Martin Luther King would have approved of the great works people who buy Ram trucks would do. Oh (says he/she/it in a fawning voice) such nice people and there is wonderful Ram trucks helping all the way just like mommy and daddy, awww. Feel good BS and pure propaganda. Vox has the original Superbowl ad (Vox locked the ad down so here it is in a Time link) and talks about Martin Luther King's opinion on advertisers. Here is what MLK really said about advertisers and advertising.

Not the story Ram would have you believe, as usual. Digging these rats out is fun and also critically important to understand how we are being manipulated. You should try it. You can spend hours at it and in the end you will be really learn how we are all being played for suckers. It is more important today to control society by lies than it is to deliver positive benefits to citizens.

By the way, an important point on search. Most of the big search engines are designed to find information for inconsistent search terms, using various types of Boolean logic and AI. So if you are looking for something, put in as many words that describe what you are looking for as you can and you will get more results and some information you may not have expected. Let the search engines do the work for you.

In the time of significant damage to the nation because of Covid 19 it is important that Americans have the information in front of them to make decisions. P2P.media believes every American can read, and with enough information can form their own opinions. So we try to give you as much information as we can so that you can educate yourself and come to your own conclusions. None of us have to agree, but at least we should have the information available to think about it.

It is a lot of work to read thousands of articles, white papers, and contrary views and opinions. Please do so on your own. Your searches will turn up additional information. When you do a simple search, and the search results come up, start reading the short descriptions of each result. They will contain words, phrases, perhaps cases, which give you even more clues about what to look for. Each search refines the search for more searches and information. Look for the articles and read them, they will provide even more clues to search. And unlike a biased news person, perhaps controlled by an editor, or an opinionated professor biased by a political affiliation or questionable beliefs, the more searches you have in front of you, the more your information base expands. Alternate search engines like Quant, Yandex, swisscows and others will also give additional and also different results. Bookmark everything and categorize it. That way you can go back and look it up.

Capitalize on your brain's ability to sort and combine information looking for patterns and connections. Think of it this way. You are making a huge salad for 20 people. You cut all of the individual ingredients into the bowl. But they are all separate. Now you need to shake the bowl. Your brain is a bowl shaker. It can combine and sort all of the separate information and looks for patterns. It is a memory bowl you can never fill up. The more you read, watch, listen and learn, the bigger the salad. Every once in a while the brain lights up, your chest beats a little faster and in a flash of clarity you get an "AHA" moment. Patterns have emerged and understanding pops up. A "flash" of insight.

Use the News To School Yourself (Home Page)