Question Authority

Language, peace, and the resurgence of thought crime.

The President of the United States, recently signed an executive order, to force the Smithsonian museum to abandon all improper ideology.
Asking Google’s search engine for the definition of improper ideology, this is what came up:

”Improper ideology refers to divisive narratives and corrosive anti-American ideology. President Trump has announced plans to remove such ideology from the Smithsonian Institution.”
Let’s just sit on this for a few minutes without letting it just slip by…

For a few decades, those who would like to direct our thinking processes, have given us words that we sometimes accept without questioning their meaning.

To begin with, what does MAGA “Make America Great Again” really mean?
What had made America great in the first place, when was that, and why would we want to go back? So far, I haven’t heard journalists ask anyone in the government or elsewhere what they are referring to when they say “great” and “again”.
Was America great when people other than those directly descended from the original pilgrims were not considered fully human (including of course the native inhabitants of the Americas)? When women were not allowed to vote, or to enter contracts without their husbands? When there was just one religion with the power to determine who was “of God” and who was “of the Devil”?
What makes any ideology improper in the eyes of a convicted felon who happens to have become President of the United States?
Would the regime candidly answer these questions if they ever were asked?
Or are these concepts merely examples of how the regime transforms the language to “manufacture consent” as Noam Chomsky said, or just to feed propaganda to those who will not question their meaning?
In order to get the population of a country to accept the reality of thought crime, the regime has to adopt a particular vocabulary and language.

For example, why is it a crime to say “Free Palestine”? Palestine is a multi-religious, multi-cultural place, and of course the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth, most famous Jewish Palestinian, and proponent of Peace and compassion for all human beings. Why would a particular ethnic group not deserve to be free, at least in a state of their own? Wouldn’t this be the best way to discourage terrorism?
The regime in the US has been imprisoning students for their opinion and improper ideology, like Rumeysa Öztürk, Khalil Mahmoud, Mohsen Mahdawi and many others currently held in a prison in Louisiana, Texas or El Salvador.
Theirs is a thought crime, based on the premise that people easily ignore the fact that Palestinians are not Hamas (many actually reject it, but the bombs don’t discriminate), and Israelis are not Netanyahu (they demonstrate against him), and neither is the nation state of Israel “the Jews”. The horrific attack of October 7th, 2023 has brought total destruction upon Gaza (which could have been easily predicted), and the indiscriminate and disproportionate endless retaliation by the Netanyahu regime has brought nothing but fear and hate against Israel, while it doesn’t seem to have done much harm to Hamas, (which is not a finite entity anyway, and it is possible that the bombing has helped with recruitment).
The real point here, is that violence, war and terrorism have never really brought, and will never bring, peace. Peace is a word that is seldom heard these days, and mixing anti-semitism with gatherings for peace in the Middle East is disingenuous at best, and at worst a move to make thought crime - i.e what should just be disagreement with the regime - great again, and help destroy higher education in the U.S.

In his prophetic novel “Nineteen Eighty Four”, George Orwell coins the term “Doublespeak” to describe what Big Brother and his government use to manipulate minds. We have seen many examples of this technique in recent times.

The official and now accepted negative connotation of “D.E.I” is basically a slightly camouflaged endorsement of racism and sexism, and an encouragement for the breakdown of modern society, disguised as protection.
DEI does not mean “preference” or “privilege”. Most Americans don’t even know what the acronym stands for: Diversity (like the people itself), Equity (everyone given the same opportunity) and Inclusion: no ostracism on account of race or sex. How can this be turned into a practice that needs to be severely punished? How can the punishment be accepted without question by private companies and the media?

The existence of a “pro life” movement (opposed to “pro choice”), which condemns women to forced birth or death due to ectopic pregnancies or sepsis inducing miscarriages, supports the death penalty and worships the military, is a dangerous contradiction. The real term should be “anti-choice”. The Christian Nationalist view of morality is in direct contradiction with the teachings of the one who gave his name to the movement, as described in the New Testament.

Also, consider all the time, money and energy spent by the regime and allied state legislatures on fighting “voter fraud”. Since voter fraud is practically non-existent and never proven. If proven in a court of law, voter fraud can get you 5 years in prison, and we haven’t seen many convictions. In reality, these efforts open the door to refusing to accept results, voter suppression through gerrymandering, caging, limiting who can vote in certain districts, and even legitimized attempts at hacking voting machines by claiming the election was rigged. Tyranny of the minority happens when every election is contested unless you win.

We can also keep an eye on the “right” and “left” appellations of the political differences in the US. The regime is very fond of demonizing the “left”. Anyone from Europe knows that there is no real “left” in the United States. What they call “left”, is the fundamental attempt at democracy described in the US founding documents.
Be careful not to use those misleading words. This is a battle between basic decency, and a steady march toward oligarchy and an Orbán/Putin style dictatorship. We are already far from just a divergence of views in economic policies. Besides, under authoritarian rule, there is not much difference between corrupt communism and corrupt capitalism.
While communism means that the government owns all means of production, one can easily defend a socialist system that has the government own or manage only “the commons”, i.e the infrastructure that everyone needs and uses, such as roads, bridges, healthcare and social security, and our firefighting and police departments, hopefully urged to serve and protect everyone, and not just the few.

Calling MAGA supporters “conservatives”, which is now accepted by the media at large, is also a contradiction. Conservatives respect established norms and their country’s Constitution. The better term should be “extremists”, or “radicals”, as in rejecting the very mechanisms they claim brought them to power. Calling them conservatives is definitely doublespeak.

A Philosophical and Spiritual choice.

So where do we go from here?
We are faced not with a political choice, but one that has to do with the future of the human race, and its presence in the Universe. This is why it is essential to question the regime’s vision, and its vocabulary.
Questioning, means examining the information we receive, comparing it with actual observable facts, discerning if propaganda actually matches reality, and being able to refuse to obey illegal edicts based on falsehoods, and a manipulated vocabulary. It is very sad to watch the Smithsonian already dismantling the museums to match requests from the regime.
If we are “woke” (yes, let’s defend the term!) and aware of what MAGA stands for, whom it punishes, and what it now dares to speak openly about and work toward - if in doubt, read Project 2025 - , we can see how the regime can benefit from bringing back thought crime: being punished not only for what you do, but merely for what you say.
One of the most dangerous examples is censoring any mention of climate change (formerly known as global warming), along with the reversal of any mitigation against using fossil fuels. This threatens not the planet (as the planet will be fine once all humans are gone) but the existence of its strange inhabitants, the human race, a large group of animals who have the gift of language and knowledge, and due to their arrogance, seem unable to maintain the ecological balance needed to preserve its own life for centuries to come.

Humans were given the gift of language. Just like AI, it can be used for evil as well as good, even though AI when queried seems to have a better sense of decency than the regime :).
Let’s be vigilant about the language we accept and use, and hopefully we will defend ourselves against willful extinction and destruction, and work to maintain our presence on this planet, in as much harmony and balance as possible. Nobody and nothing is perfect, but maybe the closest thing to perfection is the idea that through language we can defend reality and truth, and be welcome in our given home, the Earth.

In conclusion, it is time to think about the best way to defend the human race: "The moral equivalent of war" is a concept introduced by American psychologist and philosopher William James in a 1910 essay. It refers to a shared objective that can elicit the same willingness to sacrifice and disciplined ethos as military conflict, but directed toward peaceful purposes. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter also referenced this concept in a speech, emphasizing the need for unity and civic virtue. It’s time make peace and truth fashionable again.

===========================================================================

The above is just a series of ideas on how propaganda works to change or confuse minds. But there is always more information on the origins and the actors of propaganda:

George Lakoff books on framing and language…Don’t Think of an Elephant

Noam Chomsky documentaries on Manufacturing Consent and Requiem for the American Dream.

Katherine Stewart’s excellent and terrifying The Power Worshippers and Money, Lies and God. In those books, the ends will justify any means, no matter how anti Christian.

And of course, the classic “Inquiry into the nature of ideals and into the methods employed for their realization”: Ends and Means by Aldous Huxley. It is out of print, but still can be found (check Abe Books, Etsy, or EBay). Huxley’s main message here, is the exact opposite of the current trend: the means will determine the ends, and only through peaceful means can we achieve peaceful ends.

I could go on listing many great works…feel free to add them in the comments along as any other suggestion or disagreement :)

Also from me on Substack: