Human Resources is a masterpiece that should be required viewing for anyone interested in the subject of social conditioning. The documentary is basically about how mechanistic philosophy set the stage for the acceptance of human beings as expendable resources for a hierarchical society, tracing the concept's modern day origins to the experiments of US-based social scientists on to its application in education, public relations, the media and even the coercive brainwashing experiments of the CIA.
The first half is more theoretical, although some practical examples are cited as well, and the second half largely details personal incidents of human experimentation, such as the forcible drugging of children that was done under the CIA's MK Ultra program. This is definitely the mind control movie for skeptics, as it contains interviews with academic luminaries such as Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, both brilliant scholars who nonetheless would probably want nothing to do with the outer fringes of this area of research. The second half of this movie in particular may be quite difficult to watch but doing so is valuable and necessary in order to understand the insidious framework behind much of what passes for neutral policy-making. The producers of Human Resources have generously chosen to make the entire documentary available for free on youtube so I will only post the first part here as it is worth viewing on a full screen.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
minor edit to Occult Symbolism in the Media...
Here is a minor change to the Occult Symbolism post, as the previous write-up gave a somewhat incomplete rundown of the Enuff Znuff video:
...I do hope the girl in this video wasn't exploited during the video's production although of course it's impossible to tell without first hand information. It can be challenging to discern whether or not something of this nature has occurred but ultimately it's only the business of the performer if that information isn't on display. And in many cases of occult symbolism saturated media, evidence of exploitation is minimal at best. Regardless, it's important to acknowledge that apparently MK'ed performers aren't just meat sacs devoid of artistic talent. Because dehumanization can occur in many forms, whether through managers literally pimping underage, emotionally vulnerable celebs or, on the "opposite" side of the spectrum, from critics who can only see a victim or corrupter when looking at someone whose public persona strays from impeccable moral standards. Realistically, some celebrities really are victimized, but at the same time the continuum of experience in the culture industry will vary from horrific to benign. So if some of this analysis seems a bit flippant, it's only because I relate to the position many of these stars have found themselves in and so hesitate to throw the victim word around when it may be unwarranted, because the inaccurate *mind-controlled sex slave*! label has been placed on me a couple times, much to my confusion and amusement. Assuredly, sure some will think it's horrible to laugh about these things but without a sense of humor it would be impossible to stay engaged with such disturbing subject matter. I will draw the line at making other, seemingly victimized people the target/scapegoat of those jokes.
Here is an an Ozzy Osbourne video that shows a clear example of what I would consider to be blatant exploitation, since it employs the use of a child mouthing sexually explicit lyrics in a provocative way. It's evident that this was something stage-managed by adults which seems really off to me since this girl is just too young to be making an informed decision about whether or not she wants to place herself in the spotlight. The video contains simulated drowning, portrayals of extreme grief and the suggestion of sexual trauma, which could all be way too much for a small child to absorb. There is also an eye of horus and a ballerina, the image of which is another traditional MK Ultra programming theme. So I really don't know what to make of this because, despite the image presented here, Ozzy comes off to me as somebody who is fairly toothless even though he's made some irresponsible decisions. It's a well known secret that his wife is in control of their marriage, even effectively managing the mammoth Ozzfest venture, so the apparent misogyny in the video becomes more than a little ridiculous in light of this information. It could be that industry people around him were responsible for implanting MK Ultra-related imagery and arranging the kiddie porn lite shot at the end of the song. At least that's what I hope. I also hope sobriety has helped Ozzy to make better decisions about his own children. As always, it's hard to know what is really going on but I can't see how someone who wrote the best anti-war song of all time could be a completely unethical person. War Pigs is probably my biggest weakness when it comes to Christian fire and brimstone moralizing!
...I do hope the girl in this video wasn't exploited during the video's production although of course it's impossible to tell without first hand information. It can be challenging to discern whether or not something of this nature has occurred but ultimately it's only the business of the performer if that information isn't on display. And in many cases of occult symbolism saturated media, evidence of exploitation is minimal at best. Regardless, it's important to acknowledge that apparently MK'ed performers aren't just meat sacs devoid of artistic talent. Because dehumanization can occur in many forms, whether through managers literally pimping underage, emotionally vulnerable celebs or, on the "opposite" side of the spectrum, from critics who can only see a victim or corrupter when looking at someone whose public persona strays from impeccable moral standards. Realistically, some celebrities really are victimized, but at the same time the continuum of experience in the culture industry will vary from horrific to benign. So if some of this analysis seems a bit flippant, it's only because I relate to the position many of these stars have found themselves in and so hesitate to throw the victim word around when it may be unwarranted, because the inaccurate *mind-controlled sex slave*! label has been placed on me a couple times, much to my confusion and amusement. Assuredly, sure some will think it's horrible to laugh about these things but without a sense of humor it would be impossible to stay engaged with such disturbing subject matter. I will draw the line at making other, seemingly victimized people the target/scapegoat of those jokes.
Here is an an Ozzy Osbourne video that shows a clear example of what I would consider to be blatant exploitation, since it employs the use of a child mouthing sexually explicit lyrics in a provocative way. It's evident that this was something stage-managed by adults which seems really off to me since this girl is just too young to be making an informed decision about whether or not she wants to place herself in the spotlight. The video contains simulated drowning, portrayals of extreme grief and the suggestion of sexual trauma, which could all be way too much for a small child to absorb. There is also an eye of horus and a ballerina, the image of which is another traditional MK Ultra programming theme. So I really don't know what to make of this because, despite the image presented here, Ozzy comes off to me as somebody who is fairly toothless even though he's made some irresponsible decisions. It's a well known secret that his wife is in control of their marriage, even effectively managing the mammoth Ozzfest venture, so the apparent misogyny in the video becomes more than a little ridiculous in light of this information. It could be that industry people around him were responsible for implanting MK Ultra-related imagery and arranging the kiddie porn lite shot at the end of the song. At least that's what I hope. I also hope sobriety has helped Ozzy to make better decisions about his own children. As always, it's hard to know what is really going on but I can't see how someone who wrote the best anti-war song of all time could be a completely unethical person. War Pigs is probably my biggest weakness when it comes to Christian fire and brimstone moralizing!