These people fool themselves into thinking they are 'into politics', really they only regurgitate whatever they're force fed. It's pretty ingenious. Good job, Bernays

Good job, Bernays

For anyone who doesn't know, this is a reference to Edward Bernays. Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, and he literally wrote the book on propaganda. Here's an excerpt from that book:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. [...] In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons [...] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Bernays worked with and for U.S. presidents and American corporations, with the goal of implementing his uncle's theories. If you want to know more about how incredibly influential he was, I'd suggest watching this documentary: The Century of the Self. It's 4 hours long, but it's probably the most important thing I've ever seen. At least watch the first hour if you can. It's not the typical bullshit conjecture/amateur fearmongering you'd expect; this is a BBC documentary.

A shorter more concise doc that covers the same topic is "Human Resources"

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You've come to the right place.

I eat bacon & eggs because they taste good. And I can buy them easily. Thats it, no clever advertising\psychology required. Bacon is awesome. Bacon & Eggs is more awesome. Just good old fashioned Supply & Demand.

nice try, egg council.

Delicious and nutritious, if you're a low-carber.

but what did your ancestors eat?

Skeptic here. Is there actually any proof that his methods were at all effective? Not just "herp derp, women smoke cigarettes now!", because that isn't actually scientifically proven evidence. Were there any studies done using his particular methods?

i have to find the post but somebody in /r/conspiracy called this long ago. i know reddit makes fun of those 49,978 readers including myself who read lots here but i feel like we and they tend to have a really interesting view on things.

indeed, but to be honest the hate doesn't really bother me at all...

Just look at the comments in some of the popular subreddits. Thoughtless noise for the most part, it is rare that you actually find something worth reading. Yet they feel superior when someone mentions r/conspiracy. Just ignore them ;)

Reddit makes fun of /conspiracy? News to me. Most of /politics posts things I've seen a week or more earlier here, and I frequent both reddits.

In terms of news and politics, /r/conspiracy is sort of the the hipster of reddit. I mean that in the best way possible.

50,041 now. 63 more in 10 hours. I'll contribute that to skepticism about stop konys intentions.

I'm watching my FB feed this morning and all my clueless, apolitical friends are eating this movement up with a spoon. So remarkable how quickly people can become feverant over an issue. Mission accomplished. Get the bombers ready.

Drones based in Ethiopia are standing by.

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Bingo.

Educate them. They need to know that there is another side to the video.

I posted this on a group my city formed in response to Kony 2012.

Just so you can get a clear message of the solution your supporting: You want to send our military to Africa to aid the Ugandan military in stopping Kony. A military I might add that has been itself accused of many atrocities such as looting, rape, and also recruiting child soldiers. (source: http://opiniojuris.org/2008/10/07/could-the-us-prosecute-ugandan-military-officials-for-using-child-soldiers/ )

Now what is it that a military knows how to do well? Kill the enemy. The enemy is Kony, SURROUNDED by brainwashed children. IC says they don't want to kill him but bring him to justice but the only way a military is going to be able to capture this man is through force in which there will most definitely be casualties being the children. MILITARY INTERVENTION IS NOT THE ANSWER and supporting a corrupt military is definitely not going to help either.

IC is not clear AT ALL on how they intend to capture this man. Ugandan military has NO jurisdiction in any other part of Africa other than Uganda so how could our military intervention be of any use in capturing Kony when the Ugandan Military can't go after him?

I hate to be the one to go into conspiracy's but this one reeks of it. Uganda has recently been home to the discovery of oil on its land. Enough oil to generate $2 billion dollars a year. THIS is a very logical reason to why our military wants to get involved in Uganda, they just needed public support and through the propaganda fed to you by this video, they now have it. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/world/africa/uganda-welcomes-oil-but-fears-graft-it-attracts.html

Don't let your emotions take over your logical reasoning. This war on Kony is on it's last leg as he has been banished to the jungle. He is no where near as big of a threat as this video exclaims him to be. Our current support under this solution will do NOTHING to help capture Kony.

I'm glad to see people uniting under a great cause but there are motives behind this organization that they are not telling us. I am urging you to listen to reason and stop support for this cause. If you TRULY want to make a difference then warn and educate people of what they are really buying into! IC has no credible sources of anyone outside of themselves supporting their movement.

Don't be afraid of changing your stance on this matter just because you began supporting this and feel the need to follow through. Here are many other organizations for people to support if they truly want to make a difference in Africa but just as this one, please research what exactly you are supporting. http://www.africaguide.com/charity.html

Here are a few other good sources of information regarding this issue. http://ilto.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/the-visible-problem-with-invisible-children/ http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/post/18890947431/we-got-trouble http://ericswanderings.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/invisible-children-and-joseph-kony/ http://innovateafrica.tumblr.com/ http://www.how-matters.org/2012/03/06/good-guys-bad-guys/

TL;DR The solution that IC is promoting is very flawed. They want to militarize Uganda. Uganda recently discovered shit tons of oil on their land. Possible reason to want public support for their operations.

Edit 1: Formatting

cannot up vote this enough.

I think what we are viewing is the propaganda of the new age. Make people feel that they are part of something bigger and that they are working for the greater good, while in reality they are being pawns pushing the NWO agenda.

That's not new propaganda--that's how every world power in history has gotten their subjects to go along with armed intervention. It's very old propaganda packaged within a new medium that modern people use.

So you're both okay with someone who is accused over a period of 3 decades abducted children, killed & mutilated thousands, etc etc etc and do nothing, just let him roam free? We should just just let the international community ignore that? As long as your okay though hey.

Am I okay with it? No, he's a psychopath. Were you okay with the countless other murderous African dictators over the past 3 decades who did the same things with zero fucks given from NATO or other international bodies? Probably not, but are you willing to pick up an M4, a tent and some MREs and go off on an African adventure with some of your bros to kill Kony? Would you stick an M4 in your son's hand to send him to fight and potentially die for these Africans? That's the action that would need to happen to remove a man like Kony from power, and I will not support spending American blood and treasure to kill some African gang leader. I wish the African people would organize on their own and take their continent back from murderous thugs. I wish that for all peoples.

I agree, No, I'm not prepared to do any of that. What I do want is for the people that can influence change, to do just that. To do that they need to have the remit, and if a campaign of awareness helps, I can only see that as a good thing and it should be encouraged.

Your wording is definitely better than mine, kudos.

ah fuck off with the NWO shit you fucking psychopath

I don't even know if this is the right place to post this, but this video was the slickest thing I've ever seen for a "movement" bit. Slicker than "Yes We Can" by a long mile. Here are just a few reasons.

• It would appear as though our narrator/hero has been followed by a camera crew for most of his adult life. Some of the shots are the kinds you'd expect to see - he and his friends speaking in lecture halls, etc. Some are borderline - he and his friends walking through the airport, shot from the back, etc. Some are definitely not - for some reason he and his wife allowed a camera person into the delivery room while she was getting a c-section.

• The post work is stellar. And very, very expensive. This is a bit confusing, as sometimes we're supposed to be watching fly on the wall style, and sometimes they've blown out the work to include sets, effects, animation, etc. Even the close-ups of social media sites were expensive to do. You can't point a camera at a computer. All of that clicking and typing on screen and cursor movement needs to be animated. Again, expensive.

• But mainly, every single second of this video was brilliantly scripted. Every movement, every nuance, everything. From his kid blowing up the grocery store clerk's butt with the iPhone app to the hopeful young people looking up at camera (which would have necessitated a crane shot). This was unbelievably well thought through.

This is, in short, the absolute best advertisement I have ever seen in my life.

Now it might be a brilliant ad for a brilliant reason, but with a charity that's on record as having spent just 32% of what it raked in on directly helping people in Uganda, I gotta wonder what their total take has been to date.

Again, this is incredibly expensive, incredibly well written and in my mind, just incredibly weird.

And I had a young woman LITERALLY WALK UP TO ME IN A STORE this afternoon and ask me if I'd seen the video and if I'd like a poster.

So it's working. And I'm kinda freaked out about the whole thing.

JUST yesterday, the Kony 2012 "Kit" was $25.00.

After the video went viral, the price went up to $30.00.

Very skeptical. I'm out.

Sickening. Wonder where the money will end up.

According to Invisible Children's financials (PDF), only 32% of their income went to "direct services" while the rest went to salaries, travel expenses, and production costs for their videos.

I hear the directors/ owners make about 90 grand a year, so probably there. And of course around 10-30% will go to african children.

And for the small price of $225 you can have 4 shirts, a bunch of bracelets, and some other random shit.

i feel as if its something for the youth to do and think about instead of the occupy wall street or whatever is going on in their country. forget about protesting for a little bit, get them involved in something that will make the world a little better, usa gets a base in africa, youth feel they did something right and the world is a better place

Yeah, lets not try to make the world a better place. Screw Um.

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Yeah, what was up with the Gaddafi listing? I was thoroughly confused.

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Yeah that definitely caught my eye too. This Kony 2012 thing is definitely a good experiment in social media mobilization. I am impressed at how detailed and well done the video is. I'm also depressed at how effective it is on my generation.

yes and perhaps its to distract from the TPTB's extermination of Andrew Breitbart last week.

Every person i asked about Kony this morning knew who he was. Goddamn facebook.

The internet's population has become as mutable and gullible as the television watching population.

HAS become? You speak as if this a new phenomenon.

so was sopa.

What's that then?

has become

lol

Shouldn't you back up your statement with some evidence? Who is controlling me exactly? Are they controlling me highlighting an issue that the so called mainline press completely failed to highlight?? And if so how?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

I've been off and on r/conspiracy lately. Can someone give me the background on r/conspiracy's discussions. Is it a propaganda film for the wrong reasons?

tl;dr: Massive oil reserves were discovered in Uganda. This video very conveniently pops up out of nowhere to call for American military intervention in Uganda.

Is there a source for the oil reserves? I have a whole lot of friends who are buying into this.

I just read an earlier r/conspiracy post on part of the background.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/uganda-oil-find-stirs-hope-and-conflict/

nm, I found this article

US military/oil/money business as usual then...happens a lot since 2001. I may as well go back to bed, I feel I know the story already.

If you read my post that I have above, just look for EasilyAmusedEE, I have done quite a bit of research on the subject and wrote a lot about my opinions on the entire matter.

This kony Internet meme sums it up

http://memegenerator.net/confused-kony

Reddit makes fun of /conspiracy? News to me. Most of /politics posts things I've seen a week or more earlier here, and I frequent both reddits.

That's not new propaganda--that's how every world power in history has gotten their subjects to go along with armed intervention. It's very old propaganda packaged within a new medium that modern people use.

A shorter more concise doc that covers the same topic is "Human Resources"

ah fuck off with the NWO shit you fucking psychopath