Reply #15: Rove is very clever

[chookie]

Given my interest in propaganda and mass persuasion, I feel that my most desired off-the-record interview would be with Mr Rove -- ideally I will have filled him with enough martinis to unleash his tongue, but not enough for him to vomit on me.

This event is a classic "Rite of Reversal" -- the one day in the year when it is okay to mock the social order and reality in general. It is especially potent, not surprisingly, in tyrannical or controversial eras of misrule. The point is -- you maintain the oppressive social order by allowing a short, intense period of venting of intense feeling, which is quickly gotten over and never considered with any seriousness, even if it gives voice to important opinion.

Rove AND Laura both seem to have read the classic text -- The Golden Bough.

Look at the points she addresses: hot button personal issues -- even character issues. Come, let us laugh, so we do no think. This is much more skillful than His Chimperial Majesty trying to get yuks by looking under tables for WMDs (last years sacred cow hot button).

There is a phrase in Chinese to describe this as well -- "slapping one's own face" -- pre-emptively, OBVIOUSLY.

For a few hours, people vent truth, and the objects of hatred acknowledge that they are hated. To keep people from doing anything about them.

With the understanding that tomorrow morning, things go back to normal oppression and silence.

(IMBEDDED NOTE: I watch CNN when I want to see what the government wants the Sheeple to consume and believe. I was shocked when the invariably goofy Miles O'Brien made a joke, calling the White House press corps "a softball team." That was good. Where did that come from?)

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