The way the Elite rule is by dominating information.This is true whether

[KlatooBNikto]

its is the Republicans or the Democrats. For example, we know that Rumsfeld and Poindexter, set up elaborate operations for what they call Total Information Dominance which involved planting stories, buying off the Press, threatening anyone who says anything negative about Bush and his administration etc. On the Democratic side, we have a two bit character from the DLC called Al From saying we should reject Michael Moore and Moveon.org as people representing the Democratic point of view. What that tells me is that Al From is afraid that we will have access to an independent viewpoint represented by Michael Moore or Moveon and not filtered by the Al Froms or the Rumsfelds. That is what they are afraid of.

[xchrom]

1. to a certain extent, what you say is true,

however in western cultures -- not just in the u.s. -- the information is becoming ''controlled'' in a way it never has before.

now that is mitigated somewhat by the internet.
but ''controlled mass media''{more pervasive than at any time in history} is playing to a frightened and backward looking{for security and comfort} population.

the masses are being practically ''brainwashed'' -- in numbers never before seen.
and because we live in a post modern cultural structure -- the masses AGREE to the brainwashing.

personally i think people are afraid because somewhere inside of themselves they know they have thrown their futures to the giant corporate machine.
and they know it's not gonna work out the way they might like.
they just don't know how to break the contract.
and if they did break it -- how much responsibility would fall on them.

[CindyDale]

5. Well, you are right. None of us want the responsibility of having to think

for ourselves. We are often willing to accept almost any leader as an alternative. Sometimes you have to take that responsibility and think for yourself, though, because the alternatives are just too dangerous.

[ladjf]

6. The science of "mind control" has reached new levels of

effectiveness and has rendered about 50% of American voters almost comatose when it comes to political thinking. They have become controlled zombies. The only thing that is powerful enough to overcome this will be the unfortunate and precipitous decline of the quality of life. But, at that point, much, of not most , of the damage will have been rendered uncorrectable.

[davekriss]

7. On "how to break it"

"personally i think people are afraid because somewhere inside of themselves they know they have thrown their futures to the giant corporate machine. and they know it's not gonna work out the way they might like. they just don't know how to break the contract.
and if they did break it -- how much responsibility would fall on them."

The answer...

"The exploitation of the poor can be extinguished not by effecting
the destruction of a few millionaires but by removing the ignorance
of the poor and teaching them to noncooperate with the exploiters."
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi, Haryan, July 28, 1940

[davekriss]

8. To the above, I add...

Activist non-cooperation means to me, in part, building an alternate cooperative economy that stands independent of the product belched outward from the corporatist behemoth and the wage-slavery it demands. Not easy to do, but insofar as we stand independent of our masters we stand free.

I think this is what Michael Albert's Parecon is about (see zmag.org for more).

[BlueEyedSon]

2. I don't think the name is TID, google turned up next to nothing

maybe you are conflating "information dominance" (lowercase) with "Total Information Awareness", a Poindexter/OIA program which is Choicepoint on steroids.

[KlatooBNikto]

3. The way they change the names of their programs, I wouldn't be

surprised if they now call it Awareness instead of dominance.

[BlueEyedSon]

4. No, TIA was a program from 3 years ago, allegedly de-funded

manipulating the media and gathering all US personal info are quite different projects.

Please link to some sources for your claim. thx.

http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/