ad-free
A marketplace for speech.
82,363 Hours of Speech
help
help
515,609 Transcriptions
add title (free)
add title (free)
406 Sources
add source €0.99
add source €0.99
Search:
Newsbud
Title: The BFP Roundtable Takes on Public Apathy
Published: 2014-06-10
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqfiLaaTk-o
Title: The BFP Roundtable Takes on Public Apathy
Published: 2014-06-10
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqfiLaaTk-o
1/196
So it's just like, okay, let's just have a real talk, real talk, no censorship. Welcome to another edition of the Boiling Frogs Post Round Table. A lively, unscripted discussion, and even we don't know where it's going. I'm Peter B. Collins in San Francisco. I host the Peter B. Collins podcast at PeterBee Collins.com and the Processing Distortion podcast here at Boiling Frogs Post. Joining us from deep2/196
in the heart of Texas, Guillermo Jimenez. He is the guy who hosts the podcast called Demanufacturing Consent here at Boiling Frogs and his own home is TracesOfReality.com. Welcome Guillermo. Thanks Peter. Joining us live from Japan is James Corbett, CorbettReport.com and the host of the Eye Opener video series here at Boiling Frogs Post. James. Thanks for having me along for the ride. And our publisher and major3/196
domo, or is that domes? Sebel Edmunds joins us from Bend, Oregon, where she dislocated from the beltway a couple of years ago and is really enjoying it. She of course is the publisher of BoilingFrogsPost.com, the author of Classified Woman, and a forthcoming novel that we are all looking forward to. Sebel? Hello everyone. Now Sebel, you triggered our topic with a recent post at Boiling Frogs Post4/196
that really got my attention, which you titled the American Majority and its Deadly Chronic Disease called Apathy. When I am going to claim California as the new home of apathy in the United States, at least temporarily, we held a primary election last week and had a turnout of 29%. And 300,000 people cast a vote for a candidate for Secretary of State, which is arguably one that5/196
demands fairly high ethics. They voted for the guy who is being investigated by the FBI and who has been suspended from the State Senate for campaign finance problems as well as a scheme we're told that involved gun running from the Philippines. Yes, 300,000 Californians voted for the guy who obviously has the biggest ethics problems of any of the people on that part of the ballot. So6/196
Sebel, why don't you establish your case because you made a good case in your essay that you've seen enough investigations, you've seen enough whistleblowers and you are very directly taking a look at the American people and saying you're apathetic. We all have not only me and I believe you all agree with this. Up until a few years ago, I was out there together separately but basically7/196
voicing the same opinion as people like Dan Ellsberg and saying we need more whistleblowers, we need more reports coming out and more exposés, more leaks because we need to show the American people what is being done to them, to the rest of the world on their behalf, under their name. And so I was part of that campaign up until about 2006, 2007 and also with my8/196
own experience as well, being a whistleblower coming out in 2001, 2002 saying that well, we get these cases and we go to Congress, we get the Congress Act because if we show these leaks, if we show these documents, these evidence of wrongdoing, then we're going to get the public's outrage which is going to drive the Congressional action and the courts of course always respond to that9/196
kind of reaction from people and we're going to address some of these issues. Now you may want to call it naïve but I truly believe that and we've had whistleblowers, we had Abu Ghraib and we had the NSA disclosure in 2004, 2005, yes people is 10 years old, the story, the general story is at least 10 years old that we are being spied upon and our10/196
conversations are being monitored. You know we had all the stuff at the FBI, all these things came out and Congress had it, people had it, even the mainstream media with their blackout, they had it to a certain degree, they waited two years but the New York Times published it, yeah and a saying spying on you, all of you, period. And what happened? Really what happened? You11/196
always end up having a little bit of tough talk from the Congress, initially when the things break, they say, oh okay, let's see what people are going to do, let's talk tough and say these are outrageous, we cannot tolerate things like this. But they see that the outrage really, the initial small level of outrage dies and nothing, nothing, what happened with Abu Ghraib? What happened with12/196
all the whistleblower cases? What has happened with NSA cases? So initially as a whistleblower, as a campaigner out there going lobby in Congress, I was screaming at the media pointing my finger at them and I was doing the same with Congress protesting in front of their offices, the relevant offices, going to courts, pounding at their doors. Since 2007, 2008, I came to this realization both as13/196
an activist but also as a whistleblower as someone who has gone through the experience that the biggest culprit is not the courts, it's not the Congress, they are not the biggest. See that's the distinction I'm making here. The biggest culprit are biggest enemy as activists, as whistleblowers who have put everything in the line, you know, has been the public apathy. That has been the biggest obstacle14/196
for any real meaningful changes that we have been demanding, the irate minority, the few of us, public apathy. And even within those activist communities, people are quick to point finger at the smaller culprits and not really turn the finger at themselves, at us, public, the majority, the people and say, we are the reason. And if we don't do that, you can have more legs. In fact,15/196
they are becoming desensitized, both the public and the government. Oh yeah, let's see what's going to happen with this one. Good, because the next one is going to make less weight because people are getting used to it. And that's what I call our biggest enemy today, our biggest obstacle and that is the apathy. Now, Sabel, we are violating one of the fundamental rules of media by16/196
blaming our viewers and readers and criticizing them because, at least in the tradition in the United States, we only pander to our followers. And we are always very careful, you know, to massage their egos and to acknowledge their intelligence. And let me stipulate that we don't for a moment doubt the intelligence of anyone who is viewing this video podcast. But we have to look at the17/196
big picture that, as you point out, all of this information has been available, some of it for more than 10 years. And we've seen that while there was a shift in the White House, the protest movements actually have died down under Obama because most of them were left of center. And so we do have a situation here where the public has the information that you just18/196
alluded to and appears to have no motivation to really do anything about it. Now there are many exceptions. We all know people who care deeply, who are passionate about the issues, who want to organize and work for change. But let me pose to James and Guillermo, have we reached a point where there's a combination of brainwashing where people are led to believe that the latest celebrity19/196
diet craze or the latest kidnapped young woman is the most important thing going on, as opposed to say the fact that Obama recently completely changed the exit plan from Afghanistan. And I didn't hear any words of criticism from any quarters in this country. It's like, whatever, you know, Afghanistan, whatever. James, you want to go next? Well I'll take my first crack at it. Yes, I think20/196
that there's the danger in this type of conversation of extrapolating from our own personal experience and personal psychology and then wondering why everyone else isn't quite like that. And I think we have to approach this from a more scientific approach. And there are scientific ways to approach this question of why people basically give up. And I'd point to some research that was conducted at University of21/196
Pennsylvania, I believe, in 1967 by Martin Seligman, who did a famous set of experiments. He was in the Schenarian Behavioral Conditioning School of Thought. And so he was doing conditioning experiments with dogs, including experiments that involved giving dogs electric shocks. So experiments that probably would not be conducted any longer. But at any rate, at that time, what they did was they took three different groups of22/196
dogs. The first group were simply restrained in a harness and then let go after a period of time. The second and third groups consisted of parod-yoked pairs of dogs so that a dog in group two was attached to a dog in group three via an electronic device or what have you. So that they were not only harnessed, but they were actually delivered electric shocks. Now the23/196
dogs in group two could end the shock by pressing a lever. The dogs in group three had a lever, but the lever did nothing. It did not stop the shocks. So for the dogs in group two, the shock came and they could press the lever and end it. So there was a clear sort of connection between their action and the ending of the shock. For the24/196
dogs in group three, it seemed completely random to them whether they could stop the shock when it came, when it ended, so that it was completely out of their control. For after the experiment, they discovered that the dogs in group one and two actually recovered quite quickly from the event. But the dogs in group three showed signs of chronic depression. So what they then did was25/196
they took these three groups of dogs and they put them all equally into this fenced area with a low barrier around the floor. The floor was electrified so that they could deliver shocks through the floor. But the dogs could quite easily jump over the little barrier that they placed around it and get out of the way of the shocks. The group one and two dogs invariably26/196
would jump out of the way of the shock. The group three dogs actually sat the lie down passively and started whining, taking the shocks when they could quite easily avoid them. And that was interesting and quite a startling result because it went against sort of the tenets of scanarian behavioral cognitive models. But perhaps not that surprising for the social engineers who have known for a very27/196
long time, for example, that you can restrain a 10,000 pound adult elephant with a puny little rope, not because the elephant can't break the rope, but because they have been trained since birth with heavy chains, tying them up since the time they were very small, that they can't break free of their harness so that when they actually get big enough that they could quite easily do28/196
it, they don't even try to do it. This is again a very, very common thing among many different species and of course, humans fundamentally no different. We can be trained into what this is called learned helplessness and we can be trained into that by simply being in situations where nothing we do seems to actually affect anything. We have a lever, but it does absolutely nothing. And29/196
I think that's a perfect model for what happens in our representative democracies where basically we have the lever of the voting booth and it does absolutely nothing. You can vote for Team Bush or Team Obama and the same drone killings, the same extra unconstitutional wiretapping and all of this continues to go on and people arrive at that point of learned helplessness. Anything they do can make30/196
any difference. Now Martin Seligman actually went on to develop a theory of learned optimism. He basically split humanity into pessimists and optimists and he developed a test that you can take online to determine whether you are a fundamentally optimistic or pessimistic. He found that the pessimistic were by far the majority and people who were more likely to be prone to depression. He linked that with that31/196
cognitive model of people who basically feel that whatever happens, it's their fault and there's nothing they can do to get out of it. He proposed a model of learned optimism in which he speculated that you can actually train yourself and provided some research to back this up. You can actually train yourself to become more optimistic and thus more in control of your own actions and the32/196
effects that they cause. Basically this was an ABC model of cognitive understanding of adverse events, adversity, belief and consequence. If the example in Wikipedia, if someone cuts you off in traffic, that's the adversity. The belief is, oh, what an idiot he's so selfish. He's so rude. The consequence, you become angry and you start yelling, profanities at the other driver, which is an experience I'm sure we33/196
can all relate to me personally as well. But he proposes to add a couple of extra letters to that ABC model. The disputation where you start questioning your negative beliefs about that and what caused it and what you can do about it. Then e-energization, which means that you can actually then positively overcome that situation by basically becoming conscious of your own reactions and trying to work34/196
around them. There's debate about his own learned optimism model. I think at any rate it provides us some context to this that I think puts it in a very clear way that this is not something that's only an American phenomenon or even a human phenomenon. I think a phenomenon that transcends species and it relates not just to brainwashing. It's not just brainwashing, although of course there's35/196
the media social conditioning element to it. But I think it's a cultural milieu. It's an entire context and interlocking web of social and political institutions that make it so that it seems that nothing we do actually matters. When we are subjected to that for long enough, we basically give up and we have to relearn how to process that information and then how to basically overcome it.36/196
We can talk about how to do that, but I think that's the framework that I would put this in. All right, Guillermo, what would you like to open with? That was very interesting. Well, I should have gone first because there's really no way I can follow that, James. Thanks. Honestly, learn helplessness was actually what I was going to go with as well because when listening to37/196
Peter and Sebel open this up, I started thinking, and that's something that I, when I start tackling the issue in my own mind, I personally have to try and balance my pessimism with my realism, right? Because I don't want to project that image of that everything is hopeless. Because oftentimes if we start talking about apathy, all things are so messed up and you should care about38/196
it, you can sometimes project to your audience, the people out there listening that things are so bad that nothing can be done about it. And that's obviously a problem that that feeds into this whole apathy sort of cycle. But there's a lot to be said for that, James. I think that's a good point. I mean, there's, it takes a great deal of effort and time to39/196
be informed, to know the issues, to know where everyone stands on this, that are the other thing. And what do you get out of it? What does the average person get from putting that amount of effort into following the news and things like that? So there's a, there's a, I get it, I've mentioned this before, there's a cost-benefit analysis that any rational person might, might, might40/196
make and it might lead you to, you know, one direction rather than the other. But I would, I guess, in that, in that regard, what I would like to do and what I try to do anyway is try to appeal to people's self-interest in a way. Because ultimately, I think that that might help to, to pull them out of that apathy. Because, you know, something Sebel41/196
said earlier as we were opening this up, had me thinking which I, that I slightly disagree with, only slightly. Because I think we all generally agree that apathy is a problem. But something you said about the idea that we've had, you know, we've had enough revelations that, you know, no amount of, and no new whistleblower, no new information is going to help unless we break out42/196
of that, that apathetic shell, which I agree with at some extent. But I would say, me personally, I do want, I think we'd all agree on this. I do want more information. I do want to see more whistleblowers. I do want to see more data and more information because I personally am interested in what my government is doing in my name and what's happening. And I43/196
have a self-interest involved here. I need to know, I have my own personal need to know and need to share it. So I think if, if, if, if in some way, if someone we can tap into that and, and have people understand that, that they individually are affected by what's happening and should care for their own self-interest, I mean, I hate to put it, break it44/196
down to just that. But I think that might help, at least in some way, to bust out of that apathetic shell a little bit. Well, let me, let me add to the concepts that have been brought up here and in particular the learned helplessness, a couple of layers. One is the palpable fear that has been pumped into our culture, most notably since 9-11, but it certainly45/196
occurred before then. And just when you go to the airport, it's the theater that is there to remind you of government control, of the intrusive nature of the national security state. And I do think that it has an impact. The other is the psychic burden of perpetual war. Because I'm a fundamentally optimistic person and I wake up every morning thinking, oh yeah, I'm going to take46/196
on the day. And you know, then I do my rituals and, and read the newspapers and, and get caught up on what's happened in the preceding eight to ten hours. And realism sets in and, and with the realism comes a heavy dose of cynicism. And those emotions, those attitudes and those filters are all influenced by these additional factors, the perpetual war and the injection of a47/196
government-sponsored fear. Cebel? No, I, I, I go through that every day just like you do and one more comments on, on Yermah what you said. Absolutely. I'm like you, I need more information. I want to know. But again, what I'm seeing is that happens to be the I rate minority. That's why I keep using that. I, because it's us, with many people, you put it in48/196
front of them, I do it. I show it and I try to be very nice. No, I kind of smile and say, well, have you seen this? You know, have you, like the common core? The, I made a few copies of that and I took it to the parents of my daughter's classmates, you know, for, you know, pre-Kindergarten. And I'm like, have you seen this information?49/196
Have you looked into common core and the issues? Because now it's going to be implemented here in Oregon as well. And they, they want to avoid it. Oh, yeah, I think it's a good thing. I said, why do you say that? And they say, well, because we have really, really, really gone down and we need to get back and be competitive with the rest of the50/196
world and we're going to get tougher with our education system. I said, but have you really looked into the different research papers done that says it doesn't really do that in terms of bettering them, in terms of education. I'm really bringing them up. Uh, I, I don't know. I just don't want to look at it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to even51/196
take that CD, take 10 minutes and watch it. There is this resistance. They, they don't want to even look at it. Now if it were about some puppies somewhere, the one that I, example that I was giving you, if they would be all over it, I want to see that cute puppy. Hopefully, you will get rescued. Uh, so that's why I'm saying it's the, for us,52/196
the I rate minority, it goes to the same pool of all the knowledge information we use, we process, we are trying to figure out ways to get out of this. And then the other thing with Peter, one of the things that is amazing to me and that also goes to James, uh, you make great, uh, points there. And the difference is I'm seeing, let's say I53/196
grew up in countries like Turkey as a region in Iran and let me give an example of Turkey. Talk about fear. I mean, they have been tortured to death. Okay, a lot of activists there, people disappearing, you know, the number of reporters who are jailed. So I'm talking about overt police estate, rather than even more affected covert police safety have here. How come it doesn't affect54/196
them that way? And they have been going from one, from one crap to another crap, you know, military coup that happened and from that they had all these charlatans and they each got billions of dollars. More people disappeared yet. 10s and 20 and 30 and 40 years later, they're going out there and they are so driven, passionate and I'm not saying most of it may be55/196
not misplaced or some of them are being taken advantage of. I'm not talking about the purposes, but the fact that they haven't become desensitized and they haven't become helpless despite all the torture, despite all the ferocious acts in, you know, applied to them every day for all those years. I was talking to this one lady friend and she said during these big, gaseous protests in Tuxen56/196
and the area near there and other areas, even people who did not participate in protests. This is during the nighttime that tear gas or being, you know, dump dump people. The whole house is on all the streets like I would say 99% of the houses, they left their doors open, the apartment buildings. So when people were running from the police and everything, every door in every57/196
street would be open. They could go in there, then they're chased, closed and just take refuge there so they won't get arrested. Not one or two. So even people who didn't protest, they were joining in there, the solidarity there and saying, this is the way I'm going to help. So these poor guys, when they are running away, they can come, they can shut the door and