This just came from my best friend. His mother is organizing this, and I encourage all Dallas Area kossacks to attend.
The Open Door Project is a method by which
participants guide others to freedom of thought.
Within this method, all ideas that lead to
philosophical dialogue include understanding and
appreciation of others' ideas. We make intelligent
decisions based on that knowledge.
The office of citizens for equality has offered their
meeting room for us on February 6, 2006 at 7:30 p.m.
The location is:
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4301 Bryan St
Dallas, TX 75204-6751 (Links to Google Maps)
I will provide a phone number for the location if you email me at greg DOT morgan -AT- gmail DOT com
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Meeting Info on the Flipside!
This came from my best friends mother, seems like she has gotten something pretty cool together. Her name is Pat Cole, and she kicks ass.
I will do a diary up on Pat Cole in the next week or so that explains why she has played such an important role in my life. In short, she is an amazing person and all Dallas Area Kossacks would greatly benefit from meeting her and becoming engaged with this discussion.
AGENDA:
1. DISCUSS THE POSSIBILITY OF RENTING A PERMANENT
MEETING PLACE/ART GALLERY AND WHY WE SHOULD COMBINE
THE TWO...AND A COFFEE HOUSE AS WELL?
2. ARGUE THE FOLLOWING: "That's Logic" PRO OR CON:
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"If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it
would be;
but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."--Lewis
Carroll
THE FOLLOWING IS SOMETHING TO PONDER BEFORE THAT FIRST
MEETING
Language is three things: what we hear, what we see
and what we read. More and more, language is two
things. Fewer of us read in order to expand our
knowledge now than in the past. Due to television.
So, those two things are, more and more:
What we hear
What we see
The two things; what we hear and what we see, become
ultimately not just
What we believe but
What and who we are.
Therefore, the study of language is central to the
study of human nature and, because visual media
affects what we believe and therefore how we live
(what and who we are) it is vital to the study of the
direction of today's world.
Successful politicians today are well aware of this
and utilize, much more than many people believe, the
power of language not to write an eloquent speech,
convince us how we should vote and what they will do
as our elected officials; but how we should feel, what
we should think if we are to be "good Americans".
And it works! We are the victims of propaganda
because we are told, not what is real and true and how
they can best serve us, their constituents, but what
will make us feel guilty if we don't believe the right
way--the way they want us to believe.
"The point of public relations slogans like "Support
our troops" is that they don't mean anything... That's
the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create
a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and
everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it
means, because it doesn't mean anything. Its crucial
value is that it diverts your attention from a
question that does mean something: Do you support our
policy? That's the one you're not allowed to talk
about."
Noam Chomsky
Edward Bernayse, known as the father of public
relations and coincidentally the nephew of Sigmund
Freud, served on the U. S. Committee on Public
Information, the propaganda machine mobilized during
WWI. Goebbels, the head of the Nazis' propaganda
department, read Bernayse' book on propaganda and was
so taken with it, used the model during WWII against
the Jews. Bernayse was a Jew, incidentally, which
demonstrates just how nefarious the use of language
became during WW II. (Bernayse also coined the phrase
"Make the World Safe for Democracy".)
Bernayse also pioneered the public relations
industry's use of psychology to sell products. He was
responsible in the 20's for the program that
encouraged women to smoke when he worked for American
Tobacco Company. (Lucky Strikes cigarettes were handed
to women's rights marchers; they were encouraged to
hold them up for the photographers and call them
"torches of freedom").
Bernayse said and is quoted in The Dumbing Down of
America:
A highly educated class of opinion-molding tacticians
is continuously at work, analyzing the social terrain
and adjusting the mental scenery from which the public
mind, with its limited intellect, derives its
opinions.
He also said that, in a democratic republic, the
public are not participants, they are observers.
"The media serve the interests of state and corporate
power, which are closely interlinked, framing their
reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of
established privilege and limiting debate and
discussion accordingly."
Noam Chomsky
It is through the media that the public is told what
to believe once the barometer of public opinion is
read. It is through the media that propaganda is
spread. How?
The public believes it. The public would rather
believe propaganda than to discuss and to think about
how overt some of the propaganda.
I sincerely hope some people from the Dallas Area are able to make it to this meeting.
Thanks for reading.