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Quote from : Wikipedia : Mission Creep
Mission creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes.
The term often implies a certain disapproval of newly adopted goals by the user of the term.
Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs.
The term was originally applied exclusively to military operations, but has recently been applied to many different fields.
Quote from : Wikipedia : Chinese Whispers
In the game variously known as Chinese whispers, Telephone, Grapevine, Broken Telephone, Whisper Down the Lane, Gossip, Le téléphone arabe (French for "Arab Phone"),[citation needed] Stille Post (German for "Silent Post"), Gioco del Telefono (Italian for "Telephone Game"), Telefone sem fio (Portuguese for "Cordless Phone") and Pass the Message, the first player whispers a phrase or sentence to the next player.
Each player successively whispers what that player believes he or she heard to the next.
The last player announces the statement to the entire group.
Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly, and often amusingly, from the one uttered by the first.
The game is often played by children as a party game or in the playground.
It is often invoked as a metaphor for cumulative error, especially the inaccuracies as rumours or gossip spread, or, more generally, for the unreliability of human recollection.
In the United States, "Telephone" is the most common name for the game.
The name "Chinese whispers" reflects the former stereotype in Europe of the Chinese language as being incomprehensible.
It is little-used in the United States and may be considered offensive.
However, it remains the common British English name for the game.
Quote from : Wikipedia : Propaganda : Types :
White, Black and Grey Propaganda
Propaganda can be classified according to the source and nature of the message.
White propaganda generally comes from an openly identified source, and is characterized by gentler methods of persuasion, such as standard public relations techniques and one-sided presentation of an argument.
Black propaganda is identified as being from one source, but is in fact from another.
This is most commonly to disguise the true origins of the propaganda, be it from an enemy country or from an organization with a negative public image.
Grey propaganda is propaganda without any identifiable source or author.
A major application of grey propaganda is making enemies believe falsehoods using straw arguments: As phase one, to make someone believe "A", one releases as grey propaganda "B", the opposite of "A".
In phase two, "B" is discredited using some strawman.
The enemy will then assume "A" to be true.
In scale, these different types of propaganda can also be defined by the potential of true and correct information to compete with the propaganda.
For example, opposition to white propaganda is often readily found and may slightly discredit the propaganda source.
Opposition to grey propaganda, when revealed (often by an inside source), may create some level of public outcry.
Opposition to black propaganda is often unavailable and may be dangerous to reveal, because public cognizance of black propaganda tactics and sources would undermine or backfire the very campaign the black propagandist supported.
Bolded by SKL
Quote from : Wikipedia : Overton Window
The Overton window, in political theory, describes a "window" in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on a particular issue.
It is named after its originator, Joseph P. Overton, former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Quote from : Wikipedia : Dialectic : Hegelian Dialectic
Hegelian dialectic, usually presented in a three-fold manner, was stated by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus as comprising three dialectical stages of development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis.
Although this model is often named after Hegel, he himself never used that specific formulation.
Hegel ascribed that terminology to Kant.
Carrying on Kant's work, Fichte greatly elaborated on the synthesis model, and popularized it.
On the other hand, Hegel did use a three-valued logical model that is very similar to the antithesis model, but Hegel's most usual terms were: Abstract-Negative-Concrete.
Sometimes Hegel would use the terms, Immediate-Mediated-Concrete.
Hegel used these terms hundreds of times throughout his works.
The formula, Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis, does not explain why the Thesis requires an Antithesis.
However, the formula, Abstract-Negative-Concrete, suggests a flaw in any initial thesis—it is too abstract and lacks the negative of trial, error and experience.
The same applies to the formula, Immediate-Mediated-Concrete.
For Hegel, the Concrete, the Synthesis, the Absolute, must always pass through the phase of the Negative, that is, Mediation.
This is the actual essence of what is popularly called Hegelian Dialectics.
Quote from : Wikipedia : Security Theater
Security theater is a term that describes security countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually improve security.
The term was coined by computer security specialist and writer Bruce Schneier for his book Beyond Fear, but has gained currency in security circles, particularly for describing airport security measures.
It is also used by some experts such as Edward Felten to describe the airport security repercussions due to the September 11 attacks.
Security theater gains importance both by satisfying and exploiting the gap between perceived risk and actual risk.
Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
That my fine feathered friends, is what amps me up, that people do not see this illusion as easily as I. And I now Government is nothing but a functionary unit designed to perform. It is who is sitting in the seats of power who are either benevolent or corrupt. Not the entire system, because the system was created to be used, it is who uses it and abuses it. Those are the people who we must watch for and watch for how they act.
Originally posted by LadySkadi
That is a great way to look at it and puts the onus on us, individual and as a group, to manage our lives in the way we want and to manage those who manage for us, in the way that we intended. There can be no blame-shifting or victim-itis if we understood that we willingly give up our power (in most cases) to those who are meant to govern as we choose. Interesting dilemma.
It would seem to me that one of the favorite tactics in getting people to accept less than ideal things is the promise of worse things to come.
Quote from : Masonic Dictionary
The origin is unknown, but it may be early Scotch.
It was used of a man who practiced Masonry, usually of the roughest character as in the building of walls, who had not been regularly trained and initiated, corresponding in some sense to "scab" as used by labor unions.
If a man has learned the work by some illegal method he is a cowan.
An "eavesdropper" is one who spies on a Lodge, and may be such without having learned anything about it before.
A "clandestine" is one who has gone through initiation ceremonies but not in a regular Lodge.
Originally posted by timewalker
Congratulations on your win.
I got an honorable mention, I would like to thank you for that. I honed my skills while working with you on many topics.
Hail Sparta!
Sooner than later.
TW
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
Greetings SpartanKing. It looks like you're been around ATS for a while, but since I haven't, forgive any incorrect assumptions I might make as I comment, perhaps inadvertently.
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
You shared some personal info in your OP that certainly helps explain where you're coming from, and I commend you for sharing as you did (nicely written BTW) but I tend to go with timewalker's sentiment regarding what ends up looking like a shift in semantics.
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
Of course the NWO has become quite the boogeyman today, but the mere suggestion that such a thing occurred somehow by intention, begs the question of exactly "who's" intention we're talking about here. Which goes right back to timewalker's observation that it would be perhaps just as creepy.
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
If I'm understanding you right, you have emerged from a former obsession with this mythical NWO, one that grew out of your childhood experiences, and today you believe that you see it for what it is, a thing that was designed to spawn "conspiracy theorists", who chase their tails, with the more dangerous among them finally being identified by the "Government", while incidentally making themselves look foolish along the way. I hope that isn't an unfair characterization, but that's sort of the impression I was left with (again, not knowing you).
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
And yet, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to focus a bit on the more or less obvious contextual contradiction involved in the denial of one conspiracy, only to assert a perhaps more sinister one in the process. To suggest something as broad as an "Agenda" that seeks to subvert our free will, and our human "spirit", could rank right up there with something like the more traditional NWO, except now with what appears to be a "spiritual" twist.
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
In other words, you seem to almost be entering the realms of the religious and/or spiritual. I'm probably not quite getting it, but may I ask who you think "these bastards" are? The terms you're using, the select capitalizations, etc., to me they betray a continuing conspiratorial paradigm running in the background, that is decidedly shifting from the materialistic and relatively mundane, to a "bigger picture" that goes beyond the material, into the spiritual.
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
What is the motive "these bastards" (who are also seemingly "parasites") have for wanting to subvert our free will?
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
Believe me, I mean no disrespect with these questions, and I consider myself a conspiratoligist as a matter of fact, so I certainly do not use the term as a derisive label of any kind. But I ask because I wonder what the point is, and where the "improvement" (dare I say) lies, with positing an "Agenda", of diabolical proportions, while dismissing the former NWO paradigm as a trick to keep us busy while that proverbial Man Behind the Curtain continues along. Continues "doing", what exactly?
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
By the way, I also see value in your tactical analysis, bringing in the context of warfare, utilizing the concept of propaganda, in several shades. But rather than us continue to spread more accumulated Chinese Whispers, shouldn't we try and go beyond vague notions that are just as intangible as NWO, or the ever anonymous "PTB", or "the Masons", etc.?
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
I'm sure there is much more to your present evolved philosophy concerning these matters, but again, since I don't know you, there's more questions, than answers. Perhaps I'm not the only one wondering. And if the answer is that you now see "spiritual warfare" as the bigger picture, then that's fine, it would just be nice to say exactly that, and get it out in the open.
Good luck on your contest. I'll give you my S & F.
JR