Divide and Conquer: Israel and the Internet War for Hearts and Minds

Things have surely gotten ugly in recent days here on ATS in regards to Israel and the Gaza Blockade and the recent tragic loss of life regarding the Blockade Controversy.

When times are relatively good here on ATS, no international crisis, no natural disaster, and or no political crisis, the membership of ATS is arguably the most intelligent and well mannered of any discussion board on the Internet.

During these times the members are thoughtful, inquisitive, sharing, even truly caring, and well mannered towards one another, often agreeing to civilly agree to disagree during the most heated of debates. Many members have a capacity and display one to probe deep, and look beyond surface issues, to theorize, discover and discuss, intricate aspects of situations with a depth and understanding that most people elsewhere don’t in this day and age.

Yet when crisis hits for the most part, that emotional hot button incident where passions start to run hot and boil, tragically a lot of that wisdom, and civility, and ability to think outside of the normal box goes right out the window.

Sides are drawn, and members entrench themselves into their positions, and far too often the posters become the topic of the debate. Personal attacks are made to make or break arguments, vile language and various forms of emotional domination used, terms of service violations become more numerous than the Moderators can even keep up with. Sometimes the Moderators themselves are drawn into the debate, and they too become the subject of personal speculation as far as politics and motivation.

It’s Not About Who is Wrong or Right, it’s Should Be About What is Wrong or Right

Far too often the debates turn into arguments, ugly ones at that, that center on who is wrong and who is right. These are take all or loose all knock down drag out fights, where more often than not, the whole argument hinges on one poster, or one side in the issue, being absolutely right about every issue, or absolutely wrong about every issue, not because of what is right or wrong, but who should determine what is right and wrong, and who therefore is right or wrong, in both perspectives and opinions and sides themselves.

This is akin to a Father knows best argument, where a party or a poster is elevated to a status where they are absolutely right, not based on their actions, or absolutely wrong not based on their actions, but simply based on who they are, or what side they are on.

It really shouldn’t be about who is wrong or right, but what is wrong or right, and let’s face it, most of us, far too many of us, employ dual standards when arriving at whom is wrong or right, or what is wrong or right.

Divide and Conquer

Many of my fellow members know that I speak a lot about divide and conquer tactics used by the powers that be, to polarize us, into bitterly opposed camps where it does become all about who is wrong and right, instead of what is wrong and right.

Once again during the best of times, when no crisis looms many members see this at play in the politics that drive the world, and the history of the world, and recognize the devastating effects of divide and conquer, yet that all too often goes out the window when that crisis of right and wrong emerges.

In politics and sociology, divide and rule (derived from Latin divide et impera) (also known as divide and conquer) is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. In reality, it often refers to a strategy where small power groups are prevented from linking up and becoming more powerful, since it is difficult to break up existing power structures.

Wikipedia

So I am asking all members of ATS to stop and reflect a moment on the principles of divide and conquer, and to put aside the notions of who is right or wrong, and what is right and wrong and ask your self one simple question.

Can you really rule out that just as the above external source describes that there is not a more powerful entity above the two polarized sides of this issue that might be driving events, by breaking us into smaller chunks that individually have less power and then using Hegelian principles to effect control of the situation as well as an outcome?

HOW DID WE BECOME SHEEPL?

The Hegelian Principle Helps Explain How the Powerful Got That Way

by Barbara L. Minton (see all articles by this author)

How did the powerful gain power over the rest of us? In a time when the power and freedom of the average American is being eroded at terrific speed, many of us wonder how this could be happening. What we may not realize it that the powerful have specific tools or principles to use to con the rest of us into surrendering our power to them. One of the most effective principles used in the last several years with great success is the Hegelian Principle.
The principle is simple, consisting of only three steps toward a preconceived goal. Once you are able to see how it works, you may want to analyze many of the events unfolding around you in terms of this principle. As the principle is often used today, it can be explained as:

Step One: Create a problem or conflict - Perceive a problem that exists and build it up out of proportion to its actual importance, or create a problem or conflict where none existed before.

Step Two: Publicize the problem and create opposition to it - Relentlessly place stories about this problem in the major media outlets. Report on it daily until it becomes a steady drumbeat and a truism for the public who then begin clamoring for a solution to this problem.

Step Three: Offer a solution - The best solutions are those that appeal to the emotions of the public and make them think something really good is being done for them, when in fact, something really bad is being done to them. This solution is one that the public never knew it needed until the conditioning of Step Two was successfully completed.

OICU2 COM

So lets look at the above a moment in step three, the best solutions are those that appeal to the emotions of the public.

Yet during the best of time ATS Members typically pride themselves on intellectual reactions and not emotional ones. They tend to apply scientific methods in discerning truths of right and wrong, based upon principles that are consistently applied based on what makes sense and doesn’t and what is wrong and right, instead of who is wrong and right simply based on who is who.

So why do we let all that go out the window every time crisis looms and rears it’s ugly head, and digress back into the polarized who is right and who is wrong camps, that most of us perceive are the main problem, when talking about the theories of crisis and control, but abandon and forget about during genuine times of crisis and attempts for control?

Why do we let circumstances of crisis, cause us to stop acting like Members of ATS, and start acting like emotionally driven and bound people who want to make determinations based on who is wrong and right, instead of what is wrong and right?

Hearts and Minds

One of the most critical parts about warfare, and war, is winning hearts and minds, which is nothing but support for notions of who is right and wrong, and not what is right or wrong.

ThThe term “hearts and minds”, which was used as a method to bring a subjugated population on side, was first used during the Malayan Emergency by the British who employed practices to keep the Malayans’ trust and reduce a tendency to side with ethnic Chinese communists. In this case, by giving medical and food aid to the Malays and indigenous tribes. [1]

The program was inspired by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. He used some version of the phrase “hearts and minds” a total of 28 times. In ten of these instances, Johnson inverted the words and used the phrase “minds and hearts.” The first time he used the phrase in his presidency was on 16 January 1964, and the last time was 19 August 1968. In his usage he addressed very different audiences, including heads of state, congressmen, and the American people. Also, Johnson referred to the “hearts and minds” of disparate groups, including the above-mentioned audiences and even humanity as a whole. His use of the phrase is most commonly taken from the speech “Remarks at a Dinner Meeting of the Texas Electric Cooperatives, Inc.” on 4 May 1965. On that evening he said, “So we must be ready to fight in Viet-Nam, but the ultimate victory will depend upon the hearts and the minds of the people who actually live out there. By helping to bring them hope and electricity you are also striking a very important blow for the cause of freedom throughout the world.”

Johnson’s use of the phrase is most likely based on a quote of John Adams, the American Revolutionary War patriot and second president of the United States, who wrote in a letter dated 13 February 1818: “The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations…. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution”.
[1]

Wikipedia

(Continued below)

If you have been on ATS a little while you know that Skeptic Overlord did a thread not to long ago about various organizations like the Jewish Defense League, American Defense League, and Southern Poverty Law Center all of whom monitor ATS and sites like ATS for political rhetoric.

We know various organizations maintain a presence on the Internet and ATS not limited to the Israeli Internet Defense Forces, Southern Poverty Law Center, Jewish Defense League, American Defense League, Cass Sunstien Obama’s Information Czar who monitors and looks to influence public perception through the Internet and likely the Canadian, Australian, U.S., British, and Israeli Governments too. There is every chance some other organizations maintain a presence, and every chance some Islamic organizations maintain a presence too.

We know that many of these groups, as well as some very politically motivated members, want to make this all about who is right and wrong and not what it is right and wrong.

We know that they want to agitate this for the purpose of winning hearts and minds to their side, to their cause, no matter how poorly or incompletely defined their cause or agenda really is in how they sell it to us.

So why are we falling for it ATS? Why are we allowing ourselves to be divided and conquered? Why are we all getting caught up in who is right and wrong, simply because they are who they are, whether it be an individual poster, government, or organization instead of what is right and wrong?

Do we really want to take sides; sides that we are driven to through emotional manipulation based on who is right and wrong, or do we want to take a stance on what is Right or Wrong.

This thread is not about what side you are currently on, or who is right and wrong.

It’s an appeal being made to stop and consider what is right and wrong, an entreaty to do a check up from the neck up, and remember your friends and fellow posters that you are civil too during the best of times on ATS, should not be those who you hinge your own notions of right and wrong, on whether you believe they are right and wrong, for all the wrong reasons, to make your own argument.

I know this is all heated, and spiraling, and a roller coaster, from one aspect to the next, as new initiatives and new responses come out daily from the different sides who want to be right and the other side wrong, as often the sole means to justify their actions.

ATS has the potential to be smarter than that, perhaps the only place on the Internet and the only people in the world to be smarter than that. Please avoid the emotional ploys and traps and arguments of who is right and wrong, and focus on what is right and wrong, in the traditional ATS style of civility and open mindedness that is aimed at denying ignorance in the best of time.

As a great person once said, the time we most need our principles is during a time of crisis.

So I ask you one and all, rather than focus on who is right and wrong, for the sake of politics or religion or nationality, or personality that you focus not on the principles each purports make them right and the other party wrong, but instead to focus on what the ATS principles are.

Sticking with those just might be the thing that saves our world and us all.

Some fellow members have chided me to consider my stature on ATS amongst many of the members and to try to use that in positive ways.

So I am, let’s keep it civil, let’s keep it honest, let’s not make it about who is right or wrong, but what is right or wrong.

Let’s display what ATS members really are about in the best of times, by behaving the same way and towards one another in some of the worst of times.

This thread is not to discuss the actual situation and it's politics.

It's about asking us all to behave like ATS Members when we do.

Thanks.



[edit on 7/6/10 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

You get a flag from me.

Your words:

"Many of my fellow members know that I speak a lot about divide and conquer tactics used by the powers that be, to polarize us, into bitterly opposed camps where it does become all about who is wrong and right, instead of what is wrong and right."

sum up everything that we should all concentrate on... The destruction of the PTB and their attempts to divide and conquer us by getting us to condemn individuals and not their acts...



[edit on 7-6-2010 by dampnickers]

reply to post by dampnickers


Thank you my friend, in my humble opinion we are being turned against one another in very troubling ways.

I have been looking at many of these threads and lament what we are being reduced too as sides are taken for emotional reason, and it becomes all about who instead of what.

I want to believe ATS is smarter than better than that.

I remain hopeful it is.

A little reminder here and there about how high the bar is set might help?

Thanks for posting.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler

It really shouldn’t be about who is wrong or right, but what is wrong or right, and let’s face it, most of us, far too many of us, employ dual standards when arriving at whom is wrong or right, or what is wrong or right.


Once again during the best of times, when no crisis looms many members see this at play in the politics that drive the world, and the history of the world, and recognize the devastating effects of divide and conquer, yet that all too often goes out the window when that crisis of right and wrong emerges.

So I am asking all members of ATS to stop and reflect a moment on the principles of divide and conquer, and to put aside the notions of who is right or wrong, and what is right and wrong and ask your self one simple question.

Many don't see it as right or wrong, unfortunately they see it as they are right.

So I ask you one and all, rather than focus on who is right and wrong, for the sake of politics or religion or nationality, or personality that you focus not on the principles each purport.

Thank you my friend for putting up this important thread and asking for our opinion from a different perspective. It isn't always easy when there are hot button issues at hand. I for one am looking forward to seeing how the wonderful members on ATS respond, we all have strong feelings are this particular subject, I have every confidence that they will step up to the plate, getting both sides of the picture in many cases let's us see what is really going on.

[edit on 7-6-2010 by Aquarius1]

reply to post by Aquarius1


Thank you for posting my friend and your always welcome and wonderful insights on these things.

Each side can certainly gain some additional perspective and knowledge from the other, if they but open up their minds, and don't focus so on who is right and wrong.

Yet I think we all need to exercise a certain portion of caution no matter what side we are on, how knowledgeable we are, or how much we are willing to learn through others, and others from the other side, that there are still bound to be important aspects hidden from us.

Not only are many things hidden for the purpose of ‘national’ security, but the very nature of the ‘international structure’ above that too, is very mysterious, as far as real details in how and who and why decisions are made that then effect us all through only partial renderings and disclosures and ones basically just meant to appeal to our emotions.

I think we can learn a lot from one another, but I don’t think we can learn everything from one another, since so much is in fact hidden from us all regardless of the side we are on.

That is why I think its better to reserve judgment on who is right and wrong, and stick with aspects of what is right and wrong.

My belief is that there is a huge potential for both sides on such contentious and far reaching and important issues to be wrong, and how could they be right, when none of us really are privy to all the facts from on high above?

Focusing on what is right and wrong then becomes much more sensible and probably helpful as opposed to who is right and wrong.

Thanks for posting my friend.

The old Us VS Them paradigm is still strong in today's society Proto..

I fear it will be so for a while. Even here where the some of the best minds in the world come together, we sometimes forget that everything is a grand game which pits us against one another to keep us distracted.

The really ironic part?

If even one major group of people, be it a political party or even a whole country, woke up and understood this process of divide and conquer, things would change over night.

There would be no stopping it.

Soon I hope.

~Keeper

Yes, you are certainly right. There are people who decided, some looong ago, who is right and who is wrong. What happens is not - or less - important. And there are preciously few really objective people even on ATS (me not included,sadly).
However to use thread about this real problem as a "soldier" in this "who is guilty" war is a little weird. Given the title and all.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


You know I totally agree with you, if we stopped taking sides in conflicts based on who is right and wrong, and made simple determinations and applied them evenly and fairly to everyone and everything of what is right and wrong, all of this would stop.

So as tragic as all this is, and frustrating and frightening at times, it all so represents a challenge which is an opportunity for the brightest and best of us, to encourage the rest of us, to stop thinking in those terms that just trap us into taking a side, a side that is always pitted against another side, where we are told we are right because we are on that side, even though what we then might do is totally wrong, by anyone's yardstick if measured in the vacuum of our actions, instead of the circular logic of our politics.

We can change this.

We really need to change this.

So we really ought to consider changing it, and like and many others say, if the minds of ATS can't rise to such a challenge and occassion then who on earth is ever going to?

Thanks for posting my friend.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


I will never forget a debate you and I once got into over the Constitution. It was a frustrating debate in that up until that point, and indeed, ever since that point, I have never read anything you have posted that I disagree with, and what was even more frustrating about that debate between us was that it was truly just the two of us quibbling over semantics really. I bring up this debate we had, because at all times during this debate neither one of us resorted to fallacy or personal attacks, and simply just stood our ground. Further, there has never been any doubt in my mind that you are a warrior poet, fighting that good fight for universal freedom, and I trust you believe the same about me.

Warrior poets are not soldiers, they are not subservient beings who obey orders without question, they are warriors and poets who only accept the mantle of warrior instead of simply just being poets, because there is a war being waged, and the battle is for our very right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. ATS is a site overflowing with warrior poets, and because of this it is a magnet for all the soldiers who willingly obey their masters and enter this site to attack and belittle what warrior poets do. Warrior poets represent the most dangerous threat to the status quo because a warrior poet follows not orders, but their heart and their rational mind. They can not be bought, they can not be dissuaded from their goals, and they can not be confused by dazzling rhetoric.

They can, however, become battle weary as all who do battle will. In this moment of exhaustion; fear, despair, and even moments of doubt in faith will enter their hearts. The rational mind does not do so well when it is deprived of the necessary rest it needs to function properly. It can sometimes seem that rest is merely a luxury for those who are not mired in the muck of battle, but rest is an imperative if one expects to conquer the demons that surround them. A warrior poet understands that slaying dragons is a part of the job description, but when surrounded by dragons, no matter how exhausted we may be, it should be evident that after resting those dragons will still be there to slay another day.

What all warrior poets should never forget is that they are warrior poets because they are poets who have chosen to fight the good fight, and at no point did they ever agree to surrender their artistic nature of creation in order to destroy. We do not battle to destroy, we battle to defend that which we created and will create. We are warriors so that we may continue to be poets. We do battle in order to return to the day we can simply just be poets. That day will come, and when it does, the song in my heart will sing the praises of my comrades and enemies alike, for in the end, we are all poets, just looking for a moment to praise the beauty that surrounds us.

the golden apples of discord
en.wikipedia.org...
S&F

Originally posted by ZeroKnowledge
Yes, you are certainly right. There are people who decided, some looong ago, who is right and who is wrong. What happens is not - or less - important. And there are preciously few really objective people even on ATS (me not included,sadly).
However to use thread about this real problem as a "soldier" in this "who is guilty" war is a little weird. Given the title and all.

It's all good my friend, and we all know Proto is just as guilty as charged as we all are for the most part on this score.

I am big enough to admit it.

Yet as always I try to get a little wiser and smarter every day, and dare to challenge myself.

I might fail, but it typically won't be for lack of trying.

I honestly see a bigger hand in all this than just the two sides, and though many don't always understand it or appreciate it, it's that bigger hand, the one that uses the divide and conquer and Hegelian principles that I am a self described soldier against.

I am not against any nation, people or religion but that rarefied group above them all that manipulates them all.

I really just want us all to be able to live securely in peace and be free to be who we really are, and to help one another in that endeavor and not harm one another in that endeavor.

Lofty standards not that easy to live up to or achieve but worth trying.

Thanks for posting.

[edit on 7/6/10 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Without wishing to be too abstract, "divide and conquer" is only effective if/when the subjects/people define themselves via their thoughts ... for if they do, being "right" legitimizes/reinforces the ego and being "wrong" is a personal affront to it.

Simply:



Without this realization, it's all just talking thoughts posting in the night.

A thought unpossessed is a thought that cannot be divided or conquered.

Amazing post

It’s Not About Who is Wrong or Right, it’s Should Be About What is Wrong or Right

The above was enough for me to admire ProtoplasmicTraveler intelligence and higher state of mind even more.

Thank you for sharing your beautiful thoughts/intelligence with us…!

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


As always my friend, extremely well said and written. I recall that encounter, and I dare say we have continued to both learn from one another from that moment forward right on up until now.

By the way I had another census worker visit today; she couldn’t stay long though, and asked if she could leave, if I wasn’t going to cooperate in filling it out. Nice woman.

She learned a few things in our brief encounter, and the truth is, we all have so much to share with one another.

Ultimately it all boils down to communication, and as you and I have discovered, even when we don’t always agree, if we can just keep that communication, civil and productive, and open minded we can learn from and through one another, and become so much better off for the effort.

That’s what ATS is really about, and when it degrades into dictating to one another, of matters regarding who is right and wrong, simply because who is who, well then we all loose, and loose something to valuable to surrender in such a uncivil and unscientific process.

As always thanks for posting my friend.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


It's one of those strange paradoxes where we blame outer forces for things that are completely in our hands.

Political Affairs

Religion

Military

All of it controlled by us, the general population, we just refuse to take responsibility for ourselves and our world.

I am as guilty as anaybody here for picking sides and dilluting my train of thought with pre programed biases and prejudices.

The only way to stop that, is as you said to educate and make people realize when the behaviour they encourage is so destructive to our society.

Glad to have met you Proto!

~Keeper

reply to post by Danbones


Thanks for providing that link Danbones.

You know we all might not have the tools to succeed easily or readily at not being emotionally manipulated into taking sides, being divided and then ultimately controlled and conquered through those divisions, but this would be a great place, and a great thread for discussing some of those tools that we can help ourselves learn to avoid these traps.

Thanks for sharing.

Pretty simple actually. Israel has had the advantage of the propaganda war until the digital age. Some cling to the propaganda of the past, with fervor I might add, without seeing what TODAY'S reality is. Those that support Israel NO MATTER WHAT are really the problem. Yes we know what Hamas does, no news there BUT Israel is given a pass EVERY TIME by some people. That's not logical at all. Until Israel is held to the same ruling stick as everyone else there will be no resolution to this problem.

THIS is what is being used to divide. We know there are those that think Israel can do no wrong. Most logical people can see differently. Feed that and we're arguing who's wrong, not WHAT'S wrong as PT stated.

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Very interesting concept schrodingers dog, and leave it to you my brilliant friend to take it one step further, into an even deeper and more total realm of understanding.

Very thought provoking video, of course the thoughts aren't mine!

Wouldn't it be something if we could realize that all thoughts are just one part of one huge collective that we all could potentially share as we do in fact all share in?

Great addition my friend, thanks.

reply to post by intrepid


Thanks for sharing that my friend, I must confess I ran across a thread this morning, where some members suggested you aren't the truly critical and objective mind that you are.

As always and much to your credit, you held your ground very politely yet firmly and logically, in response to some posts that were borderline if not genuine T & C Violations, and I thought to myself, this is really getting out of hand, when are mods are being accused of being victims of brain washing.

There are agitants out there, but I really believe the vast majority of us are smart enough to know that, and more importantly to understand why the agitants are out there, and to not fall into those traps.

I don't always agree with the Moderators here on ATS all the time, but I would never disrespect one for having a different opinion than mine, and it was very troubling to me, that you yourself encountered that kind of you are wrong, we are right mentality. Some people had already been suggesting I should post something in relation to higher self in all of this.

So I posted this thread.

Funny you should pop by!

Thanks.