From Humanoid Faults to Manipulated Consensus, 23
We don’t realize that those are entirely separated things from the information itself. The authority of the source is an issue, in that it may be a backdrop of sheer interwoven propaganda, whose sole value is that we believe it; the credibility of the information is an issue in that reality doesn’t give a damn about being credible because it does not have to, while it is credibility which is a point of view based on a mix of precedents and ability to observe and discern and evaluate, all of which are questionable. But nonetheless these are not the information itself.
An as gross as unsuspected example of trying to predict into the wrong crystal ball is personality cult, and sure enough this is a recurring success of manipulators. On stage, they feed us to indigestion with the silliest traits of the “personality” of the politician, until they make us oblivious of the elemental fact that anyone can only exert as much power as one’s fellows allow one to. Today’s strongman may put up a front as tough as he wishes but, lacking the support of those who control the money that controls the media, he’d be putting it up before his toilet bowl, not before a simultaneous broadcast.
This means that any given politician in office is but the expression of a power far wider than his or her own little self; this means that what we’re looking at is but a puppet put on the tip of the smallest tentacle of an octopus; this means that his or her “personality” is either immaterial or a mere act planned for us; this means that it is the octopus the politician is accountable to, certainly not us, and that once again what’s on stage is there for the sole purpose of hiding what takes place in the backstage while we enthusiastically bark up the wrong tree.
So let’s see that we’re not reasonable nor unfair: don’t let peculiar, conspicuous items or puppets overshadow the common denominator the manipulators can exploit behind our backs: since we judge book A by the cover of book B, all they have to do is pinpoint book B, take control of its cover, et voilà: les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus… for us.
