Just Thinking

I just happened to accidentally see a little of a TV Documentary How Art Made the World. The part that I saw was investigating some findings regarding Aztec ideas about death and went like this ...

In the US some researchers were testing the effects of exposure to certain things on how people treated others who were similar or different to them. The subjects were either Democrats or Republicans and they had to dish up a helping of some very hot (and I gather unpleasant) spicy stuff for another person to eat.

In the initial test, the people were told who had to eat it and whether they were of the same or different political persuasion. This had no effect on the helping served, people treatd their opponents the same as their comrades.

However in the second test people were first put through a procedure that asked them about what happened to people at death. After that, people then served up twice as much nasty hot sauce to their political opponents. This apparently confirmed some Aztec ideas (I missed the earlier part).

The conclusion is that exposure to images or thoughts of death and their own mortality makes people much more likely to go along with seeing others as targets for unpleasantness.

It seems to me (and others have observed this also) that the news these days is filled with US propaganda on death and destruction and that 911 is kept alive as a reminder of death and mortality so that the US Government can continue a campaign of hatred and attack on other countries. It seems that they know about this or similar research and are practicing a campaign of hatemongering.

The manipulation of people's minds in this way should be deplored by all. Unfortunately the large majority are manipulated without any realisation of what is going on.

In the last couple of weeks I have been subject to "Idiotic and Annoying Spammers" on both my blogs. In the last 3 hours, 26 messages advertising illegal drug supplies and the like have been posted to my blog. They do not appear because I have to say "yes" or "no" to each messages to prevent spam. This has been going on for several weeks and I have succeeding in getting one web page account closed but not yet got the spammer kicked off his ISP. It is wasting many hours of my time and the idiots are getting no benefit.

If you have sent a message to my blogs in the last couple of weeks then it is not likely to be seen by me. I will post an unpate when this is all over and I can read my comments again without having to wade through hundreds of spam for each real comment.

....

This is now solved I hope. Advice to anyone that has b2evolution is to make sure that trackback is turned off on all blogs. It is a great big hole for people to send spam to your blog. One good thing though - the spam helped lift my blog up the google ratings :-)

From Amnesty International's "freedom letter":

"An International Arms Trade Treaty is closer to becoming a reality thanks to a historic vote in the UN General Assembly on 6 December 2006.

An overwhelming 153 governments supported a resolution proposing a treaty to prevent international arms transfers that fuel conflict, poverty and serious human rights violations. Only the USA voted against the proposal, and 24 governments abstained."

It is clear that the USA wants global conflict because those in control there are profiting from it. They are the world's largest supplier of weapons and do not want to lose that business. The world must find a way to control America if there is to be any reduction in global unrest. The UN, with its veto rights, is not capable of solving the problem, and too many nations are terrified to even speak about this because of US reprisals. Remember Nazi Germany and how people wished they had spoken and acted sooner.