Glossary

This is my alternative dictionary with definitions of expressions and references I have come across or used on the air that are not (yet!) in common usage. For additional color on the expression, click on the term itself and you will be directed to my reference for the term or to another outside source (unless I made it up myself!)

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

A

Agent Provocateur
An agent provocateur (French for “inciting agent”) is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act. An agent provocateur may be acting out of their own sense of duty or may be employed by the police or other entity to discredit or harm another group (e.g. a peaceful protest or demonstration) by provoking them to commit a crime – thus, undermining the protest or demonstration as a whole.

Agitprop
Agitprop is a portmanteau derived from the words agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message. The term originated in the Russian Department for Agitation and Propaganda. Propaganda could mean dissemination of any kind of beneficial knowledge, while agitation meant urging people to do what Soviet leaders expected them to do. In other words, propaganda was supposed to act on the mind, while agitation acted on emotions, although both usually went together, thus giving rise to the cliché “propaganda and agitation”.

The Alice Walker Paradox
Alice Walker is a black woman author and activist, widely beloved and respected for her life and her work–until she praised David Icke, that is.

Anti-globalism
Anti-globalists are critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism. They oppose large, multi-national corporations having unregulated political power, exercised through trade agreements and deregulated financial markets. I agree with the anti-globalist objection to corporations influencing governments for their own benefit. As an anarcho-capitalist, I believe the modern state’s primary occupation is granting privileges to cronies at the expense of the rights of individuals, and I object to the whole system because of this. My objection to anti-globalism, however, is that this movement tends to be Marxist in flavor, prescribing redistribution of wealth as the antidote to cronyism, while I believe that simply enhances the power of the governments that have already proven corruptible. Because we have legitimized their power to violate property and other rights, governments are the only entities that get away with prolonged, systematic use of force and fraud to direct power and profit: declaw governments and crony capitalism starves.

The Art of Ambiguity
I recently coined the phrase “the Art of Ambiguity” to describe everything from Obama’s nebulous “Hope & Change” slogan to Trump’s “and some, I assume, are good people.” In the former case, no information is given, so you can project what you want. In the latter case, all options are thrown out there so you can pick and choose what you want to hear. Either way, some people will read it one way, and others another, and then the games begin.

The Art of Ambiguity is also being employed in the Black v Blue psyop…When a white cop shoots a black guy you can be sure either the black guy may or may not have been doing something very wrong or the video will be cut off, blurred, far away, interfered with or out of context. Clear cut videos or wrongful deaths don’t get much airtime. (Don’t believe it? Check out this officer shooting Andrew Thomas who just had an accident, or this story about David Powell killed by a wrong-address 9-1-1 response. These are the cases that would unite us against police overreach or wrongful action yet they don’t get the time of day.)
If there’s no ambiguity, the issue can’t be read two ways and there won’t be any conflict. No conflict, no crisis. No crisis, no way to move the ball forward on the agenda. The Art of Ambiguity keeps a good crisis from going to waste!

AstraZeneca Effect
The AstraZeneca Effect describes the impact of the AstraZeneca CoViD Vaccine trials. The earliest “variants of concern” occurred in and only in the places where AstraZeneca did their trials. AstraZeneca did their initial trials in the UK, Brazil, South Africa & India. The World Health Organization’s initial variants of concern, alpha, beta, gamma & delta were first detected in the UK, Brazil, South Africa & India. Just in case the articles linked above disappear, here are the full texts.

Austrian Economics
Emphasizes the spontaneous organizing power of the price mechanism and holds that the complexity of subjective human choices makes mathematical modeling of the evolving market practically impossible. Its proponents tend to advocate the strong protection of private property rights and the strict enforcement of voluntary contractual agreements between economic agents, but otherwise advocate a laissez-faire approach to the economy.

B

Barry Goldwater Conservative
A traditional American conservative in the model of Senator Barry Goldwater, “Mr. Conservative,” who led the conservative movement in his 1964 Republican Presidential Campaign against incumbent Lyndon Johnson. A traditional conservative believes in fiscal conservatism, personal liberty, respect for the Constitution, strong defense and non-interventionism. This differs strongly from a neo-conservative, defined below.

Basket of Irrationals
“Basket of Deplorables.” It’s a pretty jejune insult yet it entered the lexicon as a mantra on both left and right–the left as the insult it was meant to be, and the right as a rallying cry (which it was also likely meant to be.) Although I’m not a MAGA gal nor a Republican nor a neo-con nor even a trad-con, I’m a deplorable. Why? Because the basket of deplorables is big and diverse. Plenty of room in the basket for anyone who does not follow the script on the left. Pick and choose–are you double-boosted or do you eschew prophylactic gene therapy? Do you believe in God? Aliens? Both? No matter. All individuals are welcome. On the other side, however, is a body of notions that come as a piece and, living in LA, I’m pretty familiar with the program: “I’m a communist!” “Hands off my body!” “Go vegan!” “Save the planet!” “Vax! or kill grandma!” “Ban guns!” Problem is, guilt and judgmentalism, vax pressure and unrestricted abortion, communism and pharma-fascism, are not positions that form a cohesive body of values based on a particular view of human nature or a functional society that could arise therefrom. It appears to me that this shopping list of views-that-must-be-held are handed down from on high & need to be checked and double-checked lest you find yourself on the wrong side of an issue without realizing it. As for me and many in the basket of deplorables, I have a worldview–one that becomes more refined and, I hope, more accurate as my experiences grow–but it’s a worldview that I base on certain principles: man has free will, reason, and the ability to discern right from wrong; man has rights that arise from these capacities; one man is not permitted to impose his will on others unless violating someone else’s rights; our nation was founded on these principles; etc. I can usually arrive at an assessment of an issue by consulting these principles with my faculty of reason…Abortion-on-demand, communism & big-pharma/govt “vaccine” programs living in one basket? That body of beliefs has to be handed down and accepted without scrutiny–sans reason–as far as I can tell. To be in that basket, rationality does not apply.

*My sincere apologies to anyone of principle who feels I am labeling the Basket of Irrationals unjustly–but please enunciate for me the underlying principles that give rise to this system.

Black Propaganda
Black propaganda is false information and material that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side. It is typically used to vilify, embarrass or misrepresent the enemy. Black propaganda contrasts with grey propaganda, the source of which is not identified, and white propaganda, in which the real source is declared and usually more accurate information is given, albeit slanted, distorted and omissive. Black propaganda is covert in nature in that its aims, identity, significance, and sources are hidden. (From wikipedia.) Black propaganda can also be used to misrepresent an alternative narrative. From McClaughry, black propaganda “mixes a preponderance of facts with a careful seasoning of disinformation that will portray the enemy in a negative light.”

Black Psy-ops
The activity engaged in appears to emanate from a source (government, party, group, organization, person) usually hostile in nature. The interest of the U.S. Government is concealed and the U.S. Government would deny responsibility. It is best used in support of strategic plans. (from wikipedia)

The Blue Pill
From the movie The Matrix, the blue pill allows you to “believe what you want to believe,” while the red pill opens your mind to reality.

Boiling Frogs
The idea that if you put a frog in unheated water and heat it VERY slowly, it will boil to death before it has the sense to jump out. In the political context, it refers to the genius of incrementalism, whereby policies that could not otherwise be adopted wholesale are adopted little by little until the original goal is accomplished.

Borked
Becoming the unfortunate target of an unfair, relentless, organized character assassination a la Judge Bork in his Supreme Court nomination hearings.

C

Captive Institutions
My response to calling cronyistic fascism “capitalism.” Killing and stealing without consequence is strictly the prerogative of institutions that enjoy legitimacy in the eyes of the public. The evils of so-called “financial capitalism” could not exist without captive institutions.

Chekhov’s Gun
Chekhov’s gun is a dramatic principle that every memorable element in a fictional story must be necessary and irreplaceable, and any that are not should be removed.

Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.— Anton Chekhov

Chilling Effect
See “panopticon” below.

Classical Liberalism
Classical Liberals are closer to Libertarians than they are to Liberal Democrats. Even today, in Europe, I have heard libertarians referred to as liberals. For more, click here.

Coercive Engineered Migration
A term coined by Professor Kelly Greenhill in her book Weapons of Mass Migration, in which she describes the method by which governments manipulate societies by displacing people in one culture and driving them into another culture thereby degrading the health and cohesiveness of both societies.

Cognitive Dissonance
In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time; performs an action that is contradictory to his beliefs, ideas, or values; or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas or values. Leon Festinger‘s theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. An individual who experiences inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable, and is motivated to try to reduce this dissonance, as well as actively avoid situations and information likely to increase it.

Cognitive Infiltration
In formulating a strategy for the government to combat “conspiracy theories,” Cass Sunstein proposed, among other things, that government agents inject discrediting memes into conspiracy theories, engage in counterspeech or otherwise try to infiltrate and undermine “truth” movements. I refer to this strategy in my brief introduction to the intriguing series The New Pearl Harbor.

Condition White
UNAWARE AND UNPREPARED. This is a condition you should try to avoid, as it means you will probably lose a fight. The only time that you’re in condition white is when you’re asleep. And even then, you wouldn’t consider yourself unprepared; you’re just unaware. If attacked in Condition White, the only thing that may save you is the inadequacy or ineptitude of your attacker. When confronted by something nasty, your reaction will probably be “Oh my God! This can’t be happening to me.” (For more on this subject see Cooper’s Color Code Definition.)

Consentism
A term coined by Atlanta libertarian Rich Clarke that he proposes replace the terms anarcho-capitalism and voluntarism. Clarke’s argument is that anarcho-capitalism makes people think of chaos and voluntarism sounds like everyone lives on a commune, while consentism need not mean any more than it implies: you must get a person’s consent if you wish to interact with him. I like it! For more on my view, click here, for more on Clarke’s fun-to-read argument, click here.

Conspiranoid
Seeming paranoid because you believe in a conspiracy theory.

Conspiranoid Mind-Vitamin
A small idea, or seed for your brain, that sounds like a conspiracy theory, but may be true and in any case will get you thinking about something from a different angle.

Contrary Law of Democracy
I have noticed that if the powers that be want to perpetuate an unpopular war, they put a Democrat in to silence the anti-war left. If they want more spending and debt, they put a Republican in to silence the fiscally conservative right. This practice is called giving left-cover or right-cover respectively, but I have begun to notice that it’s the rule not the exception. It will take a Republican to increase infrastructure spending and debt while Democrats will make a comeback to oversee the next leg of the endless war. In short, you are likely to get the opposite of what you were voting for in a democracy that ultimately thrives on silencing constituents not representing them.

Controlled Crisis
I was inspired to coin this term when Binkley discovered that the Atlanta I85 bridge collapse in 2016 was likely a disaster-readiness drill! Seems that the government actors who planned this felt justified in doing so as part of their jobs to be ready for any eventuality.

Controlled Opposition
From Lenin‘s alleged statement that “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” The idea is that people like Alex Jones and Ron Paul who warn us of the power elite and lead movements of dissent are doing so at the behest of the very power elite they denounce. According to this theory, establishment operatives lead protest movements in order to direct the actions of those who would change the system, either by keeping them in line or by breaking them up into factions in order to neutralize them.

Corpo-Governmental Continuum
I have always found that President Eisenhower’s expression “military-industrial complex,” which he coined in his farewell address (originally drafted as the military-industrial-congressional complex, but changed so as not to freak people out too much), seemed to over-emphasize the military aspect and under-emphasize the industrial aspect, which has morphed into a broader corporate aspect in any case. Therefore, I have coined what I consider to be a more comprehensive term that captures the original meaning of the military-industrial-congressional complex and its expansion, “the corpo-governmental continuum.” I hope you like it

Crapitalism
Crony capitalism.

Crisis Initiation
See Rahm Emanuel 3.0 below.

Crony Capitalism
A system in which the dominant force is the mutual relationship between the state and politically well-connected businesses in a mixed economy. As social power is increasingly replaced by state power, collusion between the political class and well-connected business leaders occurs with greater frequency and to a much higher degree.

Cut-out
In espionage parlance, a cut-out is a mutually trusted intermediary, method or channel of communication that facilitates the exchange of information between agents. Cutouts usually know only the source and destination of the information to be transmitted, not the identities of any other persons involved in the espionage process (need to know basis). Thus, a captured cutout cannot be used to identify members of an espionage cell.

D

Deep History
A phrase I coined to refer to historical writings or viewpoints that do not conform with the whitewashed versions often found in textbooks and popular works of pot-boiler history. Deep history can include what is called revisionist history, but I mean the term to connote specifically a historical explanation that aims to get to the truth of the matter when the official narrative has been intentionally constructed to shape the public’s view for the benefit of the establishment. For example, the book, The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin, is a deep history of the Federal Reserve as compared to the narrative that the Fed was created for economic stability. Another example of deep history is Back Door to War, by Charles Tansill, which offers copious evidence that FDR intentionally provoked the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Deep of Center
I was trying to describe my show today and said, “You know how some people are left of center and some people are right of center? Well, I’m deep of center.” I think it’s a keeper!

Deep State
A deep state, or a state-within-a-state, is a political situation in a country when an internal organ, generally from the armed forces, intelligence agencies, or police, does not respond to the civilian leadership. The NSA scandal hints at the existence of a deep state.

Deep Web (or Deep Webs)
Another phrase I coined to refer to the alternative media, or as I call the really alternative stuff, “alternative alternative media.” That’s where you get Deep History, conspiracy theories, secrets of the Deep State, etc. [Update: I totally thought I coined this – and maybe I did out of ignorance of the real term – but the Deep Web is where regular search engines dare not go – I still haven’t figured out how to get to this Deep Web – the other one, though, I’m all over, for what it’s worth now that “fake news” has been co-opted by the political class and “Deep State” has come to mean Obama’s secret army of bureaucrats!)

Democide
Democide is a term revived and redefined by the political scientist R. J. Rummel as “the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder.” In the 20th century, according to Rummel, democide passed war as the leading cause of non-natural death. In my opinion, this is why gun control advocates are dead wrong when they argue we would be safer without guns or that citizens should only have light weapons. The danger we must defend against is primarily the state and to effectively defend against this danger we need to be well armed.

Denier
Anyone who opposes an official or approved opinion. (h/t JohnJ)

Digitization of the Self
Just as the Industrial Revolution moved man away from the soil, so the Technological Revolution moves man away from physical reality. With prom pictures more important than prom dates, kids seeing the world through the lenses of their phones rather than the lenses of their eyes and with virtual reality addiction right around the corner, “meat space” will be a relic of a primitive time.

Dissipant
The dissipant is a person who allows his wealth (not only material but educational, cultural, familial), as well as his time, youth and opportunity, to dissipate rather than harnessing them and capitalizing on them in keeping with the historic tour de force of American drive. Characteristics of the dissipant include narcissism, sloth, resentment of responsibility or consequences, a sense of entitlement, inability to appreciate genuine achievement, etc. For a full explanation of the origin of the term, see The Rise of the Dissipant.

Dog-whistling
Also known as dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The phrase is often used as a pejorative because of the inherently deceptive nature of the practice and because the dog-whistle messages are frequently distasteful to the general populace. The analogy is to a dog whistle, whose high-frequency whistle is heard by dogs but inaudible to humans. Binkley and I discuss dog-whistling in the context of some of Trump’s mixed messages in Episode 28 of the Propaganda Report (http://thepropreport.com/podcasts/).

Dolores Loop
When your life is the same thing over and over again. (Click here for more.)

Drinking the Fluoride
A popular conspiracy theory holds that fluoride in the water alters people’s brains and increases their docility and susceptibility to control. I use the expression “drinking the fluoride” when I’m trying to explain why someone might accept what is a clearly false or irrational explanation for a political event or position.

E

Ethical Glass Ceiling
A term my sister coined to mean the point at which an actor (as in, a person taking action) stops asking the question “Is this an okay thing to do?” because he has arrived at a plausible answer that justifies taking the action that most benefits him or his organization. It doesn’t rise to the level of rationalization, but it’s why economic actors don’t agonize over ethical fine points.

Emotionally-Correct
Especially referring to products–storylines that make you feel good about what you’re doing, from spending money to exercising “tolerance.”

Emotional Property
Just as intellectual property is not real property (Stefan Kinsella convinced me), emotions are not unassailable. The right to free speech is now being balanced against the right not to be offended – not kidding!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=iEJ1QHu-KEQ
Similarly, the right to data that you generated in concert with a service provider you voluntarily associate with will generate regulations that will keep any free speech friendly competitors from rearing their ugly heads–regulatory barriers to entry strike again!

F

False Flag
In modern usage, a government operation that is made to look like it is done by an outside party in order to justify otherwise unpopular government action. For example, “9/11 Truthers” think the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were a false flag operation conducted by the United States government to justify a more intrusive federal government. There is some evidence that the “Underwear Bomber” incident was a false flag operation.

Fear Spectrum
From fear of fiscal insecurity to fear of physical insecurity, I coined the term Fear Spectrum to describe the continuum of fear that gives the state its power. The rank and file on the left is marked by those who are dominated by fiscal fear–the fear of being unable to support oneself at some point–and those on the right are marked by physical fear–the fear of being unable to defend oneself, one’s family or one’s property from attack.

Financial Fascism/Financialism
Don’t call it financial capitalism, call it what it is: financial fascism, where private entities exploit government power to create inflation, foster debt and collect interest on money that never existed.

Freedom Carcass
Once Obamacare is “Repealed & Replaced” – i.e. once the GOP ensures that we have socialized medicine against our will, the last hope, the Freedom Caucus and all that that implies (the Tea Party, the Liberty Movement, etc.) will die…that will be the Freedom Carcass.

Frontier Parenting
It is truly a new frontier, from glow kids to the surveillance state, how do we parent for an unknown future–an unknown present?

The Full Rothbard
Many Libertarians are minarchists, which are akin to Classical Liberals, meaning they believe government should be limited to courts, police and national defense. Murray Rothbard claims that this can never happen because government, which is a monopoly, will never in practice limit itself, therefore government itself needs to be a function of competing institutions. Rothbard’s political philosophy is called anarcho-capitalism and arguments based on this theory go The Full Rothbard.

Fusion Center
State, local and regional institutions originally created to improve the sharing of anti-terrorism intelligence among different state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. Their mission has quickly expanded – with the support and encouragement of the federal government – to cover “all crimes and all hazards.” The types of information they seek for analysis has also broadened over time to include not just criminal intelligence, but public and private sector data, and participation in these centers has grown to include not just law enforcement, but other government entities, the military and even select members of the private sector.

G

Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the target and delegitimize the target’s belief. This term came up recently in a Zerohedge article: The Gaslighting of the American Public Continues (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-17/gaslighting-american-public-continues).

Going Galt
Referring to the main character, John Galt, in Ayn Rand‘s novel Atlas Shrugged, “going Galt” refers to the phenomenon whereby the smartest, most productive people get fed up with the injustice and corruption of the existing system and refuse further to contribute to it.

Generation Snowflake
See Snowflake Generation

Greasetrap
Classically speaking, a scapegoat is an animal upon which all the sins of the community have been deposited and then it is ritually killed. That term seems to have morphed into an innocent person taking the blame for the sins of others. I coined “greasetrap” to mean the classic sense of scapegoat–a vessel into which sins are poured then emptied and the larger body cleansed. An example of this is to call the deep state “Obama Holdovers”–as if once that crowd is cleaned out there will be no more deep state. Ha ha ha.

The Great Suppression or the Parkland Purge
After Nicolas Cruz allegedly shot up a high school in Parkland Florida, facebook and google among others cracked down on any news or news source not of the mainstream variety and parroting the official narrative. Regardless of evidence or journalistic merit, these government proxies effectively declared “truth is dead” on Valentine’s Day 2018.

Green-Go Apartheid
Just read that Israel has Green Passes to prove that you are vaccinated so you can have access to normal society. Reminds me of when I was in South America and a fair-haired Argentine called “Gringo” told me the term came from the fact that border-crossers with a green card got a “go.” The guard would say, “Green? Go.” and the non-English speakers rejected would only hear the guard say to someone “Gringo” and the gringo would go north. Who knows about that, but looks pretty certain that in Israel–for starters–“Green Go” is a reality in what has become “permission living” on steroids.

H

Haystacking
I just heard Jay Dyer & Tim Kelly on Our Interesting Times discuss the term “haystacking,” a phenomenon I’d been aware of but didn’t know had a name. It means to kill a bunch of people so it doesn’t look like one of them was targeted & thus throws off the investigation–making it like finding a needle in a haystack–as opposed to a single murder which might point to the culprit.

Hanlon’s Razor
From Wikipedia: “Hanlon’s razor is an aphorism expressed in various ways including “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” or “Don’t assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding.” It recommends a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for a phenomenon (a philosophical razor).” To me, Hanlon’s razor is a deliberate misdirection. I call it the incompetence canard.

Heirloom Wisdom
An expression I coined to describe the knowledge and skills that are inherited not only by individuals and families but by entire cultures that once lost are hard to regain, and even if they are, it will not be the same–something will inevitably be lost. This creates a problem for us when we lose freedoms even if we regain them. Examples include guns and gun safety, food production, healthy habits and home remedies, general education, and even our understanding of rights themselves such as the way Ron Paul tapped into our Heirloom Wisdom of the American Experiment & our Classical Liberal tradition. This wisdom is an essential part of our culture, our competence and our confidence. Once they are lost they may only be inadequately regained through reading and trial by error. This problem is manifesting itself now more than ever as so many of us want to recapture our American legacy of autonomy including growing and preserving food. Thank God for Lanni of www.greenerpostures.com but still, what has the world come to when the granddaughter of Pennsylvania Dutch farmers needs to take a workshop on how to make SAUERKRAUT!!

Hippies of the Right
The pejorative expression used by Ayn Rand to describe libertarians, the political philosophy of whom she disapproved.
Hologram Government
I’m watching this concept evolve, but for now let’s say it is government that is unreal, for show, hollow, empty, manipulated and manipulative.

Honey Pot
An intelligence term for a person used to attract targets and extract information. Often used about a woman who seduces a man and pumps him for info, but also used to describe a trap for whistleblowers to give their secrets to an insider. Conveniently, the Wikileaks story has been linked with both meanings of the word: the rape allegations against Julian Assange were allegedly made by women with CIA links, and on the other hand, Assange himself is alleged to work with the CIA to trap whistleblowers and sanitize their leaks. (Is the proof in the pudding about Wikileaks? What outcomes against Western interests have occurred as a result of Wikileaks? I’m not saying there haven’t been revelations against interests, but what actual outcomes? Wikileaks didn’t take Petraeus out or any other member of the international power elite to my knowledge.)

I

Identity Privilege
The goal and sometime reality where having a particular identity (ostensibly one that has suffered discrimination in the past) is the basis for getting preference, priority or privilege, presumably as restitution for past wrongs against members of the group. This is a fundamentally collectivist mentality I reject (justice should be meted out for and against individuals not interchangeably among members of a group), but I also reject the problem of ignoring basic principles of equality–this allows the pendulum to swing from oppression-privilege to privilege-oppression rather than to true justice for all time.

The Incompetence Canard
A phrase I coined to explain the false notion that the reason the government does things that serve the opposite of its stated purpose is incompetence. For example, the US government spent months going on years as well as hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars allegedly fighting ISIS only to see it grow. At the same time, the DIA wrote a report saying a “Salafist Principality” or an Islamic State on the border of Syria and Iraq is “exactly what [we] want” to justify taking action to unseat Syrian President Assad. The official explanation for the waste of money and manpower in an ineffectual effort to fight ISIS is that the government is incompetent, but I think they were never fighting ISIS, rather they were using those resources to attack Assad. This is an example of the “incompetence canard.” (Two other canards: coincidence and crazy, i.e., when someone’s actions are explained away by labeling him crazy or a “lone nut.” cf Hanlon’s Razor)

Internet Reformation
The phenomenon by which the Internet allows users to develop ideas that home in on the true structure of power within society similar to the manner in which the Gutenberg press, by allowing a new and powerful form of communication among the masses, spurred the Reformation.

Iron Law of Oligarchy
A political theory, first developed by the German sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties. It claims that rule by an elite, or oligarchy, is inevitable as an “iron law” within any democratic organization as part of the “tactical and technical necessities” of organization.

According to Michels all organizations eventually come to be run by a “leadership class,” who often function as paid administrators, executives, spokespersons, political strategists, organizers, etc. for the organization. Far from being “servants of the masses,” Michels argues this “leadership class” will inevitably grow to dominate the organization’s power structures rather than its membership. Michels argues that democratic attempts to hold leadership positions accountable are prone to fail, since with power comes the ability to reward loyalty, the ability to control information about the organization, and the ability to control what procedures the organization follows when making decisions. All of these mechanisms can be used to strongly influence the outcome of any decisions made ‘democratically’ by members.

Michels stated that the official goal of representative democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that representative democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, which he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable.

J

K

Kakistocracy
Government under the control of a nation’s worst or least-qualified citizens.

Keynesian Economics
The economic theory established by John Maynard Keynes in his magnum opus The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. This theory is the foundation of current government-run economic policy and in my view serves to justify central economic intervention by using specious arguments. In the Twentieth Century, this theory won out over The Austrian School of Economics much to the detriment of our economic stability.

L

Legend or Legacy
A spy’s claimed background or biography, usually supported by documents and memorized details. I came upon this expression when a listener suggested that Ibragim Todashev was jumped in the parking lot shortly before his murder to create a “legacy” of violence.

Liberal Fascist Center
When I lived in California in the early 1990s, I noticed that the liberal politicians were all for the Welfare State as all modern liberals are, but that they had abandoned social liberalism as evidenced by one-time Mayor of San Francisco Dianne Feinstein’s war on the Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre. Now of course the left has even abandoned it’s anti-war stance as evidenced by Obama’s unilateral decision to bomb Libya and his desperation to bomb Syria. Similarly, the right abandoned its principled opposition to the Welfare State and also abandoned Constitutionally-defined liberty. The parties had become essentially the same, both incorporating the worst of each side (welfare and warfare) and abandoning the best (peace and liberty). I dubbed this compromise position the liberal-fascist center. Later a book came out called Liberal Fascism that focused only on the left, but I believe it is the position of the entire Republocrat Oligarchy (see below).

Libertarian Dissonance
As a hardcore anarchocapitalist, I have always disagreed with Thomas Jefferson and felt that rights are indeed alienable if you so choose to alienate them–freedom rules! But there are some cases where the State exploits the bargain we supposedly struck in the Constitution and does an end-run around a fundamental right. In both of my examples, this right is trial by jury–arguably the most important right a citizen can have. In one case, plea bargains are used to get INNOCENT people to agree to go to jail (ht Angela McArdle on that insight), but threatening exorbitant penalties for a series of charges that derive from a single alleged act. In another example emerges from a recent Supreme Court case: can form-contracts compel employees to use arbitration? In my experience, entire industries are bound by arbitration requirements–as in, if you don’t sign one, you don’t work in that industry. Furthermore, the arbitration companies are often captive, ruling with egregious bias in favor of the corporations who contract with them. My libertarian side says, they are private companies, they can do what they want. My pragmatic side says, the government protects many if not all of these industries from the competition which would drive that practice out of the market place, so courts should not deny a plaintiff the right to sue if they signed away their rights in an industry so locked up. Another old expression of mine comes to mind: Libertarians die by the sword, but they don’t live by it.

Lifetime Actors
People whose entire lives are just one big act.

LIHOP, or Let It Happen On Purpose
See Rahm Emanuel 2.0 below.

Limited Hangout
A limited hangout, or partial hangout, is a public relations or propaganda technique that involves the release of previously hidden information in order to prevent a greater exposure of more important details. It is possible that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was actually part of a limited hangout.

Long Range Penetration Strain
From Dr. John Coleman’s The Story of the Committee of 300: America today can be compared [to] a soldier who falls asleep in the thick of battle. We Americans have fallen asleep, given way to apathy caused by being confronted with a multiplicity of choices which has confused us. These are the changes that alter our environment, breakdown our resistance to change, so that we become dazed, apathetic and eventually fall asleep in the thick of battle. There is a technical term for this condition. It is called “long range penetration strain.”

Lovejoy’s Law
When all other policy arguments fail, resort to “It’s for the children!” or “What about the children?!” Reminds me of when someone is losing an interventionist foreign policy argument and resorts to “But Nazis!” or “Because Hitler!”

M

Manufacturing Advocacy
A phrase I coined as a variation on the theme of manufacturing consent. Manufacturing advocacy is the phenomenon whereby the mainstream media so convinces the people of the lie that they defend it even against their own interests.

Manufacturing Consent
The practice of controlling or manipulating the norms, values etc., held by an audience by controlling what they are exposed to in the media. This could be done by a government or other institution in authority. See also, “propaganda model.”

Maskirovka, or Military Deception
Military deception refers to attempts to mislead enemy forces during warfare. This is usually achieved by creating or amplifying an artificial fog of war via psychological operations, information warfare, visual deception and other methods. As a form of strategic use of information (disinformation), it overlaps with psychological warfare. To the degree that any enemy that falls for the deception will lose confidence when it is revealed, he may hesitate when confronted with the truth.

Memory Hole
From George Orwell’s 1984, the memory hole was a system of pipes, similar to pneumatice tubes, which were used to destroy documents. A document stuffed in the memory hole would be conveniently whisked away to the furnaces below – quickly & easily wiped from history.

Military-Industrial Complex
The network of individuals and institutions involved in the production of weapons and military technologies. The military-industrial complex in a country typically attempts to marshal political support for continued or increased military spending by the national government. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of this in his farewell address. See also, corpo-governmental continuumcorpo-governmental continuum.

Mind Vitamin
A small, discrete, original thought that is meant to really get your mind working. (I originally heard it on The Ticket when I lived in Dallas. I believe Stars announcer Daryl “Razor” Reaugh coined it.)

Ministry of Facts (or The New Ministry of Truth)
As part of their War on Truth, facebook and youtube both happened to decide to flag sources they consider to be likely to corrupt the youth or whatever their measure is, slander them and link highly biased Wikipedia entries to their posts so readers can get their minds right with “the facts.”

MK Apartheid
One of our favorite patrons pointed out that in the Elizabeth Holmes trial, both sides agreed to only use jurors who are “fully vaccinated” against CoViD-19. One point among several to make here is that there is definitely a different cast of mind between the vaccinated and those who have not chosen to get vaccinated at this point. Could the apartheid that’s descending have the impact of segregating society based on a person’s response to social pressure or propaganda? And remember, with “ism” it doesn’t even matter the intent so much as the impact.

Moral Hazard
Originally, the risk that the presence of a contract will affect on the behavior of one or more parties. The classic example is in the insurance industry, where coverage against a loss might increase the risk-taking behavior of the insured. I use it more broadly to include possibilities such as having welfare removes natural barriers to drug addiction (ie, the need to earn money for drugs puts limits on drug addiction).

N

Native Advertising

ht Sir Tim of the Tunnels….

According to outbrain.com,

Seems to me, however, that native advertising goes way beyond this, especially when it comes to Big Pharma. It’s been suggested that Big Pharma buys the bulk of mainstream TV’s commercial space not to sell their products directly to consumers (consumers couldn’t get them directly if they wanted to – customers are selected and directed by their physicians), but to dictate what does and does not get aired in the programming of the station, primarily the news broadcasts. Censoring negative news about drugs is just the first step. Now we seem to see the news broadcast itself being a nonstop ad for–of course you know what I’m about to write–vaccines.

As I have long said, the content is the commercial. This is now more obvious than ever.

Neo-Con or Neo-Conservative
The traditional conservative movement was largely displaced by the self-named Neo-Conservative Movement in the 1980s. Unlike traditional conservatives, neo-conservatives do not eschew the welfare state but wish to make it more efficient; advocate legislating social issues; and wish to actively influence other countries using both economic and military means.

Neo-McCarthyism
Censorship in pursuit of the official agenda.

Newsom Effect
Sometimes I vote. I struggle with the moral quandary of effectively validating a corrupt system, but I also wish to register my protest to the liberal-fascist center, and I think locally sometimes it can matter. I usually vote libertarian & occasionally I vote against someone I have a real problem with for a particular reason. For example, I was horrified at the unjustified low-press killing of Anthony McClain by a Pasadena police officer. I say unjustified because it was never justified to me. I’d call it murder if it had gone to trial, but it didn’t and it won’t. So naturally, I was dead set to vote against the DA, Jackie Lacey, who made the call not to prosecute the officer, until….Gavin Newsom endorsed her opponent, George Gascón. No devil you know could ever be as bad as a devil endorsed by Gavin Newsom! Of course, an endorsement is supposed to do a guy some good, but in this case, I knew what I had to do–I cast my vote for Jackie Lacey whom I had known did something truly terrible in the actual office she was running for, based on the firm conviction that any friend of Newsom’s was an enemy of mine. As it turns out, I don’t think there has ever been a DA considered to be worse than George Gascón. My vote for Lacey proves the Newsom Effect.

New World Order or NWO
Widely considered a conspiracy theory, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian one-world government through which the power elite aims to rule the world. Many politicians have referred to the New World Order over the past 40 years and have also used the word “Globalism” to indicate the same. Radio host Alex Jones is probably the most outspoken opponent of the New World Order.

Noble Lie
In politics, a noble lie is a myth or untruth, often, but not invariably, of a religious nature, knowingly told by an elite to maintain social harmony or to advance an agenda. The noble lie is a concept originated by Plato as described in the Republic. Also the title of a documentary about the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Non-Aggression Principle
The non-aggression principle (also called the non-aggression axiom, or the anti-coercion or zero aggression principle or non-initiation of force) is an ethical stance which asserts that “aggression” is inherently illegitimate. “Aggression” is defined as the “initiation” of physical force against persons or property, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property. In contrast to pacifism, the non-aggression principle does not preclude violent self-defense. The principle is a deontological (or rule-based) ethical stance.

Normalcy Bias
The phenomenon by which most people will accept an explanation that seems normal over one that seems extraordinary despite where the evidence may point.

O

Open-Source Intel
I have read that 80% of US government intelligence is “open-source,” which means it’s public information we all have access to, not intel gathered through espionage or high level covert ops or informants or any other secret source. What the intelligence apparatus does with open-source information like its secret information is evaluate two things: credibility of the source and plausibility of the information. I posit that the public can use the same methods on the same materials and get way closer to the truth than just accepting the packages the mainstream media delivers.

Open-Source Journalism
A term I first heard used by James Corbett of The Corbett Report to describe himself and his work. In contrast to investigative journalism, in which reporters travel around, interview people, etc., open-source journalism is closer to the bulk of what intelligence services do (see open-source intel above): use information that is already out there and assess the plausibility of that information and the credibility of the source to accept or reject the claims made, and through that process, piece together the real story.

Open Your Mind
From the movie Total Recall, a mutant named Kuato allows the main character Quade, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, to understand the underlying reality of his world.

Outside the Cage
A term I coined as a play on “outside the box.” Thinking “outside the cage” means to allow yourself to consider alternative explanations for events or to question the true structure of society and its hierarchy without limiting your thinking to stay within the parameters drawn by the establishment and the mainstream media. (If you’re into the Greek thing, you might prefer “outside the cave.” Do you know what the prisoners did to anyone who tried to take them out of the cave? They killed him. Was this a reference to Socrates? A prediction of Jesus?)

Overton Window
Also called the Overton Window of Political Possibilities, this is a political theory that describes as a narrow “window” the range of ideas the public will accept. On this theory, an idea’s political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within that window rather than on politicians’ individual preferences. It is named for its originator, Joseph P. Overton, a libertarian and former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. At any given moment, the “window” includes a range of policies considered politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too extreme to gain or keep public office. Overton suggested this was why it was essential to put ideas before action.

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Panopticon
The concept of the panopticon originated in the 18^th century by the English philosopher and social theorist, Jeremy Bentham. The panopticon is a prison or asylum where every cell, every inmate, can be watched by a central watchman, but the inmates can’t tell when the watchman is watching him or if he is watching someone else. In this way, each inmate behaves himself all the time for fear that at any given moment the watchman will be watching him. Bentham described the panopticon as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.” My thought was that Edward Snowden isn’t what he appears to be, but rather could be (among other things) a tool for implementing a virtual panopticon. Perhaps the greatest impact of Snowden’s “revelations” will be that we are more cautious about communicating any thoughts that might be considered subversive by the government. This is the “chilling effect” journalists complained about when it was discovered that the Department of Justice was secretly collecting AP and Fox emails.

Parallel Construction
Parallel construction is a law enforcement process of building a parallel—or separate—evidentiary basis for a criminal investigation in order to conceal how the investigation actually began. In August 2013, a report by Reuters revealed that the Special Operations Division (SOD) of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration advises DEA agents to practice parallel construction when creating criminal cases against Americans that are actually based on NSA warrantless surveillance. The use of illegally obtained evidence is generally inadmissible under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine and negates the concept of probable cause and the protections expressly guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment. (Could this be another example? http://www.indianapolismonthly.com/news-opinion/explosive-charges-the-donald-sachtleben-case/)
Parkland Purge
See The Great Suppression above.

Party Ethic
I’m not at liberty to recount this story in its entirety, but I felt the phrase belonged in our lexicon so here’s what I got. Someone I know and love tends to burn the candle at both ends. He is great at his job, but is also tons of fun – a bit too much fun sometimes! Nevertheless, I was complimenting him on his strong work ethic, and he responded, “I don’t know about that, but I certainly have a strong party ethic.” And so a new glossary entry was born!

Pathocracy
A form of government of interest to ponerologists is one they have called pathocracy, in which individuals with personality disorders (especially psychopathy) occupy positions of power and influence. The result is a totalitarian system characterized by a government turned against its own people. A pathocracy may emerge when a society is insufficiently guarded against the typical and inevitable minority of such abnormal pathology, which Andrzej Łobaczewski asserts is caused by biology or genetics. He argues that in such cases these individuals infiltrate an institution or state, prevailing moral values are perverted into their opposite, and a coded language like Orwell’s doublethink circulates into the mainstream, using paralogic and paramoralism in place of genuine logic and morality.

There are various identifiable stages of pathocracy described by Łobaczewski. Ultimately, each pathocracy is foredoomed because the root of healthy social morality, according to Łobaczewski, is contained in the congenital instinctive infrastructure in the vast majority of the population. While some in the normal population are more susceptible to pathocratic influence, and become its lackeys, the majority instinctively resist.

Paulbot
An often pejorative expression used to describe a follower of Ron Paul.

Paulbot Next Door
A segment on The Monica Perez Show in which we play a voicemail from a normal person who likes Ron Paul to dispel the myth that only fringe people can be libertarians.

Pecuniary Philosophy
The idea that everything is about money, materialism, consumption, and that this philosophy has been the underlying value system for the United States if not the Western World for a century or more, and furthermore, it was knowingly imposed upon western culture by the moneyed class.

Permission Living
An expression I coined to describe the phenomenon by which the government conditions you to ask them permission to do things you have every right to do: May I drive a car? May I get on this plane? May I take this job? May I buy a gun? Permits, licensing, registries, universal IDs, security check-points, e-verify are all ways in which the government has us ask permission to do basic things in our everyday lives. For now the government does not usually withhold permission unreasonably, but if they wish to they will have the apparatus and social conditioning in place to control the basic moves of law-abiding citizens.

Perverse Law of Democracy
See Contrary Law of Democracy

Planting an Ob
“Ob” stands for obligation, so “to plant an ob on someone” would be to create an obligation. It can also be used to say, “I don’t want to plant an ob on you,” for example, “I don’t want to plant an ob on you, but if you want to come to our house for Thanksgiving, our door will be open.”

Political Ponerology
An interdisciplinary study of social issues primarily associated with Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Łobaczewski. As a discipline it makes use of data from psychology, sociology, philosophy, and history to account for such phenomena as aggressive war, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and despotism. According to Łobaczewski, all societies vacillate between “happy times” and “unhappy times.” During happy times, societies enjoy prosperity and suppress advanced psychological knowledge of psychopathological influence in the corridors of power. Though happy, these times are not necessarily morally advanced as the society’s prosperity or happiness may be premised on the oppression of a target group. During unhappy times, the intelligentsia and society at large can recover this specialized knowledge to resolve the social order along mentally healthier lines.

Political Shooter
I can’t take credit for coining this one and I must admit, though I saw the PsyOp brewing for over a year, I didn’t see it ending in real violence–and that is only beginning, I suspect. In today’s Journal, Daniel Henninger coins a couple of phrases, Political Disorder Syndrome and Political Shooter, the latter in reference to the man who allegedly shot up the Congressional baseball game practice.

Posse Comitatus
In the United States, the posse comitatus was an important institution on the western frontier, where it became known as the posse. At various times vigilante committees, often acting without legal standing, organized posses to capture wrongdoers. In 1878 the use of a posse comitatus was limited by the passage of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This act, passed in response to the use of federal troops to enforce reconstruction policies in the southern states, prohibited the use of the U.S. Army to enforce laws unless the Constitution or an act of Congress explicitly authorized such use. This act was amended five times in the 1980s, largely to allow for the use of military resources to combat trafficking in illicit narcotics. Some question if the militarization of the police is an end-run around the Posse Comitatus Act.

Potlatch Culture
We might be becoming to so rich that we buy toys to put under the Christmas tree that we know won’t last the day just to make the pile bigger, or we prepare 18,000 cookies for a wedding knowing most of the cookies will be wasted.

Power Elite
A closely knit alliance of military, government, and corporate officials perceived as the center of wealth and political power in the West.

Precautionary Principle
Modern environmentalism is based on a concept similar to pre-emption (see below) and that’s the pre-cautionary principle, which states: “if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public, or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus (that the action or policy is not harmful), the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking that action.” Wikipedia. This principle has clearly extended to mandating action in the absence of evidence if an argument can be made that there might be harm resulting from inaction. The problem is, placing burdens or restrictions usually means using taxpayer resources and/or the force of government to control the activities or property of others without any evidence that they are doing or will do harm. Again, the law of self-defense is really the only operative civil law if you think hard about it (that is, to the extent government is used to take forcible action, it can only be used against a person or property that is violating the rights of others or no right exists to interfere), and calling unjustified action “precautionary” is, well–unjustifiable.

Predictive Programming
According to Rational Wiki, predictive programming is a recurring element across many conspiracy theories. The claim is that when conspirators plan a false flag operation, they hide references to it in the popular media before the atrocity takes place; when the event occurs, the public has softened up, and therefore passively accepts it rather than offering resistance or opposition.
This clip from March 2001 is often cited as an example of predictive programming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rsMG2hHsLo

Pre-emptive Expansionism

Shall I coin a term? “Preemptive expansionism?” ’cause if we don’t China & Russia will, right?https://t.co/9zCt8s8zwN

— Monica Perez (@MonicaPerezShow) February 6, 2018

Pre-emptive War
Pre-emptive war, is the concept that a country may initiate war when its leaders are “certain” the other country is on the verge of initiating the war themselves and this way, the “victim” is acting in self-defense and still have the advantage of the first strike. It reminds me of the old canard, “in order to make an omelet you have to break some eggs,” which is rightly answered with “many eggs have been broken but not one omelet has ever been made.” In other words, in matters of governmental violence, destruction is not creation. Despite this reality, pre-emption is now an accepted call to arms. It was introduced to the United States in the fascinating document produced by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies as a strategy for Israel going forward, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, and the so-called principle has been with us ever since.

Prohibition Drugs
Drugs that arise in response to the incentives of the black market for drugs created by the Drug War. During alcohol prohibition moonshine took the place of softer, safer alcohol like beer and wine because whiskey was more concentrated and moonshine could be made locally. Similarly, meth and crack arise to replace cocaine because they are more powerful and pack more of a punch in a smaller quantity allowing for a higher price for any given quantity transported. Recently synthetic marijuana has been added to the list of prohibition drugs.

The Propaganda State
The surveillance state is the government’s way of keeping tabs on us–of collecting the information. Their motto is “knowledge is power.” But the flip side of that is to control the information we get in return–don’t want any of the knowledge power in the hands of the people! That’s why, for example, they will fight for cop cameras but never ever institute the informational safeguard of having each camera assigned a dedicated url for 24-7 live-streaming. They not only need to make sure we don’t have access to good information–which is what Internet censorship is for–they want to make sure we have both bad information and, even more important, directed thinking. The Propaganda State not only aims to make sure we have distorted facts, it wants to make sure we have the desired emotional responses they need to support their actions and policies.

Proxy War
A proxy war is a war that results when opposing powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly. While powers have sometimes used governments as proxies, violent non-state actors, mercenaries, or other third parties are more often employed. If Saudi Arabia attacks Iran or Syria it will be a proxy war.

Psy-Ops
Psychological operations, or psy-ops, are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. I believe the Edward Snowden Affair was a black psy-op. See also “Doctrine for Joint Psychological Operations.”

Pulling a Ron Paul
As a take-off on the concept of Going Galt, I’ve coined Pulling a Ron Paul whereby an individual can break-through the economic glass ceiling, accumulate a little capital or simply forego it, and head to Washington to fight the system full time on its own terms.

Q

R

Rahm Emanuel Doctrine
Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s first chief of staff, famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is that it is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Here he is saying it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb-YuhFWCr4

Then there’s what I call Rahm Emanuel 2.0, or LIHOP: Let It Happen On Purpose…that is, even if you know a crisis is coming and you could stop it, you let it happen on purpose so that you can exploit the crisis to get things done you could not do before.

Finally, Rahm Emanuel 3.0, or Crisis Initiation: Actually initiate the crisis to serve your goals. For example, the FBI famously radicalizes and arms unstable people to conduct terrorist operations the FBI then foils in promotion of policy or funding that might otherwise elude them. Here’s Patrick Clawson of the prestigious Washington Institute for Near East Policy suggesting that if President Obama can’t figure out a way to start a war with Iran, we should initiate a crisis to get public buy in. (Below is an edited clip – for the full 6:33 video click here.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-mo96i_4iI

Red Herring
A clue or piece of information which is intended to be misleading or distracting from the actual issue.

The Red Pill
From the movie The Matrix, the blue pill allows you to “believe what you want to believe,” while the red pill opens your mind to reality.

Regulatory Barriers to Entry
Complying with government regulations costs money–sometimes big money like building a data center to store all Americans’ metadata, and sometimes small money like getting a hairdresser’s license–but it always costs money. This investment in non-productive capital increases the funding required to enter a business and that changes the calculus as to whether to risk starting a new venture or not. Some new ventures are deterred and in this way competition is reduced. Generally, obstacles to new entrants are called barriers to entry; in the case of government regulatory compliance deterring competition, they are called “regulatory barriers to entry.”

I’ve been railing against Regulatory Barriers to Entry for years and finally got some small validation when the EU admitted that the “unintended consequences” (ha ha ha ha ha) of their privacy regulation is that only VERY BIG TECH can possibly meet the standard. Bravo. (See: Google and Facebook Likely to Benefit From Europe’s Privacy Crackdown)

Republocrat Oligarchy
Voting in the two-party system is like deciding between whether the Gambinos or the Genoveses are going to run your neighborhood–it’s not going to make much of a difference! The Iron Law of Oligarchy states that this is the inevitable consequence of democracy, according to Robert Michels, who posits that democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, which he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable.

The Remnant
In the short, sublime 1935 work Our Enemy the State, Albert Jay Nock quotes Jose Ortega y Gasset on where the path we are on will inevitably lead us:

…society will have to live for the State, man for the governmental machine. And as after all it is only a machine whose existence and maintenance depend on the vital support around it, the State, after sucking out the very marrow of society, will be left bloodless, a skeleton, dead with that rusty death of machinery, more gruesome than the death of a living organism. Such was the lamentable fate of ancient civilization.

But even with this future ahead of us, Nock recognizes that there is always a small segment of society, “the remnant,” whom he describes as follows:

…in every civilization, however generally prosaic, however addicted to the short-time point of view on human affairs, there are always certain alien spirits who, while outwardly conforming to the requirements of the civilization around them, still keep a disinterested regard for the plain intelligible law of things, irrespective of any practical end.

I would add only that in addition to keeping a “disinterested regard for the plain intelligible law of things,” the remnant must keep this law known and available for when it is needed for the foundation of a new society–perhaps, at last, a free and just one.

Resistance-Grade Weaponry
I coined the term “Resistance-Grade Weaponry” to mean long guns, fast guns, big guns, even body armor–in other words, anything that would actually aid the people in resisting tyranny. Tellingly, gun control activists focus on these types of weapons and even purely defensive equipment even though it’s handguns which are used in the vast majority of gun deaths, both murders and, of course, suicides. My cynical theory is that if the government is after the Second Amendment for the same reason I think it is after the other amendments in the Bill of Rights–that is, to neutralize our ability to curtail our government’s drive toward tyranny–it would want to get rid of the weapons that “We the People” could use to resist and fight back. Small arms on the other hand, would not be effective in a full on battle with government, but would give government agents the excuse to open fire on those who rise up–perhaps that’s why they don’t mind if we keep them. (Click here for more.)

Right Cover
Like left cover, right cover is a way for the powers that be to use members of the Republican party to implement policies particularly egregious to their constituents. As a caller once said to me, “the Democrats won’t take our guns. It’ll take a Republican to do that.” As Obama continued Bush’s Endless Wars in the Middle East without peep or protest from the left, so too might Trump balloon the national debt and gut the Bill of Rights without protest from the right–and who knows what else might be in store from this “man of the people.”

S

Sacrificial Wolves
Sacrificial wolves are highly unsympathetic and apparently unscrupulous characters who are used to get buy-in in the court of public opinion that their behavior is so distasteful that their rights are no longer sacrosanct. This is a slippery slope & that is the reason the parasites-that-be sacrifice the rights of wolves first–so the rest of us slip down that slope.

The Saint Peter Test
Phrase I coined to help judge whether we the people should consent to one of our government’s wars. Government authority to use violence derives 100% from the right to self-defense that we delegate to them. Given that it is a representative government, we have very nearly hands-on control over how they use this authority. If you are asked to consent to a war or any violent action, you should first ask yourself, “How will I explain this to St. Peter on my judgment day?” If you can’t clearly articulate why you’re authorizing the use of force and offer compelling evidence that your facts are verifiable and your rationale sound, then you have to withhold your consent. I don’t think St. Peter will accept “I trusted my government” as a justification for authorizing violence.

Scarespiracy
The fires in Maui were disturbing on SO many levels…no need to exaggerate or invent anything–it’s bad–real bad and it only kept getting worse…and worse. When speculation emerged that the missing children had been trafficked for sex and their parents murdered or that only the disobedient escaped alive and may be being groomed for a doomed rebellion I had to ask why this stuff was spreading like wildfire. I’m not saying it’s not true–it’s difficult to verify anything from this far away and with highly curated information coming through–but keeping us afraid is starting to seem to me part of Their plan. Scarespiracies are fear porn for the conspiranoid (no offense–I suffer from conspiranoia and it’s not cause there aren’t actual conspiracies!) Why? Maybe to keep us distracted from a true motive–perhaps something as banal as the clear land grab underway in Maui right now. Perhaps to just keep us paralyzed with negative emotion? Perhaps to speak into existence the scary thing we’re speculating about. I don’t know but I see it quite a bit these days & I’m dubbing these conspiracies, confirmed or speculative, as “scarespiracies.”

Second Amendment Gap
It has occurred to me that the Second Amendment could not fully constrain a tyrannical government if the citizenry does not have the same weapons as the government it empowers. Given that all branches of the federal government have conspired to limit the Second Amendment to allow to the citizenry only semi-automatic weapons or less, it seems that there is a major gap between the weapons the government could use to act against the people and the weapons the people have to defend themselves against an aggressive government. Limits on ammunition and body armor further emphasize the point.

Semantic Infiltration
I just learned it, but it’s been around a long time. Basically, semantic infiltration is when the opposition takes over a word and you relinquish it–“capitalism” is heading down that path, where it becomes a dirty word. (In an attempt to remedy that, I coined “financial fascism” – check it out here.)

Shamocracy
I use this term specifically to refer to the false choice offered by the oligopoly of the Republican and Democratic Parties in the United States. The two sides appear to offer different philosophies and policies but in the end the march toward an overreaching government that operates above the rule of law at the expense of the citizen continues regardless of who wins a particular election.

Sheep-dipped
The phrase “sheep-dipped” is commonly used in intelligence circles. It’s a way of saying someone has been given an alternate identity. Dipping a sheep gets rid of creepy crawlies; sheep-dipping a person gets rid of details of his or her former life. For example, Lee Harvey Oswald was “sheep-dipped” in order to carry on his involvement in the CIA’s clandestine activities.

Shooting Star Families
My heart bleeds for Gold Star Families–families who have lost servicemen and women during their service. My heart bleeds for them because they have lost their best but also in part because of the deception and exploitation underlying all of our military action today and perhaps most if not all in our past. Their deaths-many of them-were not for the good. Although the idea of comparing these deaths with drug overdoses seems fundamentally wrong because druggies kill themselves, there is a certain similarity in that the Drug War, which is at the heart of these deaths (see my article about Hoffman v Halsted), is also based on government deception and exploitation, so I am going to go ahead and coin the term Shooting Star Family (actually, it was my brother George’s idea upon the overdose death of my sister Rosemary in 2017).

Sidestream Media
An expression adapted by one of my favorite listeners/correspondents CF, sidestream media is the vast network of so-called alternative websites that are really disinformation outlets designed to take legitimate anti-establishment policy positions or skepticism of official narratives and associate them with the lunatic fringe. A perfect example of this can be observed by watching the following two Piers Morgan interviews side by side. Gun Owners of America’s Larry Pratt makes Piers Morgan look foolish in this discussion of gun rights (December 19, 2012). The response? To have Alex Jones on Piers Morgan make the defense of gun rights look nuts (January 7, 2013).

Watch Larry Pratt on Piers Morgan

Watch Alex Jones on Piers Morgan

Sidestream media is the manifestation of a tactic whose handle has become downright hackneyed: “controlled opposition,” from Lenin’s famous quote, “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” See also, cognitive infiltration.

Smoking the Kool-Aid
Drinking the Kool-Aid refers to the tragedy at Jonestown where cult followers of Jim Jones, and Jones himself, drank poison-laced Kool-Aid in a mass suicide. I say smoking the Kool-Aid to describe a combination of seeming too high and too fuzzy headed to see the truth combined with a blind willingness to believe propaganda.

Smombie
Also known as smartphone zombie: A person walking around unaware of his surroundings entirely absorbed in his smart-phone.

Snowflake Generation
Snowflake Generation or Generation Snowflake is a term used to characterize young adults of the 2010s as being more prone to taking offense and less resilient than previous generations, or too emotionally vulnerable to cope with views that challenge their own. It is considered derogatory. Some sources attribute the characteristics ascribed to Generation Snowflake to methods of parenting and education, particularly those that focus unduly on boosting self-esteem.

Social Engineering
Efforts to influence social behaviors and the social structure on a large scale.

Social Conditioning
A sociological process of training individuals in a society to think, act or respond in a manner generally approved by society overall or forces within society that benefit from the populace being so trained.

Spaced Repetition
A learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect. Alternative names include spaced rehearsal, expanding rehearsal, graduated intervals, repetition spacing, repetition scheduling, spaced retrieval and expanded retrieval. Caller Keith said that mainstream media uses this technique to get the public to accept official narratives whether they make sense or not.

Spontaneous Combustion
These days, we are expected to believe in all sorts of unlikely causes of death from jumping out a window to a very tall and seemingly happy person hanging himself in a foreign bathroom to SADS…that’s sudden adult death syndrome (Can sudden death be a syndrome? What are the symptoms?). But it doesn’t end there. We are also expected to believe that historically minuscule suicide rates among hyper-successful female college athletes are suddenly spiking as well as swallow the daily reports of athletic men dropping dead as well as celebrities dying with no known cause of death at all ever. Any death with an explanation that just doesn’t hold water is what I call death by #SpontaneousCombustion. It’s not SADS–it’s just plain SAD.

State-within-a-State
See Deep State above.

Statist
Someone, especially a politician, who promotes the power of the state above all; this transcends any apparent loyalty to left or right, Democrat or Republican.

Stepping off the Grid
Technically, living without dependence on the power grid. Figuratively, this means not being subject to the controls of mainstream society but having to forfeit the conveniences that society has to offer.

Stovepiping
Stovepiping (or stove piping) is a metaphorical term which recalls a stovepipe‘s function as an isolated vertical conduit, and has been used, in the context of intelligence, to describe several ways in which raw intelligence information may be presented without proper context.. Seymour Hersh described John Bolton’s role in convincing George W. Bush that Saddam Hussein had WMDs as “stovepiping” in the seminal New Yorker article, The Stovepipe (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/27/the-stovepipe).

Swenson
Swenson is the most common surname in Sweden and to be “Swensons” is to have two kids, to have tacos on Saturday, to have wine on Friday, to have the dad be a carpenter and the mom a nurse. It’s a comfortable, low-risk, dull existence. (It actually doesn’t sound so bad to me, though a Swedish friend tells me that speaking one’s mind is not part of the Swenson model, so I guess I’m not qualified.) The question is, is a society of Swensons the real goal of the power elite’s bid for total control over society? I don’t think it would be possible for any all-powerful entity to be satisfied with such an innocuous objective.

Subsidiarity
According to David Bosnich writing for acton.org, “One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.” (This reminds me of the gospel in which Jesus tells people to handle things one-on-one or within the community if possible.)

Systems Justification Theory
In plain English, risk aversion and desire for comfort lead to rationalizing one’s own social position (for better or worse) to justify the status quo rather than push back. (Here’s the long form.) This reminded me of this song from Candide…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlIUXvAdpcw

T

Taint Agent
Remember when Piers Morgan took what ended up to be basically his last stand in America by advocating for gun control in the wake of the-event-that-shall-not-be-named? (That event got my wordpress site canceled!) I recall Piers speaking to Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America. Pratt eats his lunch. (You can see clips of this show here.) Shortly thereafter, Morgan had Alex Jones on the show to discuss the same topic…Jones is practically Tom Cruising all over Morgan, drowning the sound facts the Pratt laid out in a sea of “dangerous gun-nut” imagery. Jones tainted Pratt’s message. I would argue that Jones exists just to taint such sound messages, in the vein of “cognitive infiltration” laid out by Obama’s first Information Czar, Cass Sunstein, in this paper on Conspiracy Theories. Whether he meant to be or not, Jones was acting as a Taint Agent. (You can see that video here.)

Thinking Outside the Cage
A play on the expression “think outside the box,” I coined this expression to refer to thinking that challenges social conditioning and questions the assumptions that are almost universally accepted but still might not be true.

Troll
Also, Internet Troll. Strictly speaking, one who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument. I use the expression to describe professional cognitive infiltrators hired by the government as per then-Information Czar Cass Sunstein’s plan to disrupt “truther” websites, but who now monitor the Internet and the airwaves for any discussion that threatens the official narrative of news stories and tries to disrupt them. I also use the term “troll-dar” like I use “truth-dar” (see below.)

True World Authority
A few years ago (BEFORE Pope Francis), I read a report from THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE that recommended, in the wake of the financial crisis, that we should have a True World Authority. That’s World Government, folks, and the only thing that would separate a True World Authority from the United Nations we already have is the power to kill (enforce laws just or unjust) and the power to steal (Taxation is Theft!) I just scratch my head.

Truman
A term I coined to describe a person like Truman Burbank, Jim Carrey’s character in the movie The Truman Show, who lives in a made up world that he believes to be real.

Truther
Usually refers to “9/11 truthers” who don’t believe the official narrative of 9/11. (For a comprehensive treatment of why they hold this view, see The New Pearl Harbor.) “Truther” is the preferred expression to “conspiracy theorist” or what I call “conspiranoids,” though strictly in good fun, since many “truther” positions get us closer to the truth than the official narratives. For example, the JFK Assassination and the Boston Marathon Bombing are subjects where many “truther” explanations are at least plausible, while the official narratives are not. “Truthers” are undermined by the government through concerted efforts of “cognitive infiltration,” a term coined by Cass Sunstein in his efforts to discredit the 9/11 Truth Movement.

Truthdar
I coined this one as a play on gaydar which is a play on radar to describe the sense some people have of detecting the truth hidden in a false flag, cover-up or conspiracy theory.

Truthing
The habit of spending endless time and energy figuring out “what really happened” and risk playing right into “their” hands as those who are awake are totally distracted, rooting around in the rabbit hole, mesmerized into inaction as we watch the promised totalitarian technocracy descend upon us.

Truth Porn
The endless stream of real smoking guns that prove out the details of false flags and psychological operations. Paradoxically, they might be providing the distraction that keeps us from focusing on the culprits–seeing only the trees and not the forest and keeping those behind the scenes firmly in control as we marvel impotently at their brazenness.

Tyson Zone
The point at which a celebrity’s behavior becomes so insane, that there is literally nothing he could do that would shock or surprise you, or indeed any human being.

U

Upsource
The opposite of subsidiarity. Moving responsibility for something up and out of local or individual control to a higher level of government. For example, medical care for the aging was “upsourced” by LBJ in the 60s with the enactment of Medicare. Similarly, the GOP with Bill Clinton’s help, “upsourced” regulation of marriage to the federal government in violation of the Tenth Amendment through the Defense of Marriage Act. (This backfired of course as the Supreme Court took their upsourcing mandate and flipped it around so states could not regulate marriage even if they wanted to.)

V

VaxBorging

W

Wedge Issue
A wedge issue is a social issue, often of a divisive or controversial nature, which splits apart a population or political group. Political campaigns use wedge issues to exploit tension within a targeted population. Typically, wedge issues have a cultural or populist theme, relating to matters such as crime, national security, sexuality (e.g. gay marriage), or race. I avoid discussing wedge issues because I believe they are most often used to divide the American population and distract them from the real division, which is between the power elite and the citizenry. (NB, when the NSA scandal, which united us against them, first broke, gay marriage and the George Zimmerman case, which divided the people against each other, were pushed by the media.)

Weinstein Paradox
When the scandal broke about Harvey Weinstein’s casting couch and many, many incidences of sexual harassment, it also came out that dozens or even hundreds of people knew about it but stories were spiked, people silenced and a general atmosphere of don’t-ask-don’t-tell existed from coast to coast to keep his secret a secret. The power structure wins out! So why, I have to wonder, do millions of people accept this narrative yet deny very well-documented conspiracies from JFK to 9/11 under the argument that “someone would have talked” or that “that many people can’t keep a secret?” (Nevermind the fact that the Manhattan Project was a secret kept by over one hundred thousand people during the War, or the fact that five million people are reported to have government security clearance a la Edward Snowden–that’s a lot of secret-keepers!) It’s a paradox.

Welfare-Warfare Superstate or Superstructure
The modern state, or superstate, within which libertarian solutions are sometimes exploited by self-serving forces.

What To Watch Out For or #WTWOF
#WTWOF stands for What To Watch Out For, a feature on the Propaganda Report in which we flag what we think the propaganda is telegraphing about what’s to come.

X

Y

Z

Zero Economic Profit
With perfect competition, any profit that rewards capital or labor with profits higher than their marginal cost will experience entry until all capital and labor earns risk-adjusted-returns that are consistent with their market values. This is why in a free society there is less concentration of wealth not more. As government regulates industry, it erects barriers to competition that allow incumbent firms to maintain greater than zero economic profit. (See above, regulatory barriers to entry.)

Here are some other glossaries for your reference (h/t @freedomactradio):
The Stratfor Glossary of Useful, Baffling and Strange Intelligence Terms
powerhouse museum’s Language of Espionage
The Dictionary of Espionage: Spyspeak into English