How Do You COMBAT Being "Manipulated"?

Do you know yourself well enough to identify "manipulation" (e.g. pushing your 'buttons')?

What do you do to combat that "manipulation"?

The only defense against bullshit.

You can't dismiss human emotion.

So I dont quite understand your question.

manipulation disguised as persuasive all your life, whether it be parents, teachers, classmates, co-workers, etc. There's really a limited amount of original material, and then theme-and-variation after that.

I learned how the pro's (government, business, and advertising) do it by studying websites that discuss propaganda.

Once you recognize the fact that someone is trying to manipulate you, you've combatted it by thinking, and won because it didn't control you like it was supposed to.

If you have no buttons, they can't be pushed.

the web relevent to politics, the phony 'war' on terror and the bush regime, and eventually, the truth becomes evident as you discern the details and reality.

plain and simple.

doing to me

husband is a good manipulator too. we decided early in our days that we wouldnt do it to each other cause we can both see, and neither like it. best deal we made

i have to figure gosh, really everyone has to know, they just chose to allow it. so easy to see/feel when it is being done

and i just say no

another easy one

Yes, if you live in America...you have been seriously manipulated in a number of ways.

Americans are overworked, increasingly under educated, and exploited to the point that they believe they should work harder, get less, and turn over more to 1/10th of one percent on the top. Go figure.

I think back on how America used to be a good example of free enterprise and " An honest day's pay for honest day's work"...
Things were going rather well until Reagan immortalized greed and stupidity.

So yes...the age of innocence is over. It's basically every man for himself now.

Compound all this with 911, heightened insecurity about losing our jobs, our social security (now only 20% of Americans have any decent retirement as opposed to about 50% in 1970, and Bu$hco is now set to try to dismantle the last vestige of security)...and you have the makings of a mass psychosis.

It's all a wonderful environment for the upper elite to manipulate...and they've scientifically figured this all out (aka Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh)...who glow over Adam Smith's hand jerking you off... who hope that you will be a pure consumer, with only buying power, and minimal assets. More for them...less for you.

The only way to combat the entire equation is to talk to your friends, explain the situation, hope that they can see through the history of all of this. The only way to combat this is through...perspective. You have to know your history and know who is doing what to who.

will come in the form of emotion meant to change your thinking or thinking (ideas - blame) meant to evoke emotions or apathy.

It is three dimensional and since Rove runs a perpetual campaign during the presidency.. it never ends. This will exhaust you to the point that you will not react to what you should be reacting to. Which is what it is meant to do. Everything can have more than one meaning: SS debate is meant to be won and starve big government of gratefull people/voters, the length of the debate (without specific information) is meant to exhaust Democrats, is meant to split the young from the old (people who understand what Roosevelt means from ones who do not), etc.

All I can say is know that any door or any rule is available to them to be broken because they have no morals.

Anytime you have a sudden feeling or change of thinking ... stop and analyze it. Adults do not knee-jerk... so learn to not knee - jerk even when you are hit with all manner of adolescent attack. Take a few steps back from the details you have been given and look at the bigger picture and the bigger patterns. The devil is in the details and details, body language and how you will be tricked.

Look for attacks on things that are illogical, adolescent (involve behavior where the person behaving does not take responsibility for their actions), look for attacks that put one group against another... feed into a stereotype...dehumanize someone who is speaking out. Look for sadism (George Bush taking pleasure when others have to adjust their behavior to his decisions is a definite sign of sadism... he enjoys making others feel uncomfortable - but sadism is more obvious in the behavior of the followers - and I would call George Bush a follower - George Bush is the puppet). Don't listen to any words coming out of the president's mouth: that is all scripted to institute meme (copied knowledge or myths). Keep in mind that something said to you by someone using the tools of sociopaths ... those very words said publicly may have vastly different meanings to other people listening to the words... sociopaths are very aware of the realities (world view, take on life, deepest beliefs) of all the victims they talk to.

If you find someone calling you and asking for information.. do not give out information on your deepest needs or fears (like you would to a friend) unless you know you are talking to a democratic representative.

There are a set of rules for them to follow (faux news) and a set of rules for their enemies to follow (MSM is hog-tied). Rules will also be morphed (no anti-Bush signs in store windows while Bush is in town to argue SS - because of terrorism & security concerns).

You totally isolate the propaganda from your life. If someone calls for a poll ask them who they represent and when they say Repukes... slam the phone down (it will likely be what I've just learnt is called a push poll and is when propaganda is the real reason for the call - not polling).

When it becomes too emotional for you and you feel yourself beginning to fall apart ... cut your losses and get of the web and save your strength for election time (or let it build up again). Remember the people of Iraq were completely exhausted after 20 years of Saddam Hussein and there was no internal opposition.

You will get better at identifying patterns with practice. Just do not knee-jerk. Read books on the history of liberalism so that they cannot go after your assumptions: there was an attempt to but fascism to the left of the political spectrum and leave the Utopian right clear and pure as a babies breath. Ninety % of the fascism of the 20th century... was right wing and they, like communists turned totalitarian.

Whenever you come across someone who thinks that corporations should not face any regulations at all (Greenspan) ignore them. We all live in liberal democracies with mixed market economies despite what the neocon rovbots and corporate exploiters will try and teach. All of us in the world, with the exception of perhaps CUBA, live in mixed market economies where capitalist markets are tempered with regulation to ensure it meets the most basic needs of human beings. How much regulation exists is a matter of variety. But no pure capitalist society exists. They all regulate to a degree.

They will use people, at great cost to those people, to spread their message (tonight a "Dem" got on the board and argued that we should starve government right now to stop Bush - we should not raise taxes... the rovbot plan is to bankrupt the government ... and perhaps many Americans too... until they have no power left and will be the compliant autonomes of the corporations. The rovbot plan is to make sure that even if Hillary gets into power... she could not afford to do one thing to make government service better. The rovbot plan includes giving all important duties on lumber from Canada directly to the lumber companies in the USA (so as to not help the government's books one bit like the duties used to when they went into the treasury for the first 50 years of GATT). They will try to get "Dems" to spread their message (no new taxes on the rich) to destroy the Democratic change of having the chance to make a legacy or rebuild the USA federal government. Democrats need to learn how not to fall into this trap - of destroying themselves. Just think of how stupid you think the poor in the Southern States are... and remember that someone taught them and sold them a bill of goods of what a good thing to believe was.
Most important.. keep reading. A good book on sociopath is Robert Hare's book (name escapes me). You can generalize from that book to see the general pattern of sociopathic tools used by the WH. There are wonderful books out there on the present day crisis. It is less important to buy into the author's treatise of exactly what is to be done and how this happened (history will do an excellent job of coming to these truths) and more important that you just pick up on all sorts of information about the world, the middle east, US foreign policy in the past, the actual things neocons have done, and economics. Gwynne Dyer just wrote Future Tense from the point of view of non-American multilateral ism. Nials Ferguson has written a book on the history of the American Empire(and his belief that America should really, really become one). I agree not with the ends treatise of either of these books but the information contained within is valuable. You need to know the history of everything and how to think for yourself. Time to put away 'myths' we have been fed and think like adults do: see the forest for the trees.. see the big picture and greater patterns and do not let them fool you with details using their propaganda.

Just keep up with the details (facts) on your own to build a solid foundation of knowledge because the whole point of propaganda is to lie to you so you behave according to the plans of some megalomaniac (when you face propaganda outside of war ... like within the USA). My best guess is that a megalomaniac in the White House wants to earn the endless and fruitful adoration of selfish white millionaires in the USA by restructuring the US into a place a Democrat could never get elected in. This megalomaniac is not George Bush, or any of the longstanding neocons from previous administrations. The propaganda war started with the hatred of Clinton to the point where they sussed out Paula and then tripped Bill Clinton up in a lie...was the first part of the plan (the first ten years). That was when the Repukes and neocons became delusional and decided it was okay to destroy democracy and both the Republican and the Democratic parties. IMHO.

Most important. Use your empathy. Sociopaths everywhere lack this. It is a language they do not speak and the first thing they try to destroy in their followers. Use empathy in every exchange with people, in every day dealings and teach it to fallen democrats (who are so angry they could act without thinking and tear apart their own party). Teach empathy to fallen Repukes and freepers too.

This does not mean that you never attack the people who are trying to destroy you - but you only attack as an adult would with much planning and slogging and going by the basics. You do not wound your own Democratic members. You need each and every one of them. You understand that as a adults quick solutions and conspiracy theories will not stop the monsters you face. It is going to be a slow, hard slog and may take you to arenas you never imagined yourself in (knocking on doors, teaching compassion to every repuke you see on the street, donating money, etc.etc.).