Your Nightly News:
Understanding
Propaganda - Part 1
Did you get your fix today? How bad is your habit? How many hits do you need each day; three? four? must you have it in the car? how about at home while you're eating dinner?
The "News" is one of the most elaborate, pervasive and omnipotent forms of propaganda in our modern lives, and even those who think it is slanted, biased or a purveyor of misinformation, have no idea how much it still controls their thoughts.
Now, I'm not a medical doctor, but perhaps you better check with one before you read this article. Your blood pressure could rise, and you might feel dizzy with anger. All because you are about to perceive your religion is under attack. At this point, some are thinking, "But I'm not a religious person, I'm rational, and don't believe in supernaturalism." Oh really? We'll soon see about that.
You see, all around the Western world, the news is actually preaching a religious world view, something I call; a religion of hatred. Already, these few words you've read here make you want to tune out, label this piece as a "mindless rant," and move on to something else. What if I told you those thoughts are not your own, but rather conditioned responses from years of programming? Of all the things we think are truly ours, surely our thoughts are the deepest and most personal aspect of our identity. We all like to believe we are free thinkers. Let me show you, we are not.
I'm using the word "religion" here to describe our world view. In that sense we all have one. All religions must answer three basic questions; origin, purpose, and destiny. Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? But one of the most important aspects of a religion, is that it must be morally and logically defendable.
So, what does this have to do with the nightly news? Everything.
One of the troubles with modern media is that it replaces travel through vicariousness. In reality nothing replaces travel. We all think we have a pretty good handle on what is going on in Washington DC, London, Iraq, China, Russia, Venezuela, Tibet, Afghanistan, etc., why? Because we've "experienced" it through the TV, radio, newspapers and films. I use the word "experienced" because we've all felt some emotional involvement to those areas. Honestly now, can you admit that most of the time the emotions have been connected with anger and hatred? What if I told you, that is the plan? They want you filled with negative emotion. That statement might elicit the "tune out" response, so please allow me to digress momentarily.
At the end of my Brokeback - Understanding Propaganda article I listed the words to a popular song, and asked if you were confused yet? Then I said "Good, that's what they want." Do you know, that out of the hundreds and hundreds of emails that came in, only one woman asked who "they" were? Almost everyone that read the piece, from the "conservative religious right" to the "homosexual community" somewhere near the "left," all thought I was suggesting that the propaganda aspects of the film were being perpetrated by the "homosexual community."
So, the folks on the "right" wrote me to say thank you for defending family values, and the folks on the "left" wrote to say they were upset that I was attacking their freedom. Both assumed something about me and the article that wasn't true. So why don't I spell things out more clearly and lay all the cards on the table at once? The things I'm about to tell you will seem so foreign to your reason and rational, that you wouldn't even begin to consider them as possible. I'm talking about the religious programming that we've all been subjected to, reinforcement of key words and phrases, ideas and concepts, all forming neural pathways in our minds, so well worn that anything off the beaten path is discarded as worthless before inquiry.
But who are the "they" that want us confused and filled with hatred, anger and fear?
I'll tell you in a moment, for now let's just refer to them as the Puppet Masters or the PM. That name alone, will irritate most, because at our core we want to stridently insist that we are free, and no one is pulling our strings. How certain are you that your thoughts are free?
Let's get back to the "news" and propaganda. Please forgive me for the constant use of quotation marks around all these words; "news, left, right, homosexual, religion, experience, etc." I know it's a bit tedious, but I want to illustrate that these words are in fact constructs of "The Plan." (oops I did it again) One of the premier tenets of propaganda is to control the language, if you control words and make them conform to your definitions, then you can control thoughts, destinies and nations. A recent study amoung New York youths found their vocabulary contained no words for the future. Think how that might limit your thinking and the "where are we going? aspect of the world view. The PM know the power of words and use them to full effect in the media. Language is one of the most powerful tools accessible, we would do well to reclaim ours personally.
Brokeback's loss at the Oscars and the backlash that followed, fits perfectly within the framework I shall lay before you. We've all been programmed to respond to hot button issues in polarizing ways. Roger Ebert wrote an interesting piece in response to some of the vile hatred some film critics vented at the Oscar winner, for no other reason than being "pro" one, automatically means you hate the other. The Plan is all about division, separating us along the lines that the PM defines through the media. It is easier to divide people emotionally than intellectually. When we remove critical thinking, people are more easily swayed. In Crash, the film that won, Sandra Bullock's character confesses that even though she's quite well off, she inexplicably wakes up angry every day, for no reason. Emotions are caused by thoughts, which in turn are controlled by words, our inner dialogue. If I tell you your dog just died, you experience grief, melancholy, depression, but when I tell you that you just won the lottery, you feel excitement, joy, happiness. How does this fit into the world view I call a "religion?" Let's have a look.
As I mentioned in the previous article, the best forms of propaganda are the ones we don't suspect, just innocent entertainment, lighthearted escapism. But there's another kind, even more insidious. The kind you know or suspect is propaganda, so you have your shields up, yet it penetrates you anyway, and still has its way with you, leaving its seeds of destiny.
Here's an interesting experiment you can do. Invite two friends round, if you live in the Western world, I hope you can find one each from the "left" and the "right." (if you can't, shame on you) Sit them down to watch the "news." Just a regular "news" channel like CNN, NBC, CBS, BBC, etc. I leave out FOX because it's been quite labeled in the media, perhaps even CNN has too. You will be quite amazed at the magic of the propaganda message on your two friends.
Now remember, they both just watched the exact same broadcast, but the person from the "left" will be convinced that the news was from a right wing perspective, while the person from the "right" will be certain that the program was from a left wing perspective. I left the quotes off the perspectives there because these paradigms are entirely real to these people (and usually, no amount of evidence will sway them from this belief). Both of your friends are now feeling anxiety, their religion is under attack, they have elevated stress levels and all sorts of chemical reactions running amok inside. How many rational intelligent people do you know that can watch the news and not be emotionally effected? Lets pause and reflect on the mastery of this achievement. Your friends aren't idiots, they're probably both well educated, perceptive, involved with the issues, how can this little "news" broadcast perform such alchemy in your living-room?
Perhaps I should rightly call it reverse alchemy, as its purpose is to take noble things and make them base.
Continually stirring, poking, prodding, fanning, enflaming all of us against one another into polarized, separated, isolated, victimized, under constant attack, minorities surrounded by enemies. Divide and conquer.
Last article I mentioned Hegelian dialecticalism as the process where each hot button issue is divided into the two polar extremes (thesis, antithesis), and from these comes the melding or synthesis, and in this way the PM steers societies within "The Plan." America's facade of a two party system is a clearer picture of the dialectic than what you see in some countries, but The Plan is being furthered everywhere. Those last six words, you might have breezed over them, but I urge you to read them again, because, if my calculations are correct, they will very shortly completely shatter your religious world view. The Plan is being furthered everywhere.
Notice how I'm writing this with occasional "news-like" snippits? Isn't that part of the fear they use? "Something in your house, could kill your children! Details at eleven." But I assure you I'm not trying to manipulate you, and nor could I, for the programming is all but complete....
Stay Tuned For Part 2