(in this post: 13 part podcast 10 hours, 3 books(pdf) , 1 documentary , 7 interviews, qoutes and background information )
Edward Bernays, born in Vienna in 1891 and famously the nephew of Sigmund Freud, was perhaps the pioneer in the field of Public Relations, and highly influential in providing the framework for modern advertising.
His work aimed to convince people to want things that they didn't need, and in the process, link their unconscious desires to the consumption of mass produced goods. This in turn, it was theorized, could be used to control the masses, as by keeping them distracted on frivolous happenings and relatively unimportant wants, they wouldn't interfere with the activities of what he called 'the important few'.
All the while, he was remarkably candid about his intent. In one of his first books, 'Propaganda' (1928), he coined the term 'engineering of consent' to describe his technique for controlling the masses. In this podcast series, Guy Evans examines just how influential these ideas were, and details the resulting impact in relation to public relations, advertising, celebrity culture, and democracy itself
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
p. 37
In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons [...] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
p. 37–38
In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered to him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed.
p. 39
Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.
AMONG CRITICS OF TECHNOLOGICAL SURVEILLANCE, there are two allusions so commonplace they have crossed into the realm of cliché. One, as you have probably already guessed, is George Orwell’s Big Brother, from1984. The other is Michel Foucault’s panopticon — a vision, adapted from Jeremy Bentham, of a prison in which captives cannot tell if or when they are being watched. Today, both of these touchstones are considered chillingly prophetic. But in Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age, Bernard Harcourt has another suggestion: Both of them are insufficient.
1984, Harcourt acknowledges, was an astoundingly farsighted text, but Orwell failed to anticipate the role pleasure would come to play in our culture of surveillance — specifically, the way it could be harnessed, as opposed to suppressed, by powerful interests. Oceania’s “Hate Week” is nowhere to be found; instead, we live in a world of likes, favorites, and friending. Foucault’s panopticon, in turn, needs a similar update; mass incarceration aside, the panopticon — for the rest of us — has become participatory, more of an amusement park or shopping mall than a penal institution. Rather than being coerced to reveal secrets, today we seem to enjoy self-exposure, giving away “our most intimate information and whereabouts so willingly and passionately — so voluntarily.”
Exposed is a welcome addition to the current spate of books about technology and surveillance. While it covers familiar ground — it opens with brief accounts of Facebook’s methods of tracking users, USAID’s establishment of ZunZuneo (a Twitter-like social network) in Cuba, and Edward Snowden’s revelations of the NSA’s PRISM program — Harcourt’s contribution is uniquely indebted to critical theory. Riffing on the work of another French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, and his evocative 1992 fragment “Postscript on the Societies of Control,” Harcourt settles upon the phrase “Expository Society” to describe our current situation, one in which we “have become dulled to the perils of digital transparence” and enamored of exposure. This new form of expository power, Harcourt explains, “embeds punitive transparence into our hedonist indulgences and inserts the power to punish in our daily pleasures.”
The expository society has been long in the making. Its roots are in ancient Greece and Rome, where the “age of the spectacle” commenced and began its evolution. It is worth quoting Harcourt’s summary of this history at length:
To render something public was expensive, and so the ancients would gather together, amass themselves to watch, to share, to partake in a public act of entertainment. There was no replay button, nor were there any video feeds and no mechanical arts of reproduction. The modern era of surveillance, on the other hand, gave proof of the cost of security. To render secure was expensive, and so the moderns discovered ways to surveil more efficiently, to see everyone from a single gaze, to turn the arena inside out, to imagine the panopticon. In the digital age today, publicity has become virtually costless and surveillance practically free of charge.
And yet, while spectacles and surveillance may be “costless” and “practically free,” the expository society is fundamentally about profit. On the corporate side, the business models of companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Uber, and Amazon are based on the principle of user enjoyment. Social media, we all know from experience, is addictive; our pleasure is habit-forming by design.
This is the first crux of Harcourt’s argument: The expository society exploits, rather than represses, our desires. The second crux is his observation that government and commercial surveillance infrastructures have wholly merged.
One of the book’s more important chapters takes on the seemingly self-evident nature of the term “surveillance state,” which Harcourt argues is misleading. What we have, instead, is an “amalgam of the intelligence community, retailers, Silicon Valley, military interests, social media, the Inner Beltway, multinational corporations, midtown Manhattan, and Wall Street” that “forms an oligarchic concentration that defies any such reductionism.” Citing Glenn Greenwald, he notes that 70 percent of the United States’ national intelligence budget is spent on the private sector. “Whatever it is that is surveilling us, then, is not simply ‘the state,’” he writes. A more accurate image, he suggests, is a “tenticular oligarchy” — a “large oligopolistic octopus” enveloping the world, neither fully public nor fully private but both.
The expository society is indeed a paradoxical beast. Punishment and pleasure have fused, and commerce and surveillance are now one and the same (the convenience of GrubHub, Lyft, Paypal, Instagram, and AT&T is irresistible despite the troubling data-trails). Still, Exposed occasionally collapses categories and situations that are, despite their similarities, crucially distinct. For example, at multiple points Harcourt compares the Apple Watch to an ankle bracelet used for monitoring parolees: “The Apple Watch begins to function as the ankle bracelet. All is seen, all can be seen, all can be monitored — inside or out, where we are, free or supervised, we are permanently surveilled.” It may be true that these tracking devices exist on a data-collection continuum. But the experiences of their respective users could not be more different — and this matters. A person wearing an Apple Watch may be transmitting information, including heart rate and location, that should give them pause, but they are not subjected to the same punitive gaze as a parolee or a prisoner under correctional supervision — or, for that matter, a laborer whose every movement on the job is tracked, or a welfare recipient whose purchases are assessed by a prying social worker. “Privacy,” Harcourt himself writes, “has beenprivatized.” It is becoming a luxury good, available only to those who can afford it.
Harcourt’s analysis hinges on desire: We want to participate, we are impelled to do so, and we like it. But it seems to me we are as muchcompelled as we are impelled. In my own work on new media, I have described this as a shift from the old model of “manufacturing consent,” where traditional broadcasters molded public opinion from on high, to one of “manufacturing compulsion,” where we are, at least superficially, in charge of our media destinies, clicking on whatever we choose.
In reality things aren’t so simple: Recommendation algorithms, advertising, and addictive interfaces all chip away at our autonomy in different manners. What’s more, we are forced to participate in online life in myriad ways. Students are advised to manage their social media profiles so they can get into a good college; adults are compelled to groom their LinkedIn profiles in order to secure employment; journalists and other creative professionals are told they must join Twitter to promote their work; and so on. Credit scores are a prime example of this logic of compulsion. We don’t manage our scores for fun but under threat of penalty, in the form of higher interest rates or fees. With a bevy of start-ups innovating new modes of consumer scoring — many of which use information from data brokers in ways that shrewdly bypass inadequate consumer protections — we may soon be induced to adapt our online behavior to accommodate them (for example, by not being “friends” with people the algorithms deem credit risks).
Understanding the degree to which we are compelled to participate, as opposed to lamenting the degree to which we desire our own oppression, is important if we want to devise strategies for resistance. Movements derive more energy from tapping into people’s grievances than chastising them for complacency.
The challenge — and this brings us to the book’s concluding section — is how the “disobedience” of Harcourt’s subtitle can effectively push back against expository power. Exposed closes on a hopeful note, pointing to pockets of resistance and successful rebels, all people worth celebrating: Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks, artists like Trevor Paglen and Laura Poitras, free software advocates such as Eben Moglen. But Harcourt’s proposed solutions are not entirely satisfying. He considers boycotting Facebook a radical act, and I disagree. If our goal is to build a robust movement capable of taking on the new power structure he describes, we will have to meet people, at least initially, where they are. More than 1 billion of them are on Facebook. A movement made up only of those savvy enough to congregate on more obscure and secure corners of the internet is destined to remain small. Mass mobilization is an important component of any serious strategy for social change.
On the final page of the book, Harcourt praises Occupy Wall Street, not for its mission but for its supposedly leaderless form. (Some of us who were involved in Occupy might challenge that characterization.) The better lesson to take from Occupy is not its approach, which was imperfectly implemented and produced mixed results, but its willingness to challenge capitalism and inequality directly. Ultimately, the society of exposure that Harcourt criticizes is a symptom of the oligarchy’s escalating attack on democracy. The best solution may not be to combat surveillance directly, but to attack the disease: the arrangements that have allowed an unaccountable political and economic elite to emerge.
It is true, as Harcourt writes, that the “customary lines between politics, economics, and society are rapidly vanishing and melding into one”; it is true that the state has merged with corporate interests. But it is also true that the state remains one of the public’s most powerful weapons. If compelled by a powerful social movement, the state could aggressively enforce anti-trust regulations, pass a baseline cross-sector privacy law, enforce labor rights for employees of digital disruptors such as Uber, rein in the financial apparatus that has abetted the latest tech bubble with its massively inflated start-up valuations, and invest in public options such as municipal broadband (paid for, perhaps, with the taxes tech companies are currently dodging by sheltering assets overseas). Instead of merely hiding from the oligopolistic octopus, we should strive to free ourselves from its grip. https://theintercept.com/2016/01/23/surveillance-bernard-harcourt-why-do-we-expose-ourselves/
"One of the commonest objections to Communism is, that men are not good enough to live under a Communist state of things. They would not submit to a compulsory Communism, but they are not yet ripe for free, anarchistic Communism. Centuries of individualistic education have rendered them too egoistic. Slavery, submission to the strong, and work under the whip of necessity, have rendered them unfit for a society where everybody would be free and know no compulsion except what results from a freely taken engagement towards the others, and their disapproval if he would not fulfill the engagement. Therefore, we are told, some intermediate transition state of society is necessary as a step towards Communism.
Old words in a new shape; words said and repeated since the first attempt at any reform, political or social, in any human society. Words which we heard before the abolition of slavery; words said twenty and forty centuries ago by those who like too much their own quietness for liking rapid changes, whom boldness of thought frightens, and who themselves have not suffered enough from the iniquities of the present society to feel the deep necessity of new issues!
Men are not good enough for Communism, but they are good enough for Capitalism? If all men were good-hearted, kind, and just, they would never exploit one another, although possessing the means to do so. With such men the private ownership of capital would be no danger. The capitalist would hasten to share his profits with the workers, and the best-remunerated workers with those suffering from occasional causes. If men were provident they would not produce velvet and articles of luxury while food is wanted in the cottages: they would not build palaces as long as there are slums. If men had a deeply developed feeling of equity they would not oppress other men.
Politicians would cheat their electors; Parliament would not be a chattering and cheating box, and Charles Warren’s policemen would refuse to bludgeon the Trafalgar Square talkers and listeners. And if men were gallant, self-respecting, and less egoistic, even a bad capitalist would not be a danger; the workers would soon have reduced him to the role of a simple comrade-manager. Even a King would not be dangerous, because the people would merely consider him as a fellow unable to do better work, and therefore entrusted with signing some stupid papers sent out to the other cranks calling themselves Kings.
But men are not those free-minded, independent, provident, loving, and compassionate fellows which we should like to see them. And precisely, therefore, they must not continue living under the present system which permits them to oppress and exploit one another. Take, for instance, those misery-stricken tailors who paraded last Sunday in the streets, and suppose that one of them has inherited a houndred pounds from an American uncle. With these hundred pounds he surely will not start a productive association for a dozen of like misery-stricken tailors, and try to improve their condition.
He will become a sweater. And, therefore, we say that in a society where men are so bas as this American heir, it is very hard for him to have misery-stricken tailors around him. As soon as he can he will sweat them; while if these same tailors had a secured living from the Communist stores, none of them would sweat to enrich their ex-comrade, and the young sweater would himself not become the very bad beast he surely will become if he continues to be a sweater.
We are told we are too slavish, to snobbish, to be placed under free institutions; but we say that because we are indeed so slavish we ought not to remain any longer under the present institutions, which favour the development of slavishness. We see that Britons, French, and Americans display the most disgusting slavishness towards Gladstone, Boulanger, or Gould. And we concluda that in a humanity already endowed with such slavish instincts it is very bad to have the masses forcibly deprived of higher education, and compelled to live under the present inequality of wealth, education, and knowledge. Higher instruction and equality of conditions would be the only neans for destroying the inherited slavish instincts, and we cannot understand how slavish instincts can be made an argument for maintaining, even for one day longer, inequality of conditions; for refusing equality of instruction to all members ofthe community.
Our space is limited, but submit to the same analysis any of the aspects of our social life, and you will see that the present capitalist, authoritarian system is absolutely inappropriate to a society of men so improvident, so rapacious, so egoistic, and so slavish as they are now. Therefore, when we hear men saying that the Anarchists imagine men much better than they really are, we merely wonder how intelligent people can repeat that nonsense.
Do we not say continually that the only means to rendering men less rapacious and egoistic, less ambitious and less slavish at the same time, is to eliminate those conditions which favour the growth of egotism and rapacity, of slavishness and ambition? The only difference between us and those who make the above objection is this: We do not, like them, exaggerate the inferior instincts of the masses, and do not complacently shut our eyes to the same bad instincts in the upper classes. We maintain that both rulers and ruled are spoiled by authority; both exploiters and exploited are spoiled by exploitation; while our opponents seem to admit that there is a kind of salt of the earth – the rulers, the employers, the leaders – who, happily enough, prevent those bad men – the ruled, the exploited, the led – from becoming still worse than they are.
There is the difference, and a very important one. We admit the imperfections of human nature, but we make no exception for the rulers. They make it, although sometimes unconciously, and because we make no such exception, they say that we are dreamers, ‘unpractical men’. And old quarrel, that quarrel between the ‘practical men’ and the ‘unpractical’, the so-called Utopists: a quarrel renewed at each proposed change, and always terminating by the total defeat of those who name themselves practical people.
Many of us must remember the quarrel when it raged in America before the abolition of slavery. When the full emancipation of the Negroes was advocated, the practical people used to say that if the Negroes were no more compelled to labour by the whips of their owners, they would not work at all, and soon would become a charge upon the community. Thick whips could be prohibited, they said, and the thickness of the whips might be progressively reduced by law to half-an-inch first and then to a mere trifle of a few tenths of an inch; but some kind of whip must be maintained. And when the abolitionists said – just as we say now – that the enjoyment of the produce of one’s labour would be a much more powerful inducement to work than the thickest whip. ‘Nonsense, my friend,’ they were told – just as we are told now. ‘You don’t know human nature! Years of slavery have rendered them improvident, lazy and slavish, and human nature cannot be changed in one day. You are imbued, of course, with the best intentions, but you are quite ”unpractical”.’
Well, for sometime the practical men had their own way in elaborating schemes for the gradual emancipation of Negroes. But, alas!, the schemes proved quite unpractical, and the civil war – the bloodiest on record – broke out. But the war resulted in the abolition of slavery, without any transition period; – and see, none of the terrible consequences foreseen by the practical people followed. The Negroes work, they are industrious and laborious, they are provident – nay, too provident, indeed – and the only regret that can be expressed is, that the scheme advocated by the left wing of the unpractical camp – full equality and land allotments – was not realised: it would have saved much trouble now.
About the same time a like quarrel raged in Russia, and its cause was this. There were in Russia 20 million serfs. For generations past they had been under the rule, or rather the birch-rod, of their owners. They were flogged for tilling their soil badly, flogged for want of cleanliness in their households, flogged for imperfect weaving of their cloth, flogged for not sooner marrying their boys and girls – flogged for everything. Slavishness, improvidence, were their reputed characteristics.
Now came the Utopists and asked nothing short of the following: Complete liberation of the serfs; immediate abolition of any obligation of the serf towards the lord. More than that: immediate abolition of the lord’s jurisdiction and his abandonment of all the affairs upon which he formerly judged, to peasants’ tribunals elected by the peasants and judging, not in accordance with law which they do not know, but with their unwritten customs. Such was the unpractical scheme of the unpractical camp. It was treated as a mere folly by practical people.
But happily enough there was by that time in Russia a good deal of unpracticalness of the peasants, who revolted with sticks against guns, and refused to submit, notwithstanding the massacres, and thus enforced the unpractical state of mind to such a degree as to permit the unpractical camp to force the Tsar to sign their scheme – still mutilated to some extent. The most practical people hastened to flee away from Russia, that they might not have their throats cut a few days after the promulgation of that unpractical scheme.
But everything went on quite smoothly, notwithstanding the many blunders still committed by practical people. These slaves who were reputed improvident, selfish brutes, and so on, displayed such good sense, such an organising capacity as to surpass the expectations of even the most unpractical Utopists; and in three years after the Emancipation the general physiognomy of the villages had completely changed. The slaves were becoming Men!
The Utopists won the battle. They proved that they were the really practical people, and that those who pretended to be practical were imbeciles. And the only regret expressed now by all who know the Russian peasantry is, that too many concessions were made to those practical imbeciles and narrow-minded egotists: that the advice of the left wing of the unpractical camp was not followed in full.
We cannot give more examples. But we earnestly invite those who like to reason for themselves to study the history of any of the great social changes which have occured in humanity from the rise of the Communes to the Reform and to our modern times. They will see that history is nothing but a struggle between the rulers and the ruled, the oppressors and the oppressed, in which struggle the practical camp always sides with the rulers and the oppressors, while the unpractical camp sides with the oppressed; and they will see that the struggle always ends in a final defeat of the practical camp after much bloodshed and suffering, due to what they call their ‘practical good sense’.
If by saying that we are unpractical our opponents mean that we foresee the march of events much better than the practical short-sighted cowards, then they are right. But if they mean that they, the practical people, have a better foresight of events, then we send them to history and ask them to put themselves in accordance with its teachings before making that presumptuous assertion.
I started this article thinking I was going to list out the numerous deceptions and real issues that not just threaten residents of the USA, but humanity itself, the very health of the planet. I had written out almost 40 and realized I had many more to go. In fact I had already created categories; Financial, Governmental, Health, Technology, Environmental. The point of this article is not to list the numerous real issues that are a threat to us all. Nor is to create another Top Ten list of things to be AFRAID of!! Michael Snyder has that market covered. It’s real easy to sell fear. It might be the #1 product sold on American TV. And Alt/Truth media is just as guilty of selling fear as the MSM.
However many of these issues are very serious, and we all should be genuinely concerned, there is justification for being afraid. But we must not live our lives in fear. We’ve already lost if we do, and this is why fear is so heavily sold, marketed, pushed, advertised. And yet we must face these issues. Not just face them; we must address them, resist them, overcome them. We each must decide where to focus our energies. So then where do I, you, we focus? What is the most pressing issue of our time? What is the greatest deception? What is the greatest threat to humanity, to life on earth, to the planet itself?
I’ve thought about this often, in part because I’ve wrestled for a while now with the issue of focus. Focus is so important. It determines the path we walk. It shapes our lives. It defines who we are. It is where are mind dwells For focus is about where are attention is. What are we giving our attention to? Who are we giving our attention to? Why are we giving our attention to? What we focus on is also what we consume. And ultimately what defines each of us is that which we create, and that which we consume. “You are what you eat”. That quite literally is true. Proven by science, proven by common sense, proven by the history of man. Thus it is a great fundamental truth. But a partial truth. The complete truth is, “You are what you consume”. And what we focus on is what we consume.
What are we consuming? Is it good for us? Who made it? Why did they make it? If what I consume through my mouth, my eyes, and my ears makes me what and who I am then should I not be careful about what I consume? Who is the author of this media I consume? Why I… literally know nothing about them? It is not the actor or the director, though people know them well, and some worship them. But they are not the creators of the content. They are just working from the script. They are the performers of that which was created. But they are not the creator or the final authority. (Yes, there are exceptions but normally the producer, writer, and director are different people.) The creators and the controllers are the writers and producers. If I mention a popular movie from the past few years and let’s say one you watched and liked. Many or most will be able to list the main actors in it, some will be able to tell you the director. But how many know who the producer was? And how many know who the actual creator was? The writer.
So then if I am what I consume then am I not ‘shaped’ by the creator of the content I consume? And who is the creator again? You don’t know? In many cases we know absolutely nothing about the writer. First and foremost just who are they? But more importantly what are they? What do they believe, what do they value, what do they consume? Are they using their creation to pass on their values/beliefs to others… the consumers? Might they have an agenda?
And if we are what we consume then what if a person wanted to shape another’s opinion? Could they not just then inject their ideas into that which is consumed? And if someone wanted to influence a large group of people; millions, populations. Then they would need a way to expose the consumers on a mass scale; print(newspaper, books, magazines), radio, movies, TV, internet (the amalgamation of print, audio, video). Mass Media. And they would need to control a large spectrum of media to ensure the message propagates throughout the different strata of society. A media empire so to speak…
The top 6 companies that control 90% of media in the USA;
If we are what we create and consume, and we live in a consumer society. And few are creating, most are simply consuming. Then is not the consumer but a creation of the content consumed? And this would mean that the ‘creators’ are in control… right? If I am what I create and consume but all I do is consume content created by others. Then ‘others’ are shaping who we are. Our thoughts, opinions, ideas are being given to us based on what we consume. And if we allow others to consistently and constantly ‘inform’ us, then who are we a reflection of?
Full credit to John Rappoport who consistently espouses the importance of creating.
Let’s look at it another way. Have you heard the phrase; “A person is a product of their environment’? It is from our environment that we obtain what we consume. Our environment always has a direct influence on us. So what exactly is ‘influence’?
Merriam-Webster Definition of ‘influence’;
noun: the power to change or affect someone or something: the power to cause changes without directly forcing them to happen
verb: to affect or change (someone or something) in an indirect but usually important way: to have an influence on (someone or something)
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary;
noun: In a general sense, influence denotes power whose operation is invisible and known only by its effects, or a power whose cause and operation are unseen.
verb: To move by moral power; to act on and affect, as the mind or will, in persuading or dissuading; to induce. Men are influenced by motives of interest or pleasure.
How is one influenced? What does it mean to be influenced? Certainly one absolute fact is that in order to be influenced by anyone or anything one must be ‘exposed’ to it. Important to note that this exposure does not have to be direct or prolonged. You can be influenced by say a good friend, a long time friend, a friend that you trust. Let’s say your friend influences you on a specific topic, and you are consciously aware of this influence. Because of this influence you make deliberate decisions. Let’s say it’s an activity, the particular activity is unimportant. If you can, recall an activity someone else turned you on too. By ‘reacting’ to the influence of your good friend you become heavily involved in this new activity. You research it online, buy the necessary materials/equipment to get started, schedule time to engage in this activity, think about the activity when you daydream. Over time, maybe even a short amount of time, a great deal of your focus is on this specific activity. All because of the ‘influence’ of your friend. I wonder ‘who’ influenced your friend about this activity… and why?
Let’s look at influence from the viewpoint of a young child. And let’s go back in time a few hundred or thousand years but at least until we predate the printing press. And this could be any group on any continent. Whether it be tribal man in the America’s, or larger and more organized societies such as the Zhou Dynasty in China or Europe in the Middle Ages. You are born into a family who is part of a tribe or village. Even if you were born in a city, say in 1400 Europe it’s size is relatively small, couple hundred thousand for a really large city, but the average city would be in the low tens of thousands. The point is that your immediate sphere of influence is relatively small, and decidedly local. So by far the most powerful influence on the young child is their family; mother and father, siblings, grandparents, and other extended family. And then beyond this immediate and significant group of influencers are the members of the local community. Neighbors, fellow tribesmen, other peoples of the local village and surrounding farms. Depending on circumstances the young child may daily be exposed to numerous other persons, especially in a traditional tribal setting, or very little, say the child of a farmer whose land is a fair distance from the village. Regardless, the child is directly influenced by people that are either related to them, or part of the same community. And the influencers who are not family are well known to the family. Mom and Dad not only know exactly who they are, they know their names, probably know where they live, and what kind of persons they are. So that which influences the child is either family, or local, and is well known by the child’s parents.
Now look at our current age, in modern westernized society. Mom and Dad work at different jobs, siblings go to different schools. The teachers at the schools are more likely than not strangers to the parents, and a good chance do not live in the community in which the school is located. Especially today your more likely to find each individual within the household to be consuming media unique and separate from their family members. And therefor what we have is that each individual’s, within the family, main source of influence is NOT other family members or even persons of the local community, but it is of strangers. Parents teach their children not to talk to strangers, but it’s perfectly fine to watch what they created on TV! Is it any wonder parents and children are at odds? Is it any wonder why the family unit is so fractured?
We are a product of our environment, we are what we consume. The reality, that most of us are being influenced by strangers, is rife with the potential for malfeasance. We are consuming content that is created by persons we do not know, for reasons we are not fully aware.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.”
Edward Bernays. Propaganda (1928) First two paragraphs of Chapter 1.
“That we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy, who have always existed and presumably will always exist, to get people to love their servitude. This is the, it seems to me, the ultimate in malevolent revolutions shall we say, and this is a problem which has interested me many years and about which I wrote thirty years ago, a fable, Brave New World, which is an account of society making use of all the devices available and some of the devices which I imagined to be possible making use of them in order to, first of all, to standardize the population, to iron out inconvenient human differences, to create, to say, mass produced models of human beings arranged in some sort of scientific caste system.”
Aldous Huxley. The Ultimate Revolution (U.C. Berkley, 1962)
The ‘masses’ and the ‘people’ of which the above quotes refer are not just others, strangers… they are you, and me, they are everyone we know. And so today we have all these tools of mass influence… mass media. Print, radio, video, and the combination of all three, and now in portable form the Smartphone, called the internet enabled device.
Is this the greatest problem facing humanity? That a whole hosts of tools, techniques, methods have been developed and employed to implement exactly what Bernays and Huxley were referring too. That the greatest threat to humanity has always been other humans, and that the few controlling the many predates written human history. That these tools of mass ‘influence’ are being used to manipulate us all. This manipulation is just that, it is the deliberate conscious actions of others to ‘shape’ our thoughts and opinions… without us being aware, conscious, or cognizant of this occurring.
The few controlling the many through manipulation and deception is ancient. We have ample proof of this through the well know cultures where a mortal man was worshiped as a god. Egyptians, Aztecs, and more recently the Shōwa Era Japanese (WWII). How did a person convince others to believe they were divine? Why did large populations believe this? Was the ruler mad? Did the ruler believe they were a god? Possibly, certainly they believed themselves above the masses, but they knew they had no special powers… except maybe the knowledge of how to manipulate others through guile and deception.
I have been using the word ‘influence’ very deliberately. I believe it to be currently used in common English as a neutral term, that it can be positive or negative. I also believe that when the word ‘influence’ is used that it is understood that the influence is known. The consumer is aware of the specific influence. So at this point I want to make a clear delineation between the term ‘influence’ and the term ‘manipulation’. I am defining influence as a clear known message, with no ambiguity. That the person understands when they consume a specific message what the influence is. That there is no hidden agenda. I am defining manipulation as a method of influencing through the use of deception. That the true objective of the consumed message (media) is hidden within. That the innocuous comedy which is designed to influence you to laugh, manipulates in many other ways.
Let’s take a real life example. When you go onto a car lot to look at cars, you are eventually met by a salesperson. Now we all know that the salesperson is going to try and influence the tire kicker to buy the car, we expect this… this is their job. Nor is there anything inherently wrong with this. But there is a difference between someone trying to openly, consciously influence you, and someone trying to manipulate you. And in fact there is a whole host of ‘Sales Techniques’ used to ‘encourage’ the potential buyer to purchase. There are countless books on it, and many of these techniques are deliberately manipulative. Now one could make a solid argument that the average consumer is aware that ‘sales techniques’ will be employed when purchasing a car and prepare accordingly. But just because one is aware of an impending attack, does not mean one will successfully defend against it. It brings new clarity to the phrase… “let the buyer beware”. There is a reason why many people hate buying a new car, even if they really want and can afford the car they desire.
However, the car buying experience is quite unique. There really is nothing else one purchases that is similar. And regardless of how someone ends up on a car lot, they are responsible once they drive onto it, they know what to expect… whatever guards they have, they are active.
But what of the TV, radio, internet? Is your guard up? Of course it is, I know when the commercials are on, in fact I use the ‘Prev/Last’ channel button all the time! But I’m not talking about commercials. Commercials are designed to sell specific products. But the few who control the many, they’re not using commercials to ‘influence’ the masses. No, they are using dramas, reality shows, talk shows, and news shows… to name but a few to manipulate our thoughts and hence our actions.
How does this work? It works in part because humans are highly suggestible. In Huxley’s Ultimate Revolution talk he mentions how for any technique of ‘suggestibility’ there is a basic 20-60-20 rule. 20% are highly suggestible, 60% mildly so, and 20% basically immune. Now notice the use of the word ‘suggestible’. Rather benign. But Huxley uses this word interchangeably with hypnosis. And I suspect that some people believe that hypnosis is impossible, or maybe the more accurate reaction the reader has is that it might work on some… but not on me! Would it not be wise to assume you’re in the highly suggestible group… just to be safe? Huxley alludes that this 20-60-20 rule is fixed or consistent across different techniques. But I must disagree. For from personal experience I can attest that I am highly susceptible to some and seemingly immune from others. It also seems that our suggestibility level is also greatly influenced by whether our ‘guard’ is up. Stranger vs trusted friend. Car lot vs grocery store. TV vs in person. I suspect that a tiny % of people are highly suggestible to all techniques, and an opposite and equal % are highly immune to all.
In Bernays’ Propaganda the most striking example of this ‘suggestibility’ was his explanation of how he used an ad campaign to encourage people to buy pianos without ever mentioning or showing a picture of a piano. It was done through a series of magazine articles in trendy publications encouraging or ‘suggesting’ the creation of music rooms. And that if one had the means to designate one room in the house to such a purpose then one would need to fill this space with logically things musical, which therefor led one to think of ‘what’ to fill this space with? Something substantial, something attractive, something musical, like a… piano. And so the person ‘inspired’ to create their own music room would naturally come to the conclusion to occupy it with a Grand Piano, without that ever being expressly mentioned. So Bernays perfected the technique of implanting an idea into a person in which the person believes the idea is their own inspiration. Another important point. This campaign was targeting at what would most accurately be described as wealthy people. People considered intelligent, smart… maybe savvy? Not suckers, fools, or idiots. And yet this campaign was quite successful.
The implanting of an idea without ones knowledge is thought control. And it wasn’t just to implant and idea for the sake of it, it was to implant an idea that would lead to a specific action. There is a more direct two word moniker… it’s initials are MC. But I’m not going to spell it out. Why? Because we’ve been conditioned, through mass media using thought control techniques, to react a specific way towards that two word phrase (and many many others). And the reaction is negative. It is to dismiss it, ignore it, ridicule it. The mental reaction is that of; “that’s ridiculous you can’t actually control someone’s mind!”. MC is very real and there are many methods, techniques, and tools to do so.
It is these different methods that make up a large part of the ‘ancient mysteries’ often alluded to. These techniques are how the few have controlled the many over the millennium. And it is these techniques that are being employed on an unprecedented scale in our Western societies. Mass media has taken these methods to a whole different level for various reasons;
One, the sheer volume of content. The consumer is literally overwhelmed, to the point of surrender. Which is a common military tactic.
When you are overwhelmed with information/content it becomes impossible to ‘consciously’ process it all… which means that at least part of that which is not consciously processed is ‘sub-consciously’ processed. Then it seems safe to assume that content is created in which the conscious data role is to overwhelm and distract, in order to deliver the intended data at the sub-conscious level. Which falls right in line with the classic strategy of the Illusionist, distract with one hand whilst preparing the ‘trick’ in the other.
Two, the sophistication of the techniques. A tremendous amount research and knowledge has been gained over the past 100 years in particular in regards to how the brain works (neurology), psychology, electromagnetics, and sound/video engineering.
Three, the pervasiveness of media. Print, radio, and video are everywhere in our culture.
The average person in the USA watches 5+ hours a day of TV (plus 30 minutes of ‘timeshifted’ viewing, DVR), and listens to almost 3 hours of radio. I don’t believe these numbers account for how much TV is now viewed using computers, especially for 30 and unders. Nor does it take into account video gaming. Let’s take a closer look at the TV… and any light emitting device that displays an image; television, movie projector, computer monitor, tablet, smartphone.
“When you watch TV, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. In fact, experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman showed that while viewers are watching television, the right hemisphere is twice as active as the left, a neurological anomaly. The crossover from left to right releases a surge of the body’s natural opiates: endorphins, which include beta-endorphins and enkephalins. Endorphins are structurally identical to opium and its derivatives (morphine, codeine, heroin, etc.). Activities that release endorphins (also called opioid peptides) are usually habit-forming (we rarely call them addictive).”
“First of all, when you’re watching television the higher brain regions (like the midbrain and the neo-cortex) are shut down, and most activity shifts to the lower brain regions (like the limbic system). The neurological processes that take place in these regions cannot accurately be called “cognitive.” The lower or reptile brain simply stands poised to react to the environment using deeply embedded “fight or flight” response programs. Moreover, these lower brain regions cannot distinguish reality from fabricated images (a job performed by the neo-cortex), so they react to television content as though it were real, releasing appropriate hormones and so on. Studies have proven that, in the long run, too much activity in the lower brain leads to atrophy in the higher brain regions.”
“Herbert Krugman’s research proved that watching television numbs the left brain and leaves the right brain to perform all cognitive duties. This has some harrowing implications for the effects of television on brain development and health. For one, the left hemisphere is the critical region for organizing, analyzing, and judging incoming data. The right brain treats incoming data uncritically, and it does not decode or divide information into its component parts.”
“An important explanation for why we spend so much time motionless in front of the screen is that television constantly triggers the “orienting response” in our brains. As I noted in the introduction, the purpose of the orienting response is to immediately establish in the present moment whether or not fear is appropriate by determining whether or not the sudden movement that has attracted attention is evidence of a legitimate threat…”
“Now, television commercials and many action sequences on television routinely activate that orienting reflex once per second. And since we in this country, on average, watch television more than four and a half hours per day, those circuits of the brain are constantly being activated.”
“The constant and repetitive triggering of the orienting response induces a quasi-hypnotic state. It partially immobilizes viewers and creates an addiction to the constant stimulation of two areas of the brain: the amygdala and the hippocampus (part of the brain’s memory and contextualizing system). It’s almost as though we have a “receptor” for television in our brains.”
Al Gore?!? I know I know. I’m sure he did not write it. And the chapter starts with the explanation of how fear is a major factor in human behavior. I would assume this is just more Globalists signaling. And in fact here is a quote from the 4th paragraph in Chapter 1;
“… If leaders exploit public fears to herd people in directions they might not otherwise choose, then fear itself can quickly become a self-perpetuating and freewheeling force that drains national will and weakens national character, diverting attention from real threats deserving of healthy and appropriate fear and sowing confusion about the essential choices that every nation must constantly make about its future.”
Hmm Al, that sounds EXACTLY like what is going on today. Thanks for the heads up! One other point, if the fear necessary to ‘herd’ the people does not exist… well then you create it! See: false-flags.
Note: VDT = video/visual display terminal
Since television viewing reduces the quantity of the highest frequency brain waves, those in the Beta range, and produces much more Theta (associated with drowsiness) what should we think of a medium that reduces the healthy disequilibrium of the brain, thus dampening down the brain’s ability to send or receive information? Print comprehension requires a high energy dis-equilibrating input. TV dilutes this need.
The Emerys’ report confirms Krugman’s preliminary findings of a reduction of brain wave activity in television viewing linked to a pattern associated with passive inattention. “The continuous trance-like fixation of the viewer is then not attention but distraction – a form akin to daydreaming or time out” (Ibid.). The chaos of high stimulation and extreme disequilibrium seems totally lacking here. Consciousness is not in evidence.
Their conclusions based on a careful analysis of the strong theta inducing properties of cathode ray technology, television and VDT’s, are clear: “television must be judged as a maladaptive technology” (727) because, among several measured reasons, it “inhibits consciousness and purposeful behavior.” In other areas of study they conclude that TV is maladaptive because it stimulates only recognition and squelches conscious recall; that TV involves “more forgetting than remembering” of TV content; that “understanding” of contents is minimalized (cf. 756).
As the Emerys and other investigators have shown, the neurophysiological evidence is overwhelmingly clear that VDT use for extensive reading carries the virtual certainty of deleterious health effects. Simply put: radiant light (as contrasted with reflected light, that is, cathode ray technology CRT) draws energy away from the verbal centre and sets up strong stress patterns for anyone trying to use a VDT for literate purposes. Print is going to have to stay on the printed page where it can best enhance our re-entry into the acoutic space of electromagnetic wave resonance.
Please click on the following link, it’s a selection of 6 photos of children’s facial expressions while they watch TV. Draw your own conclusions. Please click on this link!
From this point forward I will refer to TV or VDT as Video Display Device (VDD). Which includes; TV, projector(movie), computer monitor, tablet, laptop, smartphone, etc.
So let’s do some basic math here. And real math, not that Common Core garbage that has been specifically designed to confuse, and retard development. But doing real, basic, logical math. Let’s take the following truths;
The few controlling the many (globalists) has been a constant throughout human history. These few have developed a series of techniques, most of which employ some type/level of deception, in order to control (enslave) populations. Today referred to as ‘Social Engineering’.
Humans in general are highly suggestible.
People are a product of their environments. It is from our environments that we obtain that which we consume. We are what we create and consume. Most people in western cultures consume vast quantities of mass media on a daily basis.
The video is addictive, puts people into a hypnotic state, shuts down critical thinking skills, and inhibits consciousness. The average American watches 5+ hours of video a day. Plus whatever time is spent on their computer and smartphone.
Propaganda propagates through mass media to implant information within our minds without our knowledge or consent.
Globalists implement propaganda/public relations through mass media to manipulate public opinion, and direct the populations actions… or inaction.
So taking the above facts and combining them, technically it would be multiplying them, we can draw some inferences, make some observations, and put forth some conclusions;
Cognitive dissonance; 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 one or more beliefs, ideas or values, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.
It becomes abundantly clear why we have so much cognitive dissonance in our societies. Because we are regularly exposed to competing and conflicting propaganda. Content that was not critically processed, but simply consumed or ‘downloaded’ into our conscious and sub-conscious. And hence why people today so commonly and easily hold contradictory beliefs.
All of this media that people are consuming directly affects the mind. Some people cannot turn it off, some cannot resist the influence. And some persons are becoming sick from it, what is conveniently being called ‘mental illness’. But all illnesses, all diseases, all physical maladies have a cause. We live in a cause and affect world. One just not just become ‘sick’, there is always a cause, now whether the cause can be determined, that is another issue. The same applies with mental illness. Something is causing it. And if we come back to the basic premise that we are what we consume… then is seems logical to postulate that ‘mental illness’ is a direct result of that which has been consumed.
So consider that many labeled as ‘mentally ill’ are actually victims of that which they consumed, and most likely a combination of media and drugs. It would also be logical to assume that those who fall victim to this are in the 20% of the population who are highly suggestible. I also am comfortable in postulating that in some of the extreme cases that there is also mental manipulation occurring at the person to person level.
Bruce Jenner. Not Caitlyn, and HE is not a women. He is not mentally ill, for ultimately that label is just an excuse, a cop-out. “Oh, he’s just got mental problems, that is what is wrong with him.” No he is not mentally ill, but I would argue that he no longer is in control of his life. Mentally ill? No. Mentally enslaved…? I recently ran into a short video about a man in his 40’s, recently left his family of 8, to become a transgender female. Notice I said female and not women. Because not only has he chosen to be a female, but he’s chosen to become a little girl of 6, and has found a family who is treating him as such, who also have a daughter of 7. It goes without saying this is not normal, and again some would just label him as mentally ill and move on. But again illness does not just happen… it is my conjecture that this is an extreme example of mental manipulation.
Let’s look at some other ‘conditions’ where the persons have obviously been unable to ‘turn off’ or ignore the programming. The most blatant is the obesity epidemic in the USA. Now this is a multi-pronged assault. It includes market saturation of fast food and restaurants, ingredients in products to encourage overeating, and addiction. Almost everyone you know is addicted to sugar. And you did know that High Fructose Corn Syrup suppresses the signal that the stomach is full right? There is a 1-1 correlation between the wide adoption of HFCS and the explosion in drink sizes… and obesity. The only size soft drink at McD’s in 1955 was 7oz, today the average biggest size at many fast food chains is 42oz. And throw into the mix the barrage of food commercials (programming)… voilà Fat America!
The shopaholic and the hoarder are also examples of those who cannot ignore or resist the message to BUY! It’s also why the ‘Dollar Store’ concept exploded. Allowing the low income market to still be able to respond to the ‘Buy’ message on a regular basis. I live in Texas, you can’t go into a small town without finding at least one Dollar chain store, usually it’s two. The hoarder is actually a double whammy. They cannot resist the message to buy, nor can they ‘let go’ of that which they obtained.
Some are addicted to food, others to shopping, and some to the news. The news in particular is a very powerful and dangerous tool of manipulation. That it is so is nothing new. Two hundred years ago Thomas Jefferson in a private letter had the following to say;
“… It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.”
Thomas Jefferson. ‘Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell‘. The Founder’s Constitution Volume 5, Amendment I (Speech and Press), Document 29
A hundred years ago Upton Sinclair had this to say concerning the ‘free’ press;
“Please pardon these personalities, for they are essential to the thesis of this book – that American Journalism is a class institution, serving the rich and spurning the poor.”
“Politics, Journalism, and Big Business work hand in hand for the hoodwinking of the public and the plundering of labor.”
“Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters.”
“The methods by which the “Empire of Business” maintains its control over journalism are four: First, ownership of the papers; second, ownership of the owners; third, advertising subsidies; and fourth, direct bribery. By these methods there exists in America a control of news and of current comment more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry.”
Upton Sinclair. ‘The Brass Check‘ (1920)
Sinclair is best known for his work The Jungle (1906). An expose on the Chicago meat packing industry and their abusive labor practices and horrible sanitation practices. This novel led directly to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It also led directly to Sinclair’s own personal battles with the press. The Brass Check is an expose of the American ‘free’ press.
Sinclair was labeled a ‘muckraker’… a derogatory term used to describe journalists who actually were uncovering the truth of illegal/immoral actions of business and governments. But we see this same pattern of derogatory labeling of anyone exposing the truth. Whistle-blower, conspiracy theorist, muckraker. And it is not ironic or coincidental that it is the press who creates and propagates these ‘labels’. As mentioned earlier with the MC phrase. We have been conditioned/programmed through media, but in particular the press, to react to certain key words and word combinations.
What does this mean today, in our 24/7 news cycle? It means as Paul Craig Roberts so aptly denotes, that the 4th estate is nothing but ‘presstitutes’. Jefferson clearly elucidates that the news is filled with lies, and one of the purpose of these lies as Sinclair exposes, is to furthering the agenda of business and government. On a practical level it means that the regular news viewer, is deeply deeply deceived. Spellbound would perhaps be a more accurate term. It is ironic that the regular news viewer, reader who on average has at least an under-graduate degree, would be considered intelligent and/or smart. They watch the news to ‘stay informed’. Well they are being ‘IN-formed’… formed by deception and lies. Another interesting condition we find is that the regular viewer of say CNN will see a FOX broadcast and clearly see the misinformation, leading, baiting, deception occurring on FOX, but they are blind to the exact same phenomenon in their own source of news.
Two years ago if I, or anyone for that matter, had written an article stating that Donald Trump would be the front runner of the GOP by a large margin going into the Iowa Caucasus in 2016 people would have laughed and said you were insane. You know that is true. And yet here we are. This fact is a clear demonstration of the power of the news media. The fact within the Alt/Truth media that I see more and more saying they are going to support him amazes me. But then again… Trump is no fluke, and the MSM does not hate him. They love him, he generates viewers which equal money. And so do the globalists. For if the globalists had no use for Trump he would get no MSM coverage, he would be treated like Ron Paul was the last few elections.
But why is there support behind Trump? One reason is because the other GOP candidates are useless puppets. Politically correct tools. No leaders, yes men and women. So Trump speaks his mind, stands his ground. He actually has some leadership qualities. But he is also an entertainer; the clown or court jester. A man who had declared bankruptcy 4 times, and been involved in hundreds of lawsuits, hundreds. A man who worships money and wealth (which is a primary reason why the world is in the current mess it’s in). It also appears a bigot. I thought the Alt/Truth community understood that politics today is just a show? It makes no difference who is elected because the elections are controlled and the elected serve the globalists, not the people. And yet look how much coverage Trump gets in the Alt media. Alex Jones has already endorsed him. Don’t be surprised if Trump is used to seriously malign the Alt/Truth community.
Much of this article has been focused on video and the VDD, but music by itself is a powerful tool of manipulation, particularly at the emotional level.‘Video Killed the Radio Star‘ Buggles(1979)… the fist song broadcast on MTV. But it did not happen. No, the radio and portable music players are doing quite well. Video just knocked audio down a notch, actually video enhanced audio, it dare not kill it. For as powerful as audio is by itself, and as powerful as video is by itself, neither alone comes close to matching the power of the combination of the two. And in fact at this point rarely is there video without audio. But audio alone can still enchant the masses. Radio still has a place in Huxley’s and our ‘Brave New World‘. But if you doubt the power of the radio let me remind you of 1930’s Germany, for it was the combination of the radio and propaganda that was the cornerstone to rise of The Third Reich. Or do some research into H.G. Wells ‘War of the Worlds‘ radio broadcast ‘experiment’ in 1938. Don’t underestimate the power of audio alone, and the influence radio still has today.
And just as video (TV) supplanted audio (radio) as the primary enchanter of the masses, so has the computer supplanted the TV. To be clear it is the video device connected to a computer, and a computer connected to the internet. Whatever form this may take. Traditional desktop with monitor, laptop, tablet, smartphone, wearable eyepiece in the near future, and an implant in the not too distant future. The computer is also a VDD, so it has the same inherent hypnotic effect as the TV. Plus, it is interactive. To draw the consumer even deeper into the web. I can personally attest to this. I never lost track of time watching TV, or was able to fight off sleep because I just could not pull myself away from a TV show. But this happened many times with the computer, in particular with games. Totally losing track of time, up all night. You’ve heard stories of the person completed addicted to MMORPG’s (EverQuest, World of Warcraft, EVE Online). To the point of neglecting the rest of their lives; family, health, work. Addict. The ‘couch potato’ would be a TV addict, but no where close to the destructive level of the MMORPG addict. So the computer has taken the VDD addiction to a whole new level.
We see this same addictive behavior with the smartphone. Users can’t put it down, can’t be without it. Classic addiction behavior. It’s also proof that when an addictive behavior is adopted by a large % of the population it becomes ‘normal’. That does not mean the behavior is healthy, important, or positive… just widely adopted, and hence now normal. One other important factor that separates the computer from the TV, it allows the globalists, the controllers, the manipulators to track EVERYTHING the user reads, watches, says, plays, and interacts with, and where and when this occurs. A veritable gold mine of information. The internet connected smart device (tip: smart = spy) allows mass control at the individual level. A first in human history.
We’ve gone from the movie theater, to a TV in every household, to multiple TVs, to many having a computer, to everyone having a smartphone. How faraway is the wearable computer(Google Glass)? It appears the Virtual Reality (VR) headset it about to take off.
VR headsets will have wide angle cameras (like what smartphones already have) that will allow the wearer to see the world around them without having to take off the headset. And this VR craze is the next progression of deeper entrainment. The immersion level is off the scale compared to TV or the computer. People will spend their entire lives in virtual reality. And this will lead to direct control of the masses. How long before a fully functional implantable device? The globalist want us all micro-chipped. In the original ‘Freedom to Fascism‘ (2006) by Aaron Russo he speaks about a conversation with Nicholas Rockefeller, who says that is the goal. Note: I’ve watched ‘Freedom to Fascism‘ twice. The 2nd version did NOT have the section where Russo speaks about his conversation with Nick Rockefeller. After searching for it, it appears Russo speaking about Rockefeller and chipping was an Alex Jones interview (but I still would swear I saw it in the first viewing of ‘Freedom to Fascism‘);
10 minutes well spent, it’s all Aaron speaking.
As mentioned the video display device inherently is hypnotic, regardless of what is being displayed. But it is taken to a whole new level when specific visual and audio techniques are used to further entrance the consumer. Audio using specific frequencies, patterns, and tones. Video using specific patterns, especially flashing light patterns. The spinning circle is a very common technique used to lull the consumer into a deeper state. You see these commonly with newscasts intros, you also see it every time you’re waiting for the next video to load on NetFlix. And in fact there are a whole host of audio (both music and speech), video (both visual, light and hand/body movements) techniques that are employed to deliberately mesmerize the viewer. And these are just techniques at the conscious level. The sub-conscious, subliminal methods are a subject wholly onto itself.
To this we add the last important factor to effectiveness of the VDD, that of drugs, both prescription and illegal* (including marijuana). The use of drugs can have a profound impact on the mental state of the consumer, further lowering the mental defenses, and greatly increasing the effectiveness of the VDD to entrain the consumer. As mentioned this also applies to legal or prescription pharmaceuticals.50% of the people in the USA took at least one prescription drug in the last month, 70% have at least one prescription. I still can’t believe it’s that high. Did you know there are only two countries in the world who allow pharmaceutical advertising?… New Zealand and the USA. Many of these ‘legal’ prescription drugs are much more powerful than some ‘illegal’ drugs. It is my contention that many drugs are specifically designed to enhance the effectiveness of entrainment techniques of audio and video. A subject also wholly onto itself.
*Even though I believe drugs are used to heighten the entrainment effect of the VDD, I also believe they should be legal. For several reasons but primarily because what a person does with their body, as long as it is not adversely affecting another, is their own damn business. Including what a person decides to consume. And by legal I don’t mean the Government regulates.
The content we have consumed is persistent too. A year or so ago, my son and I decided to watch the ‘Star Wars Holiday Special‘ from 1978. We had heard how bad it was, and as we both enjoy the occasional, so bad it’s good, film we thought we give it a go. Note: The Special was bad, awful, horrible. The copy I located had the commercials as part of the broadcast. I swear within the first two seconds of almost every commercial you could have stopped it and I could have sung the entire jingle and story boarded how the commercial would play out. I had not seen these commercials in at least 35 years. And that is just ‘harmless’ ads… but embedded deep in my memory. What else is embedded deep in our minds that we cannot consciously recall, but can be easily triggered with a still image or a couple of sound notes?
What does this lifetime of entrainment, conditioning, programming, propaganda mean to you and I, to all of us? Eventually it leads to some very troubling questions… disturbing questions. Some fundamental questions of identity. Like, ‘just who am I exactly then?’ line of questions. It also brings into question just how ‘in control’ is anyone of their life? If one primary purpose of covert propaganda is to implant an idea without the target knowing it. Then how do we know an idea, desire, thought is actually of our own making or been ‘programmed’ into us? I am not making lite of this. I am very serious. How do we know how ‘suggestible’ we are? It seems reasonable that even if we are aware of certain techniques, and are either immune or able to block/resist, that there are others that are extremely effective that we are unaware of.
Awareness does not make one immune. I just heard an example from someone who studies media on how it is used to pre-program and condition people to current events. He conveyed whilst on a train at a station how he saw a black backpack sitting by itself and he basically panicked. “If you see something say something!” Bomb! Terrorist! He was aware of why he was reacting this way, and forced himself to calm down and stay rational. Just because we are aware that the media is being used to influence does not make us immune from it’s affects. This would be analogous to someone declaring that because they know alcohol can make them drunk it won’t affect them when they have a drink.
If you are reading this then you are aware of the reality of the world we live in, you’ve awoken to some degree. But DO NOT confuse this for being fully awake or free. We’re just aware now that we’re not as asleep as before, we’re aware that we are not free, but enslaved. We have all been exposed to decades and decades of programming. Layers upon layers. One does not cast off decades of programming quickly or easily. Frankly I have doubts if we can truly free ourselves from the mental enslavement we are under. But I am struggling to do so. Certainly the first step is stop consuming that which is meant to entrance us.
I’ve had a hard time writing and finishing this article. The very device I’m identifying as dangerous I’m also using to create this article. The irony is disturbing and painful. That which I’m railing against is fighting back. Many days it is impossible to focus, to concentrate. Writing and researching about this topic has made me much more cognizant of my own addictions and struggle to free myself from not only VDD, but the various systems of control under which we all live. There are times when it’s as if I’m a disconnected third party and can see and feel the forces battling within myself. I am becoming more aware of my own ‘programming’, and oftentimes can feel it pulling at me. As I said before, awakening does not = fully awake. And fully awake does not = free. It just means you’re now aware of the chain(s) that bind you. Becoming fully awake is one battle, obtaining personal freedom, both mental and physical, is quite another. But both battles are absolutely worth fighting for, both for selfish reasons, and completely unselfish, altruistic purposes. This means that currently I write this as a slave struggling to be free. I hope and plan to be speaking about this, sooner rather than later, as truly a free man, helping others to be free.
Note: I have not owned a TV or seen a movie in a theater in 3 years. I do not have Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu accounts. I no longer listen to broadcast radio, even in my car. I do download podcasts, and I still download videos through Usenet. But I am very careful what I watch and listen to now. I have not had a cell/smart phone in 2 years.
Our minds have been hijacked… our minds have been poisoned against ourselves. We are at war. But we’ve been fooled into believing who the enemy is, whilst the real enemy escapes unscathed. It is not another nation, culture, language, religion that is our enemy. It is the oligarch, the globalist, the psychopaths. And they have no religious, cultural, or national loyalties. Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Totalitarianism, Feudalism, Monarchism, Despotism. The care not which ‘ISM’ is needed to control the people, as long as they are controlled. This war has many fronts, many battles. But the most important for the individual is the battle for the mind. To free ones self from the thought control, the programming, the propaganda. We must fight and win this battle first. Which will then pave the way for complete victory against the psychopaths in charge.
We wonder why others cannot see the facts, that are so obvious to us. They cannot see because their eyes are still blind, they cannot see because they are spellbound by the media they consume. One does not know they are deceived whilst in the midst of it. It is only after the curtain has been dropped that one sees the charade. Most reading this were at one point just as deeply deceived as they now see their friends and family to be. To call the asleep fools, idiots, or sheeple is counter-productive. And it certainly will not help them wake up. Speaking from personal experience, the coming to a fuller realization of just how much deception we live within is a traumatic and disconcerting experience. But, it has also been critical in grasping why and how events play out, and coming to a fuller understanding how the world really works.
I remind myself that we are all deeply deceived. The question is not “Am I deceived?”, the question is; “In how many unique areas am I deceived, and what is the depth of each?” This understanding helps me to not be as critical, to at least contemplate the possibility of ‘loving my enemies’… or at the least not be filled with hate, anger, and revenge. I’m reminded of the ‘Women in the Red Dress’ scene from The Matrix. We are trying to help free these people, but whilst they are still plugged in, still mesmerized, still programmed, still addicted… they will resist, they will fight us. They resist because they’ve been programmed to resist. Even those who actively work against us are themselves victims of this toxic culture in which we find ourselves. The abused become the abuser. The deceived lead others into deception… both knowingly and unknowingly.
There are powerful forces working constantly to keep us spellbound, to keep us distracted, to keep us from thinking, to keep us from questioning, to keep us tired, to keep us confused, to keep us busy, to keep us asleep, to keep us… enslaved.
And for those who choose to resist, to fight back, to tell the truth. They in particular will become targets to be either; re-assimilated, bribed into acquiescence, blackmailed into silence, harassed, gang-stalked, ridiculed, isolated, character assassinated, finances destroyed… and possibly murdered (‘accidental’, ‘sudden illness’, ‘suicided’). This means one is choosing the difficult path, the road less traveled, the straight and narrow. But, unless I’m grossly mistaken, it is not hyperbole or exaggeration to claim that we are literally talking about the very future of humankind and the planet itself.
I know that the world can be a vastly different place. I am not talking about Utopia. I am talking about a world built upon positive foundations. The world in which we live is built upon greed, deception, enslavement, and violence. And yet despite this there are many positive creations that have come from these negative foundations. So if what we have today has been created from greed, deception, enslavement, and violence then what kind of world could we have built upon generosity, truth, freedom, and peace? It stretches the imagination. We can have a vastly different world. Instead of the psychopath ruling, we can have the wise consulted. And though this transformation will be difficult, it is in no way impossible. But in fact it is very doable, and more encouragingly it can be done relatively quickly. For history is replete with the evidence of what man can do, both positive and negative, when he works in concert with his fellow man.
The Greatest Deception of All? There are many vying for the title. Religion, Government, Central Banking all want a shot. Convincing the slave that they are free is certainly in the Top Ten. But I contend that the greatest deception of all is the convincing of the deeply deceived that they are awake and enlightened. If humans do not awaken to how their thoughts, opinions, emotions, and actions are being constantly manipulated by others, but in particular by Social Engineers using Mass Media, it is immaterial what other great lie or lies we expose and overcome.
