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SwissMrs&Pitchfire
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Are you a free thinker?

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TV: The most powerful psychological warfare weapon
by Steven Jacobson
Television is the most powerful weapon of psychological warfare in history. This fact is so important it bears repeating: Television is the most powerful weapon of psychological warfare in history.
Most people do not think of their televisions as weapons because they are regarded as members of the family in many households across the country. Television has been entrusted with the care of the youth of this nation as a baby sitter. For many people, it is the primary source of news, information and entertainment. After a hard day of life in America, many people come home tired and plop themselves down on the sofa or their favorite easy chair, reach for the remote, turn on the TV and put their mind on hold.
Think of the times you have observed young children or senior citizens motionless in front of the TV. They wear a vacant, glassy-eyed look on their faces because they are in a trance-like state. Although it is not consciously perceived, the picture projected on the TV screen is actually flickering. We do not see the flickering consciously, but subconsciously the repetitive pattern of the flickering image induces a hypnotic state of mind in those who are vulnerable to that form of psychological suggestion.
Since television is literally "plugging" itself into the brain and central nervous system, our bodies are physiologically, as well as psychologically, responding to television.
Though there are an innumerable progression of examples, one stands out as memorable to many. In December, 1997, 700 children in Japan were hospitalized after watching an episode of the popular "Pokemon" TV cartoon. On this particular episode, stroboscopic flashes of light pulsated from the eyes of one of the cartoon’s characters, causing epileptic-like seizures in some of the children who were viewing it. Other children experienced muscle spasms, dizziness and nausea.
Attention deficit disorder was practically unheard of before the advent of television. Constantly changing camera angles and quick cutting from one scene to another, techniques that were developed for TV commercials and music videos, have been more common among the various types of programming. These techniques effectively train into the brain a short attention span for the beholder. Programs edited in this manner cause corresponding electro-chemical changes in the brain which releases endorphines to cause viewers to experience a drug-like effect.
A child sitting motionless while fixated on the TV screen is getting an electronic "fix." Children who are fidgety, unable to focus and demonstrating nervous energy will often calm down quickly when allowed to sit and watch TV. This scenario infers that children can become psychologically and physiologically-addicted to television in a manner every bit as serious as an addiction to drugs, alcohol or cigarettes.
The principles of mind control, hypnotic suggestion and mental programming are ancient. Modern technology allows the implementation of these age-old principles on a scale massive enough to influence the thinking and behavior of large numbers of people. The goal of those using modern technology to program the thoughts and actions of entire nations is to suspend the thought processes of the conscious mind and leave them open to suggestion.
The first objective of the commerical advertiser or the government propagandist is to create the conditions that will produce a state of mind favorable to receiving their message(s). That state of mind is the hypnotic state and television is capable of inducing this altered state of consciousness automatically, regardless of program content, due to the nature of the medium itself.
This makes television the most potent instrument of mass persuasion in the history of the world.
Think for a moment about the way newscasters speak and you will realize that they all talk the same way regardless of ethnic background. Whether they are black, white, hispanic or oriental, with few exceptions, they all sound alike. The patterned speech of the newscaster is similar to that of a hypnotist. The newscaster looks directly into the camera and into the eyes of the viewer—a technique that has been used by hypnotists for centuries. Coupled with the newscaster being a trusted and respected authority figure, his ability to encourage acceptance of the information being presented as true and accurate is magnified.
It is no accident that television networks have "programming" departments, that the lineup of shows is called "programming" and each individual show is called a "program." The Orwellian world of mind control is a present day reality. It arrived unnoticed because people were conditioned not to notice. There could be no effective propaganda without the support of the mass media in general and television in particular.
The consolidation of the ownership of presses, radio, television and movies makes the coordination of propaganda possible. Though generally regarded as a classic work of fiction, the novel "1984" by George Orwell was a warning of what would happen to people who lost their freedom of mind without being "aware" while it was being taken from them through artful abuses of emotional and intellectual mind manipulation/control techniques.
Most people do not pay conscious attention to things that affect them subconsciously. They do not usually know what to look for until these things are pointed out to them. The most effective way to protect yourself, your family and your community from subconscious manipulation is by being aware of how it works.
According to Homer Simpson, the underachieving father figure on the long-running adult cartoon "The Simpsons," the answers to life’s problems are on TV. And, like cartoon characters, the American people have been programmed to turn on the TV and select network programming for answers.
Our world has devolved to a state of perpetual war and conflict. That the people tolerate this state is due largely to psychological warfare being waged on them through television programming. This places mind control at the top of the list as the most important issue facing society today.
Ask yourself, if the people were in control of their own thoughts and not influenced by a barrage of media-induced propaganda, would they, on their own authority, tolerate the world as it exists today or would they demand a more just, compassionate and cooperative world?
The first freedom from which all other freedoms are derived is freedom of the mind. If the present state of world affairs is to change, we will have to break free of the programming and begin thinking independently again.
Steven Jacobson spent 13 years in the film industry and is a graduate of the Boston University School of Communications. Once he realized how the mass media was manipulating the minds of Americans without their knowledge or consent, he abandoned filmmaking. Jacobson then dedicated his energies to researching the hypnotic techniques being used to trance-form free-thinking individuals into mindless conmsumers and malleable tools of government. Jacobsen’s research has culminated in the development of the "Mind Control in America" audio series available on cassette or CD. To order these educational audios, write MCiA Media, PO Box 15734, Winston-Salem, NC 27113. You can also call Jacobson at
(336) 723-6535 or visit the website at http://www.mindcontrolinamerica.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Who owns the media?
(newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, music, movies, wire services and photo agencies)
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media." He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies. This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. In 2004, Bagdikian published "The New Media Monopoly, showing that only 5 huge corporations—Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) — now control most of the media industry in America. General Electric’s NBC is a close sixth.
"Jacques Ellul, author of "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" (1965) defines psychological warfare like this -- "the propagandist is dealing with an adversary whose morale he seeks to destroy by psychological means so that the opponent begins to doubt the validity of his beliefs and actions." "The incestuous relationship of the Monopoly Media Cartel and psychological warfare has a long history. Veterans of World War II, for example, the US Army's Psychological Warfare Division, became the Cold War's media giants. OSS agent William S. Paley became a CBS executive. C.D. Jackson worked at Time/Life. W. Phillips Davison became a Rand Corporation think-tanker. William Casey was an executive at Capital Cities, which merged with ABC and subsequently devoured by Disney. Casey himself, of course, became Director of the CIA. In other words, when former intelligence operatives get a new job in the media, does their psychological warfare ever stop? Mind control by mass media manipulation is just another variation of the Hegelian Dialectic, the concept that "conflict creates history." The theory is simple -- if you control the conflict, you control the outcome. In other words, an existing force (the thesis) generates an opposing force (the antithesis) and the conflict between the two creates the final effect (the synthesis). " Uri Dowbenko, from "The General's Daughter: Psyops & the Military Career Criminal"
"Press releases were invented by public-relations expert Ivy Lee in the early years of the twentieth century in an effort to control media coverage of railway accidents for his client, Pennsylvania Railway. He decided that if the press was going to report the accidents it would be better to make sure they reported them from the company point of view. The strategy was so successful that by the late 1940s almost half the news was based on press releases from public-relations departments and firms." Sharon Beder, from "The Best Coverage Money Can Buy"
"The daily tonnage output of propaganda and publicity... has become an important force in American life. Nearly half of the contents of the best newspapers is derived from publicity releases; nearly all the contents of lesser papers... is directly or indirectly the product of PR departments." Fortune magazine 1949 as cited by Sharon Beder in Global Spin
"Edward L. Bernays...became one of the most influential pioneers of American public relations...In the twenties, Bernays fathered the link between corporate sales campaigns and popular social causes, when-while working for the American Tobacco Company-he persuaded women's rights marchers in New York City to hold up Lucky Strike cigarettes as symbolic "Torches of Freedom." In October of 1929, Bernays also originated the now familiar "global media event," when he dreamed up "Light's Golden Jubilee," a worldwide celebratory spectacle commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the electric light bulb, sponsored-behind-the-scenes-by the General Electric Corporation." Stuart Ewen, "Visiting Edward Bernays" from PR!: A Social History of Spin
"The Torches of Freedom campaign was a classic instance of using sexual liberation as a form of control. It proposed addiction as a form of freedom. In this, it was an early version of the Virginia Slims, “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” campaign, which made repeated reference to the suffragette movement as a way of associating cigarettes with freedom...All the gullible consumer saw was women wanting to be free, whereas in reality the women who marched in the parade smoking their Luckies were being manipulated by the Tobacco Industry into a sort of bondage that was both literal, in terms of physical addiction, and moral in the sense that it was motivated by a subliminal understanding of sexual liberation." E. Michael Jones, Ph.D., from: "The Torches of Freedom Campaign: Behaviorism, Advertising, and the Rise of the American Empire"
"Bernays regarded Uncle Sigmund as a mentor, and used Freud's insights into the human psyche and motivation to design his PR campaigns, while also trading on his famous uncle's name to inflate his own stature. There is, however, a striking paradox in the relationship between the two. Uncle Sigmund's "talking cure" was designed to unearth his patients' unconscious drives and hidden motives, in the belief that bringing them into conscious discourse would help people lead healthier lives. Bernays, by contrast, used psychological techniques to mask the motives of his clients, as part of a deliberate strategy aimed at keeping the public unconscious of the forces that were working to mold their minds." John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton on The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & The Birth of PR
"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. . . . In almost every act of our daily 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 which control the public mind." Edward Bernays, from: Propaganda
"The powerful techniques of coercion -- from Carnegie's classic How to Win Friends and Influence People to Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to the diabolical CIA Interrogation Manual -- have poisoned our lives. All personal interactions, from our daily workday encounters to our most intimate relationships, have been tagged, even perverted, by the meta-language of "sales." Uri Dowbenko, from "Media, Manipulation and the Cult of Consumerism An Interview with Douglas Rushkoff"
."The logic is clear -- propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state and that's wise and good because again the common interests elude the bewildered herd, they cant figure them out. The public relations industry not only took this ideology on very explicitly but also acted on it, that's a huge industry, spending hundreds of..by now probably on the order of a billion dollars a year on it or something and its commitment all along was to controlling the public mind. "Chomsky on Propaganda"
"Using the latest communications technologies and polling techniques, as well as an array of high-level political connections, PR flacks routinely "manage" issues for government and corporate clients and "package" them for public consumption. The result is a "democracy" in which citizens are turned into passive receptacles of "disinfotainment" and "advertorials" and in which critics of the status quo are defined as ignorant meddlers and/or dangerous outsiders." Carmelo Ruiz, from Burson-Marsteller: PR For the New World Order"
More than anything, they want your children's minds. "Kids marketing in general is becoming more sophisticated," says Julie Halpin, CEO of Gepetto Group, which specializes in marketing to kids. It is a competition for what she calls "share of mind." Gary Ruskin, from: "Why They Whine: How Corporations Prey on Our Children"
‘‘Persuasion, by its definition, is subtle. The best PR ends up looking like news. You never know when a PR agency is being effective; you’ll just find your views slowly shifting." A PR executive
"You have pollsters and demographers going around asking people questions, usually more about what they feel than what they think. From that fairly fragmentary data they put together an agglomeration called ‘public opinion’." Stuart Ewen
"It was in the post-War period that the PR industry, the advertising industry, the press agent industry, what the psychologist Robert Shalldini calls ‘the compliance industries’, really took off. These things grew exponentially in the 1920s in the US and provide the world with a model – and the world of course includes Germany. Goebbels himself was a reader of the work of Edward Bernays. Bernays was Freud’s nephew on both sides of his family. Here is a guy for whom the idea of the unconscious was his mother’s milk. What makes Bernays important is that he is the first PR guy to apply social psychology strategically and use theories of the unconscious in propaganda technique. Bernays is no mere theorist. He put his ideas to work for a number of corporations as well as for government." Stuart Ewen
"High-tech mass persuasion has achieved levels of sophistication far beyond what most individuals imagine. Most still desperately cling to the delusion that they think for themselves, determine their own destinies, exercise both individual and collective free will (the great myth that underlies democratic ideology); that advertising works in the interest of the consumer; and perhaps the greatest self-deception of all -- that they can easily discriminate between fantasy and reality." Wilson Bryan Key
"With the onset of the machine technology known by the interesting sobriquet, "Virtual Reality," the immersion of mankind into the counterfeit, computer-generated cryptosphere, intensifies, and the march of induced hallucination, digital money, junk from Wal-Mart and miracles by priests in lab coats, accelerates, commensurate with the spiritual and mental deaths of animated corpses of the walking dead in America." Michael A. Hoffman II, from: Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare
"Subliminal visuals surround us as well. They're airbrushed into print ads and billboards, they flicker past during commercials at a hardly noticeable, barely legal rate. To heighten the hypnotic effects of moving video, producers need only place one blank, black frame for every 32 frames of film. Every hour that you spend watching tv, your right-brained, endorphin-numbed, glassy-@#$ trance state is deepened. So don't be too hard on yourself for accidentally "staying tuned" all the way through 7th Heaven—you were literally held against your will." Sven Golly, from "Learn the Deadly Secrets of Mind Control"
"Wayne Chilicki, a General Mills executive, agrees: "When it comes to targeting kid consumers, we at General Mills follow the Proctor & Gamble model of ‘cradle to grave,'" he says. "We believe in getting them early and having them for life."" Gary Ruskin, from: "Why They Whine: How Corporations Prey on Our Children"
"Advertising targeted at elementary school children," Professor McNeal says, "on programs just for them works very effectively in the sense of implanting brand names in their minds and creating desires for the products." Gary Ruskin, from: "Why They Whine: How Corporations Prey on Our Children"
"Recent tests by researcher Herbert Krugman showed that, while viewers were watching TV, right-brain activity outnumbered left-brain activity by a ratio of two to one. Put more simply, the viewers were in an altered state, in trance, more often than not. They were getting their Beta-endorphin "Fix." To measure attention spans, psycho - physiologist Thomas Mulholland of the Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts, attached young viewers to an EEG machine that was wired to shut the TV set off whenever the children's brains produced a majority of alpha waves. Although the children were told to concentrate, only a few could keep the set on for more than 30 seconds! Most viewers are already hypnotized. To deepen the trance is easy. One simple way is to place a blank, black frame every 32 frames in the film that is being projected. This creates a 45 beat ñ per - minute pulsation perceived only by the subconscious mind, the ideal pace to generate deep hypnosis. The commercials or suggestions presented following this alpha-inducing broadcast are much more likely to be accepted by the viewer. The high percentage of the viewing audience that has somnambulistic-depth ability could very well accept the suggestions as commands, as long as those commands did not ask the viewer to do something contrary to his morals, religion, or self-preservation." "Battle for Your Mind: Subliminal Programming"
"Subliminal perception occurs whenever stimuli presented below the threshold or limen for awareness are found to influence thoughts, feelings, or actions. The term subliminal perception was originally used to describe situations in which weak stimuli were perceived without awareness. In recent years, the term has been applied more generally to describe any situation in which unnoticed stimuli are perceived." Philip M. Merikle, from "Subliminal Perception"
"Once you have a brain harnessed to imitation, you can transmit behavior non-genetically, thus giving rise to "culture" or "memes." Richard van Ort, on "Mirror Neurons"
"Santa Claus is a meme that parents deliberately infect their children with; the purpose for it is quite unfathomable, and seems to run along two paths--it didn't seem to hurt the parent when they had it, and it helps to explain the odd behavior that people go through once a year. The Claus meme in a child helps the way cowpox helped with smallpox; part of growing up is the 'trauma' of learning, once old enough, that Santa is a myth, and that people, including one's own parents, have systematically lied to you. This may seem a callous way to view it, but from the viewpoint of building cognitive mechanisms, this is one of the earliest we gain that fosters the ability of disbelief." Michael Wilson, from: "Memetic Engineering PsyOps and Viruses for the Wetware"
"...the astonishing truth is that any given mirror neuron will also fire when the monkey in question observes another monkey (or experimenter performing the same action), e.g., tasting a peanut!" Arleen Raymond, on "Mirror Neurons 2"

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SwissMrs&Pitchfire
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Re: Are you a free thinker?

Post by SwissMrs&Pitchfire »

"In the study of mind control and psychological warfare, it is not enough to simply review the latest technology of coercion, the most recent gadgetry and techno-junk littering the hardware and supply depots of governments and cults. Far more dangerous PSYOPS "use specially constructed communications to manipulate the actions of target groups without the use of physical force. PSYOPS, in one form or another has been used against the enemies of the United States for hundreds of years. Most people think of PSYOPS as something directed at the nation's foreign enemies. Today, however, there are new, domestic threats to United States' security that may also pose legitimate targets for such operations. The sudden surge in high school terrorism in the last five years has created a conundrum for the nation. The youths that commit such violence are American citizens. They are teens that, on the surface, differ very little from the millions of other high school students in the United States. The federal government cannot simply order anti-terrorist units like Delta Force to hunt them down. The public would find such tactics too drastic. These are, after all , just kids. Thus, the need for less severe countermeasures makes PSYOPS very attractive. These techniques are well grounded in research and have been copied by others like advertisers and marketers. If properly implemented, the legitimate use of PSYOPS to reduce future high school terrorism would be both appropriate and effective." Benjamin Richardson, from: "The Use of the Psyops Against High School Terrorism"
"Naval Reserve United States Atlantic Command Psychological Operations Unit is a special purpose radio/television production unit whose dedicated mission is to train audiovisual personnel for mobilization and to produce audiovisual products in response to CINCUSACOM Special Operation Requirements." Mission Statement
"In 1950 the CIA's budget for "psychological warfare was $34 million; over the next two years that figure quadrupled." Laura Brahm, from "The Culture Vultures," In These Times, May 15, 2000
"Military personnel from the Fourth Psychological Operations Group based at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, have until recently been working in CNN's hq in Atlanta. CNN is up in arms about our report in the last issue of CounterPunch concerning the findings of the Dutch journalist, Abe de Vries about the presence of US Army personnel at CNN, owned by Time-Warner. We cited an article by de Vries which appeared on February 21 in the reputable Dutch daily newspaper Trouw, originally translated into English and placed on the web by Emperor's Clothes. De Vries reported that a handful of military personnel from the Third Psychological Operations Battalion, part of the airmobile Fourth Psychological Operations Group based at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, had worked in CNN's hq in Atlanta." Alexander Cockburn, from "CNN AND PSYOPS"
"Those are things ranging from using low-frequency [electromagnetic] waves in battlefield situations to intimidate your enemy to using smells. There's a lot of scents now that chemo-reception scientists have figured out make people upset and make people intimidated...And those are real, and more than enough to talk about. I've seen them being [used in field test situations] or read research reports about them being used. I've interviewed people in the military who have used them. I've read the public relations materials -- bill collection agencies that use pheromones in the ink in collection letters." Douglas Rushkoff
"The March 23, 1991 newsbrief, "High-Tech Psychological Warfare Arrives in the Middle East", describes a US Psychological Operations (PsyOps) tactic directed against Iraqi troops in Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. The manoeuvre consisted of a system in which subliminal mind-altering technology was carried on standard radiofrequency broadcasts. The March 26, 1991 newsbrief states that among the standard military planning groups in the centre of US war planning operations at Riyadh was "an unbelievable and highly classified PsyOps program utilising 'silent sound' techniques" Judy Wall, "PSY-OPS WEAPONRY USED IN THE PERSIAN GULF WAR"
"The Pentagon had listed the holographic projections openly as part of its "non-lethal" weapons program. But since 1994, the program has disappeared from view, evidently now a "black" effort, says DEFENSE WEEK. In conclusion, the DEFENSE WEEK article states that the Army's JFK Special Warfare Center and School in late 1991 disclosed that it was looking to develop a PSYOPS Hologram System with a capability "to project persuasive messages and three-dimensional pictures of cloud, smoke, rain droplets, buildings......(even religious "images" or "figures")........The use of holograms as a persuasive message will have worldwide application". (end quoting). (This looks like it will be a concentrated unit of soldiers armed with the very latest high-tech weapons systems)" Norio Hayakawa, from "Pentagon, Psyops and Holographic Technology"
"The scary thing is, the technology exists to do it. You only have to look at the U.S. Patents Office Website to see that it's true. "There are patents for microwave devices that can beam sound directly into someone's head." Mind Control, Conspiracies and Lobster
"Dr. Igor Smirnov, of the Institute of Psycho-correction in Moscow, says in regard to this technology: "It is easily conceviable that some Russian 'Satan', or let's say Iranian [or any other 'Satan'], as long as he owns the appropriate means and finances, can inject himself [intrude] into every con- ceivable computer network, into every conceivable radio or television broad- cast, with relative technological ease, even without disconnecting cables. You can intercept the [radio] waves in the aether and then [subliminally] modulate every conceivable suggestion into it. If this transpires over a long enough time period, it accumulates in the heads of people. And even- tually they can be artificially manipulated with other additional measure- ments, to do that which this perpetrator wants [them to do]. This is why [such technology] is rightfully feared." From a German documentary, "Geheimes Russland: Moskau - Die Zombies dr roten Zaren" ("Secret Russia: Moscow - The Zombies of the Red Czars") aired on German TV network ZDF on December 22, 1998. Script translation by Jan Weisemann. The full text is to be published in Resonance, No. 35. Judy Wall, from "Aerial Mind-Control: The Threat to Civil Liberties"
“Mr. CALLAWAY: Mr. Chairman, under unanimous consent, I insert into the Record at this point a statement showing the newspaper combination, which explains their activity in the war matter, just discussed by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. MOORE]:
“In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, ship building and powder interests and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press in the United States.
“These 12 men worked the problems out by selecting 179 newspapers, and then began, by an elimination process, to retain only those necessary for the purpose of controlling the general policy of the daily press throughout the country. They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. The 25 papers were agreed upon; emissaries were sent to purchase the policy, national and international, of these papers; an agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.
“This contract is in existence at the present time, and it accounts for the news columns of the daily press of the country being filled with all sorts of preparedness arguments and misrepresentations as to the present condition of the United States Army and Navy, and the possibility and probability of the United States being attacked by foreign foes.
“This policy also included the suppression of everything in opposition to the wishes of the interests served. The effectiveness of this scheme has been conclusively demonstrated by the character of the stuff carried in the daily press throughout the country since March, 1915. They have resorted to anything necessary to commercialize public sentiment and sandbag the National Congress into making extravagant and wasteful appropriations for the Army and Navy under false pretense that it was necessary. Their stock argument is that it is 'patriotism.' They are playing on every prejudice and passion of the American people.”
The above entry of the Congressional Record was provided by Citizens In Action, a proactive group of concerned Americans from Reno, Nevada.
Mobilizing community opinion in favor of vapid, empty concepts like Americanism. Who can be against that? Or, to bring it up to date, "Support our troops." Who can be against that? Or yellow ribbons. Who can be against that?... The point of public relations slogans like "Support our troops" is that they don't mean anything. They mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, Do you support our policy? But you don't want people to think about the issue. That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything, but its crucial value is that it diverts your attention....

That's all very effective. It runs right up to today. And of course it is carefully thought out. The people in the public relations industry aren't there for the fun of it. They're doing work. They're trying to instill the right values. In fact, they have a conception of what democracy ought to be: It ought to be a system in which the specialized class is trained to work in the service of the masters, the people who own the society. The rest of the population ought to be deprived of any form of organization, because organization just causes trouble. They ought to be sitting alone in front of the TV and having drilled into their heads the message, which says, the only value in life is to have more commodities or live like that rich middle class family you're watching and to have nice values like harmony and Americanism. That's all there is in life. You may think in your own head that there's got to be something more in life than this, but since you're watching the tube alone you assume, I must be crazy, because that's all that's going on over there.... So that's the ideal. Great efforts are made in trying to achieve that ideal. Obviously, there is a certain conception behind it. The conception of democracy is the one that I mentioned. The bewildered herd is a problem. We've got to prevent their rage and trampling. We've got to distract them. They should be watching the Superbowl or sitcoms or violent movies. Every once in a while you call on them to chant meaningless slogans like "Support our troops." You've got to keep them pretty scared, because unless they're properly scared and frightened of all kinds of devils that are going to destroy them from outside or inside or somewhere, they may start to think, which is very dangerous, because they're not competent to think. Therefore it's important to distract them and marginalize them.
It is also necessary to whip up the population in support of foreign adventures. Usually the population is pacifist, just like they were during the First World War. The public sees no reason to get involved in foreign adventures, killing, and torture. So you have to whip them up. And to whip them up you have to frighten them....

To a certain extent then, that ideal was achieved, but never completely. There are institutions which it has as yet been impossible to destroy. The churches, for example, still exist. A large part of the dissident activity in the U. S. comes out of the churches, for the simple reason that they're there.
Edward Bernays (1891-11-22 – 1995-03-09) was an Austrian-born American publicist, sometimes called "the father of public relations".
• The three main elements of public relations are practically as old as society: informing people, persuading people, or integrating people with people. Of course, the means and methods of accomplishing these ends have changed as society has changed.
o Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)
• This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas.
o "Manipulating Public Opinion", American Journal of Sociology 33 (May, 1928), p. 958–971
• The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.
o "The Engineering of Consent", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science No. 250 (March 1947), p. 113; Reprinted in Edward L. Bernays, Howard Walden Cutler, The Engineering of Consent, University of Oklahoma Press, 1955
• Goebbels [...] was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me.
o Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel (1965)
[edit] Propaganda (1928)
Unless otherwise noted, page numbers refer to the 2004 Ig Publishing edition, ISBN 0970312598 (The text begins on p. 35, after an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller.)
• 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.
o 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.
o 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.
o p. 39
• Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.
o p. 48
• A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable.
o Page 63 (1928 edition?)
• If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.
o Page 71 (1928 edition?)
“THESE INTERNATIONAL AND ROCKEFELLER-STANDARD OIL INTERESTS CONTROL THE MAJORITY OF NEWSPAPERS AND THE COLUMNS OF THESE PAPERS TO CLUB INTO SUBMISSION OR DRIVE OUT OF PUBLIC OFFICE OFFICIALS WHO REFUSE TO DO THE BIDDING OF THE POWERFUL CORRUPT CLIQUES WHICH COMPOSE THE INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT.”
PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT (denouncing a multinational cartel, President from 1901-1909, Roosevelt lived to see the creation of a privately owned and controlled Federal Reserve Corporation by the Invisible Government of international bank monopolists.1858-1919)

“THOSE WHO MANIPULATE THE UNSEEN MECHANISM OF SOCIETY CONSTITUTE AN INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT WHICH IS THE TRUE RULING POWER OF OUR COUNTRY. WE ARE GOVERNED, OUR MINDS MOLDED, OUR TASTES FORMED, OUR IDEAS SUGGESTED LARGELY BY MEN WE HAVE NEVER HEARD OF.”
EDWARD L. BERNAYS (Sigmund Freud’s nephew and the father of psy-ops, mass spin control and modern propaganda. Bernay’s techniques were used to sell WWI to Americans thru the “Committee on Public Information”. Josef Goebbels as Hitler’s flack & Minister of Propaganda was an avid fan of Bernay’s work and put it to use in the Third Reich. Bernays partnered with William Paley to run CBS. Edward Bernay’s work was also the foundation for CIA mass media manipulation via “Operation Mockingbird”. Quote: Bernay’s book “Propaganda” published 1928)

“IT IS POSSIBLE TO FOOL ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME; WHEN GOVERNMENT AND PRESS COOPERATE.”
GEORGE SELDES (legendary investigative reporter 1938)

“NEWS IS WHAT SOMEONE WANTS TO SUPPRESS. EVERYTHING ELSE IS ADVERTISING.”
RUBIN FRANK (former NBC “News” president)

“WE TELL THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW, WHAT THEY WANT TO KNOW.” FRANK SESNO (CNN “News”)

loquaciousmomma
captain of 100
Posts: 743

Re: Are you a free thinker?

Post by loquaciousmomma »

My favorite line of all times is :

Television is the only honest media...they call it programming.

:)

Not sure where I heard it, but I certainly haven't forgotten it!

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ChelC
The Law
Posts: 5982
Location: Utah

Re: Are you a free thinker?

Post by ChelC »

I tried to read a book recently that could have been really interesting, but the language was too bad for me to get through the book. It's called Feed, and it takes place in the future. It starts out with teenagers taking a "boring" trip to the moon. The kids have chips or something implanted in them, and there is a constant feed of information. It tells them what they want and where to find it almost before they can think of it on their own. They "see" television shows in their mind. This feed actually causes lesions, but people accept them and even make fashion statements of them. One of the characters gets a speech tatoo that causes him to insert "Nike" into every sentence.

Anywho the kids do all these amazing things that they think are boring because the feed is constantly entertaining them, telling them the new styles, etc.

What I never got to is that while on the moon, a hacker interrupts the feed and the main character meets a girl who grew up off the feed and I guess he learns about reality in a 1984ish story... But I like I said I couldn't finish the book.

I don't think there's anything inherently bad about technology, but we need to be careful. I already see some of the aforementioned story happening with kids who can go to spectacular places, and not know what to do. Kids hardly know how to play and explore anymore.

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mattctr
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Posts: 903

Re: Are you a free thinker?

Post by mattctr »

ChelC wrote:I tried to read a book recently that could have been really interesting, but the language was too bad for me to get through the book. It's called Feed, and it takes place in the future. It starts out with teenagers taking a "boring" trip to the moon. The kids have chips or something implanted in them, and there is a constant feed of information. It tells them what they want and where to find it almost before they can think of it on their own. They "see" television shows in their mind. This feed actually causes lesions, but people accept them and even make fashion statements of them. One of the characters gets a speech tatoo that causes him to insert "Nike" into every sentence.

Anywho the kids do all these amazing things that they think are boring because the feed is constantly entertaining them, telling them the new styles, etc.

What I never got to is that while on the moon, a hacker interrupts the feed and the main character meets a girl who grew up off the feed and I guess he learns about reality in a 1984ish story... But I like I said I couldn't finish the book.

I don't think there's anything inherently bad about technology, but we need to be careful. I already see some of the aforementioned story happening with kids who can go to spectacular places, and not know what to do. Kids hardly know how to play and explore anymore.
The technology is already in the works. http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense

Rincon
captain of 100
Posts: 576

Re: Are you a free thinker?

Post by Rincon »

Removed
Last edited by Rincon on April 2nd, 2011, 9:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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SwissMrs&Pitchfire
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 6047
Location: Driven

Re: Are you a free thinker?

Post by SwissMrs&Pitchfire »

A good and relevant quote:
Joseph
Fielding Smith:
“‘I maintain that had there been no restoration of the gospel, and no organization of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there would have been no radio; there would have been no
airplane, and there would not have been the wonderful discoveries in medicine, chemistry,
electricity, and the many other things wherein the world has been benefitted....The inspiration of
the Lord has gone out and takes hold of the minds of men, though they know it not, and they are
directed by the Lord. In this manner He brings them into His service that His purposes and His
righteousness, in due time, may be supreme on the earth’”. (Ensign, April 1988, page 73.)

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Thinker
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 12975
Location: The Universe - wherever that is.

Re: Are you a free thinker?

Post by Thinker »

Learning to THINK critically (like spotting and correcting logical fallacies/cognitive distortions) ideally is being taught by all parents and teachers.

Reading a lot - and various perspectives- helps in thinking and discerning well.

gardener4life
captain of 1,000
Posts: 1690

Re: Are you a free thinker?

Post by gardener4life »

Actually this is a good place for me to position a thought here. It also applies to another thread I recently commented on but I won't put it there because I'm not trying to stir up contention. But it applies MORE to entertainment television than anything else. I also really thought this was an interesting thread. Thanks Swiss and Cheic.

D&C Section 46; The rules advise (revelation) from the Lord to Joseph Smith on sacrament meetings. (But some of the verses apply to what we allow into our lives.) It has some really interesting wording.

4 Ye are also commanded not to cast any one who belongeth to the church out of your sacrament meetings; nevertheless, if any have trespassed, let him not partake until he makes reconciliation. 5 And again I say unto you, ye shall not cast any out of your sacrament meetings who are earnestly seeking the kingdom—I speak this concerning those who are not of the church. (Sunday meetings aren't necessarily public meetings. A public meeting could be a service project or something not with ordinances. The distinction is important. At any rate, the idea is NOT to cast out anyone that is truth seeking...)

This is interesting because we've all heard the story that Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered. Then he went right back to the Lord, pleaded for help, and the next day taught and preached to the members. Some of which had people there who had tarred and feathered him, and they were moved by it and converted.

This is interesting because those people when they showed up were curious, but then started to become truth seeking when they saw what the Prophet endured for their sake. (So if they had come there to do mischief a second time and grab him again. Then the members could ask them to leave.)

OK, this is where it gets interesting. And this part I think applies to TV a lot. (Although we're lucky we have a fast forward button and movie/tv editing programs nowdays.)

7 But ye are commanded in all things to ask of God, who giveth liberally; and that which the Spirit testifies unto you even so I would that ye should do in all holiness of heart, walking uprightly before me, considering the end of your salvation, doing all things with prayer and thanksgiving, that ye may not be seduced by evil spirits, or doctrines of devils, or the commandments of men; for some are of men, and others of devils. 8 Wherefore, beware lest ye are deceived; and that ye may not be deceived seek ye earnestly the best gifts, always remembering for what they are given;

So the Lord is saying...there will be sometimes where it's OK to go case by case and ask me if something is going to be good to keep around you. And I don't want you to keep things around you that are of evil, evil spirits, a teaching of the devil, or teaching of men trying to corrupt you. Don't let them deceive you. (By the way if I wanted I can find the closest equivalent of these verses in the Bible or Book of Mormon but it won't be quite as clear or open. The point is there's commonality and it builds on common sense that mainstream Christianity already thinks IF they really read their scriptures.)

But the point is...if someone on this board is attacking someone's faith then according to the scriptures it's not calling them out for identifying what they are doing as being evil. Some will try to defend them. It's not just about TV but you brought it up and it's a good topic to go on. Thanks. Its in the scriptures that we shouldn't just have people teaching people false doctrine, or teaching people to question faith around our children or the innocent young people growing up who don't recognize it for what it was. (Would you let a baby approach a hot stove? Then why would you let people teach them false ideas or to question or attack their priesthood leaders.)

But this applies to TV and movies like you said. You guys are pretty much already saying this. I thought its interesting that there is scriptural references to what you said and thought I'd lay them out for you. TV can be frustrating though because we do have things we want to do. And I admit I watch some TV but not much. But i do keep the fast forward button handy and use it not because I have to but because I don't want my mind infected by garbage.

I also sometimes see people not realizing what someone is doing on these forums by bringing up false ideas purposely. There you have it. Scriptural references! Scriptures are wonderful.

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