http://www.mercola.com/2001/aug/15/perception.htm
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The
Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
Page 1 of 2 (Page 2, References) by Dr. Tim O'Shea We are the most conditioned, programmed beings
the world has ever known. Not only are our thoughts and attitudes continually
being shaped and molded; our very awareness of the whole design seems like it
is being subtly and inexorably erased. The doors of our perception are carefully
and precisely regulated. Who cares, right? It is an exhausting and endless task to
keep explaining to people how most issues of conventional wisdom are
scientifically implanted in the public consciousness by a thousand media
clips per day. In an effort to save time, I would like to provide just a
little background on the handling of information in this country. Once the basic principles are illustrated
about how our current system of media control arose historically, the reader
might be more apt to question any given story in today's news. If
everybody believes something, it's probably wrong. We call that Conventional Wisdom. In America, conventional wisdom that has
mass acceptance is usually contrived: somebody paid for it. Examples:
This is a list of illusions, that have
cost billions and billions to conjure up. Did you ever wonder why you never
see the President speaking publicly unless he is reading? Or why most people
in this country think generally the same about most of the above issues? How This
Set-Up Got Started In Trust Us We're Experts, Stauber and
Rampton pull together some compelling data describing the science of creating
public opinion in America. They trace modern public influence back to
the early part of the last century, highlighting the work of guys like Edward
L. Bernays, the Father of Spin. From his own amazing chronicle Propaganda, we
learn how Edward L. Bernays took the ideas of his famous uncle Sigmund Freud
himself, and applied them to the emerging science of mass persuasion. The only difference was that instead of
using these principles to uncover hidden themes in the human unconscious, the
way Freudian psychology does, Bernays used these same ideas to mask agendas
and to create illusions that deceive and misrepresent, for marketing
purposes. The Father
Of Spin Bernays dominated the PR industry until
the 1940s, and was a significant force
for another 40 years after that. (Tye) During all that time, Bernays took on
hundreds of diverse assignments to create a public perception about some idea or
product. A few examples: As a neophyte with the Committee on Public
Information, one of Bernays' first assignments was to help sell the First
World War to the American public with the idea to "Make the World Safe
for Democracy." (Ewen) A few years later, Bernays set up a stunt
to popularize the notion of women smoking cigarettes. In organizing the 1929
Easter Parade in New York City, Bernays showed himself as a force to be reckoned
with. He organized the Torches of Liberty
Brigade in which suffragettes marched in the parade smoking cigarettes as a
mark of women's liberation. Such publicity followed from that one event that
from then on women have felt secure about destroying their own lungs in
public, the same way that men have always done. Bernays popularized the idea of bacon for
breakfast. Not one to turn down a challenge, he set
up the advertising format along with the AMA that lasted for nearly 50 years
proving that cigarettes are beneficial to health. Just look at ads in issues
of Life or Time from the 40s and 50s. Smoke And
Mirrors Bernay's job was to reframe an issue; to create a desired image that would put a
particular product or concept in a desirable light. Bernays described the
public as a 'herd that needed to be led.' And this herdlike thinking makes
people "susceptible to leadership." Bernays never deviated from his
fundamental axiom to "control the masses without their knowing it."
The best PR happens with the people unaware that they are being manipulated. Stauber describes Bernays' rationale like
this: "the
scientific manipulation of public opinion was necessary to overcome chaos and
conflict in a democratic society." Trust Us p 42 These early mass persuaders postured
themselves as performing a moral service for humanity in general - democracy
was too good for people; they needed to be told what to think, because they were incapable of rational thought
by themselves. Here's a paragraph from Bernays' Propaganda: "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. 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. 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." Here Comes
The Money Once the possibilities of applying
Freudian psychology to mass media were glimpsed, Bernays soon had more
corporate clients than he could handle. Global corporations fell all over
themselves courting the new Image Makers. There were dozens of goods and
services and ideas to be sold to a susceptible public. Over the years, these players have had the money
to make their images happen. A few examples:
The
Players The best PR
goes unnoticed. For decades they have created the opinions
that most of us were raised with, on virtually any issue which has the
remotest commercial value, including:
Lesson #1 Bernays learned early on that the most
effective way to create credibility for a product or an image was by "independent third-party" endorsement. For example, if General Motors were to
come out and say that global warming is a hoax thought up by some liberal
tree-huggers, people would suspect GM's motives, since GM's fortune is made
by selling automobiles. If however some independent research
institute with a very credible sounding name like the Global Climate
Coalition comes out with a scientific report that says global warming is
really a fiction, people begin to get confused and to have doubts about the
original issue. So that's exactly what Bernays did. With a
policy inspired by genius, he set up "more institutes and foundations
than Rockefeller and Carnegie combined." (Stauber p 45) Quietly financed by the industries whose
products were being evaluated, these "independent" research
agencies would churn out "scientific" studies and press materials
that could create any image their handlers wanted. Such front groups are given high-sounding names
like:
Sound pretty legit don't they? Canned
News Releases As Stauber explains, these organizations
and hundreds of others like them are front groups whose sole mission is to
advance the image of the global corporations who fund them, like those listed
on page 2 above. This is accomplished in part by an endless
stream of 'press releases' announcing "breakthrough" research to
every radio station and newspaper in the country. (Robbins) Many of these
canned reports read like straight news, and indeed are purposely molded in
the news format. This saves journalists the trouble of
researching the subjects on their own, especially on topics about which they
know very little. Entire sections of the release or in the case of video news
releases, the whole thing can be just lifted intact, with no editing, given
the byline of the reporter or newspaper or TV station - and voilá! Instant
news - copy and paste. Written by corporate PR firms. Does this really happen? Every single day,
since the 1920s when the idea of the News Release was first invented by Ivy
Lee. (Stauber, p 22) Sometimes as many as half the stories appearing in an issue
of the Wall St. Journal are based solely on such PR press releases.. (22) These types of stories are mixed right in with
legitimately researched stories.
Unless you have done the research yourself, you won't be able to tell the
difference. The
Language Of Spin As 1920s spin pioneers like Ivy Lee and
Edward Bernays gained more experience, they began to formulate rules and guidelines
for creating public opinion. They
learned quickly that mob psychology must focus on emotion, not facts. Since
the mob is incapable of rational thought, motivation must be based not on
logic but on presentation. Here are some of the axioms of the new science of
PR:
Words are very carefully chosen for their
emotional impact. Here's an example. A front group called the International
Food Information Council handles the public's natural aversion to genetically
modified foods. Trigger
words are repeated all through the
text. Now in the case of GM foods, the public is instinctively afraid of
these experimental new creations which have suddenly popped up on our grocery
shelves which are said to have DNA alterations. The IFIC wants to reassure
the public of the safety of GM foods, so it avoids words like:
Instead, good PR for GM foods contains
words like:
It's basic Freudian/Tony Robbins word association. The fact that GM foods are not hybrids that have
been subjected to the slow and careful scientific methods of real crossbreeding
doesn't really matter. This is pseudoscience, not science. Form is everything
and substance just a passing myth. (Trevanian) Who do you think funds the International
Food Information Council? Take a wild guess. Right - Monsanto, DuPont, Frito-Lay,
Coca Cola, Nutrasweet - those in a position to make fortunes from GM foods.
(Stauber p 20) As the science of mass control evolved, PR
firms developed further guidelines for effective copy. Here are some of the
gems:
Keep this list. Start watching for these
techniques. Not hard to find - look at today's paper or tonight's TV news.
See what they're doing; these guys are good!
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©Copyright 1997-2001 by Joseph M. Mercola, DO. All Rights Reserved. This
content may be copied in full, with copyright; contact; creation; and
information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a
not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing
from Dr. Mercola is required. |
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Disclaimer - Newsletters are based upon the
opinions of Dr. Mercola. They are not intended to replace a one-on-one
relationship with a qualified health care professional and they are not
intended as medical advice. They are intended as a sharing of knowledge and
information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his
community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions
based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care
professional. |
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The
Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
Page 2 of 2 (Page 1, References) Science
For Hire PR firms have become very sophisticated in
the preparation of news releases. They have learned how to attach the names
of famous scientists to research that those scientists have not even looked
at. (Stauber, p 201) This is a common occurrence. In this way
the editors of newspapers and TV news shows are often not even aware that an
individual release is a total PR fabrication. Or at least they have
"deniability," right? Stauber tells the amazing story of how
leaded gas came into the picture. In 1922, General Motors discovered that
adding lead to gasoline gave cars more horsepower. When there was some concern about safety,
GM paid the Bureau of Mines to do some fake "testing" and publish
spurious research that 'proved' that inhalation of lead was harmless. Enter
Charles Kettering. Founder of the world famous Sloan-Kettering
Memorial Institute for medical research, Charles Kettering also happened to
be an executive with General Motors. By some strange coincidence, we soon have
the Sloan Kettering institute issuing reports stating that lead occurs
naturally in the body and that the body has a way of eliminating low level
exposure. Through its association with The
Industrial Hygiene Foundation and PR giant Hill & Knowlton, Sloane
Kettering opposed all anti-lead research for years. (Stauber p 92). Without
organized scientific opposition, for the next 60 years more and more gasoline became leaded, until by the
1970s, 90% of our gasoline was leaded. Finally it became too obvious to hide that lead was a major carcinogen, and leaded gas
was phased out in the late 1980s. But during those 60 years, it is estimated
that some 30 million tons of lead were released in vapor form onto American
streets and highways. 30 million tons. That is PR, my friends. Junk
Science In 1993 a guy named Peter Huber wrote a
new book and coined a new term. The book was Galileo's Revenge and the term
was junk science. Huber's shallow thesis was that real science supports
technology, industry, and progress. Anything else was suddenly junk science.
Not surprisingly, Stauber explains how Huber's book was supported by the
industry-backed Manhattan Institute. Huber's book was generally dismissed not
only because it was so poorly written, but because it failed to realize one
fact: true scientific research begins with no conclusions. Real scientists
are seeking the truth because they do not yet know what the truth is. True scientific method goes like this: 1.
Form a hypothesis Boston University scientist Dr. David
Ozonoff explains that ideas in science are themselves like "living
organisms, that must be nourished, supported, and cultivated with resources
for making them grow and flourish."
(Stauber p 205) Great ideas that don't get this financial
support because the commercial angles are not immediately obvious - these
ideas wither and die. Another way you can often distinguish real
science from phony is that real science points out flaws in its own research.
Phony science pretends there were no flaws. The Real
Junk Science Contrast this with modern PR and its
constant pretensions to sound science. Corporate sponsored research, whether
it's in the area of drugs, GM foods, or chemistry begins with predetermined
conclusions. It is the job of the scientists then to
prove that these conclusions are true, because of the economic upside that
proof will bring to the industries paying for that research. This invidious
approach to science has shifted the entire focus of research in America
during the past 50 years, as any true scientist is likely to admit. Stauber documents the increasing amount of
corporate sponsorship of university research. (206) This has nothing to do
with the pursuit of knowledge. Scientists lament that research has become
just another commodity, something bought and sold. (Crossen) The Two
Main Targets Of "Sound Science" It is shocking when Stauber shows how the
vast majority of corporate PR today opposes any research that seeks to
protect
It's a funny thing that most of the time
when we see the phrase "junk science," it is in a context of
defending something that may threaten either the environment or our health. This makes sense when one realizes that
money changes hands only by selling the illusion of health and the illusion
of environmental protection. True public health and real preservation of the earth's environment have very low market
value. Stauber thinks it ironic that industry's
self-proclaimed debunkers of junk science are usually non-scientists
themselves. (255) Here again they can do this because the issue is not
science, but the creation of images. The
Language Of Attack When PR firms attack legitimate
environmental groups and alternative medicine people, they again use special
words which will carry an emotional punch:
The next time you are reading a newspaper
article about an environmental or health issue, note how the author shows
bias by using the above terms. This is the result of very specialized training. Another standard PR tactic is to use the rhetoric of the
environmentalists themselves to defend a dangerous and untested product that
poses an actual threat to the
environment. This we see constantly in the PR smokescreen that surrounds
genetically modified foods. They talk about how GM foods are necessary
to grow more food and to end world hunger, when the reality is that GM foods
actually have lower yields per acre than natural crops. (Stauber p 173) The grand design sort of comes into focus
once you realize that almost all GM foods have been created by the sellers of
herbicides and pesticides so that those plants can withstand greater amounts
of herbicides and pesticides. (The Magic Bean) Kill Your
TV? Hope this chapter has given you a hint to
start reading newspaper and magazine articles a little differently, and
perhaps start watching TV news shows with a slightly different attitude than
you had before. Always ask, what are they selling here,
and who's selling it? And if you actually follow up on Stauber &
Rampton's book and check out some of the other resources below, you might
even glimpse the possibility of advancing your life one quantum simply by ceasing to subject your
brain to mass media. That's right - no more newspapers, no more
TV news, no more Time magazine or Newsweek. You could actually do that. Just
think what you could do with the extra time alone. Really feel like you need to
"relax" or find out "what's going on in the world" for a
few hours every day? Think about the news of the past couple of years for a
minute. Do you really suppose the major stories
that have dominated headlines and TV news have been "what is going on in
the world?" Do you actually think there's been nothing going on besides
the contrived tech slump, the contrived power shortages, the re-filtered
accounts of foreign violence and disaster, and all the other non-stories that
the puppeteers dangle before us every day? What about when they get a big one, like
with OJ or Monica Lewinsky or the Oklahoma city bombing? Do we really need to
know all that detail, day after day? Do we have any way of verifying
all that detail, even if we wanted
to? What is the purpose of news? To inform the public? Hardly. The sole
purpose of news is to keep the public in a state of fear and uncertainty so that they'll watch again tomorrow and be
subjected to the same advertising. Oversimplification? Of course. That's the
mark of mass media mastery - simplicity. The invisible hand. Like Edward
Bernays said, the people must be controlled without them knowing it. Consider this: what was really going on in
the world all that time they were distracting us with all that stupid
vexatious daily smokescreen? Fear and uncertainty -- that's what keeps people
coming back for more. If this seems like a radical outlook,
let's take it one step further: What would you lose from your life if you
stopped watching TV and stopped reading newspapers altogether? Would your life really suffer any
financial, moral, intellectual or academic loss from such a decision? Do you really need to have your family
continually absorbing the illiterate, amoral, phony, uncultivated,
desperately brainless values of the people featured in the average nightly TV
program? Are these fake, programmed robots "normal"? Do you need to have your life values
constantly spoon-fed to you? Are those shows really amusing, or just a
necessary distraction to keep you from looking at reality, or trying to
figure things out yourself by doing a little independent reading? Name one example of how your life is
improved by watching TV news and reading the evening paper. What
measurable gain is there for you? Planet of
the Apes? There's no question that as a nation, we're getting dumber
year by year. Look at the
presidents we've been choosing lately. Ever notice the blatant grammar
mistakes so ubiquitous in today's advertising and billboards? Literacy is marginal in most American
secondary schools. Three fourths of California high school seniors can't read
well enough to pass their exit exams. (SJ Mercury 20 Jul 01) If you think other parts of the country
are smarter, try this one: hand any high school senior a book by Dumas or
Jane Austen, and ask them to open to any random page and just read one
paragraph out loud. Go ahead, do it. SAT scales are arbitrarily shifted lower and lower to disguise how dumb kids are getting
year by year. At least 10% have documented
"learning disabilities," which are reinforced and rewarded by
special treatment and special drugs. Ever hear of anyone failing a grade any
more? Or observe the intellectual level of the
average movie which these days may only last one or two weeks in the
theatres, especially if it has insufficient explosions, chase scenes,
silicone, fake martial arts, and cretinesque dialogue. Radio? Consider the low mental
qualifications of the falsely animated corporate simians they hire as DJs --
they're only allowed to have 50 thoughts, which they just repeat at random. And at what point did popular music cease
to require the study of any musical instrument or theory whatsoever, not to
mention lyric? Perhaps we just don't understand this emerging art form,
right? The Darwinism of MTV - apes descended from man. Ever notice how most articles in any of
the glossy magazines sound like they were all written by the same guy? And
this guy just graduated from junior college? And yet he has all the correct
opinions on social issues, no original ideas, and that shallow, smug,
homogenized corporate omniscience, which enables him to assure us that
everything is going to be fine... All this is great news for the PR industry
- makes their job that much easier. Not only are very few paying attention to
the process of conditioning; fewer are capable of understanding it even if
somebody explained it to them. Tea In the
Cafeteria Let's say you're in a crowded cafeteria,
and you buy a cup of tea. And as you're about to sit down you see your friend
way across the room. So you put the tea down and walk across the room and
talk to your friend for a few minutes. Now, coming back to your tea, are you just
going to pick it up and drink it? Remember, this is a crowded place and
you've just left your tea unattended for several minutes. You've given
anybody in that room access to your tea. Why should your mind be any different?
Turning on the TV, or uncritically absorbing mass publications every day -
these activities allow access to our minds by "just anyone" -
anyone who has an agenda, anyone with the resources to create a public image
via popular media. As we've seen above, just because we read
something or see something on TV doesn't mean it's true or worth knowing. So the idea here is, like the
tea, the mind is also worth guarding, worth limiting access to it. This is the only life we get. Time is our
total capital. Why waste it allowing our potential, our personality, our
values to be shaped, crafted, and limited according to the whims of the mass
panderers? There are many important issues that are
crucial to our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. If it's an issue
where money is involved, objective data won't be so easy to obtain. Remember,
if everybody knows something, that image has been bought and paid for. Real knowledge takes a little effort, a
little excavation down at least one level below what "everybody
knows." DR. MERCOLA'S
COMMENT: As I said in February when I posted an
earlier piece on Trust Us We're Experts: One of the reasons I write this
newsletter is to provide you, the reader, with the truth so you can weed
through much of the nonsense that the media throws at you. I know that it is difficult to do and
that is one of the main reasons for the newsletter. This book will help
explain the details of how the media deceives you through the manipulation of
PR by the large corporations who do not have your best interest at heart. My goal is to change the entire system.
The way that will be done is through the Internet, which is the world's
cheapest printing press. By passing this newsletter on to as many of your
friends and relatives as possible along with a strong endorsement to
subscribe, you will play a major role in helping to lift the veil of deceit
that these corporations try to hide the truth with. We can change the traditional paradigm
and in the process save hundreds of thousands of people from premature death
and disability. Related
Articles: How the Media Deceives You About Health Issues
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|
©Copyright 1997-2001 by Joseph M. Mercola, DO. All Rights Reserved. This
content may be copied in full, with copyright; contact; creation; and
information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a
not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing
from Dr. Mercola is required. |
|||||||||||
|
Disclaimer - Newsletters are based upon the
opinions of Dr. Mercola. They are not intended to replace a one-on-one
relationship with a qualified health care professional and they are not
intended as medical advice. They are intended as a sharing of knowledge and
information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his
community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions
based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care
professional. |
|||||||||||
|
The
Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
Page 2 of 2 (Page 1, References) Science
For Hire PR firms have become very sophisticated in
the preparation of news releases. They have learned how to attach the names
of famous scientists to research that those scientists have not even looked
at. (Stauber, p 201) This is a common occurrence. In this way
the editors of newspapers and TV news shows are often not even aware that an
individual release is a total PR fabrication. Or at least they have
"deniability," right? Stauber tells the amazing story of how
leaded gas came into the picture. In 1922, General Motors discovered that
adding lead to gasoline gave cars more horsepower. When there was some concern about safety,
GM paid the Bureau of Mines to do some fake "testing" and publish
spurious research that 'proved' that inhalation of lead was harmless. Enter
Charles Kettering. Founder of the world famous
Sloan-Kettering Memorial Institute for medical research, Charles Kettering
also happened to be an executive with General Motors. By some strange coincidence, we soon have
the Sloan Kettering institute issuing reports stating that lead occurs
naturally in the body and that the body has a way of eliminating low level
exposure. Through its association with The
Industrial Hygiene Foundation and PR giant Hill & Knowlton, Sloane
Kettering opposed all anti-lead research for years. (Stauber p 92). Without
organized scientific opposition, for the next 60 years more and more gasoline became leaded, until by the
1970s, 90% of our gasoline was leaded. Finally it became too obvious to hide that lead was a major carcinogen, and leaded gas
was phased out in the late 1980s. But during those 60 years, it is estimated
that some 30 million tons of lead were released in vapor form onto American
streets and highways. 30 million tons. That is PR, my friends. Junk
Science In 1993 a guy named Peter Huber wrote a
new book and coined a new term. The book was Galileo's Revenge and the term
was junk science. Huber's shallow thesis was that real science supports
technology, industry, and progress. Anything else was suddenly junk science.
Not surprisingly, Stauber explains how Huber's book was supported by the
industry-backed Manhattan Institute. Huber's book was generally dismissed not
only because it was so poorly written, but because it failed to realize one
fact: true scientific research begins with no conclusions. Real scientists
are seeking the truth because they do not yet know what the truth is. True scientific method goes like this: 1.
Form a hypothesis Boston University scientist Dr. David
Ozonoff explains that ideas in science are themselves like "living
organisms, that must be nourished, supported, and cultivated with resources
for making them grow and flourish."
(Stauber p 205) Great ideas that don't get this financial
support because the commercial angles are not immediately obvious - these
ideas wither and die. Another way you can often distinguish real
science from phony is that real science points out flaws in its own research.
Phony science pretends there were no flaws. The Real
Junk Science Contrast this with modern PR and its
constant pretensions to sound science. Corporate sponsored research, whether
it's in the area of drugs, GM foods, or chemistry begins with predetermined
conclusions. It is the job of the scientists then to
prove that these conclusions are true, because of the economic upside that
proof will bring to the industries paying for that research. This invidious
approach to science has shifted the entire focus of research in America
during the past 50 years, as any true scientist is likely to admit. Stauber documents the increasing amount of
corporate sponsorship of university research. (206) This has nothing to do
with the pursuit of knowledge. Scientists lament that research has become
just another commodity, something bought and sold. (Crossen) The Two
Main Targets Of "Sound Science" It is shocking when Stauber shows how the
vast majority of corporate PR today opposes any research that seeks to protect
It's a funny thing that most of the time
when we see the phrase "junk science," it is in a context of
defending something that may threaten either the environment or our health. This makes sense when one realizes that
money changes hands only by selling the illusion of health and the illusion
of environmental protection. True public health and real preservation of the earth's environment have very low market
value. Stauber thinks it ironic that industry's
self-proclaimed debunkers of junk science are usually non-scientists
themselves. (255) Here again they can do this because the issue is not
science, but the creation of images. The
Language Of Attack When PR firms attack legitimate
environmental groups and alternative medicine people, they again use special
words which will carry an emotional punch:
The next time you are reading a newspaper
article about an environmental or health issue, note how the author shows
bias by using the above terms. This is the result of very specialized training. Another standard PR tactic is to use the rhetoric of the
environmentalists themselves to defend a dangerous and untested product that
poses an actual threat to the
environment. This we see constantly in the PR smokescreen that surrounds
genetically modified foods. They talk about how GM foods are necessary
to grow more food and to end world hunger, when the reality is that GM foods
actually have lower yields per acre than natural crops. (Stauber p 173) The grand design sort of comes into focus
once you realize that almost all GM foods have been created by the sellers of
herbicides and pesticides so that those plants can withstand greater amounts
of herbicides and pesticides. (The Magic Bean) Kill Your
TV? Hope this chapter has given you a hint to
start reading newspaper and magazine articles a little differently, and
perhaps start watching TV news shows with a slightly different attitude than
you had before. Always ask, what are they selling here,
and who's selling it? And if you actually follow up on Stauber &
Rampton's book and check out some of the other resources below, you might
even glimpse the possibility of advancing your life one quantum simply by ceasing to subject your
brain to mass media. That's right - no more newspapers, no more
TV news, no more Time magazine or Newsweek. You could actually do that. Just
think what you could do with the extra time alone. Really feel like you need to
"relax" or find out "what's going on in the world" for a
few hours every day? Think about the news of the past couple of years for a
minute. Do you really suppose the major stories
that have dominated headlines and TV news have been "what is going on in
the world?" Do you actually think there's been nothing going on besides
the contrived tech slump, the contrived power shortages, the re-filtered accounts
of foreign violence and disaster, and all the other non-stories that the
puppeteers dangle before us every day? What about when they get a big one, like
with OJ or Monica Lewinsky or the Oklahoma city bombing? Do we really need to
know all that detail, day after day? Do we have any way of verifying
all that detail, even if we wanted
to? What is the purpose of news? To inform the public? Hardly. The sole
purpose of news is to keep the public in a state of fear and uncertainty so that they'll watch again tomorrow and be
subjected to the same advertising. Oversimplification? Of course. That's the
mark of mass media mastery - simplicity. The invisible hand. Like Edward
Bernays said, the people must be controlled without them knowing it. Consider this: what was really going on in
the world all that time they were distracting us with all that stupid
vexatious daily smokescreen? Fear and uncertainty -- that's what keeps people
coming back for more. If this seems like a radical outlook,
let's take it one step further: What would you lose from your life if you
stopped watching TV and stopped reading newspapers altogether? Would your life really suffer any
financial, moral, intellectual or academic loss from such a decision? Do you really need to have your family
continually absorbing the illiterate, amoral, phony, uncultivated,
desperately brainless values of the people featured in the average nightly TV
program? Are these fake, programmed robots "normal"? Do you need to have your life values
constantly spoon-fed to you? Are those shows really amusing, or just a
necessary distraction to keep you from looking at reality, or trying to
figure things out yourself by doing a little independent reading? Name one example of how your life is
improved by watching TV news and reading the evening paper. What
measurable gain is there for you? Planet of
the Apes? There's no question that as a nation, we're getting dumber
year by year. Look at the
presidents we've been choosing lately. Ever notice the blatant grammar mistakes
so ubiquitous in today's advertising and billboards? Literacy is marginal in most American
secondary schools. Three fourths of California high school seniors can't read
well enough to pass their exit exams. (SJ Mercury 20 Jul 01) If you think other parts of the country
are smarter, try this one: hand any high school senior a book by Dumas or
Jane Austen, and ask them to open to any random page and just read one
paragraph out loud. Go ahead, do it. SAT scales are arbitrarily shifted lower and lower to disguise how dumb kids are getting
year by year. At least 10% have documented
"learning disabilities," which are reinforced and rewarded by
special treatment and special drugs. Ever hear of anyone failing a grade any
more? Or observe the intellectual level of the
average movie which these days may only last one or two weeks in the
theatres, especially if it has insufficient explosions, chase scenes,
silicone, fake martial arts, and cretinesque dialogue. Radio? Consider the low mental
qualifications of the falsely animated corporate simians they hire as DJs --
they're only allowed to have 50 thoughts, which they just repeat at random. And at what point did popular music cease
to require the study of any musical instrument or theory whatsoever, not to
mention lyric? Perhaps we just don't understand this emerging art form,
right? The Darwinism of MTV - apes descended from man. Ever notice how most articles in any of
the glossy magazines sound like they were all written by the same guy? And
this guy just graduated from junior college? And yet he has all the correct
opinions on social issues, no original ideas, and that shallow, smug,
homogenized corporate omniscience, which enables him to assure us that
everything is going to be fine... All this is great news for the PR industry
- makes their job that much easier. Not only are very few paying attention to
the process of conditioning; fewer are capable of understanding it even if
somebody explained it to them. Tea In the
Cafeteria Let's say you're in a crowded cafeteria,
and you buy a cup of tea. And as you're about to sit down you see your friend
way across the room. So you put the tea down and walk across the room and
talk to your friend for a few minutes. Now, coming back to your tea, are you just
going to pick it up and drink it? Remember, this is a crowded place and
you've just left your tea unattended for several minutes. You've given
anybody in that room access to your tea. Why should your mind be any different?
Turning on the TV, or uncritically absorbing mass publications every day -
these activities allow access to our minds by "just anyone" -
anyone who has an agenda, anyone with the resources to create a public image
via popular media. As we've seen above, just because we read
something or see something on TV doesn't mean it's true or worth knowing. So the idea here is, like the
tea, the mind is also worth guarding, worth limiting access to it. This is the only life we get. Time is our
total capital. Why waste it allowing our potential, our personality, our
values to be shaped, crafted, and limited according to the whims of the mass
panderers? There are many important issues that are
crucial to our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. If it's an issue
where money is involved, objective data won't be so easy to obtain. Remember,
if everybody knows something, that image has been bought and paid for. Real knowledge takes a little effort, a
little excavation down at least one level below what "everybody
knows." DR. MERCOLA'S
COMMENT: As I said in February when I posted an
earlier piece on Trust Us We're Experts: One of the reasons I write this
newsletter is to provide you, the reader, with the truth so you can weed
through much of the nonsense that the media throws at you. I know that it is difficult to do and
that is one of the main reasons for the newsletter. This book will help
explain the details of how the media deceives you through the manipulation of
PR by the large corporations who do not have your best interest at heart. My goal is to change the entire system.
The way that will be done is through the Internet, which is the world's cheapest
printing press. By passing this newsletter on to as many of your friends and
relatives as possible along with a strong endorsement to subscribe, you will
play a major role in helping to lift the veil of deceit that these
corporations try to hide the truth with. We can change the traditional paradigm
and in the process save hundreds of thousands of people from premature death
and disability. Related
Articles: How the Media Deceives You About Health Issues
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