Why Americans are so easily controlled and misled.

Why Americans Will
Believe Almost Anything

By Tim O'Shea
10-30-7

Aldous Huxley's inspired 1954 essay detailed the vivid,

mind-expanding, multisensory insights of his mescaline

adventures. By altering his brain chemistry with natural

psychotropics, Huxley tapped into a rich and fluid world

of shimmering, indescribable beauty and power. With

his neurosensory input thus triggered, Huxley was able

to enter that parallel universe described by every mystic

and space captain in recorded history. Whether by

hallucination or epiphany, Huxley sought to remove all

bonds, all controls, all filters, all cultural conditioning

from his perceptions and to confront Nature or the World

or Reality first-hand - in its unpasteurized, unedited,

unretouched infinite rawness.

Those bonds are much harder to break today, half a century

later. 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:

Pharmaceuticals restore health

Vaccination brings immunity

The cure for cancer is just around the corner

Menopause is a disease condition

When a child is sick, he needs immediate antibiotics

When a child has a fever he needs Tylenol

Hospitals are safe and clean.

America has the best health care in the world.

Americans have the best health in the world.

Milk is a good source of calcium.

You never outgrow your need for milk.

Vitamin C is ascorbic acid.

Aspirin prevents heart attacks.

Heart drugs improve the heart.

Back and neck pain are the only reasons for

spinal adjustment.

No child can get into school without being vaccinated.

The FDA thoroughly tests all drugs before they go

on the market.

Pregnancy is a serious medical condition

Infancy is a serious medical condition

Chemotherapy and radiation are effective cures

for cancer

When your child is diagnosed with an ear infection,

antibiotics should be given immediately 'just in case'

Ear tubes are for the good of the child.

Estrogen drugs prevent osteoporosis after menopause.

Pediatricians are the most highly trained of all

medical specialists.

The purpose of the health care industry is health.

HIV is the cause of AIDS.

AZT is the cure.

Without vaccines, infectious diseases will return

Fluoride in the city water protects your teeth

Flu shots prevent the flu.

Vaccines are thoroughly tested before being

placed on the Mandated Schedule.

Doctors are certain that the benefits of vaccines far

outweigh any possible risks.

There is a terrorist threat in the US.

There is a bioterrorist threat in the US.

The NASDAQ is a natural market controlled by

supply and demand.

Chronic pain is a natural consequence of aging.

Soy is your healthiest source of protein.

Insulin shots cure diabetes.

After we take out your gall bladder you can eat

anything you want

Allergy medicine will cure allergies.

An airliner can be flown with professional precision by

a group of crazed amateurs into a 100-story building

and can cause that building to collapse on its own

footprint. Twice.

The Iraqis blew up the World Trade Center.

This is a list of illusions, that have cost billions to conjure

up. Did you ever wonder why most people in this country

generally accept most of the above statements?

PROGRAMMING THE VIEWER

Even the most undiscriminating viewer may suspect that

TV newsreaders and news articles are not telling us the

whole story. The slightly more lucid may have begun to

glimpse the calculated intent of standard news content

and are wondering about the reliability and accuracy of

the way events are presented. For the very few who take

time to research beneath the surface of the daily

programming and who are still capable of independent

thought, a somewhat darker picture begins to

emerge. These may perceive bits of evidence of the

profoundly technical science behind much of what is

served up in mass media.

Events taking place in today's world are enormously

complex. An impossibly convoluted tangle of

interrelated and unrelated occurrences happens

simultaneously, often in dynamic conflict. To even

acknowledge this complexity contradicts a

fundamental axiom of media science: Keep It Simple.

In real life, events don't take place in black and

white, but in a thousand shades of grey. Just

discovering the actual facts and events as they

transpire is difficult enough. The river is different

each time we step into it. By the time a reasonable

understanding of an event has been apprehended,

new events have already made that interpretation

obsolete. And this is not even adding historical,

social, or political elements into the mix, which

are necessary for interpretation of events. Popular

media gives up long before this level of analysis.

Media stories cover only the tiniest fraction of

actual events, but stupidly claim to be summarizing

"all the news."

The final goal of media is to create a following of

docile, unquestioning consumers. To that end, three

primary tools have historically been employed:

deceit

dissimulation

distraction

Over time, the sophistication of these tools of

propaganda has evolved to a very structured science,

taking its cues in an unbroken line from principles

laid down by the Father of Spin himself, Edward L

Bernays, over a century ago, as we will see.

Let's look at each tool very briefly:

DECEIT

Deliberate misrepresentation of fact has always been

the privilege of the directors of mass media. Their

agents - the PR industry - cannot afford random

objective journalism interpreting events as they

actually take place. This would be much too

confusing for the average consumer, who has

been spoonfed his opinions since the day he was

born. No, we can't have that. In all the confusion

the viewer might get the idea that he is supposed

to make up his own mind about the significance

of some event or other. The end product of good

media is single-mindedness. Confusion and

individual interpretation of events do not foster

the homogenized, one-dimensional

lemming outlook.

For this reason, events must have a spin put on

them - an interpretation, a frame of

reference. Subtleties are omitted; all that is

presented is the bottom line. The minute that

decision is made - what spin to put on a story -

we have left the world of reporting and entered

the world of propaganda. By definition, propaganda

replaces faithful reporting with deceitful reporting.

Here's an obvious example: the absurd and

unremitting allegations of Saddam's weapons

of mass destruction as a rationale for the invasion

of Iraq. Of course none were ever found, but that

is irrelevant. We weren't really looking for any

weapons - but the deceit served its purpose -

get us in there. Later the ruse can be abandoned

and forgotten; its usefulness is over. And nobody

will notice. Characterization of Saddam as a

murderous tyrant was decided to be an

insufficient excuse for invading a sovereign

nation. After all, there are literally dozens of

murderous tyrants the world over, going their

merry ways. We can't be expected to police

all of them.

So it was decided that the murderous tyrant

thing, though good, was not enough. To whip

a sleeping people into war consciousness has

historically involved one additional prerequisite:

threat. Saddam must therefore be not only a baby-

killing maniac; he must be a threat to the rest of

the world, especially America. Why? Because he

has weapons of mass destruction. For almost two

years, this myth was assiduously programmed into

the lowest common denominator of awareness

which Americans substitute for consciousness. Even

though the myth has now been openly dismissed

by the Regime itself, the majority of us still believe it.

Hitler used the exact same tack with the Czechs and

Poles at the beginning of his rampage. These peaceful

peoples were not portrayed as an easy mark for the

German war machine - no, they were a threat to the

Fatherland itself. Just like Albania in the Dustin

Hoffman movie. And threats must be removed

by all available force.

With Iraq, the fact that UN inspectors never came

up with any of these dread weapons before

Saddam was captured - this fact was never mentioned

again. That one phrase - WMD WMD WMD -

repeated ad nauseam month after month had served

its purpose - whip the people into war mode. It

didn't have to be true; it just had to work. A

staggering indicator of how low the general

awareness had sunk is that this mantra

continued to be used as our license to invade

Iraq long after our initial assault. If Saddam had

any such weapons, probably a good time to trot

them out would be when a foreign country is

moving in, wouldn't you say?

No weapons were ever found, nor will they be. So

confident was the PR machine in the general

inattention to detail commonly exhibited by the

comatose American people that they didn't even

find it necessary to plant a few mass weapons in

order to justify the invasion. It was almost insulting.

So we see that a little deceit goes a long way. All

it takes is repetition. Lay the groundwork and the

people will buy anything. After that just ride it out

until they seem doubtful again. Then onto

the next deceit.

DISSIMULATION

A second tool that is commonly used to create mass

intellectual torpor is dissimulation. Dissimulation

simply means to pretend not to be something you

are. Like some insects who can disguise themselves

as leaves or twigs, pretending not to be insects. Or

bureaucrats who pretend not to be acting in their own

interest, but rather in the public interest. To pretend not

to be what you are.

Whether it's the Bush league in Iraq or Hitler in

Germany, aggressors do not present themselves as

marauding invaders initiating hostilities, but instead as

defenders against external threats.

Freedom-annihilating edicts like the Homeland

Security Act and the Patriot Act - currently the law of

the land - do not represent themselves as the negation

of every principle the Founding Fathers laid down,

or as shaky pretexts for the Takers to further loot the

country, but rather as public services, benevolent and

necessary new rules to ensure our SECURITY against

various imagined enemies. To pretend to be what you

are not: dissimulation.

Other obvious examples of dissimulation we see

today include:

pretending like the world's oil will not be gone in 35 years

pretending like more and more government will not

further stifle an already struggling economy

pretending like programs favoring "minorities" are not

just another form of racism

pretending like drug laws are necessary for

national security

pretending like passing more and more laws every

year is not geared ultimately for the advancement

of the law enforcement, security, and prison industries

pretending there is a bioterrorist threat in the US today

pretending there is a terrorist threat in the US today

pretending the Bush regime has not benefited from

every program that came out of 9/11

To pretend to be what you are not: dissimulation.

DISTRACTION

A third tool necessary to media in order to keep the

public from thinking too much is distraction. Bread

and circuses worked for Caesar in old Rome. The

people need to be kept quiet while the small group

in power carries out its agenda, which always involves

fortifying its own position.

All actions of the present Reich since 9/11 may be

explained by plugging in one of four beneficiaries:

Oil

Pharmaceuticals

War gear

Security systems

Every act, every political event, every public statement

of the present administration has promoted one or more

of these huge sectors. More oil, more drugs, more

weapons, more security.

But the people mustn't be allowed to notice things

like that. So they must be smokescreened by other

stuff , blatant obvious stuff which is really easy to

understand and which they think has a greater

bearing on their day to day life. A classic axiom

of propaganda is that people shouldn't be allowed

to think too much about what the government is

doing in their name. After all, there's more to life

than politics, right? So while the power group has

its cozy little war going on, the people need to have

their attention diverted.

All the strong men of history would have given

their eyeteeth to have at their disposal the number

and types of distractions available to today's regimes:

- TV sports, its orchestrated frenzy and spectacle

- Super Sunday

- an endless succession of unspeakably boring,

inane movies, short on plot, long on CGI

- the wanton sexless flash of MTV with its uninspired

lack of talent, a study in split second phony images

- colossally dull TV programs which serve the

secondary purpose of instilling proper robot

attitudes into people who have little other instruction

in life values

- the artistic Mojave of modern music, with its

soulless cyber-droning, a constant quest for the

nadir of reptilian brain stimulation, devoid of

lyrical competence, instrumental proficiency,

or passion

- the ever-retreating promise of financial success,

switched now to the trappings and toys that suggest

success, available to anyone with a credit card

- organized superstitions of all varieties, with their

requisite pseudo-spiritual trappings

- the constant dramatization of crimes and

"issues" throughout the world whose collective

goal is the humble and grateful acknowledgement

of "how good we've really got it"

- dwelling for months on the minutiae of

unsupported allegations of impropriety,

preferably sexual, of a celebrity personality

With these noisy, banal distractions the forces

promoting the general decline in intelligence

and awareness jubilantly engulf us on all

sides. Media science holds the advantage: as

people get dumber and dumber year by year it

gets easier and easier to keep them dumb. The only

challenge is that their threshold keeps getting

lower. So in order to keep their attention, messages

have to become more obvious and blatant,

taking nothing for granted.

For the full article here Is the link:
http://www.rense.com/general78/believe.htm