Oh, God, DUers, it's like Jonestown. The media has somehow destroyed

[Zorra]

peoples minds.

Folks, this is the honest truth, and I spend a lot of time out in the trenches.

I had a discussion with Bu$h supporters tonight. Now, I believe myself to be a reasonable, logical person.

And, I honestly believe, everyone that knows me would swear to you that I am a down to earth, reasonable, common sense, logical person that goes out of their way to help their neighbor and pretty much gets along with everyone I come in contact with.

But these Bu$h supporters I talked to tonight were fucking nuts. And I mean, very seriously, beyond the realm of logic. I asked them repeatedly why they supported Bu$h. They never answered me, ever, not even once.

I kept reiterating all the bad shit that Bu$h has done. I asked them, please, tell me, what good has Bu$h done?

But they never even bothered to refute any of it it. They never gave me any reasonable, logical argument. They were, like, crazy blissed out "Hippies for Hitler" or something.

I shit you not. They were like starry-eyed, brainwashed, Homer Simpsons on CIA mind control drugs.

The media is doing something to people. I think it is from televison. I have not watched TV for most of my life - and I now really think TV is fucking up a lot of peoples minds, hearts, and souls.

Listen, folks, I spent most of my life outside the system, and outside the media. And from my POV, it looks like someone figured out how to almost totally brainwash the people of the US by using television.

I'm looking at this as someone that has almost never watched television in their entire life.

I really think television might really be fucking y'alls brains up, and I don't know how to put it any more straight-forward than that.

Here's a challenge: Stop watching TV, totally, for 3 months, (if you are not already too addicted to TV that this would be impossible without professional help - ! oooh! please, be honest with yourself now) and see if your thought patterns change.

I bet you can't do it.

They have you under their control.

Love you anyway. Vote for John Kerry.


The US is in trouble, my friends, and it is full on up to us to save it.

God help us, DUers, if America has a lot of folks like I dealt with tonight.

Because these Bu$h supporters did not have a working brain in their heads. They had a blank stare in their eyes, and could not even muster one word, one single sentence, to contradict any point I tried to bring up.

Here is the bottom line: Bu$h supporters are nuts. Wacko. Beyond logic, reason, fact, common sense, ethics or morality.

They are fucking insane. Totally fucking insane.

So please, keep this in mind when you consider dealing with Bu$h supporters.

DUers rock.

"God bless us, everyone." - Charles Dickens

[drfemoe]

1. Honestly

.. I never watch 'tv'. Someone gave me one in 1996, and I sold it in 1997.

You are right about the influence. Who would want to put their brain through that?

[Ladyhawk]

74. I only watch documentaries, for the most part.

I hate most television.

Right now, I don't have TV at all. I find myself playing more solitaire, but my thought patterns haven't changed--except that I find I'm less tolerant of Bushies.

[hyphenate]

2. I don't think it's entirely the media's fault

However, having said that, there are networks owned by repuke buddies and these often sway into their realm of make-believe.

I watch a lot of television myself, but rarely broadcast channels. I watch shows like CSI (and its spin-offs) and a few comedies, but my main choice remains Sci-fi, TLC and BBCAmerica.

I call it "willful ignorance." People who choose to spend their lives in a cocoon of blissful unawareness, with only a shadowy image of what they want in life. They work, come home, throw off their shoes and park themselves into a chair to watch the news of the day, and end up on Faux News, or CNN. You would think news shows would be able to get people stirred up, but most people will look at TV and just shrug their collective shoulders, believing it's all the same, regardless of what network they watch. And since several of the major network outlets are controlled and owned by pugs, they have a firmer grip on what to give to these people.

It's like listening to Rush. It's like the Borg (from ST: Next Generation} with the collective beehive mind. There is no independent thought on the part of listeners, and the constant tearing down of everything by the right wing makes people presume that they're correct, even as those of us who frequent places like DU know an enquiring mind is a free mind.

[K-W]

67. How can you expect people to become more knowledgeable

when they are never exposed to the truth?

[sandnsea]

80. omg, yes it is the tv!!!

The only people I know who are actually informed are those who read newspapers, online or off. Anybody who watches tv for news is either a Republican or conservative Dem. TV is nothing but a lie box. And the programming, dumbest shit imaginable. How in the world did we get a wife swapping program on prime time tv? And people are trained like monkeys to suck this shit up.

[drfemoe]

101. Monkeys

I spent some time with my mother. She had a problem with insomnia.

It didn't take long to figure out that her dilemma MIGHT be related to the fact that she had Jerry Springer on every night!!
D'OY!!

[muriel_volestrangler]

98. What have you got against Canadian prog rock?

;-)

Seriously, when I read 'listening to Rush', I did think of the band, not the blimp. That's an advantage of not living in America, I suppose - I don't have awful things like that intruding into life.

[Forkboy]

3. How does one explain

all the people that still watch tv yet agree with your opinions? How does the same media effect others differently?

[Zorra]

11. I would be interested in any info indicating answers to your very valid

questions.

IMO, it is highly possible that the relative percentage of the populace that watches TV daily yet agrees with my opinions is proportionately low relative to those that watch TV compulsively and support Bu$h.

[Forkboy]

14. I'd love to see that kind of info too

I would tend to agree with your assessment though.

[anarchy1999]

27. Most of the people I meet who only watch TV rarely agree with my

opinions or know few of the facts. The people I know that have a real grasp of what is happening right now are people who read books, use the internet for more than chat rooms, games and/or sports and passing around tasteless e-mails.

Most of us here at DU tune in to regularly scheduled programming of all the news not fit to hear or watch only to monitor and debate, to be able to keep ourselves informed about what the other 50% of the 25% of the 50% that vote, are filling their heads up with. To "know your opponent, make him your friend" are wise, very old words of wisdom, from a very old General.

Sorry for the short diversion/rant.

[jeff30997]

4. I used to be a TV junkie...

Now I'm a Born-Again DUer who practically never watches the tube anymore.Waste of time. :)

[rucky]

5. thank you for reminding me

that I am not the insane one. though it does feel that way some time. very often when I turn on the TV.

DUers: i really do credit you for helping me keep my sanity. i'm even over my compulsive DU addiction (although the time of this post may suggest differently).

:yourock: :yourock:

[FlemingsGhost]

6. They are afraid. (It really is that simple.)

Terrified, even. George W. Bush is not the "Second Coming." The U.S. is far from perfect. Things fall apart. Deep down they know these things to be true. However, it is much easier to deny anything is wrong, due to the paralysing fear that perhaps *everything* is wrong.

Alas! ... the realm of the unpredictable unknown. It cannot be controlled, so most are forced to live the illusions of the past or delusions of the future, than accept the conditions that define the present. The alternative is an all systems failure.

(on edit: typo)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. I think you're right

Most of us grew up with this refrain of "The U.S. is always right--America is the greatest country in the world--God is on America's side--The consumer-oriented suburban American lifestyle is the highest and most wondrous mode of living that a human being can aspire to" being drummed into our heads.

Some of us had life experiences that disabused us of these notions, but it's easy to avoid educational and enlightening experiences (For 11 years, I watched students striving mightily to get good grades without learning anything), and a lot of people do manage to stay within the propaganda bubble.

Even so, they can't help noticing out of the corners of their eyes that there's something wrong with the picture, and it absolutely terrifies them, because they know nothing else.

I've noticed over the years that fear can make people stupid and that people often respond to a bad situation, especially a bad interpersonal situation, by loudly declaring that everything is wonderful.

This country is dysfunctional, and a lot of ordinary citizens are co-dependent. I've thought this for a long time, ever since I read about family therapy. Everything the family therapists say about dysfunctional families applies to relations between Republicans and their political leaders.

[Merlin]

7. I believe you're right. The TV era marks a decided change in mankind's

ability to process information logically.

Logical thought is difficult. It is forced upon those who read, but not upon those who passively digest what is spoon fed to their brains.

This is a development of major historical significance, and it's frightening. It amounts to a roll-back of the enlightenment.


"Things are in the saddle; and ride mankind"
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Nay]

24. For anyone who wants to read an older, yet perfectly valid,

discussion of the effect that TV has on the mind, read Jerry Mander's "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television." Just as relevant now as it was 20 years ago.

Mander makes the exact point that Merlin does -- TV is a major turning point in human development in the sense that it rolls back the advances humans have made in thinking logically. Reading demands logical ordering of the mind, and TV totally undermines it while giving the impression that the watcher is "learning" something. It is indeed a rollback of the Enlightenment, and we are suffering for it.

Before I married I did not have a TV and never watched. Now have a TV, but still watch almost nothing because it is a total waste of time. But not too many people can stay away from the tube, and this is the most insidious aspect of the thing.

[Merlin]

26. Thanks, Nay. Just ordered from Amazon ($6 used w/shipping). Review & link.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0688082742/qid=1096281694/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-2404045-6988063?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

About the Author
Jerry Mander holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Economics, spent 15 years in the advertising business, including five as president and partner of Freeman, Mander & Gossage, San Francisco, one of the most celebrated agencies in the country. After quitting commercial advertising, he achieved national fame for his public service campaigns, leading the Wall Street Journal to call him "the Ralph Nader of adevertising." In 1972 he founded the country's first non-profit ad agency, taking leave of that in 1974. Mander is co-author of The Great International Paper Airplane Book.


Book Description

A total departure from previous writing about television, this book is the first ever to advocate that the medium is not reformable. Its problems are inherent in the technology itself and are so dangerous -- to personal health and sanity, to the environment, and to democratic processes -- that TV ought to be eliminated forever.

Weaving personal experiences through meticulous research, the author ranges widely over aspects of television that have rarely been examined and never before joined together, allowing an entirely new, frightening image to emerge. The idea that all technologies are "neutral," benign instruments that can be used well or badly, is thrown open to profound doubt. Speaking of TV reform is, in the words of the author, "as absurd as speaking of the reform of a technology such as guns."

[tom_paine]

39. A "rollback of the enlightment". Yes. Exactly.

The Age of Resaon is playing us out with song, as it were.

[KansDem]

69. My wife has this book! She's read it and talks about it frequently...

Another good book on a related subject is Jane M. Healy's "Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds--for Better and Worse"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684831368/002-1557999-5336851?v=glance

I was particularly interested in her description of how children don't develop synaspes throughly if they don't exercise their minds at an early age....


She also wrote "Endangered Minds: Why Children Don't Think And What We Can Do About It"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684856204/ref%3Dpd_bxgy_text_1/002-1557999-5336851?v=glance&s=books&st=*

I browsed through Mander's book: If I recall correctly, his background was in advertising/PR, so he should know about influencing minds with the media. I remember being impressed with his discussion on how TV "commands" attention (not his word, but the concept is similar). I think he was referring to how TV cannot be ignored, even if you don't want to see it...

[tblue37]

77. _Endangered Minds_

Is one of my favorite books. Another one you might like is Neil Postmans's Amusing Ourselves to Death

[KansDem]

96. Thanks for the tip...

It sounds like something I'd like...:hi:

My stepfather use to say to me "Why do you always have to be amused?" He usually said this when I was getting ready to watch TV, or some such thing. I never really understood what he was trying to say (I was in my early teens at the time and, or course, nobody could tell me anything).

However, I find myself saying this to my two children (12 and 6) and now understand what my stepfather was saying...

You don't really appreciate your parents until you have children of your own.

[mhr]

8. TV Free Here For Three Years - Don't Miss It At All

I am just polishing off my third book this week.

Once one breaks the cord, it is hard to go back.

You can do it too!

[Zorra]

13. mhr - do you believe that eradicating TV from your life has changed

your thought patterns in a positive way?

[mhr]

18. Yes And No - I Have Always Been Skeptical Of Power

So breaking the TV cord has probably increased my cynicism about government and the current administration.

It's almost a two edged sword. For some the bliss of ignorance is preferred. For me, I'd rather know what is going to kill me than sit idly by as the event unfolds.

[anarchy1999]

28. Sweet couple of Posts mhr.

I only wish when I was offered the Red or Blue Pill, I had taken the Blue one. There is nothing more true than "ignorance is bliss", we the people of this country have been taken to a dangerous abyss.

It is a two-edged sword.

(There should be a warning for adverse effects of each, provided, before you make your decision.)

[Ladyhawk]

130. How true.

At one point I made a decision to follow the truth, no matter where it might lead. I'm sure I'm not finished. I became an atheist and left the religion of my family. I became a liberal and left the politics of my family. Sometimes, I, too, wish I had taken the blue pill.

[progressivebydesign]

55. Non broadcast tv for 10 years...

and non-cable news for the same time period. It has changed my life a lot! The only tv we watch is cooking, decorating shows, some BBC comedies, an occasional documentary.. My 12 year old watches tv when she visits her mother.. watches TOO much over there.. but she isnt' there too much. Her favorite activity here is to read, listen to music, play with the dogs, talk, help out around the house, ask questions, and be political. Our house is peaceful, happy, and intelligent. Both of my stepdaughters were tv addicts when I met them 6 years ago.. neither of them are now, and it's made an amazing impact on their lives. I can't say enough about dumping broadcast tv! There are some valuable things on PBS and cable stations.. so you don't have to go cold turkey.

[dumpster_baby]

9. Not the media's fault. It's about social status and race

Except for Fox, the media is not all that much slanted towards Bush. Yes, the GOP definitely has more media control, plays the media better.

I do not believe all the DUers who come on here and say the media was negative during DNC and positive during RNC. If so, it was verrrry subtle.

No, what you are seeing is that a lot of people favor bush for subconscious reasons. The GOP attracts white people who need to boost their own social status via their race. They see the Dems as representing the colored people, and they think that the colored people are of low social status. And they are right. THe Dems DO more or less represent the best hope for the poorer people, and a lot of the darkskinned people are poor. Thus the Democrats are associated more with darkskinned people than the GOP is. And most darkskinned people are held in low social status by most white people. Welcome to the GOP and to America.

Of course, lost on these GOP-favoring white people is the fact that most poor people in America are actually white. In fact, your friends might be poor. I have posted stats here on DU showing that 1/3 of all tax returns (both married and single) are less than $20K, and half of all returns are less than $35K.

Humans are very good at fooling themselves. THey fool themselves into thinking an invisible man in the sky is going to save them from the oblivion of the grave. If they can fool themselves into believing THAT, they can SURELY fool themselves into thinking that if they vote GOP, then they themselves are also high status, and wealth is just around the corner.

Also, some people vote GOP cuz they really are rich, or at least earn a lot of money. A lot of people who post on the Net are like that.

ALso, a lot of people vote GOP for moral/religious grounds.

But I bet your friends are in the first category...

[Zorra]

19. IMO, something you keyed is very insightful:

"Humans are very good at fooling themselves. THey fool themselves into thinking an invisible man in the sky is going to save them from the oblivion of the grave. If they can fool themselves into believing THAT, they can SURELY fool themselves into thinking that if they vote GOP, then they themselves are also high status, and wealth is just around the corner."

Jeez, that is a very sad (but probably true) statement about Americans.

A really candid and interesting perspective.

Ouch!

[BiggJawn]

58. That's the "Cargo Cult" ReTHUGs you've described...

"...that if they vote GOP, then they themselves are also high status, and wealth is just around the corner."

Just like the cargo cult islanders. Listen to Rush and the rest tell them they are smart for listening, Liberals are the reason they drive a 30-y-o Trans-Am with holes in the floor, and if they just keep voting for good GOP candidates, then they'll get to keep more of their own money and they'll be rich "some day", too!

doesn't work that way...

Oh! I forgot! DemocRATS wanna take their guns away, too!

[rman]

12. yep, it's a "Brain Science"

Imported from Nazi Germany who called it "Welt Anschau Krieg" (World View War), and got renamed "Psychological Warfare". Aka Perception Management, aka the Manufacture of Consent.

Don't forget that the media is just a tool here.

The Military-Industrial complex has come of age, Propaganda has come of age.
We're pretty much screwed.

[Zorra]

21. "The Military-Industrial complex has come of age, Propaganda has come

of age."

One of the scariest quotes of the year...but very true.

[JohnyCanuck]

56. Brainwashing America.

From Brainwashing America by Dr. Norman Livergood, former head of the Dept of Artificial Intelligence at the US Army War College:

In an earlier article, I reviewed the varied aspects of personality profiling and simulation. While serving as Head of the Artificial Intelligence Department at the U.S. Army War College, 1993-1995, I conducted studies on profiling, psychological programming, and brainwashing. I explored and developed personality simulation systems, an advanced technology used in military war games, FBI profiling, political campaigning, and advertising. Part of my discovery was that:

* unenlightened human minds are combinations of infantile beliefs and emotional patterns

* these patterns can be simulated in profiling systems

* these profiling systems can be used to program and control people

Personality simulation systems are being used to create political campaigns that apply voter profiles to control their voting behavior. TV commercials and programs use personality simulation to profile viewers to control their purchasing and viewing behaviors. And sophisticated propaganda and brainwashing techniques are being used by the Bush junta to keep American citizens under control (my emphasis /jc)

http://www.hermes-press.com/brainwash1.htm

[bloom]

57. watched "Control Room" the other day

It's amazing how deluded Americans were/are - thinking that the US media was objective and Al Jazeera was not - when Al Jazeera appeared to be showing a more comprehensive view of the war. Rusmsfeld shown on there saying over and over again that Al Jazeera lied and would be cought in the lies. He's the one.

Yet there have been people on DU (could have been trolls) who could not fathom that Al Jazeera could be a credible source.

Our media is SOOOO bad - and people have absolutely been brainwashed. And to the point of being so convinced that the media is liberal. People don't have a clue what the liberal point of view is. And I don't consider Kerry to be liberal. But I bet your Republican friends would.

[Lexingtonian]

15. it's denial

Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.

Reinhold Niebuhr
US Protestant theologian (1892 - 1971)


There is nothing in the reality of American life that creates a coherent argument for electing Bush. But these people have gone politically and morally bankrupt with him.

What they have left that is political and shareable is purely imaginary- big Visions and nasty hobgoblins/demons. If Kerry can figure out how to smash these on their own terms then the conflict of the past 15 years is decided in our favor, because they don't have much else left.

[Zorra]

23. "There is nothing in the reality of American life that creates a coherent

argument for electing Bush."

LOL. Dang, this thread is generating some of the finest and truest quotes of the year.

That is one genuinely succinct and true statement.
:toast:

[Cronus Protagonist]

16. Haldol, Prozac, Oxycontin, etc.

Look in their medicine cabinets. Seriously.

Fascism: We Report You Decide
http://cronus.com/fascism

You might be a Republican if...
http://cronus.com/quiz

Commentary by a Republican...
http://cronus.com/republican

The REAL Republican Platform...
http://cronus.com/platform

Bush's Illustrated Resume
http://cronus.com/bushresume

Isn't That Strange?
http://cronus.com/oil

:)

[izzie]

17. Well they may not like Bush but believe in the base part of party.

I do not vote for the man on the top but for the base thing that I think like a Dem. I Have put that badly. I do like some things about Kerry but I think like a Dem. more in the Nader line but Kerry is better to vote for. I guess I better give this subject up.

[Lexingtonian]

20. The base part of their Party....

But their Party is base in general, as a whole, isn't it?

[Demit]

22. You haven't put it badly at all. I like what you said!

[G_j]

25. I've felt the same way for a long time

TV has been dumbing people down for a long time but it just gets worse.
I also think it has been numbing people down.
I can't blame that on Republicans either. The whole industry is obsessed with the lowest common denominator. You would think that there was a serial killer on every block.
Television programing is filled with sleazy, sadistic, vengeful, selfish, cruel, stupid, unreal imagery.
If I were God, I'd disarm every TV.

:argh: :argh: :argh: :argh:

[Swamp Rat]

29. Alien lizards have taken over the airwaves and people's minds.

[dumpster_baby]

45. I LOVE that movie, _They_Live_!

But clearly the whole David Icke idea of alien lizards can be take a bit too far, as shown here:
http://aresister.tripod.com/

THat movie, THey Live, though, man, John Carpenter really nailed it on that one...

[Swamp Rat]

100. Who is this David Icke guy? I've seen his name mentioned on DU a few

times. That website has pop-ups on every page, and it seems overdone (and they mentioned Clinton, like every time someone gets close to the truth about Bush&Co)... classic mistakes made by alien lizards. I wouldn't be surprised if this Icke dude is one of 'em.

[dumpster_baby]

102. well

First the guy who wrote that website above appears to be a paranoid schizophrenic (IANAP).

Icke is either a fraud or crazy. He wrote some books saying that the power elite (Presidents, congressmen, CEOs etc) are alien lizards in human form.

Now, a lot of people think Icke got his idea from a movie called They Live by John Carpenter about 15 years ago. THe movie --for those who not seen it--was on its face a scifi B-grade movie with lots of shooting and fighting etc. The plot was that aliens were among us disguised as humans. THe aliens were all in power, from politicians to news media to bosses to foremen, etc. They subjugated the humans and they sold us a brand of politics and economics that relied on downsizing, cost cutting, predatory capitalism, etc. YOu get the picture. One expository figure, the Blind Street Preacher, told of how they were separating us from each other, making us uncaring and unfeeling toward each.

Of course the movie was basically a reaction against Reaganism, or at least that is what most reviewers of the movie will say. However, anyone with any background in political economy will tell you that this is really about NEOLIBERALISM. Know thy enemy. It aint just the GOP or Bush. It is NEOLIBERALISM.

Anyway, I have posted a review for this movie on imdb and amazon. Basically it says that this movie speaks to our hidden fears that the powerful and elite are actually a sort of parasitic subsociety, feeding off of us, scratching each others' backs, subjugating us. And that is basically what American society and predatory capitalism is all about.

[Swamp Rat]

106. Oh, I've seen "They Live" a few times and love it.

But I still don't know who David Icke is or what he does. I'm personally inspired by a lifetime of reading Sci-fi (from Asimov to Lovecraft, et al), and old movies like "War of the Worlds" to "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The green colors and lizard theme I use in my pics are derived from two sources: The hand to hand combat between Capt. Kirk against the Gorn, and the eerie green light that emanated from the weapons of Orwell's Mars invaders... oh, and cannibalism is another theme I use after doing grad research on colonialism/cannibalism.

"They Live" is one of the best Sci-fi, B-movies that features the invasion theme, and as you mentioned, a commentary on Reagonomics. I've never thought much about the connection to the Reagan admin but the theme concerning the rape of Earth's resources and the general commodification of humanity is quite obvious. It makes total sense when you step back and see it in the context of neoliberalism. I'll check out your review later. Thanks. I'm on the same page as you concerning the parasitic, powerful elite that feeds off of us, or ON us like predatory, capitalist cannibals.


Don't Vote for Bush! He's an alien lizard!

[dumpster_baby]

107. The problem with Icke's books is that they are supposedly NON fiction

As far as I know they all center arounf the alien lizard conspiracy. I actually have an electronic copy of one of his books (entitled something about a secret or something). Never read it myself...

[Swamp Rat]

110. Well, there IS an alien lizard conspiracy.

I guess Icke is just another Rovian tool, used to discredit the truth like he... it did with Dan Rather... time is running out for humanity! ;-)

[muriel_volestrangler]

105. Either a complete nutcase, or a very shrewd businessman

He started off as a minor soccer goalkeeper, and then became a BBC sports presenter - competent, if a little bland. He then started being a spokesman for the Green Party in the UK (at a time when they were getting quite a lot of votes - global warming had just started being talked about) - and was thought to be an asset for them.

Then suddenly he started saying strange things about being the Son of God, and dressing in special colours to signify this. This culminated in an appearance on the biggest rated UK chat show (I think live), when the host had to explain to him that the audience was laughing at him, not with him. He appeared to be having a complete breakdown, and disappeared from view.

Then he started writing books, and giving speeches, saying the whole world was under control of secret societies, at least some of which are lizards from outer space. The books have sold horrifically well, and he gets regular audiences. Some people also say he's anti-semitic - I'm not sure if that's a justified accusation (some of the 'lizard people' are Jewish, but plenty are not, eg the British Queen; some people say the 'lizard' talk is code for 'Jew', but it may just be that any conspiracy can look like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion if you change enough of the words). He says the 'son of god' talk was all a big misunderstanding.

[Swamp Rat]

108. HAHA! What a loon!

Thanks for the info!

He's right, though, that some of the alien lizards disguise themselves as Jooz, but most are X-tians in this country.

[dumpster_baby]

109. you are quite good

are you a computer graphics artist?

Also, someone ought to put They Live on Kazaa. Someone who does not live in the USA, of course (MPAA, etc.)

[Swamp Rat]

112. Thank you, but no I am not really a graphic artist.

I'm an angry, unemployed, human musician that has resorted to vandalizing AP photos in order to combat/piss off lurking freepers and de-humanize their leaders... well, it's cathartic and entertaining too. Since I am not as verbose as some of the smarter DUers, I prefer to focus my energy on doing creative things. All the women in my family are professional artists, especially my mother, so I guess something rubbed off on me after sitting in her grad painting classes when I was a child.

Btw, what's "Kazaa?"

[Joanne98]

121. Have you ever seen the movie "The Stuff"........

It's about aliens who take over human bodies by getting them to drink this stuff. They take over key people cops, truckers, businessmen then start marketing this new drink... It's all the TV. Drink the stuff.. drink the stuff. real catchy commerials. this one little kid's parents drink it then they try to get him to do it and he won't. He excapes and helps people fighting the aliens. It's a B movie but it's really good.

[Swamp Rat]

122. Yes, I saw it once.

I must see it again. Thanks for reminding me that it exists.

[Zorra]

127. What is really scary is

I can't completely discount your post as a joke after talking to those people last night.

[Swamp Rat]

129. The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

[devinsgram]

30. Since Air America has been on

And I joined DU I don't watch much TV at all anymore and I used to have it own 24 - 7. One reason I don't watch is commercials. I hate them. Most TV is now more commercials than anything else.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

31. They don't want any responsibility or to have to think for themselves

The TV is telling them what they want to hear and giving them myths that make them feel superior and good about themselves. People like us, that want to think critically, have turned it off by now or watch it in horror and disbelief.

I have turned to watching mostly DVDs from Netflix and only one or two shows on HBO. Those reality shows are as bad as the propaganda news.

The sad fact is that the propaganda is working on the people that WANT to believe it. They think average middle-class lives are boring and beneath them. They think quiet people who read books, work at their jobs, have hobbies, study and learn are "pussies" and losers. All the other action figure movie stars are shoo-ins to be the next figure-head president if it were left up to these people.

If we don't get enough grassroots to counteract them, it seems possible we will get a line of dumb-ass action figure leaders and and a shell and shambles of a country.

[Sterling]

32. I watch a lot of TV.

And I still manage to see through the BS. In fact wacthing what has happened to out media made me suspicious of exactly what you are talking about. It is true. A few rich RWers bought up key parts of the media and now paint a reality that does not exists. However shows like the Daily Show are the remedy for this. If you can show people how they are being manipulated TV can be a very useful educational tool.

The problem is as I said before too much of the media has been consolidated in the hands of people with a very specific agenda that superceeds profit. As soon as rich Dems and liberals get into the game and understand it is worth it to run at a profit loss as long as you control the message we might have a chance of reversing the effect on the public.

[Flammable Materials]

33. To be honest ...

... we'd have to turn off a lot of things, including DU.

I won't do that.

But I will shun the mainstream American news media. I set my Dish Recorder to record Democracy Now, BBC News, and News from Deutsche Welle. I also watch Mosaic to get an idea of what people in the Middle East are hearing from their TV news.

Our local NPR affiliate has an AM all-talk station, and in the mornings, they broadcast BBC World Service for hours. Perfect way to get informed during the morning commute.

[blindpig]

34. I suspect the problem is in our hardware

Vision is the primary sense of higher primates. I believe the old saw, "seeing is believing" contains a Higher Truth, that we are hardwired to give first consideration to visual sensory inputs. Our more lately developed faculties of reason and morality take a back seat to this powerful tendency."Oh look, colors, movement!"Just a gang of nekked monkeys. I don't think this is an accident, though at what point tv became recognized and the premier vehicle of advertising and propaganda I don't know.
Blow up the tv.

[shance]

35. Zorra you rock*** that's all there is to say.

Thanks

:)

[tom_paine]

36. I completely agree. America has been driven clinically insane

It has happened before in Nazi Germany. The Busheviks have long ago discovered how to do it, now they havemost if not all of the pieces in place.

Yes it is madness. The stuff of nightmares. Virtual Reality Amerika. The Imperial Subjects of Amerika can be convinced of ANYTHING, no lie is beyond the ability of the massive infrastrcuture of the Bushevik Goebbels v2.0 to launder into "truth". No fact so concrete that it can be obfuscated.

The Busheviks can, under the right circumstances, also do ANYTHING, provided their Propaganda Masters innoculate them properly with the right mentality.

I have been looking deeply into the madness, as someone who watches TV but recognizes it for what it is.

(and you are correct, if you watch it, it has it's effect even if you are defending against it)

You're assessment is correct. If the economy gets worse, and it will, then we are in for it.

And we will be.

It will soon be a bad time to be a freedom-loving person in Imperial Amerika.

Of course, the Imperial Subjects will be shrieking their "freedom" even as they have lost it all and are instruments for further reductions towards Tyranny.

[jumpstart33]

37. Hey, it's called "racism" and "fascism" Nobody is going to admit to it!!

That's why they can't tell you why they support Bush. It just is too vile to mention. It amazes me that you don't understand this. It's the history of this nation, except for the glimmers of hope that the 60's Civil Rights movement gave us. It's our story and we are going to stick to it!!! It is much easier to hate people who are different and this evil takes many forms.

[Petrodollar Warfare]

38. Consolidation of the US media is part of the "dumbing down" process...

There are several issues behind your observation, but *fear* would seem to be the prime motivator - which explains a lot of irrational behavior throughout history. I think other posters have covered this issue sufficiently, so I will comment only on the "TV" issue.

First, I am proud to say that I have not watched more than 12-15 hours of TV this year (and last year too). The last time I watched more than 2 hours of TV at one setting was during 9/11. Since 2002 I have rarely watched TV, but I will watch the upcoming debates. I consider myself to be fairly informed, because I actively seek information from a diverse and *uncensored* source - the Internet.

Here are my thoughts (excerts from my upcoming book)


U.S. Media Consolidation: Threat to Our Republic

“There's really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It's not healthy.”
- Ted Turner, vice chairman, AOL Time Warner Founder of CNN, April 24, 2003

“…If media moguls control media content and media distribution, then they have a lock on the extent and range of diverse views and information. That kind of grip on commercial and political power is potentially dangerous for any democracy.”
- Chuck Lewis, executive director of the Centre for Public Integrity, March 20, 2004

“Most of the media was on the bandwagon or intimidated. Cheney himself called the president of the corporation that owned one of the networks to complain about an errant commentator. Political aides directed by Karl Rove ceaselessly called the editors and producers with veiled threats about the access that was not granted in any case. The press would not bite the hand that would not feed it.”
- Sidney Blumenthal, UK Guardian, June 24, 2004

“This Government lies…..I think we have a government that absolutely is ignoring the truth and a press that is ignoring the truth.”
- Helen Thomas, 57-year veteran correspondent for United Press International, quoted during a speech on the George W. Bush administration, July 8, 2004.

“All journalists make mistakes….But the falsehoods reproduced by the media before the invasion of Iraq were massive and consequential: it is hard to see how Britain could have
gone to war if the press had done its job.”
- George Monbiot, UK Guardian, July 20, 2004

“The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
- Former CIA Director William Colby 417

The American People must bear in mind the wisdom of founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson who insisted that a free press is vital, as it is our best, and often the only mechanism to protect democracy.

....The majority of American people are not aware of the issues outlined in this book because our mass media has been reduced to only five “mega-media” conglomerates that filter approximately 90% of the information flow within the U.S. Naturally this level of consolidation in the press has resulted in filtering of TV and radio broadcast news, as well as printed media.

Regrettably, this threat to the Republic is not surprising considering that over the past two decades deregulation of media ownership has resulted in the U.S. losing most of its independent news sources, with news sources shrinking from 50 sources in 1983, to roughly 10 in 1997. As listed below, by 2004 the major U.S. broadcast media has been further reduced to only five media conglomerates. Mark Crispin Miller, media critic and professor of media studies at New York University, provided a listing of the five major media conglomerates in the book, Censored 2004.

1) AOL Time Warner - CNN and related networks; Home Box Office; Warner Brothers movie and television studio, WB television network and affiliated record labels; AOL Internet service; and Time Inc. magazines, such as Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, People and Entertainment Weekly. Conglomerate also includes several book companies, sport franchises, and radio stations, etc.

2) News Corporation - Fox broadcast television network and cable news channel, 20th Century Fox movie studio, New York Post and several foreign newspapers and television networks in Europe and Australia. Conglomerate also includes extensive radio network of 34 owned and operated stations, 9 duopoloies,188 affiliated stations, several book publishers, sports franchises and satellite companies such as Hughes Electronics Corporation , etc.

3) Walt Disney Company - ABC television network, ESPN cable sports network, 10 stations/226 local affiliates, 62 radio stations/4600 affiliates, several publishing companies, and Internet portals. As well as Disney amusement parks and related resorts, Miramax and Hollywood Pictures, etc.

4) Viacom - CBS and UPN television networks; Infinity radio network, with nearly 200 stations; cable television networks MTV, Showtime and BET; Paramount movie and television studios; and Blockbuster Video movie rental chain, etc

5) Vivendi Universal – Large Internet portal in the US and Europe, cable and Satellite TV, Universal Studios, Music, Film, Telecom and non-media corporations, etc.

A cursory analysis of European, Indian, Asian, Latin America and Canadian based media reporting of the Iraq crisis provided a considerably more informative and objective analysis of the issues surrounding the war.

....Our news is heavily filtered, and not particularly informative. FOX News provided an important role in forming U.S. opinion as it served as an uncritical and effective echo chamber regarding the pre-war claims stated by the Bush/Cheney administration. In 2003 the founder of CNN, Ted Turner accused Robert Murdoch, owner of FOX News as being a “warmonger” who “promoted” the war.420 Earlier that same day British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Director- General Greg Dyke expressed grave concerns about the impartiality of both TV and radio broadcast media in the U.S. He warned policy makers that corporate control and the “Americanisation” of British media would be detrimental to the health of Britain’s democracy.

“Personally, I was shocked while in the United States by how unquestioning the broadcast news media were during this war. If Iraq proved anything, it was that the BBC cannot afford to mix patriotism and journalism. This is happening in the United States and, if it continues, will undermine the credibility of the U.S. electronic news media. For the health of our democracy, it’s vital we don’t follow the path of many American networks.”

Mr. Dyke bluntly stated that he was astounded to see the "committed political position" of Fox News Channel, owned by conservative media legend, Rupert Murdoch. During this interview the Director of the BBC was "shocked" to learn that the biggest radio group in the U.S., Clear Channel, was using its stations to organize’ pro-war rallies.

Mr. Dyke advised against allowing the deregulation of media ownership, warning that it would likely result in a less open, less questioning media. The British government would be wise to question whether or not media ownership laws in the U.K. should allow foreign companies like Clear Channel or FOX news to manipulate public opinion.

“…Mr Dyke directed much of his ammunition against the global media giant Clear Channel, which owns 1,225 radio stations in the US, many of which took a staunchly pro-war line.

"We are genuinely shocked when we discover that the largest radio group in the United States was using its airwaves to organise pro-war rallies," said Mr Dyke, who is also the BBC's editor-in-chief. "We are even more shocked to discover that the same group wants to become a big radio player in the UK."

He urged the government to think carefully about its proposals to liberalise media ownership laws in Britain. "We must ensure that we don't become Americanised," he said in a speech at Goldsmith's College in London yesterday.”

While his assertions regarding media bias and censorship in the U.S. might surprise uninformed Americans, it is a concern well known to those who advocate media reform. While it is comforting to believe that we still have a free media, when compared to news coverage in other industrialized nations, the disparity of information available to American viewers and listeners on the public airways provides evidence that a free and open media in the U.S. is a myth, not reality. In the first worldwide press freedom index, the U.S. was ranked 17th by “Reporters without Borders.” The top ten rankings were western European nations, with the one exception of Canada (ranked 5th).

Lamentably, C-SPAN and PBS affiliates remain the only broadcast TV channels that still provide some unbiased and valuable information for the American citizenry. Undeniably, the large imbalance in U.S. media ownership provides a national paradox - how can America be regarded as the “global leader” when the vast majority of our citizens have almost no broadcast access to international news? U.S. customers are not even offered CNN’s International News channel.

Today, U.S. citizens must rely on Internet-based news sources to learn about important stories that ultimately impact our lives in far greater degrees than the latest trivial sex/murder/drug scandals that serve as our daily “info-tainment” from the media conglomerates. Truthfully, in the United States, the Internet is currently the last and only bastion of free speech and unfiltered news.

The issue of reforming our highly consolidated media is certainly complex, but the obvious and most effective solution to restore a free and diverse independent media would entail the use of anti-trust laws to break-up the five major media monopolies into much smaller units, and to compel the FCC to enact rules that would have the same effect in local media markets. Just as President Theodore Roosevelt realized the danger to the republic and broke Standard Oil into smaller entities, so too should the next U.S. President break up the media conglomerates.

Additionally, Congress should reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine,” thereby providing much needed balance to U.S. news reporting. The Fairness Doctrine was instituted in 1949, and was designed so that broadcasters would make sure they did not use their stations solely as advocates for a singular perspective. Public airways should allow all points of view, thereby balancing the discussion of controversial issues. President Reagan vetoed the Fairness doctrine legislation in 1987, and in conjunction with President Clinton signing the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the U.S. media has fallen into the hands of only a few executives.

Apparently at least one of the top media executives received a phone call from an upset Vice President Cheney, and the other media conglomerates were pressured by political operatives in the White House to stop any “errant” reporting of the war. This development is detrimental to those U.S. citizens who wish to fulfill their patriotic duty of being an informed citizenry.

Thomas Jefferson would likely be outraged with the amount of self-censorship that permeates American broadcast media. We must heed the words of wisdom about the dangers to our liberty and freedom that result from limitations in the press.

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."
- Thomas Jefferson

[Eric J in MN]

40. I cancelled my tv service 5 months ago, and I'm glad (nt)

nt

[RobinA]

41. This Was Amply Demonstrated

by an letter in the local Sunday paper. The paper had obviously asked people to write in about who they support and why. One guy wrote that he supports Bush because he (Bush) is a man of honesty and integrity. I find this reflected in the people around me who are for Bush. "He's made some mistakes, but at least he's honest." This is why I stopped arguing about this election. I have no idea what the response to this mindset is.

I can't blame the media, although they have had some culpability in this mess, especially before the war. The lies have been reported.

[Cats Against Frist]

42. What scares me the most

is how many of these fucking idiots they elect to congress. I used to think it was just the legislators manipulating the people, with the "core 'murican values" narrative, so the corporations could suck the country dry, but so many of the former "manipulated" are working their way into positions in the party. Between the automaton freaks, smitten with economics and military power, and the religious freaks trying to manipulate the Raputure -- and a LARGE part of their constituency being either dumb or delusional -- SOMETHING, people, has got to give. It scares the holy rolling fuck out the moderates in the GOP, and they need to stand up and walk out of the freakfest that is the new GOP.

[misterphelps]

43. I shut off the cable a year ago...

... for two reasons.

1. It was all shit. Mind numbing crap of no value. The news was all skewed and entertainment oriented.

2. I was having too many arguments with my kids about watching tv rather than reading and school work.

Guess what. Both of my girls have been getting straight A's ever since. It's amazing how many other things can be accomplished instead of sitting passively in front of the box. Like using your own brain, for instance.

We get our news and weather from the net, and rent dvds when we want to watch

[Stephanie]

44. If your theory were true, wouldn't all of us TV watchers be Bushbots?

How do you explain the 50% of America, including all of DU, that is against Bush?

[Justpat]

46. I turned off the TV in 1987

I have always believed that the constant use of implanted imagery
would destroy our ability to think for ourselves. Then about five
years ago I stumbled upon a book called "Four Arguments for the
Elimination of Television", by Jerry Mander. Mander was a big shot
ad executive who owned a very successful ad agency in San Francisco
back in the 70's. He became appalled at the control he felt he had
over people's minds.

He believed that one day a bloodless coup would occur in this country
(like the 2000 election) and that the people would have no idea it
was even happening to them because they would have been conditioned
to accept whatever the TV spit out at them as the gospel truth.

In one part of the book, he speaks of how after a coup occurred, the
people would be lulled into submission by imagery of the new leader
acting presidential, doing things like getting on and off air force
one, sitting in the oval office, etc. Rove said something to this
effect after the election when he said people would accept Bush after
they saw him getting on air force one. Rove must have read this book
and Mander must have become a consultant to the right wing as much
of what they say and do is often word for word what is in the book.

Mander seems to have written this book after experiencing a fit of
conscience - but I feel he later took his knowledge and experience
and used it to help the nuts now controlling our government and our
airwaves. He wrote a hateful little book about Clinton called the
Wizard of Is during Clinton's impeachment debacle.

But the information in his book is very valuable and should be read
by anyone managing a campaign.

[RollergirlVT]

47. Kool -aid...

can be dangerous to ones health. I truley believe that if a person is just slightly intelligent and rational the film Outfoxed can break the trance. Once someone discovers how thier opinions may have been influenced by Fox tactics, they may shake off the illusion and start paying attention to the obvious. That is why I am hosting weekly movie nights at my house. Although there are many folks that don't like Bush few really understand the true scope of the situation. There are several films that help raise awareness. Inviting neighbors over for a friendly movie is a great way to inform them. Just a thought.

[Longhorn]

48. Vote Republican, It's easier than thinking.

It used to be a joke.

I remember back in '92, I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh in order to hear what the other side was saying. He repeatedly advertised his newsletter by telling his audience that they didn't have to think, he would tell them. Absolutely no hint of satire. I couldn't believe that such an approach would appeal to people but I was young(er) and more naive back then.

[tom_paine]

49. Well, what better descripive name for Nazi Brownshirts than "Dittoheads"

"Der Fuhrer says..."

"Ditto."

"Der Fuhrer says..."

"Ditto."

And so forth.

These Dittoheads belong to the same family of thinking that ALL Totalitarians belong to.

Of course they cannot see it. Even if they could, the Bushler who has replaced their Id (as Hitler replaced the Id of the Nazis) would beat such conscience-thoughts back down.

"Liberal Propaganda"

The modern equivalent of the all-purpose Nazi dismissal "Jewish Propaganda".

[bloom]

61. It makes me cringe

when people say "ditto" on this board. I'm afraid I've fallen into freeperland or something.

[Skittles]

50. I know exactly what you mean, Zorra

it's like some sort of mass psychosis - people seemed to have simply stopped thinking for themselves. I'm beginning to wonder if the media is putting subliminal messages out that somehow we DUers are immune to. I just don't get how any reasonable person can possibly not see Bush for what he really is.

[Elginoid]

51. you can have my tv...when you pry my cold, dead fingers from the remote-

I love my tv, but you're right about it being a mind-fuck for a lot of people...mostly the people that are stupid and sheep-like to begin with.

but you'd better get used to it being around, because i get the definite impression that tv is here to stay.

[Jackpine Radical]

52. Mind control techniques...

http://www.popsmear.com/popculture/features/23.0/mindcontrol.html


THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU READ ANY FURTHER:
It's possible to induce an eyes-open trance in a room full of people using vibrations pumped behind the sound of an air conditioner.

The US Marine Corps uses the same six conversion techniques as the biggest religious and secular cults.

River Phoenix was slipped a deadly speedball when he threatened to expose the Children of God as a CIA-backed experiment in the psychic effects of ritual abuse.

Get it? There is no idle fucking around with mind control. It isn't about parlor tricks. It's about the systematic destruction of free will. Ad makers, voodoo doctors, insane political dictators—they all employ the secrets you are about to uncover. We urge you not to use these techniques carelessly, and to save them until you are positive that you are ready for the manifold responsibilities of world domination. So... doot doola doot doo... okay, you ready now? It's time to get off the soapbox and start washing some brains!

[Senior citizen]

53. The average American, I remember reading many years ago,

reads at a 3rd grade level. Somebody gave me a ticket to a comedy show Saturday night, and the intelligence level was below 3rd grade. How nice, for people who can't read well anyway, and don't have the time to read even if they were able to, to have TV so they don't have to struggle with words in print. They even have a President just like them.

Yes, we are back in the Dark Ages, and this country gets more Fascist every day.

Tell people that a national health care plan is Socialist, and they'll shun it. Even if every other developed country in the world has one. No wonder this country doesn't seek allies--they're all socialist except us.

Somebody donated a small TV to the senior center, and it was given to me because they knew I didn't have one. I don't have cable. I only remember to turn it on when somebody posts on DU that something of interest to DUers is about to be shown.

I can't leave. I have no money and nowhere to go. But I was very relieved to hear that my daughter has a valid passport, support systems in other countries, sufficient liquid assets to enable a quick departure, and is fully aware of the dangers.

This is how it was in Nazi Germany. Things got worse day by day, and it sort of crept up on you. If you thought that it couldn't get any worse or that it might get better, and you didn't leave, you probably didn't survive.

We hope against hope that some shred of democracy still survives. Can we have free and fair elections? Would a Democrat be permitted to take office if he won? I don't know. We accepted the last fraudulent (s)election process because we're Democrats. We don't tend to be violent, vicious, and hateful. Republicans are all those things. They think God wants the chimp to be President, and they are stupid, violent people. If you don't agree with them, you're a traitor who hates America. I just can't see them accepting the results of a free and fair election if it doesn't go their way. I'm 100% certain that Kerry will get the most votes, but I have no certainty at all that he, or I, or anyone who votes for him, will live to see his inauguration. There are billions of war profiteering dollars at stake here. Life is cheap. The world is overpopulated. Genocide is a common occurrance these days. People kill for tennis shoes. I am very, very afraid.

[progressivebydesign]

54. I'm starting to think that 9/11 scewed a lot of people up!

I've noticed, since 9/11, the almost fevered activity in churches.. and the people who would normally seem quite reasonable, becoming non-thinking drones. Fear. I honestly think it's fear. Dennis Miller wigged out. Lots of people freaked out... the level of anxiety and depression related doctor's visits skyrocketed after the event, and each year near the anniversary. THAT'S why the GOP has no qualms about rehashing the attack over and over again.. it works for them.

People, who do not have the ability to put the attack in perspective, as it relates to THEIR lives, are most likely to fear change.. to be easily manipulated. There are actual people in many of the midwest states who put fear of terrorism as a major priority in choosing a candidate... The odds that a terrorist will hit their part of the country is pretty slim to none, as terrorists seem to want to hit areas where they can make the most impact (bastards!!), yet many many people are buying into Bush and Cheney's fear mongering.

I honestly think there are millions of people out there that fear changing presidents, because they somehow believe.. deep down.. that it's a sign of weakness to make a change in the White House. I know it's wrong, and you know it's wrong, but it's a gut feeling some people have and it is perpetuated by the GOP media machine.

The RNC knew JUST what they were doing, by holding their convention near Ground Zero in NYC. They don't want you to forget, even though it was Bush's incompetence and arrogance that likely allowed the attacks to happen. They use the fear mongering, even though it's beeing criticized, because IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Especially with older folks.. because they remember the propoganda of the past wars about not disagreeing with our leaders or the enemy will see us as weak!!! THAT is what is driving so many of these people.. fear.

I have ZERO doubt that John Kerry will keep us safer than Bush has.. and if something does happen, John Kerry is the man to respond the RIGHT WAY. I would trust my life with John Kerry... but fear of change amidst the anxieties surrounding 9/11 will not let people see that.

[Paradise]

59. Please see what I posted before reading yours!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2417950&mesg_id=2417950

It becomes more evident each and every day!

[emc]

64. Lazy americans---

As stated here, most of us dont watch TV---we get our info over the internet or papers I would guess----which indicates to me, our brains are still functional----If you bump into a republican, ask him how many books he has read recently----or which internet sites he follows---Ill bet your answer will shock you------

I myself like most of us on this thread have read all the lastest books (political)by ONeill, Clark, Clinton and now Juntin Franks--(bush on the couch)and others----it beats watching TV---and you might even come out with some answers---

My republican friends on the other had are lazy---its easier to gather, if you want to use those words, or receive info over the tube----why waste you time reading when you can sit back and receive the info as it is spoon fed to you-----you cant argue with this type, its impossible, they think that they are getting the info first hand and we are the dumb ones---

I have given up trying to change minds, have lost too many friends over this election----the american public will wake up one day, all I can hope is that its not too late------

[tlcandie]

60. It's a combination of many factors which began with the eugenics..

The factors:

1) Racisim..the supreme race
2) Implementation of eugenics in the US in the early 1920s
3) Hitler creates according to eugenics
4) Eugenics supports Hitler and builds for experimentation purposes
5) Hitler falls and the US assimilates the Nazi doctors into the US
6) Those tests begin the program of synthetic medicines now in US
(Thus, the big drug companies all offshoots from the Hitler time
period now produce all these nice Prozac type meds that we and
our children take on a daily basis.)
7) Television created and there's no question about how it can
affect a person's perception of reality. Even the Nazis didn't
have this ability with their propaganda.
8) MK Ultras... Artichoke.. all experiments which continued the
Nazi testings about mind control and such.
9) Religious fervor and indoctrination of masses...another form of
mind control.
10)Corporations and worker bee mentality...another form of mind
control. Worker bees loose their lives and their minds while
CEOs get rich and gain more power to control more people!
11)FEAR -911 - TERRA TERRA TERRA
12)Apocalypitic visions/indoctrination/desires
13)DUALITIES black/white - us/them - with us/against us -

I'm sure others could add to this list...

EDIT:

Let's add our school system into that... public education and the dumbing down of our children via not teaching to learn to think for themselves, but to test and to obey their leaders.

[VOX]

62. The media keep the fear and anger stirred up, and that is addictive...

Those two emotions are essentially intended to be experienced by a human being for only a brief periods of time. There have been numerous studies connecting those emotions with immune-system breakdown and worse.

But however negative those potent emotions might be over the long-term, the media keeps the fire stoked under them. On any given night, it's terrorism, weather catastrophes, downed airliners, toxins in food, homicide, etc. -- the human condition viewed through a very negative lens. Nobody stands a chance. And in some weird way, the fear and anger makes people feel more alive.

When Soviet Union collapsed, Americans lost their common boogeyman. It took several years, but now the media and BushCo have provided one: "The Terrorists." They are dark-skinned, savage, bloodthirsty, freedom-hating, etc. -- and they could strike anywhere, anytime. They are legion, they are determined, they are on the warpath, they never give up.

In fact, the administration and the media have created the "perfect" enemy for a totalitarian regime -- "Keep us in power, and we will keep you safe. If you betray us, you're on your own."

[Paradise]

63. United States of America Year Zero!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x75225

Not only in Baghdad, but right here in our midst! A MUST read!

[TrogL]

65. This is hardly new - the 'simpletons' meme goes back to the Dark Ages

which is where I think we're headed - the next Dark Ages.

It wasn't that liberal thought wasn't going on during the "Dark Ages" - the powers-that-be simply destroyed all the documentation. It's happening today.

Those seeking control, be it the church [sic] or the latest dictator do it by preaching that thinking is bad, so they provided a substitute, simpleton-think, through endless propaganda.

It's how the fundie/freeper mindset works.

Here's what happened to me. One day I was having a lot of trouble at work and one of my bosses came out to help. What he did was close down the shop, drag me out to his car and preached at me and asked me to be "born again" in Christ. I did, and felt better. It lasted all day. The next day it sorta felt all right but I started having my doubts so I started casting about for another fix (yes, I'm using addictions talk on purpose). I yakked on the CB (yes, this was awhile ago) and tried to find a fundie radio station (yes, this was awhile ago) and came up empty. By Sunday had realized how truly empty my boss's promises were and that it was all a tissue of lies, deception and delusion. I never went back.

Now imagine if I had found a "freeper channel" or a fundie radio station and was able to get my fix. The stuff is highly, highly addictive. You get the feel-good jive from group membership, you get your thinking done for you, you get the jive of "thinking the right thing". Now look at today's environment. Even up in my neck of the woods, 10% of the FM radio stations are wall-to-wall fundie. Several of the AM stations carry Rush and Laura. The right-wing newspaper has religion on every page and even the so-called left-wing paper allows freepers full reign. Every week at church I get to listen to otherwise intelligent people mouthing this crap because they trust the paper and won't look beyond. Then I remind them about who owns it and tell them the real story, usually culled from DU. The situation is far, far worse in the States. There's a good reason why the CRTC won't let Fox news into Canada.

It's really quite simple. Most Bush supporters are addicts. They're addicted to simplemindedness. It's a chemical addiction every bit as severe as alcoholism.

[Ladyhawk]

134. TrogL speaks the truth.

"preaching that thinking is bad"

Fundies actually do this! As a youngster, I was taught that "reason" was evil. After all, the bible says, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding." Relying on one's own mind was considered blasphemous!

It's a wonder anyone ever escapes from fundamentalism. I escaped, but not unscathed.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

66. Oh, come on, it's NOT television!

People were already "glued to the set" when they elected Kennedy.

What THEY watch (reality shows in particular) may be a part of it. But I think you should look to a combination of drugs (legal and illegal), self-help culture, public schools that torture and crush the individual, the deterioration of the spoken and written language, and of course, that ol' time religion.

There's your brainwashing.

[K-W]

68. no, it really is the television, papers, radio, internet, mailings, etc

The right wing controls what information people get access to, and by doing that they can control thier opinions.

This isnt about being glued to the tv, it is about what is on the TV. At the time of Kennedy, the news media was far far far far more objective than it is now. It aimed to present the facts without spin. Now the media does nothing but present spin.

Drugs have nothing to do with anything.

As far as the culture, guess what one of the biggest influences on culture is... MEDIA.

We had schools that crushed invididualism before, we had religion before, those things arent new, so you cant blame a change on them.

I dont think the language is deteriorating.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

70. Media media blah blah blah

"Drugs have nothing to do with anything."

So you really think those blank stares come just from watching TV?

I think most people don't watch TV--it's just on in the background.

I forgot my #1 explanation: work. People work absurd hours and spend more time around bosses than family. There's your brainwashing.

I don't trust one issue answers.

[K-W]

72. Yah, the media is just one issue.

You are downplaying the influence of the media, which is a fatal mistake.

As far as brainwashing, it doesnt exist. Find brainwashing in as many things as you want, the truth will remain, the main difference between the political landscape now, and the political landscape 20 years ago is a MASSIVE change in the media.

Maybe if I break it down a little more it will appeal to you more.

The media is a giant umbrella, it isnt just one issue. You are just getting confused by the rhetorical shape of the explenation, rather than focusing on the content.

To break it down for you:

-Right wing direct mail programs.
-Right wing think tanks and journals that produce propaganda and bankroll pundits and columnists to disseminate it.
-Fox News
-The other corporate media, which for several reasons has gotten extremely conservative, partly because there are so many conservative pundits and columnists, partly because of fox news, and partly because of corporate conservatism.
-The right wing manipulation of language and opinion that has made the media hyper sensitive to charges of being liberal

This isnt about drugs or brainwashing, it is about information. This isnt new, with our system, the power of the vote is only useful if people are informed enough to use it. By taking control of the flow of information, the right wing has alot of control over how people are informed, and thus how they vote.

It is, in a word, PROPAGANDA.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

75. I agree the media is right-wing

I just don't know if that's why people are acting so strange and zombie-like, which was the content of the original post.

Then again, the original poster claims to have almost never watched TV, yet compares the TV-affected to Homer Simpson. So I'm a little confused as to what we're arguing.

Yes, points have been hammered into the heads of THE THINKING by the RW media, which is why you meet thinkers who still spout the flip flop nonsense, etc.

The question is, I think, why are so many not thinking at all? What is killing our collective consciousness?

[K-W]

78. Because people who dont think

still watch tv, listen to radio and glance at newspapers and talk to others.

They dont bother to get alot of info or to think about it, they just take the general opinion of things and consider that fact. That is the problem, the republicans focus on perception, not facts.

People who dont think know things like this:
-Kerry Flip-flops
-Bush is resolute and strong and folksy
-There are questions about Bush and Kerry's vietnam service
-Kerry voted against military spending
-Democrats are weak on national security
-Liberals are crazy
-Conservatives support family values

It is these kinds of broad perceptions that decide elections. And this is where the media control becomes a major problem. These attitudes are everywhere, on news shows, in local news, even in some non news media.

When most people get very little information, the little information they get is very powerful in informing thier opinion.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

79. But do you blame their not thinking on TV?

If not thinking is the root of the problem.

I still think WOM may be bigger than broadcasting itself in spreading the lies--there is one, more intellectual than the rest, node-Republican who takes down the message, starts conversations, repeats himself a lot, and uses his social leverage (as husband, boss, co-worker, drinking buddy, etc) to bring many non-newswatchers into the fold.

[K-W]

81. Critical thinking has never been the norm for human beings.

You have to teach people how to think critically, you have to teach them logic, you have to teach them to appraoch things scientifically.

Word of mouth and TV are too very powerful tools of information dissemination, but unlike word of mouth, tv is controlled centrally. Everyone sees the same TV shows and the content is decided by the TV companies.

If word of mouth were all that we had to deal with, I think liberals would win elections like crazy. The problem is the massive amount of conservative info being pumped into the country, that then effects people and changes the word of mouth. It causes more people to spread by thier mouths republican talking points, so the points reach more people and are reinforced by the media so they are believed more.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

84. I disagree. Critical thinking is primordial.

You can't survive the elements, let alone invent language, music, agriculture, animal husbandry, kinship, philosophy, painting, poetry, law, etc., without critical thinking. These things developed everywhere on earth independently--there was not just one "genius" behind each Neolithic invention.

Critical thinking has to be UNLEARNED. People have to be distracted by myths and dogmas (and substances and psycho-manipulation) in order to deny the evidence of their senses.

It seems rather conservative to say, people are naturally stupid, and will believe whatever blather is blathered the most. We are lousy as animals (slow, naked, toothless and clawless) and only survive by thinking.

[K-W]

87. You seem to be confusing thinking with critical thinking.

Im not sure you realize what critical thinking is. The entire point of critical thinking is learning to look past our natural way of thinking about things and using tools like logic and science to arrive at better conclusions.

You say people are naturally stupid... which disagrees with your statement that people are naturally critical thinkers.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

111. Um

When I said people are naturally stupid, I was paraphrasing you.

You sound like an elitist, if not a conservative. You really believe that people have to be taught to think? Nonsense. They have to be taught not to think.

[K-W]

117. Yah, flame me, that is going to boost your argument.

There is nothing remotely elitist or conservative about anything I have said.

I never thought I would run into someone who believed that Human Beings were naturally critical thinkers. I mean just knowing human beings should be enough to dissuade you of that idea.

We had spirituality and superstition a long time before we had logic and science.

How can you possibly explain this? If human beings are naturally critical thinkers, why would they ever have had superstition? Why is it that educated people are less susceptible to astrology? Why does astrology exist? Why did people do rain dances, when any critical anylasis would have proven there was no causal relationship? Why do people always take short term rewards over long term rewards even if the long term reward is better for them? Why is it that logic needs to be taught? Why have people used, since the beginning of recorded history, medical treatments that had no positive effect whatsoever? Why is belief in ghosts something that was all but universal before relatively modern times and is still very widespread?

Why dont people just know logic from birth? Why in every science class in the history of the world do teachers need to teach the scientific method before anything else, and why do so many people struggle with it? Why do so many people struggle to understand logic?

Why do we even need schools? What is the point of education? Most of my proffessors in my undergraduate study argued that the entire point of a liberal arts degree is to learn critical thinking skills and writing skills. Why would this be the case if we all naturally knew critical thinking?

And why are critical thinkers in the vast minority of people on this planet.

Im sorry that you dont know what you are talking about it, but I would appreciate it if you didnt launch a personal assualt on me just because you are wrong.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

119. First of all, I'm not "flaming" you.

Conservatism and elitism are perfectly valid perspectives, and your "people are stupid" (I know, this is simplified) argument seems to fit those perspectives.

Second, I think your view of "superstition and spirituality" is anthropologically incorrect. The way people think and the way they answer outsiders' questions about their world are not identical.

If "critical thinking" is so unique to highly educated people, why does 95% of the world's population oppose Bush? Could it be that they haven't been taught NOT to see through his bullshit?

College or no college, the people without a bullshit detector died off a long time ago. Has to be beaten out of them somehow, hence the mind-control/cult analogy.

[K-W]

120. Im sorry but your theory flies in the face of all available evidence.

My argument, by the way, is not that tpeople are stupid. If that is how you read it, you are reading it wrong. My argument is that people are people, and that human behavior is not naturally the product of the process called critical thinking, a concept that did not exist until fairly recently in human history.

If you think that the answer to the question "Do you oppose Bush" is a test of critical thinking... That isnt a very good argument, if you apply critical thinking. I can very easily counter it by discussing ghosts. If people were critical thinkers, than why is belief in ghosts internationally widespread?

The fact is that not being a critical thinker does not make people stupid, it just means they dont think critically. People do have a natural capacity to think critically, perhaps that is what you are getting at?

And no, I am not thinking anthroplogically incorrect. Superstion has existed in all known human societies, and it existed long before concepts of logic or science in any society. People did believe dances caused rain, people did believe that useless roots cured disease.

People do think naturally, and remarkably so. We are the thinkers of the animal kingdom, this is true. But critical thinking is something different. It requires a person to avoid certain natural traps of human thinking, learning logic, and learning the scientific method.

People are naturally apt to draw conclusions beyond evidence, that is one of the main problems with uncritical thinking. That is basically where supestition comes from. In the abscence of meteorological knowledge, the conclusions drawn about what cuases rain tend to be fairly flawed. Critical thinking is learning to spot flawed ideas, learning to stay withing the constraints of evidence and facts.

And eltism is not a valid line of thought, though traditional conservatism is.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

123. Ugh, whatever

I'm done with this shit.

It sounds like you have a high investment in this concept of "critical thinking". All I can say is that I've taught college English, and I don't think writing essays about Nathaniel Hawthorne helps people distinguish truth from lies.

I feel like your attitude is extremely patronizing towards all non-middle-class-college-educated people, and I feel I have to come to their defense.

That's all I'm going to say--I have no interest in engaging in a big pile of sophistry.

I'd like to see your scientific evidence that ghosts aren't real, though.

[K-W]

124. You have come to no ones defense

Get off your high horse. For goodness sake. I am not being patronizing. Critical thinking is by definition a way of thinking that must be learned. You have been arguing a rediculous point, and I have tried to explain something to you that you dont need an education to understand.

Nothing I am saying has anything whatsoever to do with class or education.

If I said that people dont naturally know how to build a house, would you accuse me of being patronizing towards all non-middle-class-architecturally-educated people?

You have invented my patronization in your own head. Im sorry that you dont understand these concepts. But saying that people arent naturally born with a certain skill that must be learned is not being patronizing. It is pointing out that there is a vast number of skills and a vast amount of knowledge that can only be attained through learning.

Sophistry? What on earth are you talking about, or did you just get that from the big book of fancy words to use to dismiss people?

Lol, evidence that ghosts arent real...

I think I have finally proved my point. You are not yourself a critical thinker. The burden of proof for proving the existance of something rests on the claiment. I no more need to prove that ghosts dont exist than I need to prove that Monkey's dont fly. Why dont you prove to me that ghosts exist?

Actually, if you have proof, go to http://www.randi.org/research/index.html
If you can prove the existance of even one small ghost you can win a million dollars.

I suppose in the course of studying literature, critical thinking isnt a main focus, which is fine, but if you dont even know what critical thinking is, why on earth are you arguing about it with me?

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

125. I know what it's supposed to be

And I think it's a pile of horseshit invented to market humanities education to a society that doesn't care about art and literature anymore.

[MISSDem]

71. There is a group of guys here where I work who say that they

are going to vote for Bush because they've looked at both candidates and he "meets their values", ie, has never been divorced. Can you believe that? Some people are stretching for a reason to vote Republican.

[BiggJawn]

73. I wish somebody'd tell ME that!

Being a "Two time Loser" myself..."Oh, so somebody who's been divorced doesn't 'meet your values'? So what, I should have stayed with the cheating bitch? Fuck you AND the Hummer you rode in on!"

Bet they'd be all "Now, Jawn, we didn't mean it like THAT..."

Guess they're tired of using that "Sure could sit down and have a beer with the guy" line....

[TrogL]

93. Many people think by instinct

and the instinct they go with has more to do with their socialization than any sort of rationality. They would vote for somebody they would like to socialize with. Why? Who knows.

I'm aware of at least one politician who was voted in because he was the town drunk.

[mike_c]

76. I believe you a 100% correct....

TV is mind control, and that's not just tinfoil hat territory. Humans (like all primates) are exceeding visual animals. Something like three-quarters of our sensory receptors are located in our retinas, and our optic nerves do more to contribute to our perceived world model than all of our other senses combined. TV watching is passive-- the viewer is essentially opening a pathway directly to the most important information processing centers of the brain via the most powerful sensory array in the human body. It really IS a plugin drug. It's not surprising that television is a potent medium for influencing awareness, even when unintentional.

I turned mine off a couple of decades ago. TV is at best benign-- and pointless-- vicarious experience, but at worst it's mind control, plain and simple.

[Octafish]

82. "Thank Gawd George Bush was prez-nit on 9-11."

That's their line that gets to me most. Their minds have been warped by CIA MK/ULTRA mind-control, the Poppy version. Perhaps we can help them snap out of it with a magic formula.

The Truth doesn't seem to work, though. Perhaps a photo of Bush in bed with a Tennessee mayor might help.

Until then, the best I can do is remind them how Bush was warned by the CIA: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States" and then remark how odd it was that Bush six weeks later heard "America is under attack" and sat there reading about the pet goat.

Yet, these sheep defend the Little Turd from Crawford saying he didn't want to scare the children. Fucking morons. Absolute fucking morons.

[The empressof all]

83. Here are my crazy tinfoil theories

"THEY" have put something in the water supply to distort our thinking that causes us to blindly follow- What they didn't realize though was 50% of the population has an immunity to it----Hence here we are.

I sometimes go off on the Invasion of the Body Snatcher theme. We are being invaded by aliens who walk into human bodies and take over their minds.


No I really don't believe either of the above scenerios but it is hard to explain the degree of denial, avoidance of reality and out and out stupidity we are seeing right now in our country. Media is part of the problem as is lack of education in civics. But it's something more....

[K-W]

Look at human history, this is the norm, not the exception. EOM

[tom_paine]

86. It is easily explainable without resorting to fantasy...

The identical passions, emotions, dupes, rationalizations, and cognitive dissonances responsible for the Rise of the Third Reich, are all equivalent reasons (with a couple slight differences) for why the same has happened here.

A discussion with a reader of Nazi "News" in 1933 would be as filled with disinformation and lies, which they held as heartfelt "truth", and as blind to the reality that exists outside the Reichspropaganda, as any 2004 Imperial Amerikan Subject.

Different countries with different customs (and child-rearing practices) otherwise we might be having this discussion in Arizona Dachau.

Hell, I'm not so sure we won't be having it there in 20 years anyway, because Totalitarianism ALWAYS seeks it's proper level in the end.

[elsiesummers]

85. Don't agree. It's not whether you watch - it's what you watch.

First - I spend more time on the internet and reading novels than watching TV - but I don't think TV the medium is the problem - more choice of programs.

Also, how you watch tv is important - always, I mean always, mute commercials or tape and fast forward thru commercials - the consumer corporations are indeed out to assimilate us.

I watch some TV news - CBS evening news maybe twice a week, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer most evenings, NOW, Extreme Oil (this show is excellent).

Also watch many rented movies and some series: watch Alias, Will and Grace, ER and West Wing (though this show has gone down hill). Rented and watched most of Sex and the City.

Will and Grace and ER definitely lean liberal.

Internet/Print media is much better as a news source - but like to know what other people are seeing, get a finger on the pulse of humanity, so tune in to network news occasionally.

Love a good novel because of detail (read two or three books a week) but it's more difficult to share that experience with others - movies both have added visual appeal and are a better group experience - but never offer the quantity of content in a good book.

We must constantly sift information and, pick, choose, select what we absorb - because whatever information we absorb is what we are, what we become.

[Kid_A]

88. Rather than read this entire thread, here are my two cents.

This country is indeed fucked. The poster is absolutely right on that point. And a good deal of the blame can be placed squarely at the feet of the media. I don't think the media as a whole is biased towards either political party (though there are media personalities that make no secret of their leanings), but I do think the media is biased towards sensationalism and laziness. And conservatives in this country know how to use that fact to their advantage. They know that investigative journalism is dead, so they're able to operate basically out in the open. If a pesky reporter does start to stick his nose where it doesn't belong, they waste no time in crucifying him for all the masses to see.

The media will report only what it thinks will make for great ad revenue. They won't ask too many questions during the lead-up to war, because war is great for the ratings. And they don't see anything wrong with plastering every square inch of their screen with American flag graphics (the wavier, the better!), because objectivity is dead, too. Face it, folks: the media just doesn't care anymore. TV reporters are like whores. They don't care who they fuck as long as the money's good.

[Ksec]

89. Fascism defined

I believe we are in the beginning stages of becoming a Fascist nation. Blind allegiance . Corporate control of gov and media. Its sickening.

[TrogL]

94. Beginning?

Hell, you're in the end game. Checkmate will be in November.

[proud patriot]

90. I used to watch a lot of T.V. it used to be on all day long

Since Air America Radio , I very rarely turn the thing on for news .
Bill Moyers Now, Countdown w/ Keith Olberman and the Weather
channel are about it for me now .

I do watch the Simpsons , Futurerama , and the cartoons my son
watches .

[Bluebear]

91. Take 9/11, add umpteen Code Oranges & Trista Bachelorette....

mix well and take into account a lot of people who just don't think very deeply and take everything at face value because the alternative is too frightening to think about.....yield one scared populace, preoccupied with other things, who vote on who they would rather have a beer with.

[Child_Of_Isis]

92. I watch the tele

and I still think and act like a Dem. My entire family still acts and thinks like Dem's and most of us are news junkies But, you are right...something is going on. Second, I don't think the average person even watches the news. This may be a little tin foil hat, but one day while watching the tele, something broke through the show that was being broadcast. It was a man: his head and his upper torso, it looked as if he was addressing an audience. He was definitely speaking. He was in a suit. These were nano second glimpses that I got. I believe that with all the new technology, it is possible to broadcast under shows. The person would not see it, but the subliminal message may be retained.

[TrogL]

95. Probably a glitch

In the control room the TV producers are always getting ready for the next show. They have to cue up tapes and whatnot to get ready. Sometimes they screw up and it gets on the wrong monitor. Usually they catch it pretty quick and switch back.

[Child_Of_Isis]

113. Yeah, I know.

That was my first thought. Then my conspiratorial self took over ;-) But, man, something strange is happening to people. It's like half of the population has lost their ability to think and to reason. It's like they have been unplugged or something. When you talk politics with them, you can't get through the sound bytes. It's scary!

[TexasSissy]

97. I LOVE the picture in your post!

And it's amazing that the *ers are like that (but I'm not surprised, since I participate in a bipartisan forum sometimes).

[LuminousX]

99. I love TV, I watch a lot of mindless TV

I watch tons of crap, from reality programming to sitcoms.

TV isn't the problem. It is the lack of time people are able to devote to these topics. So they look to one or two 'trusted' figures to keep them informed. That is where Bill O'Reilly is the most dangerous as he makes such an effort to portray himself as a reasonable man.

[JohnyCanuck]

103. Project Mockingbird: CIA used the media like a cheap hooker.

"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." - CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. "Katherine The Great," by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991).

As terrible as it is to live in a nation where the press in known to be controlled by the government, at least one has the advantage of knowing the bias is present, and to adjust for it. In the United States of America, we are taught from birth that our press is free from such government meddling. This is an insideous lie about the very nature of the news institution in this country. One that allows the government to lie to us while denying the very fact of the lie itself.

Who Controls the Media?
by Alex Constantine.

Who Controls the Media?

Soulless corporations do, of course. Corporations with grinning,
double-breasted executives, interlocking directorates, labor squabbles and flying capital. Dow. General Electric. Coca-Cola. Disney. Newspapers should have mastheads that mirror the world: The
Westinghouse Evening Scimitar, The Atlantic-Richfield Intelligentser. It is beginning to dawn on a growing number of armchair ombudsmen that the public print reports news from a parallel universe - one that has never heard of politically-motivated assassinations, CIA-Mafia bankingthefts, mind control, death squads or even federal agencies with secret budgets fattened by cocaine sales - a place overrun by lone gunmen, where the CIA and Mafia are usually on their best behavior. In this idyllic land, the most serious infraction an official can commit is a the employment of a domestic servant with (shudder) no residency status.

This unlikely land of enchantment is the creation of MOCKINGBIRD.

<snip>

In this period, the American intelligence services competed with
communist activists abroad to influence European labor unions. With or without the cooperation of local governments, Frank Wisner, an
undercover State Department official assigned to the Foreign Service,
rounded up students abroad to enter the cold war underground of covert operations on behalf of his Office of Policy Coordination. Philip Graham, __a graduate of the Army Intelligence School in Harrisburg, PA, then publisher of the Washington Post., was taken under Wisner's wing to direct the program code-named Operation MOCKINGBIRD.

"By the early 1950s," writes formerVillage Voice reporter Deborah
Davis in Katharine the Great, "Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles, plus stringers, four to six hundred in all, according to a former CIA analyst." The network was overseen by Allen Dulles, a templar for German and American corporations who wanted their points of view represented in the public print. Early MOCKINGBIRD influenced 25 newspapers and wire agencies consenting to act as organs of CIA propaganda. Many of these were already run by men with reactionary views, among them William Paley (CBS), C.D. Jackson (Fortune), Henry Luce (Time) and Arthur Hays Sulzberger (N.Y. Times).

www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MOCK/mockingbird.html

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

104. I think it depends on what you watch....Sci-Fi channel

...or E, TNT or A&E, and you wont be too brainwashed. My partner watches these and he is still pretty solid Democratic.

I think if you tune out the news stuff and talk radio you are OK.

For me Im more addicted to the internet. The right wing online bullies have pretty much disabused me of any notion of siding with the right wing in all its various manifestations.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

114. But how do you disavow TV entirely...

Yet refer to Homer Simpson in your post?

[Zorra]

128. It would be very difficult to live in the US for any length of time and

maintain even moderate social contacts without being exposed to television is some circumstances.

It is invasive throughout our culture.

[LoZoccolo]

115. I wouldn't really say it's a weird zombie-like thing...

...I would just figure they have reasons that they don't want to admit for some reason. Maybe they're gut-level freaked out about terrorism in such a way they just cling to the guy, maybe they have some sort of conspiracy theory or something they're confident enough to act on but not enough to admit to, or they have social attitudes they don't want to admit to, etcetera.

[sweetheart]

116. Who has time to waste

The very nature of TV presumes that you (the watcher) have time to
waste. More than that, it also presumes that you want to be
entertained, to be distracted from real life for a while. So in
merely watching the tube, these 2 insideous endemic frames come to
control ones life.

One says that your time is not precious, and the other reinforces
that your life is so boring, that TV is better... that you are a
voyeur of other peoples lifes, who have something better going.

I "have" a television, which i use with the VCR or DVD player to
watch a video once and a while. However, like yourself, i've last
watched TV as a serious endeavour as a teenager, before leaving my
television-ozoned disfunctional family.

After having NBC's dateline run a story of lies against my buddhist
meditation group, i drew the line in the sand, and see broadcast
television now solely as a weapon of terrorists, and propagandists
bent on terrorism. Honestly, were i a violent person, NBC's
HQ would be a smoking ruin.

What do i do with the time... meditate, read, make love and snuggle
with doggies... :-)

[Ksec]

118. I watch alot of CSpan

Not much else. I like sports so thats on most of the time. If I want news Ill watch CNN . I know CNN is a whore to the corporations but at least its a step up from Fox. If I want any accuracy I go on the internet.

[queerart]

126. Very Scary To Say The Least!

[alfredo]

131. Frank Zappa said it best.

I'm The Slime Lyrics
Composer: Frank Zappa


I am gross and perverted
I’m obsessed ’n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little had changed
I am the tool of the government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you

I may be vile and pernicious
But you can’t look away
I make you think I’m delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin’ out
From your tv set

You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don’t need you
Don’t got for help...no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold

That’s right, folks..
Don’t touch that dial

Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin’ along on your livin’room floor

I am the slime from your video
Can’t stop the slime, people, lookit me go

[barb162]

132. "God help us.... if America has a lot of folks like I dealt with tonight"

exactly. I believe there are millions out there just like that. I know many.

[Triana]

133. haven't watched teevee - in about 4 years...

i got rid of my cable tv subscription 3-4 years ago an never use my tv except to watch vids/DVDs - that's it. I get news on the internet and find I'm better informed than the googley-eyed Faux,Conservative Nazi Network, MSRNC, etc viewers.

I can't STAND to watch teevee anymore, except c-span when there are conventions and debates - because they don't have the dumbass snide commentary and spin spewed all over the event like so much vomit. With CSpan - I can watch and form my own opinions and not have to listen to the idiotpundits.

i HATE teevee - it's just too much sensationalism and propoganda, spin and demogogury - to put it succinctly - it's total crap.

[serryjw]

135. I had the SAME experience......

Grass roots petitioning and activism for almost 2 years. I have said many times; I don't care if you disagree with me as long as you can logically defend your position........THEY CAN'T!


I take exception with everyone's attack on TV. Anything in moderation can be good. I love 'NOW', I love the MASH reruns, I love a good movie. I don't have cable BUT I know there are some terrific shows on. Lets not be snobs and think that GOOD entertainment is not worthwhile.. EVERYONE needs relief from this craziness or we will lose our minds.

I believe that VIDEO games are dangerous. I have watched grown men hold that stupid clicker for 8 hours with out saying a word or taking a break. That is all aggression and no emotion, no human interaction. They truly are 'brain dead' while clicking that stupid thing.
Where did 'critical thinking' go? Everyone is no willing to take everything that is told to them as Gospel?

I just received "BOY GENIUS" in the mail from Amazon. Now this may very well be the most dangerous man in the WORLD. With Rover up is down , black is white. Hitler would have been proud of his brainwashing abilites.

[eridani]

136. Quit watching TV in real time

I've watched South Park, The Sopranos, Xena, Homer Simpson, and other shows, but never in real time. Friends and relative tape them, and we watch favorite episodes when I visit. A real advantage is that I only see "best of" as determined by some pretty sharp people. I last owned a TV in 1968, and have never missed not having one myself.

[gauguin57]

137. I became an NPR member the week after the 1988 election.

I decided I wasn't going to get my news from network TV anymore, after Bush Sr. was elected. I felt we had been betrayed by the networks and CNN -- that they hadn't given us the full story, and had brought down Dukakis based on a bunch of bogus nonsense.

So I became a regular listener to NPR the day after the election, and soon became a member. And have been one ever since.

So, I've had this roiling anger toward the networks/cable news networks for 16 years!