The Doors of Perception
Virginia McClaughry
The following article found at:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/O-Shea_Doors.htm
is a good companion to the other article that I recently posted entitled:
THE NEW DARK AGE- The Frankfurt School and "Political Correctness".
as well as my posts before that of "Battle Tactics" and "Concerning
Intelligence..." by LRH.
Enjoy!
Virginia McClaughry
The Doors of Perception
Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
by Tim O'Shea
Dissident Voice
December 11, 2002
Aldous Huxley's inspired 1954 essay detailed the vivid, mind-expanding,
multisensory insights of his mescaline adventures. By altering his brain
chemistry with natural psychotropics, Huxley tapped into a rich and fluid
world of shimmering, indescribable beauty and power. With his neurosensory
input thus triggered, Huxley was able to enter that parallel universe
described by every mystic and space captain in recorded history. Whether by
hallucination or epiphany, Huxley sought to remove all controls, all
filters, all cultural conditioning from his perceptions and to confront
Nature or the World or Reality first-hand -- in its unpasteurized, unedited,
unretouched, infinite rawness.
Those bonds are much harder to break today, half a century later. We are the
most conditioned, programmed beings the world has ever known. Not only are
our thoughts and attitudes continually being shaped and molded; our very
awareness of the whole design seems like it is being subtly and inexorably
erased. The doors of our perception are carefully and precisely regulated.
Who cares, right?
It is an exhausting and endless task to keep explaining to people how most
issues of conventional wisdom are scientifically implanted in the public
consciousness by a thousand media clips per day. In an effort to save time,
I would like to provide just a little background on the handling of
information in this country. Once the basic principles are illustrated about
how our current system of media control arose historically, the reader might
be more apt to question any given story in today's news.
If everybody believes something, it's probably wrong. We call that
Conventional Wisdom.
In America, conventional wisdom that has mass acceptance is usually
contrived: somebody paid for it. Examples:
* Pharmaceuticals restore health
* Vaccination brings immunity
* The cure for cancer is just around the corner
* Menopause is a disease condition
* When a child is sick, he needs immediate antibiotics
* When a child has a fever he needs Tylenol
* Hospitals are safe and clean.
* America has the best health care in the world.
* Americans have the best health in the world.
* Milk is a good source of calcium.
* You never outgrow your need for milk.
* Vitamin C is ascorbic acid.
* Aspirin prevents heart attacks.
* Heart drugs improve the heart.
* Back and neck pain are the only reasons for spinal adjustment.
* No child can get into school without being vaccinated.
* The FDA thoroughly tests all drugs before they go on the market.
* Pregnancy is a serious medical condition
* Chemotherapy and radiation are effective cures for cancer
* When your child is diagnosed with an ear infection, antibiotics should be
given immediately 'just in case'
* Ear tubes are for the good of the child.
* Estrogen drugs prevent osteoporosis after menopause.
* Pediatricians are the most highly trained of al medical specialists.
* The purpose of the health care industry is health.
* HIV is the cause of AIDS.
* AZT is the cure.
* Without vaccines, infectious diseases will return
* Fluoride in the city water protects your teeth
* Flu shots prevent the flu.
* Vaccines are thoroughly tested before being placed on the Mandated
Schedule.
* Doctors are certain that the benefits of vaccines far outweigh any
possible risks.
* There is a power shortage in California.
* There is a terrorist threat of smallpox.
* The NASDAQ is a natural market controlled only by supply and demand.
* Chronic pain is a natural consequence of aging.
* Soy is your healthiest source of protein.
* Insulin shots cure diabetes.
* After we take out your gall bladder you can eat anything you want
* Allergy medicine will cure allergies.
* Jet fuel, which burns at 160°, can melt steel girders, which melt at 1500°
This is a list of illusions, that have cost billions to conjure up. Did you
ever wonder why most people in this country think generally the same about
most of the above issues? Or why you never see the President speaking
publicly unless he is reading?
HOW THIS SET-UP GOT STARTED
In their 2001 book Trust Us We're Experts, Stauber and Rampton pull together
some compelling data describing the science of creating public opinion in
America. They trace modern public influence back to the early part of the
last century, highlighting the work of guys like Edward L. Bernays, the
Father of Spin.
From his own amazing 1928 chronicle Propaganda, we learn how Edward L.
Bernays took the ideas of his famous uncle Sigmund Freud himself, and
applied them to the emerging science of mass persuasion. The only difference
was that instead of using these principles to uncover hidden themes in the
human unconscious, the way Freudian psychology does, Bernays used these same
ideas to mask agendas and to create illusions that deceive and misrepresent,
for marketing purposes.
THE FATHER OF SPIN
Bernays dominated the PR industry until the 1940s, and was a significant
force for another 40 years after that. (Tye) During all that time, Bernays
took on hundreds of diverse assignments to create a public perception about
some idea or product. A few examples:
As a neophyte with the Committee on Public Information, one of Bernays'
first assignments was to help sell the First World War to the American
public with the idea to "Make the World Safe for Democracy." (Ewen) We've
seen this phrase in every war and US military involvement since that time.
A few years later, Bernays set up a stunt to popularize the notion of women
smoking cigarettes. In organizing the 1929 Easter Parade in New York City,
Bernays showed himself as a force to be reckoned with. He organized the
Torches of Liberty Brigade in which suffragettes marched in the parade
smoking cigarettes as a mark of women's liberation. After that one event,
women have felt secure about destroying their own lungs in public, the same
way that men have always done.
Bernays popularized the idea of bacon for breakfast.
Not one to turn down a challenge, he set up the liaison between the tobacco
industry and the American Medical Association that lasted for nearly 50
years. They proved to all and sundry that cigarettes were beneficial to
health. Just look at ads in old issues of Life, Look, or Time from the 40s
and 50s where doctors recommend this or that brand of cigarettes as
promoting healthful digestion, or whatever.
During the next several decades Bernays and his colleagues evolved the
principles by which masses of people could be generally swayed through
messages repeated over and over, hundreds of times per week.
Once the economic power of media became apparent, other countries of the
world rushed to follow our lead. But Bernays remained the gold standard.
Josef Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda, closely studied the
principles of Edward Bernays when Goebbels was developing the popular
rationale he would use to convince the Germans that in order to purify their
race they had to kill 6 million of the impure. (Stauber)
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
Bernay's job was to reframe an issue; to create a desired image that would
put a particular product or concept in a desirable light. He never saw
himself as a master hoodwinker, but rather as a beneficent servant of
humanity, providing a valuable service. Bernays described the public as a
'herd that needed to be led.' And this herdlike thinking makes people
"susceptible to leadership." Bernays never deviated from his fundamental
axiom to "control the masses without their knowing it." The best PR happens
with the people unaware that they are being manipulated.
Stauber describes Bernays' rationale like this:
"the scientific manipulation of public opinion was necessary to overcome
chaos and conflict in a democratic society."
-- Trust Us, p 42
These early mass persuaders postured themselves as performing a moral
service for humanity in general. Democracy was too good for people; they
needed to be told what to think, because they were incapable of rational
thought by themselves. Here's a paragraph from Bernays' Propaganda:
"Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an
invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are
governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely
by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which
our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must
cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly
functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere
of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we
are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the
mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the
wires that control the public mind."
A tad different from Thomas Jefferson's view on the subject:
"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the
people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise
that control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not take it from
them, but to inform their discretion."
Inform their discretion. Bernays believed that only a few possessed the
necessary insight into the Big Picture to be entrusted with this sacred
task. And luckily, he saw himself as one of that elect.
HERE COMES THE MONEY
Once the possibilities of applying Freudian psychology to mass media were
glimpsed, Bernays soon had more corporate clients than he could handle.
Global corporations fell all over themselves courting the new Image Makers.
There were dozens of goods and services and ideas to be sold to a
susceptible public. Over the years, these players have had the money to make
their images happen. A few examples:
* Philip Morris
* Pfizer
* Union Carbide
* Allstate
* Monsanto
* Eli Lilly
* tobacco industry
* Ciba Geigy
* lead industry
* Coors
* DuPont
* Shell Oil
* Chlorox
* Standard Oil
* Procter & Gamble
* Boeing
* Dow Chemical
* General Motors
* Goodyear
* General Mills
THE PLAYERS
Dozens of PR firms have emerged to answer the demand for spin control. Among
them:
* Burson-Marsteller
* Edelman
* Hill & Knowlton
* Kamer-Singer
* Ketchum
* Mongovin, Biscoe, and Duchin
* BSMG
* Ruder-Finn
Though world-famous within the PR industry, these are names we don't know,
and for good reason. The best PR goes unnoticed. For decades they have
created the opinions that most of us were raised with, on virtually any
issue which has the remotest commercial value, including:
* pharmaceutical drugs
* vaccines
* medicine as a profession
* alternative medicine
* fluoridation of city water
* chlorine
* household cleaning products
* tobacco
* dioxin
* global warming
* leaded gasoline
* cancer research and treatment
* pollution of the oceans
* forests and lumber
* images of celebrities, including damage control
* crisis and disaster management
* genetically modified foods
* aspartame
* food additives; processed foods
* dental amalgams
LESSON #1
Bernays learned early on that the most effective way to create credibility
for a product or an image was by "independent third-party" endorsement. For
example, if General Motors were to come out and say that global warming is a
hoax thought up by some liberal tree-huggers, people would suspect GM's
motives, since GM's fortune is made by selling automobiles. If however some
independent research institute with a very credible sounding name like the
Global Climate Coalition comes out with a scientific report that says global
warming is really a fiction, people begin to get confused and to have doubts
about the original issue.
So that's exactly what Bernays did. With a policy inspired by genius, he set
up "more institutes and foundations than Rockefeller and Carnegie combined."
(Stauber p 45) Quietly financed by the industries whose products were being
evaluated, these "independent" research agencies would churn out
"scientific" studies and press materials that could create any image their
handlers wanted. Such front groups are given high-sounding names like:
* Temperature Research Foundation
* International Food Information Council
* Consumer Alert
* The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
* Air Hygiene Foundation
* Industrial Health Federation
* International Food Information Council
* Manhattan Institute
* Center for Produce Quality
* Tobacco Institute Research Council
* Cato Institute
* American Council on Science and Health
* Global Climate Coalition
* Alliance for Better Foods
Sound pretty legit don't they?
CANNED NEWS RELEASES
As Stauber explains, these organizations and hundreds of others like them
are front groups whose sole mission is to advance the image of the global
corporations who fund them, like those listed on page 2 above. This is
accomplished in part by an endless stream of 'press releases' announcing
"breakthrough" research to every radio station and newspaper in the country.
(Robbins) Many of these canned reports read like straight news, and indeed
are purposely molded in the news format. This saves journalists the trouble
of researching the subjects on their own, especially on topics about which
they know very little. Entire sections of the release or in the case of
video news releases, the whole thing can be just lifted intact, with no
editing, given the byline of the reporter or newspaper or TV station - and
voilá! Instant news - copy and paste. Written by corporate PR firms.
Does this really happen? Every single day, since the 1920s when the idea of
the News Release was first invented by Ivy Lee. (Stauber, p 22) Sometimes as
many as half the stories appearing in an issue of the Wall St. Journal are
based solely on such PR press releases.. (22) These types of stories are
mixed right in with legitimately researched stories. Unless you have done
the research yourself, you won't be able to tell the difference. So when we
see new "research" being cited, we should always first suspect that the
source is another industry-backed front group. A common tip-off is the word
"breakthrough."
THE LANGUAGE OF SPIN
As 1920s spin pioneers like Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays gained more
experience, they began to formulate rules and guidelines for creating public
opinion. They learned quickly that mob psychology must focus on emotion, not
facts. Since the mob is incapable of rational thought, motivation must be
based not on logic but on presentation. Here are some of the axioms of the
new science of PR:
* technology is a religion unto itself
* if people are incapable of rational thought, real democracy is dangerous
* important decisions should be left to experts
* when reframing issues, stay away from substance; create images
* never state a clearly demonstrable lie
Words are very carefully chosen for their emotional impact. Here's an
example. A front group called the International Food Information Council
handles the public's natural aversion to genetically modified foods. Trigger
words are repeated all through the text. Now in the case of GM foods, the
public is instinctively afraid of these experimental new creations which
have suddenly popped up on our grocery shelves and which are said to have
DNA alterations. The IFIC wants to reassure the public of the safety of GM
foods. So it avoids words like:
* Frankenfoods
* Hitler
* biotech
* chemical
* DNA
* experiments
* manipulate
* money
* safety
* scientists
* radiation
* roulette
* gene-splicing
* gene gun
* random
Instead, good PR for GM foods contains words like:
* hybrids
* natural order
* beauty
* choice
* bounty
* cross-breeding
* diversity
* earth
* farmer
* organic
* wholesome
It's basic Freudian/Tony Robbins word association. The fact that GM foods
are not hybrids that have been subjected to the slow and careful scientific
methods of real cross-breeding doesn't really matter. This is pseudoscience,
not science. Form is everything and substance just a passing myth.
(Trevanian)
Who do you think funds the International Food Information Council? Take a
wild guess. Right - Monsanto, DuPont, Frito-Lay, Coca Cola, Nutrasweet -
those in a position to make fortunes from GM foods. (Stauber p 20)
CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD PROPAGANDA
As the science of mass control evolved, PR firms developed further
guidelines for effective copy. Here are some of the gems:
* dehumanize the attacked party by labeling and name calling
* speak in glittering generalities using emotionally positive words
* when covering something up, don't use plain English; stall for time;
distract
* get endorsements from celebrities, churches, sports figures, street
people - anyone
who has no expertise in the subject at hand
* the 'plain folks' ruse: us billionaires are just like you
* when minimizing outrage, don't say anything memorable
* when minimizing outrage, point out the benefits of what just happened
* when minimizing outrage, avoid moral issues
Keep this list. Start watching for these techniques. Not hard to find - look
at today's paper or tonight's TV news. See what they're doing; these guys
are good!
SCIENCE FOR HIRE
PR firms have become very sophisticated in the preparation of news releases.
They have learned how to attach the names of famous scientists to research
that those scientists have not even looked at. (Stauber, p 201) It's a
common practice. In this way, the editors of newspapers and TV news shows
are themselves often unaware that an individual release is a total PR
fabrication. Or at least they have "deniability," right?
Stauber tells the amazing story of how leaded gas came into the picture. In
1922, General Motors discovered that adding lead to gasoline gave cars more
horsepower. When there was some concern about safety, GM paid the Bureau of
Mines to do some fake "testing" and publish spurious research that 'proved'
that inhalation of lead was harmless. Enter Charles Kettering.
Founder of the world famous Sloan-Kettering Memorial Institute for medical
research, Charles Kettering also happened to be an executive with General
Motors. By some strange coincidence, we soon have Sloan-Kettering issuing
reports stating that lead occurs naturally in the body and that the body has
a way of eliminating low level exposure. Through its association with The
Industrial Hygiene Foundation and PR giant Hill & Knowlton, Sloane-Kettering
opposed all anti-lead research for years. (Stauber p 92). Without organized
scientific opposition, for the next 60 years more and more gasoline became
leaded, until by the 1970s, 90% or our gasoline was leaded.
Finally it became too obvious to hide that lead was a major carcinogen,
which they knew all along, and leaded gas was phased out in the late 1980s.
But during those 60 years, it is estimated that some 30 million tons of lead
were released in vapor form onto American streets and highways. 30 million
tons. (Stauber)
That is PR, my friends.
JUNK SCIENCE
In 1993 a guy named Peter Huber wrote a new book and coined a new term. The
book was Galileo's Revenge and the term was junk science . Huber's shallow
thesis was that real science supports technology, industry, and progress.
Anything else was suddenly junk science. Not surprisingly, Stauber explains
how Huber's book was supported by the industry-backed Manhattan Institute.
Huber's book was generally dismissed not only because it was so poorly
written, but because it failed to realize one fact: true scientific research
begins with no conclusions. Real scientists are seeking the truth because
they do not yet know what the truth is.
True scientific method goes like this:
1. form a hypothesis
2. make predictions for that hypothesis
3. test the predictions
4. reject or revise the hypothesis based on the research findings
Boston University scientist Dr. David Ozonoff explains that ideas in science
are themselves like "living organisms, that must be nourished, supported,
and cultivated with resources for making them grow and flourish." (Stauber p
205) Great ideas that don't get this financial support because the
commercial angles are not immediately obvious - these ideas wither and die.
Another way you can often distinguish real science from phony is that real
science points out flaws in its own research. Phony science pretends there
were no flaws.
THE REAL JUNK SCIENCE
Contrast this with modern PR and its constant pretensions to sound science.
Corporate sponsored research, whether it's in the area of drugs, GM foods,
or chemistry begins with predetermined conclusions. It is the job of the
scientists then to prove that these conclusions are true, because of the
economic upside that proof will bring to the industries paying for that
research. This invidious approach to science has shifted the entire focus of
research in America during the past 50 years, as any true scientist is
likely to admit.
Stauber documents the increasing amount of corporate sponsorship of
university research. (206) This has nothing to do with the pursuit of
knowledge. Scientists lament that research has become just another
commodity, something bought and sold. (Crossen)
THE TWO MAIN TARGETS OF "SOUND SCIENCE"
It is shocking when Stauber shows how the vast majority of corporate PR
today opposes any research that seeks to protect
* public health
* the environment
It's a funny thing that most of the time when we see the phrase "junk
science," it is in a context of defending something that threatens either
the environment or our health. This makes sense when one realizes that money
changes hands only by selling the illusion of health and the illusion of
environmental protection or the illusion of health. True public health and
real preservation of the earth's environment have very low market value.
Stauber thinks it ironic that industry's self-proclaimed debunkers of junk
science are usually non-scientists themselves. (255) Here again they can do
this because the issue is not science, but the creation of images.
THE LANGUAGE OF ATTACK
When PR firms attack legitimate environmental groups and alternative
medicine people, they again use special words which will carry an emotional
punch:
* outraged
* sound science
* junk science
* sensible
* scaremongering
* responsible
* phobia
* hoax
* alarmist
* hysteria
The next time you are reading a newspaper article about an environmental or
health issue, note how the author shows bias by using the above terms. This
is the result of very specialized training.
Another standard PR tactic is to use the rhetoric of the environmentalists
themselves to defend a dangerous and untested product that poses an actual
threat to the environment. This we see constantly in the PR smokescreen that
surrounds genetically modified foods. They talk about how GM foods are
necessary to grow more food and to end world hunger, when the reality is
that GM foods actually have lower yields per acre than natural crops.
(Stauber p 173) The grand design sort of comes into focus once you realize
that almost all GM foods have been created by the sellers of herbicides and
pesticides so that those plants can withstand greater amounts of herbicides
and pesticides. (see The Magic Bean)
THE MIRAGE OF PEER REVIEW
Publish or perish is the classic dilemma of every research scientist. That
means whoever expects funding for the next research project had better get
the current research paper published in the best scientific journals. And we
all know that the best scientific journals, like JAMA, New England Journal,
British Medical Journal, etc. are peer-reviewed. Peer review means that any
articles which actually get published, between all those full color drug ads
and pharmaceutical centerfolds, have been reviewed and accepted by some
really smart guys with a lot of credentials. The assumption is, if the
article made it past peer review, the data and the conclusions of the
research study have been thoroughly checked out and bear some resemblance to
physical reality.
But there are a few problems with this hot little set up. First off, money.
Even though prestigious venerable medical journals pretend to be so
objective and scientific and incorruptible, the reality is that they face
the same type of being called to account that all glossy magazines must
confront: don't antagonize your advertisers. Those full-page drug ads in the
best journals cost millions, Jack. How long will a pharmaceutical company
pay for ad space in a magazine that prints some very sound scientific
research paper that attacks the safety of the drug in the centerfold? Think
about it. The editors may lack moral fibre, but they aren't stupid.
Another problem is the conflict of interest thing. There's a formal
requirement for all medical journals that any financial ties between an
author and a product manufacturer be disclosed in the article. In practice,
it never happens. A study done in 1997 of 142 medical journals did not find
even one such disclosure. (Wall St. Journal, 2 Feb 99)
A 1998 study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that 96% of peer
reviewed articles had financial ties to the drug they were studying.
(Stelfox, 1998) Big shock, huh? Any disclosures? Yeah, right. This study
should be pointed out whenever somebody starts getting too pompous about the
objectivity of peer review, like they often do.
Then there's the outright purchase of space. A drug company may simply pay
$100,000 to a journal to have a favorable article printed. (Stauber, p 204)
Fraud in peer review journals is nothing new. In 1987, the New England
Journal ran an article that followed the research of R. Slutsky MD over a
seven year period. During that time, Dr. Slutsky had published 137 articles
in a number of peer-reviewed journals. NEJM found that in at least 60 of
these 137, there was evidence of major scientific fraud and
misrepresentation, including:
* reporting data for experiments that were never done
* reporting measurements that were never made
* reporting statistical analyses that were never done
( Engler )
Dean Black PhD, describes what he the calls the Babel Effect that results
when this very common and frequently undetected scientific fraud in
peer-reviewed journals is quoted by other researchers, who are in turn
re-quoted by still others, and so on.
Want to see something that sort of re-frames this whole discussion? Check
out the McDonald's ads which routinely appear in the Journal of the American
Medical Association. Then keep in mind that this is the same publication
that for almost 50 years ran cigarette ads proclaiming the health benefits
of tobacco. (Robbins)
Very scientific, oh yes.
KILL YOUR TV?
Hope this chapter has given you a hint to start reading newspaper and
magazine articles a little differently, and perhaps start watching TV news
shows with a slightly different attitude than you had before. Always ask,
what are they selling here, and who's selling it? And if you actually follow
up on Stauber & Rampton's book and check out some of the other resources
below, you might even glimpse the possibility of advancing your life one
quantum simply by ceasing to subject your brain to mass media. That's
right - no more newspapers, no more TV news, no more Time magazine or People
magazine Newsweek. You could actually do that. Just think what you could do
with the extra time alone.
Really feel like you need to "relax" or find out "what's going on in the
world" for a few hours every day? Think about the news of the past couple of
years for a minute. Do you really suppose the major stories that have
dominated headlines and TV news have been "what is going on in the world?"
Do you actually think there's been nothing going on besides the contrived
tech slump, the contrived power shortages, the re-filtered accounts of
foreign violence and disaster, even the new accounts of US retribution in
the Middle East, making Afghanistan safe for democracy, bending Saddam to
our will, etc., and all the other non-stories that the puppeteers dangle
before us every day? What about when they get a big one, like with OJ or
Monica Lewinsky or the Oklahoma city bombing? Or now with the Neo-Nazi
aftermath of 9/11. Do we really need to know all that detail, day after day?
Do we have any way of verifying all that detail, even if we wanted to? What
is the purpose of news? To inform the public? Hardly.
The sole purpose of news is to keep the public in a state of fear and
uncertainty
so that they'll watch again tomorrow to see how much worse things got and to
be subjected to the same advertising.
Oversimplification? Of course. That's the mark of mass media mastery -
simplicity. The invisible hand. Like Edward Bernays said, the people must be
controlled without them knowing it.
Consider this: what was really going on in the world all that time they were
distracting us with all that stupid vexatious daily smokescreen? We have no
way of knowing. And most of it doesn't even concern us even if we could know
it. Fear and uncertainty -- that's what keeps people coming back for more.
If this seems like a radical outlook, let's take it one step further:
What would you lose from your life if you stopped watching TV and stopped
reading newspapers and glossy magazines altogether?
Whoa!
Would your life really suffer any financial, moral, intellectual, spiritual,
or academic loss from such a decision?
Do you really need to have your family continually absorbing the illiterate,
amoral, phony, culturally bereft, desperately brainless values of the people
featured in the average nightly TV program? Are these fake, programmed
robots "normal"?
Do you need to have your life values constantly spoonfed to you?
Are those shows really amusing, or just a necessary distraction to keep you
from looking at reality, or trying to figure things out yourself by doing a
little independent reading?
Name one example of how your life is improved by watching TV news and
reading the evening paper. What measurable gain is there for you?
What else could we be doing with all this freed-up time that would actually
expand awareness?
PLANET OF THE APES?
There's no question that as a nation, we're getting dumber year by year.
Look at the presidents we've been choosing lately. Ever notice the blatant
grammar mistakes so ubiquitous in today's advertising and billboards?
Literacy is marginal in most American secondary schools. Three-fourths of
California high school seniors can't read well enough to pass their exit
exams. ( SJ Mercury 20 Jul 01) If you think other parts of the country are
smarter, try this one: hand any high school senior a book by Dumas or Jane
Austen, and ask them to open to any random page and just read one paragraph
out loud. Go ahead, do it. SAT scales are arbitrarily shifted lower and
lower to disguise how dumb kids are getting year by year. (ADD: A Designer
Disease) At least 10% have documented "learning disabilities," which are
reinforced and rewarded by special treatment and special drugs. Ever hear of
anyone failing a grade any more?
Or observe the intellectual level of the average movie which these days may
only last one or two weeks in the theatres, especially if it has
insufficient explosions, chase scenes, silicone, fake martial arts, and
cretinesque dialogue. Doesn't anyone else notice how badly these 30 or 40
"movie stars" we keep seeing over and over in the same few plots must now
overact to get their point across to an ever-dimming audience?
Radio? Consider the low mental qualifications of the falsely animated
corporate simians they hire as DJs -- seems like they're only allowed to
have 50 thoughts, which they just repeat at random. And at what point did
popular music cease to require the study of any musical instrument or theory
whatsoever, not to mention lyric? Perhaps we just don't understand this
emerging art form, right? The Darwinism of MTV - apes descended from man.
Ever notice how most articles in any of the glossy magazines sound like they
were all written by the same guy? And this writer just graduated from junior
college? And yet he has all the correct opinions on social issues, no
original ideas, and that shallow, smug, homogenized corporate omniscience,
which enables him to assure us that everything is fine...
All this is great news for the PR industry - makes their job that much
easier. Not only are very few paying attention to the process of
conditioning; fewer are capable of understanding it even if somebody
explained it to them.
TEA IN THE CAFETERIA
Let's say you're in a crowded cafeteria, and you buy a cup of tea. And as
you're about to sit down you see your friend way across the room. So you put
the tea down and walk across the room and talk to your friend for a few
minutes. Now, coming back to your tea, are you just going to pick it up and
drink it? Remember, this is a crowded place and you've just left your tea
unattended for several minutes. You've given anybody in that room access to
your tea.
Why should your mind be any different? Turning on the TV, or uncritically
absorbing mass publications every day - these activities allow access to our
minds by "just anyone" - anyone who has an agenda, anyone with the resources
to create a public image via popular media. As we've seen above, just
because we read something or see something on TV doesn't mean it's true or
worth knowing. So the idea here is, like the tea, perhaps the mind is also
worth guarding, worth limiting access to it.
This is the only life we get. Time is our total capital. Why waste it
allowing our potential, our scope of awareness, our personality, our values
to be shaped, crafted, and limited according to the whims of the mass
panderers? There are many important issues that are crucial to our physical,
mental, and spiritual well-being which require time and study. If it's an
issue where money is involved, objective data won't be so easy to obtain.
Remember, if everybody knows something, that image has been bought and paid
for.
Real knowledge takes a little effort, a little excavation down at least one
level below what "everybody knows."
Dr. Timothy O'Shea is a chiropractor whose clinic, New West, is located in
San Jose, California. He is a lecturer and author of The Sanctity of Human
Blood (6th Edition, 2003) and Conventional Medicine Vs. Holistic: A World of
Difference (2002). Visit his website to read more of his work:
http://www.thedoctorwithin.com
(C) Copyright 2002, New West. Posted with author's permission
References
Stauber & Rampton. Trust Us, We're Experts (Tarcher/Putnam, 2001)
Ewen, Stuart. PR!: A Social History of Spin (Basic Books, 1996)
Tye, Larry. The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public
Relations (Crown Publishers Inc., 2001)
Bernays, Edward L. Propaganda (Liveright, 1928)
King, R, "Medical journals rarely disclose researchers' ties," Wall St.
Journal, February 2, 1999
Engler, R. et al. "Misrepresentation and Responsibility in Medical
Research," New England Journal of Medicine, v 317, p 1383, November 26,
1987
Black, D. PhD. Health At the Crossroads (Tapestry 1988)
Trevanian. Shibumi (1983)
Crossen, C. Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1996)
Robbins, J. Reclaiming Our Health (Kramer, 1996)
Huxley, A. The Doors of Perception: Heaven and Hell (Harper and Row, 1954)
O'Shea T. The Magic Bean, www.thedoctorwithin.com, May, 2001
Biggy
I saw the self-portrait photos you posted a few weeks ago, and I just
want to say WOW! You are a very sexy lady! Mike is one lucky guy. I
can't say that I really understand or agree with a lot of what you
post on the newsgroup, though, but hey, I'm not the most intelligent
guy so don't take that as a slam against you. For instance, Aldous
Huxley is pretty much over my head, way too deep. But I'm sure many
readers get a lot out of your contributions.
Love,
The Big Man
"Virginia McClaughry" <vm...@icehouse.net> wrote in message news:<418b...@news2.lightlink.com>...
Dave Bird
<vm...@icehouse.net> writes:
>Hello readers,
>
>The following article found at:
>
>http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/O-Shea_Doors.htm
>
>is a good companion to the other article that I recently posted entitled:
>
>THE NEW DARK AGE- The Frankfurt School and "Political Correctness".
>
>as well as my posts before that of "Battle Tactics" and "Concerning
>Intelligence..." by LRH.
>
>Enjoy!
Oh hell, the sewer is blocked and the toilet is backing-out
shit into the house again.
--
FUCK THE SKULL OF HUBBARD, AND BUGGER THE DWARF HE RODE IN ON!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
8====3 (O 0) GROETEN --- PRINTZ XEMU EXTRAWL no real OT has
|n| (COMMANDER, FIFTH INVADER FORCE) ever existed
.................................................................
A society without a religion is like a maniac without a chainsaw.