Contrary to popular belief, the process of mind manipulation, or control, doesn’t require sci-fi gadgetry or hypnotism; it is present right before our naked eyes and ears. Currently, the average American spends approximately 150 hours per month watching television: the most sophisticated medium of worldwide communication. But, due to this inevitable saturation of content, viewers are increasingly susceptible to the mainstream media molding their opinions and attitudes; influencing what is acceptable versus what is not. Unfortunately, by surrendering themselves to such a level of obedience, viewers allow these various corporate watchdogs to penetrate not how to think, but what they think.
Aside from the avenue of television, political agendas or motives are commonly and gradually introduced through music videos and movies to subconsciously acclimate or condition its premeditated opponents. Looking back as a child, my mother would continuously herald the idea that excessively watching TV would disease my brain – I found her claim quite laughable! Yet now, approaching her philosophy in a mentally-awakened state, it is unquestionably true. For example, this national mind-control apparatus that America constitutes as ‘programming’ is simply that; systematic conditioning that portrays itself as an illusion of ‘choice’.
Realistically, ownership over the mass media has declined from fifty corporations to six corporations in less than twenty years, forming an oligarchic, brainwashing conglomeration of totalitarianism. Likewise, hostages of the mainstream, dinosaur media are presented with the limited viewpoints of six, monolithic, limited corporations: Time Warner, Viacom, Walt Disney, CBS, NBC, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
But what compels these technocratic dictators to coerce public opinion? Revenue, for one, abandons the network’s ideologies and morals through fear of jeopardizing their relationship with the corporations that own them, such as the pharmaceutical complex, dispensing billions per year on marketing ploys. By partaking in such bribery and puppetry, these corporate media outlets are mandated to manipulate public perception, in their favor, frequently engineering trendy bandwagons. Then, once an individual is exposed to the media for a prolonged duration of time, they are then engulfed with passivity, tempting them to take refuge in the mental security of conformism, accepting the bandwagon as pertinent to their life; standardizing human thought through authoritarian control. When the mind becomes universalized in accord with the media’s Kool-Aid brainwash, it transforms into a slippery slope; vulnerability to what the indoctrinating, corporate firms want the viewer to accept, feel, or act upon: evoking predetermined emotive reactions. Consequently, the public is apathetic towards liberty because the media tempts their minds to take refuge in the mental security of conformism.
Common to conformism, cults frequently obstruct opposing views to their own via the control or suppression of information. This method of mind manipulation is constantly implemented, along with an arsenal of other tactics, to incrementally, subtly, and – more often than not – opportunistically, obtain command over the mass culture’s thought processes. But, it’s called the ‘American Dream’, as George Carlin once said, because you have to be asleep to believe it – oh, the bliss that ignorance stimulates. Certainly the press wouldn’t dare covering the tyrannical police state: skyrocketing gun sales, indefinite detention, genetically-modified foods, and cancerous, TSA body scanners. The mainstream media censors such oppression because the brain gets a short high from agreeing with opinions or refuting disagreeing opinions. Unequivocally, the media will advocate the ‘popular’ stance versus the moral stance to retain their most valuable resource – you and me!
The adverse effect of oligarchic subjectivity is the lack of accountability or truth; reports transition into a mere left-right paradigm game of infinite finger pointing of who has ‘allegedly’ done what. The mass media ritualistically portrays ideas or ‘news’ in union with an intellectual taint that, to most, is deemed as incomprehensible. This surrender to complexity that viewers undergo aids in the mind manipulation scheme because the most powerful propaganda is that which is unseen. The media fabricates something for the masses to focus on and externalize energy towards; a concept, a movement, an idea, an illusion; something to love, something to hate. Then, the masses accept it as relevant to their lifestyle and subconsciously consent to the demise of their manipulation. The media is a weapon of mass distraction that uses flashy ads to promote consumerism to allude from and camouflage the superficial fulfillment of humanity. On the other hand, even the most critical of media analysts lack the proficiency to detect subconscious manipulation through the atmospheric mood of a set, namely through specific colors, lighting, words, or props and their arrangement.
Similar to false advertising encouraging consumerism, deception exploits the gap between the viewer’s perception of reality and reality itself, generally imposing disinformation. This cleverly constructed trickery for covert, public consumption is a highly-specialized form of propaganda that mixes poison, or lies, with reality, for the release of subjective and biased headlines, at the corporation’s desire. Founder of technology blog TechCrunch, Michael Arrington’s aphorism concerning media corruption seamlessly coincides, “Getting it right is expensive; getting it first is cheap” – exemplified throughout the multitude of ‘official’ Sandy Hook narratives. Other disinformation that the public mindlessly regards as true, as it is being articulated from a ‘credible’ figure consists of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney justifying drone striking as ‘ethical’ and Piers Morgan allowing Dr. Oz to inject him with the influenza virus whilst saying it doesn’t induce flu-like symptoms. What happened less than a week later, Piers?
Another technique of mental manipulation utilized by the mainstream media that is interlaced with deception is repetition. When a chant, slogan, or bit of information is tirelessly repeated one’s thought process is turned off; absent are the processes of rationalization, logic, or common sense. If you are taking notes of a presentation while the speaker explains himself, it becomes nearly impossible to retain all the knowledge presented. Eventually the repetitious echo reshapes itself into the truth, or rather an individual’s perception of the ‘truth’, as opposed to actuality. If you are repeatedly inundated with lies and positively reinforced by doing so, those lies will ultimately, in your eyes, be perceived as the truth.
While there is a definitive contrast between fact and fiction, one’s perception of the truth may be relative, accrediting ‘source amnesia’. Source amnesia encompasses the notion that the brain subconsciously stores the memories headlines, slogans, and chants, whether the information they embody is legitimate or not: knowing what the government is, but not knowing who taught you what it was, for instance. News organizations often stir up or implicate source amnesia through the detrimental exploitation of headlines with question marks, incredible sources, or quotes around unconfirmed terms. Ergo, the human brain recollects the information, but disregards the source’s credibility and the assisting minute and deceitful annotations.
Testimonial propaganda is one, of many, mediums of persuasion where an authoritative or famous figure is attached to, or endorses, a product. In a darker light, however, if this character paints an idea, for example, as ludicrous, their slaves will comply with such beliefs. If this adversary idea, person, or group of people is associated with transfer propaganda to something that the masses will reject, a pack of vicious wolves will attack – isolating them from society. While this natural, emotional reaction occurs, the lower brain triggers the effects of shame causing the analytical portion of the brain to shut down and conform and initiate emotive, not logical, sequences and responses. The stereotypical ‘conspiracy theorist’ is modeled and dismissed through this utilization of shameful rhetoric or mockery – inducing a lower hierarchal power and swaying the general public to automatically reject them as lunatics.
If the mainstream media skews a story, angled in the context of a particular agenda, you either obey or disobey… and be condemned as an anarchist, chaos-seeking rebel! You have now been acquainted with the black-and-white choices of the media. The daily brainwash that we are confronted with, predominately through the media, prohibits neutral stances. It’s their beliefs, or its opposite, ridiculous extreme. You’re either pro-gun control or you’re pro-violence. It’s always been an us versus them mentality; no grey, all-or-nothing choices.
The cycle of desensitization is another vulgar repercussion of perpetuated exposure to violence. One’s fear subsidizes, and they have decreased sympathy for the injured and an increased belief that violence is normal. Forbidden and extinct is compassion. War. Terrorism. Corruption. These atrocities are mongered by the media. The gun control agenda – a prime focal point. The mass media hypes and hypes, mongers and mongers, glorifies and glorifies the population with weeks upon weeks of endless coverage of diverse victims. Shot. Movie theaters. Spas. Schools. Centers of worship. Children. Adults. “It could happen to you,” they say. Triggering a deluge of gun sales, creating a more dangerous situation than before. Not because of more guns; because of improper means of storage and knowledge of weapon operation. This movement, conjured by the media, epitomizes their potential of control and its link to America’s materialistic obsession to deter the emotional marginalization of reality.
In short, the cliché “ignorance is bliss” – in relation to the propagandist media – has derived an entire new meaning in my life. Never forget that, while corporate interests subconsciously control you, their manipulation requires some degree of your consent. If you’ve been victimized by the media or other sources, purify yourself by watching alternative media online or reading books. If you know more about Hostess’ discontinuation of Twinkies or Michelle Obama’s vacation itinerary than genetically-modified foods, the NDAA, or drone strikes, then you’re a victim of the media’s brainwash. But I leave you with this quote from George Orwell, “In an age of deceit, speaking the truth is a revolutionary act.”