Mind Programming for Dummies #20 10/29/2005
Henry::
Welcome to Signs of the Times. A look at recent world events from around our kitchen table.
Scott::
This week in the Signs of the Times podcast we're going to be discussing mind programming, propaganda and social control. And today with us we have special guests, Jonathan and Jason.
Jonathan::
Customer service is the path of least resistance. One of the most memorable episodes of the 1960's tesevision series The Twilight Zone hinges on just such a distinction. An advanced race of friendly aliens visits earth, promising to bring us great advancements and propserity. They invite human beings to visit their home planet where we are to be treated like kings and queens. A scientist manages to obtain one of the aliens' books but is able to translate only its title, "To Serve Man". After thousands of people board spaceships to the alien planet, he's able to decipher the rest of the text, and it turns out to be a cookbook. And this is a quote from Douglas Rushkov's book,
Coercion, which talks about P.R. and the ties-in marketing and the way we are all essentially manipulated by the marketplace.
Customer service is one thing, but we can essentially talk about manipulation in every facet of society. The premise of the quotation itself, that of the aliens quote, unquote serving man up as a main course, may have much more truth to it than we may realize. Michael A. Hoffman talks about this manipulation in terms of marketing and advertising. You could call this if you like, "the three A's", and he says "What we observe in the population today are the three destructive symptoms of persons whose minds are controlled by alien forces: amnesia, i.e. loss of memory, two, abulia (??) i.e. loss of will, three apathy, i.e. loss of interest in events vital to one's own health and survival. And if we look around the world today, that seems to be exactly what's happening. People are in a sense, addicted to their beliefs, and these beliefs, these addictions, if you like, are almost implanted in every one of us right from birth to death.
Jason::
And to jump off into that, because as you mention, you know people are, addiction and things of that sort, is to just talk about what mind programming is, just the general synopisis of what we're saying when we say when we use the word mind programming, or we say brainwashing, are we say any of these things, what exactly are we talking about?
Jonathan::
Well, when you think of manipulation, mind manipulation, you have this sort of idea of conspiracy theories and the evil doctors operating on unsuspecting victims who are being plucked from their homes, and let's face it, that may happen.
Joe:Well not may, it actually did happen, this publicly recognized, officially recognized CIA [
Jason: You're talking about the Church Commission] no, CIA program MKULTRA where they did mind control experiments on people.
Jason::
Which was exposed by the Church Commission.
Joe:No, it was exposed under the Freedom of Information Act. But the Church Commission . .
Jason::
The Church Commission investigated with Ted Kennedy, who was involved in the Church Commission, investigated and found that the CIA in the 1953, when Allan Dulles and several doctors had gotten together and created MKULTRA., [
Joe: Yes] which was just basically the testing of psychotropic drugs on patients, unwitting patients [
Joe: Yes]] in various universities. I think there were thirteen major universities involved in the process.
Joe:Yeah. But it also included also other aspects like Jonestown for example, the massacre in Jonestown, [
Jason: Right.] in South America,[
Jason: Yeah.] Guatemala. So they definitely were serious about that type of investigation. But they claim, I think it was in 1973, they claim that they ended the project, that they ended it and they no longer pursued it.
Jason::
And they conveniently destroyed the majority of the documentation from the entire project [
Joe: Yes, as they usually do.] yes, as they usually do, and the stuff that survives is covered in black marks, where they've taken permanent marker and they [
Joe: Yes] removed it. But, just because, and it's kind of an important thing, that the drugs, the two main drugs that they were using, happened to be two of the most popular drugs. The first one is of course, Lysergic Acid Diathalomide, LSD, which by the way, comes from the German name, not the American name, which is why it isn't LAD. And the other one was mescaline.
LSD is an ergot derivative and mescaline comes from the peyote plants. And these are both drugs that attach to certain receptors in the brain and cause delusions, but they also enhance memory, they uh, because of how they attach to the receptors on your neurons, they allow you to access parts of your brain that you wouldn't normally access in a certain experience, which is why when you smell something, like if you smell a turkey, you see it running across the room! Because you lose the sectioning off of the brain, and everything kind of works as one for a certain instant and that way some people claim it is beneficial, that LSD was used in the treatment of things like schizophrenia and things like that. But, we see that, and we see records and we see that that's the kind of drugs they were using for mind programming and then we look at today and we look at the most popular drugs on the market: LSD, mescaline, and MDMA which is ecstasy and PHB.
Joe: Which market would that be? [
Jason:: What?] Is that in the local market?
Jason:: In the world market! [
Joe: Okay . .] PHB, MDMA [
Joe: The drug market you mean.] Yes, the drug market.
Joe: Ok. I was wondering if I could go into my local market and get some, right beside the cucumbers.
Jason:: Well these drugs, the most popular drugs are these drugs that are the euphoric drugs, that you know, create complacency, like MDMA.
Joe: So you're suggesting that a lot of the drugs on the market, the popular drugs that are being used by people around the world today are, were actually a product of the development of [
Jason:: of MKULTRAand the ] in terms of
Jason:: Most certainly, and their popularity is a direct result of perhaps, from taking from MKULTRA, becoming from MKULTRA, an internal project to being just being let loose on the world, and say ok, we've found all this information now let's just get everybody in the world using these drugs
Joe: Well, that's interesting because it brings up, it gets into the idea of the two different levels I suppose, of mind control. In terms of, I thought one direct type of mind control was hard on, um, full on, plying someone with drugs and attempt to produce some specific reaction or to control them, to mind control them, and the other level which is a more subtle level of mind control, which is as we're saying, with a lesser dose of this drug, but which is presented as a recreational drug etc. etc.
Jason::
Well again here comes another aspect of what we're talking about with this mind programming, is the mind programming about mind programming, which is the fact that it takes place in some secluded laboratory with some crazy mad scientist and a man strapped to a chair, that that's mind programming. And of course you know
Jonathan:: and the reality is that . . ] The reality of course is that [
Jonathan:: is that we're all, we're all controlled to some extent.]
Joe: So, give us some examples.
Jonathan: Well, for example, if you go to football game now, I mean, manipulation in terms of, it's of course, about profits and because you might have strategies and techniques that have developed from the military that have found their way into the market place in terms of technology, in terms of psychological or psychological operations that are now used by corporations. That can happen in the mall, or in the supermarket, in a football game, tv, everywhere. It has become so normalized that we just don't see it anymore. It's like a normal way of life. But this normal way of life is of course, once you begin to dig very deep, it's actually very corrosive. It leads us to believe that things like the manufacturing or engineering of 9-11, which is a so-called conspiracy theory, when in fact there's a mountain of evidence that this was manufactured by, in part by the Bush administration and other factions.
Also you can have the belief that America is the progressive nation of democracy, though that belief is failing now, but for a very long time, this has been the dominant belief that that is so, when in fact, if you do some research, you see that a lot of that is just pure fantasy. [
Jason::But that fantasy is an outcome of mind programming.] Exactly, and if you go, for example, if you see going back to some of Douglas Rushkov's examples, he has an excellent chapter on atmospherics within malls and supermarkets. If I can just quote a passage here, he says talking about themes, "Where themes appeal to the subconscious, coercive atmospherics target the specific senses. Instead of using thematic and emotional devices, they use almost mechanical ones. Think of a coercive atmospheric looking at the violet light of bug-zappers, in bug zappers. Scientists studied mosquitoes to discover precisely what frequency of light would attract them and placed bulb that would emit this light within electrified mesh. Mosquitoes' instinctive reactions to particular frequencies of light are exploited to draw them to their deaths. Coercive atmospherics works exactly the same way. Instead of looking at humans as conscious beings, with behaviours that change in different habitats, psychologists use coercive atmospherics to operate on our brain directly, through the only portals they have to work with, the five senses." And they're developing all kinds of technology, most of which have their orgin in the military, to basically lure consumers into consuming more and more. As we know, America is the primary consumer of the world. Twenty-five percent, or a quarter of the energy of the world comes {is consumed by?} from America. And you can see this dynamic. Not that we want to demonize America, but let's face it, the reality is most of the mind programming or the results of this mind programming, come from an American capitalist system.
Scott::
The little bit about the mosquito going towards the light is kind of interesting in light of the article in the Signs page that we had, where they had done some research that showed that people who have memories, basically these memories can become distorted. So in this study, what they showed that, they showed a series of people, I think was flash cards. They showed them once to the people in the study group, and then they showed them a second time. And the second time, they had changed some of the cards. And so the study was intended to determine how it would be possible to influence peoples' recollection of what they saw. So the first time, sometimes they told people the cards were the same, sometimes they had switched the cards, and people insisted no, no, it's the same card. And while they were doing this they did some MRI's of the test subjects' brains, and they discovered there is a very particular portion of the brain which is involved in the formation of memories. And so this sort of gives us an idea. The comment on the Signs pages was "Well, gee that's interesting. How about what happened on 9-11 where people are absolutey certain that what they saw was an American Airlines airliner plowing into the Pentagon." and then the study basically showed that memory is not terribly reliable and that in fact, if after people witness something, what it amounts to is that a false memory can be creeated [
Jason: Using cue cards] and if you're insistent enough that "NO, this is what happened.", people can actually believe the lie that they are told is actually what they saw, and they will literally have a memory in their brain of seeing an American Airlines jet plowing into the Pentagon, and they'll say, "No I was there. I saw it., when in fact they saw nothing of the sort. They just saw, they heard it on the news and they heard somebody on the news say "I saw it", so all of the sudden what they remember is . . .
Joe:Well just to go back a little bit the real, the central thesis that we are presenting here is that human beings are eminently mind-programmable. In fact, it reminds me of a fairly well-known little story of when cinema first took off in the US and a lot of people were going to the movie theatres and watching movies. The cinema owners, in conjunction with the people providing services at the cinema, and obviously the film producers, came up with the idea of how to get people to buy more at the movie theatres over and above their entrance ticket for the movie. So they came up with a little jingle in the half-way break, they had a little half-way break during the movie and the jingle was, "Let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby, to buy ourselves a drink!" [
Scott:: Maybe we should sing it! All singing: "Let's all go the lobby, let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby, and buy ourselves a juice, drink . . .snack . . .carton of . . Scott:: Something like that] So the point is tht you know, when they played this [
Scott:: I want a snack!] when they played this, the amazing, the amazing [
Scott: (as Homer Simpson): mmmmm] Don't even start! [
Scott: (still Homer): " mmmmm . . . do-o-n-u-u-ts . . . Pepsi-cola." All laughing.]
Joe: When they played this the amazing result, extremely predictable result, was that a lot more people started going to the lobby to get themselves a snack. Now simply because these are people who otherwise we suppose, may not have gone to to the lobby to get themselves a snack, but because they were told to go to the lobby and get themselves a snack. By the authorities you know, the movies producers, people in authority, people in a position of disseminating Information, or disseminating a message that would make people do things. [
Jason:: The screen made me do it.]
This brings us to another core question which is when you have a government or a group of people in authority with a lot of power, who have this information, that it is extremely easy to program the citizenry. What are they going to do? What are they going to do with that information? Can any of us imagine what might be going through the minds of say, like say it was Dick Cheney at the time, who got this information that it was extremely easy to program millions of people in a very easy way, with very limited resources you could make them do what you want. You could make them think what you want and do what you wanted them to do. What would such people do? And this is what the whole thing hinges on, because when it comes down to it, that the problem people have with any idea that their thoughts are not their own, is that the people who are disseminating, who are in a position to be disseminate information
would not do that. That they would not be so cruel as to try to use this, this frailty, or this tendency to, the suppleness of mind that is an aspect of the human condition, that they would not use that against the people.
Jason::
It's not a question of whether or not they do. I mean CNN, the CNN reported the story where Karl Rove met with the MPAA and the leaders of the major studios in November I think, of 2002. They met and the topic of the whole thing was the war on terrorism.
Jonathan:: That's right. He met forty Hollywood executives in the second week of November,2001. [
Jason:: That's right, 2001 sorry.] This was just after 9-11.
Jason:: And then right away, right away after 9-11 they were basically planning out patriotic movies, the emphasis was on patriotism.
Jonathan::
And the primary purpose was to enlist the help in the nation's cause, the war against terrorism which happen to bogus. The war movies started before then why? It seems to be a concurrent theme of propaganda, so it wasn't just 9-11 that started it. It's been going on for a long time. For example, Top Gun was an extremely popular movie which was released in 1986, and enrollments in the Navy's flying program shot up. The BBC for example, picked up on this stratagem in a report in October 2001 just after 9-11 again. We discover that US intelligence specialists sought in secret, and I quote, "Advice on handling terrorist attacks from Hollywood filmmakers. And according to the trade paper Variety, a discussion group between movie and military representatives was held at the University of Southern California." So on the one hand, they're seeking advice and the other hand they are actively reshaping Hollywood to their own ends.
Scott:: They're seeking advice from Hollywood filmmakers??
Jonathan:: Exactly. But when you have Hollywood filmmakers who are seasoned in a sense, to propaganda, even within the box, within society, you watch enough movies with Steven Seagal in them and your brain is the size of a peanut [
Jason:: Hey, hey!] I mean you're obviously going to [
Jason:: Hey! I LIKE Steven Seagal!] Yeah, but obviously to be of that mindset. [
Jason:: He's a fellow I . .that uh. . ] is going to be very easily influenced by any kind of propaganda that is put in place by CNN or by any news station [
Jason:: or Steven Seagal]
Jonathan:: Indeed. Movies operate in the same way as FOX News, and you know what FOX news is like.
Jason:: Well, this has been going on for more than a hundred years. I mean, the first basically, in the historians view, the first propaganda film, you know, sponsored and created by the military was "Take on the Spanish Flag" in 1898. That it was the premiere propaganda film. So it's been going on since the commencement of the cinema. I mean, they've been using this to plant this type of thing in. [
Jonathan:: Think of Nazi Germany.] The thing is, also you remember there's a myriad of uses. You can't think their only going to use it on one thing. It's not just for the war on terrorism, they'll use it for boosting recruitment, for demonizing the enemy, for turning everything that they do into some sort of like godly, moral act.
Jonathan:: Which of course we can that with the Iraq war, and with the Bush administration generally.
Jason::
Well the outcome with these meetings like the meeting with Karl Rove, and the Pentagon and the Dept. of Defense and things like that with these movie directors you end up having movies like, you know Tom Cruise met with CIA officials to discuss the agency's image and they were going to improve it his new movie coming out, Mission Impossible: III. Which is rather interesting that, you know, well, it's not so much interesting that it's just blatant at this point, [
Jonathan:: It's disturbing?] it's just completely disturbing.
Jonathan::
And we were talking about how society is influenced day to day, through advertising, marketing, and PR. And public relations has been a major player certainly in the present administration, the Bush administration. And like salesmen, public relations especially seek to mirror the conscious and unconscious concerns of their targets in order to change their perception of reality. Which is why it's so important for the Bush administration to utilize one particular company, Rendon company, headed by one John Rendon, A strategic communications company hired by the Pentagon I believe, for about one hundred thousand dollars
a month. For what? Well of course, the War on Terrorism. And John Rendon describes himself as an "information warrior" and a "perception manager". Which of course, for people like Bush and Karl and Cheney and Rumsfeld, this is perfect. And he is still employed I believe in ensuring that is aired as news is tailored to the Bush administration's particular world view, which as we can see is fairly invasive and corrosive for most of the world.
Joe:So what we're really saying here is that at the current stage in our history, the powers that be, that's governments, corporations etc, have decades and decades of experience and practice at manipulating and controlling perception essentially. And when it's a case of corporation or a market chain hiring some PR executives or some advertising executives who are able to deliver an increased sales via a certain type of advertising by ensuring that people purchase more of a product that they don't necessarily need or want, but the bottom line is that they purchase it. That scenario is not exactly, it's not so bad in a way. OK People are being manipulated, they're being very subtly mind controlled, or mind programmed, but it doesn't have any serious life-threatening effects on the average person.
But the problem is when that level of expertise and understanding of essentially how people respond and how to manipulate people to believe something, is applied to for example, situations and areas of their lives and particularly for example the war on terror, and civil liberties etc, ect, and what exactly the government is doing in direct way, vis a vis the people. Then it becomes much more serious and this is something we've been talking about for a long time on the Signs page, with the 9-11 war on terror and the way people, most people perceive that and the resulting clampdown on civil liberties etc, and these things have a much more direct and much more negative influence, much more immediately negative influence at least in potential at least, not just on people's pockets, what they eat, on their salaries, but more so on their lives. And this will begin a serious situation.
Jonathan::
Absolutely. But I think the only reason why the Bush administration is able to so effectively use these powers of persuasion, which is going increasingly beyond persuasion is because societal structures are in place for them to do that. And they're in place to do that because it's been a, it's the same dynamic they're using. Extreme capitalism. I mean, you can call it any "ism" but the process of extreme consumerism if you like, is a perfect mirror image of the dynamic of the Bush administration. They seek to consume. And the only reason they are able to get away with it is because the population is so used to being consumers. We are now called consumers.
Scott::
And not just the fact that the structure of the programming and propaganda the government uses is so similar to that which is used to sell products to the people, but the fact that consumerism is so rampant in the US. It serves as in addition to what you were saying, it serves as a distraction where people are so preoccupied with having the new SUV and the giant house and having the DVD player and all the technological toys and you know. On the one hand they're distracted from it and that make it that much easier to come in with this other propaganda which people are far less concerned about because well, they're busy trying to get "stuff". And the government comes in with the propaganda and the subtle mind programming and says " Well you should support the war on terror because it is the American thing to do." and they associate America with having stuff, and the American way of life. And so then just makes it that much easier.
Jonathan::
And then you have a wider and wider gap between the rich and the poor. So you've got the rich who are like, anesthetized by this intense materialism. And then you've got other, you've got more and more people getting into poverty who are seeking just to survive, that they're providing for their families. The last thing on their minds is whether or not the Bush administration did or did not shoot a missile into the Pentagon or whether they engineered the Pentagon. And then you've got the other people lliterally amused to death with every kind of distraction, technological distraction, there's this "technopia".
Scott::
And terms of the haves and the have nots then you also have, the fact of the matter is that the US economy is not in good shape and the majority of the American people are buried under a severe amount of debt and of course financing this lifestyle, this "American dream" if you want to call it that, is basically, you know everyone is pretending they have all this wealth that they really don't have. So they are fooling themselves. And they're lying to themselves, which makes it that much easier, another aspect of it is that it makes it that much easier for the government to lie to them and of course, they're sort of used to themselves and being lied to. So then you have sort of perhaps you have this other dimension to it as well. So it's pretty insidious.
Jonathan::
It's very insidious because you have this subjective bubble that's been allowed to manifest. You've got this subjective economic bubble that really is a complete illusion that's going to have to burst eventually. Similarly, the illusion that people think that the government is there for the people is also going to have to burst, and probably simultaneously and when that happens you;re goin g to have some serious shocks for everyone I think.
Scott::
It will certainly be interesting to see what happens in the upcoming days. Of course we have the recent indictment and resignation of I. Lewis Libby so of course the question then is is this bubble going to burst and well we kind of suspect that it might but then the real question is obviously, something is going to come after that, so what are the Powers That Be going to bring in after that to "save the day" so to speak.
Joe: Well, at the minute, things are looking pretty bad in terms of as you said, the decades of subtle mind programming that people, particularly Americans, but that obviously all the people of the world have been subjected to by their governments about their governments, about their government's intentions, but perhaps a saving grace is the fact that as things progress, these government officials cannot continue to act in a way that is decidedly negative without there being some evidence, however small, of that, of the true nature of their intentions and it actually brings to mind a story from today's Sign's page where it was reported that Dick Cheney is heading up the campaign to allow torture to continue to be used by the US military, ie in contravention of the Geneva Conventions and international law. He is pushing extremely forcefully the idea that American soldiers and the American military in general should be allowed to continue to torture, what they term "combatants", and these are people that have not been accused of any crime, but simply have been picked up in Iraq and Afghanistan or anywhere else around the world. Being "rendered" as they say. He wants the American government to be completely free to essentially murder these people through torture.
The question is, that's pretty clear, for a start that pretty clear evidence of the nature of Dick Cheney for example, and it stands in complete contrast to everything that most Americans and most people have been told about the nature of the American Government. In that they are there to serve the people and that they are the leaders of the greatest democracy on earth and that they stand for freedom and justice etc.etc. Now this kind of friction that those two opposing realities" let's say, obviously only one of them is a "real" reality and the other is a fictional or illusory reality. But the friction that they present really will provide, or does provide a perfect opportunity to open their eyes and start to realize what's going on. But the question obviously is will people be able to overcome these years of programming and mind control that they've been subjected to believe a certain thing or a certain, or believe certain concepts about their government, about their country, about what it stands for and about themselves ultimately.
Jonathan::
This is why propaganda is so effective. Because it disallows any kind of objective thinking. Because as we've said before, Scotty said before, most people are surviving in this world. They're tryng to survive, to provide for their families, they don't have the time very often to do research. But even I think what's scary, even in the mainstream news, which is often wholly distorted to particular agendas, there is enough information to see that. As the example you gave, just allowing against the convention, the Geneva Convention to allow torture to death is enough to really sound the alarm bells, and once you look at that you can make connections to other signs, big warning signs within government within society at large. And when you begin to make these connections you just how big a part propaganda plays and has always played in society. It's only then I think you can begin to make, to form networks with other people and to discuss it. And it's then that this apathy that we talked about, the quotation from Michael Hoffman about this terrible apathy and loss of interest and enormous depression about the way things are going . It is possible to become, if you like, more creative about, and not accept this propaganda. And that's the opportunity that we have to do, to become active, to use your voice in some way.
Joe: Yeah, I mean but it may be even more than that, just to bring it home to people and if you consider what you just said about Dick Cheney, and this is, you can view this document, this article on our Signs page where he is pushing for the right, essentially for American citizens, what are American citizens within the military, to torture to death people who have not been accused of any crime and I guess [
Jason:: But torture in any way, I mean torture to death, not just torture "to death", but torture in any way . . .] Ok but the fact is, ok there's torture that can be justified it to some degree and is justified by the Bush administration that these are people who have information that may save American lives. But the fact is, and this is on record, that a large percentage of people in the various, and possibly dozens of covert, secret prisons around the world that are run by the US Military, that the people in these prisons have just been picked up on the scantiest of information about what they were doing and in these places they are all selectively subjected to torture which includes and again this is on record, which includes some of them being actually strangled to death by US soldiers. Now the fact is [
Jason:: That's not an effective means torture by the way.] No. Well, yeah. [
Jason:: Just to point that out because people have a hard time talking while they are being strangled.] well, yeah exactly [
Jason:: Just trying to elicit information.]
Joe: But the point is that this is something that is being advocated by Dick Cheney. Essentially torturing or torturing to death people who are possibly, or are quite likely innocent and the real question is for Americans particularly, is this is the Vice president of the country and probably the person who holds most of the power in the US administration. Now the question is someone of that character, of that nature who would willingly advocate the murder of potentially innocent people. From his point of view he doesn't know if they are innocent or they're guilty or anything. He advocates their murder. And what could be the possible intentions of such a person, of such a character towards the American people? Would you as an American citizen trust such a man to safeguard your own interest in times of crisis? Or say you wanted to stand up and disagree with him publicly, protest publicly? Would you be happy that the orders that are being fulfilled by the law enforcement in the US, his orders, that are being fulfilled by these people, would you be happy that your life would be safe in their hands given that this is a reality, his intentions towards them?
Jason::
Now because, what if it was your child? I mean, this whole legalizing of torture what has also been pushed in the movies, has always been that America is the country that doesn't do it, and everyone else does. [
Joe: Again, mind programming. ] This mind programming of America, the Geneva Convention, "We never torture prisoners and everyone else does" and now people are sort of desensitized to the concept and beginning to think, "Well maybe we should be torturing these prisoners" because everyone else is doing it, which is utterly and completely ridiculous.
Joe: Well, exactly. And this is where we are trying to present this to Americans in particular because essentially like we're saying, their lives may depend on it and ultimately their lives will depend on their ability to see through this mind programming. First of all to accept that this mind programming exists in many many areas and that they have essentially been set up to be, their minds have been set up to be extremely malleable, and then they have been consistently lied to by their elected representatives, and you know, there's one question that maybe people could reasonably point at, which why it should it concern them you know, that they're torturing foreigners, Iraqis or Afghani's, and the fact is, as we're saying the fact is that it may well not be just about them anymore. It may be about American citizens. And there really is no reason for people not to start taking this on board and to looking into this to try and ascertain if this is actually a reality, and I assure you it is and you can verify that for yourself, because until people accept it and see it for the reality that it is, there will always be hesitation and wonder if it is really true or not, and it's like that saying "He who hesitates is lost." But if people don't get to the point where they can see it and accept it as a reality, there will be this hesitation and they won't be in a position to take effective action against it when they see it coming. There will be doubt, there will always be doubt. People shy away from looking at this information and leave themselves in a position of doubt, which is just as bad as being completely lost in illusion because you still don't you lose those precious moments, those precious seconds where if you understood it as a reality, you would immediately act. And the thing is, as I said, there's no reason whey people should not take the effort to go and try and find this out and make it second nature, and take it on and try and find . . .
Jonathan::
Absolutely. The strength, and knowing as well, when you do that, you are living in a society that operates on fear. And fear is the basic instinct that allows like people Cheney, Rumsfeld to do what they're doing. So in a sense you have to work through that fear in order to do most things in life that are worth anything, because it's not a question of being separate from external events. In going back to understanding just how much, if you like, how much propaganda power is projected into everyone's living room every night by the tv, by the radio, even the internet. It's enormous. If you imagine Ms. Laura Braun (Brown?) from her book Culture Vultures as in 1950, the CIA's budget, let's be honest about it, intelligence agencies are about manipulation, deception of the world over and not about altruism. They're not about providing for the common good. Let's get that straight. So therefore . . . . In 1950, the CIA's budget for psychological warfare was 34 million, and over the next two years that figure quadrupled. So that was in 1950. So what on it earth is it now? And if you put behind that the technology, and there's no question the technology now is hugely in advanced to what we see in the market place. So that makes the question what kind of technology are they using behind the scenes? Even behind Bush who is essentially a puppet with very loose strings, it's very clear. So the real power is behind people like Bush and Cheney. How are they utilizing this technology? For example, how is the US Navy using a vast amount of experience in technology since WWII.
Joe: OK, so there's actually an article, I just want to read a little piece from yesterday's Signs page, and the title is "Pentagon Nominee Aims for more positive Iraq stories", where it says President George Bush's nominee to be the chief Pentagon Public Affairs official told congress on Tuesday he hoped to encourage more positive stories on the Iraq way by encouraging the practice of vetting reporters with US troops in Iraq. Now this is a perfect example of mind control or mind programming through the use of lies and false information and obviously it pertains directly to the war in Iraq where this guy is advocating vetting or placing reporters who are completely in thrall to the US government, completely just parrot their propaganda over and over again. He wants to put people like this in with US military patrols to supposedly give an accurate account of what is actually happening. Now this is just another example of the blatant way they are conducting their affairs these days in attempting to fool people and lie to people and it also provides another opportunity to see the reality of the situation. But it also pertains to a point that is probably quite relevant to a lot of people in terms of "Ok so the US government is lying to people, lying to the American people about the Iraq war and about what's actually happening in the Iraq war". I mean we have the figure of over two thousand US soldiers killed now, and we have talked in the past about how that figure is grossly misrepresented and understated and in fact the figure is probably closer to eight thousand US soldiers killed. But the point again is why should any. I care? Ok They're lying about how many Iraqis are killed, how many US soldiers are killed, but does that really concern, in any direct way does that really concern the American people. I mean, who cares? They just get on with their lives and let the government do it's own thing. And sure everybody knows they lie all the time. They've gotta lie about war and stuff because, you know there's kind of a negative propaganda fallout from wars and stuff and that has to be kept from the people. But we if just kind of track it back to the fact that, so they're lying to you about the Iraq war, and they're lying to you about what the US military is doing there, and also they obviously are lying to you about why they are there. Of course the American people and the world were told that the Iraq war was directly related to 9-11 because Saddam was involved with Al Qaida who carried out 9-11. Both of these statements are now provable lies.
And if we just take it back another step then 9-11 which again is a lie, led to, has led to, and is continuing to result in the clamp down on civil liberties within the US where you have peoples' civil rights are being removed systematically and there provision now within for, in any kind of a natural disaster, for the military to be on the streets for curfews being imposed, but obviously you're being lied to about that as well. For example, in Katrina, one of the ways this occurred as the stalling of the relief efforts in Katrina, which led to the suppposed need for the military to go into and organize the relief efforts. This is another lie that people are believing which has been disseminated by the government. And people, ordinary American people are being directly affected by it. So all of these lies, I mean, there's no lie that's been presented by the US government that cannot be tracked back directly to the individual US citizen where it does not have a direct effect on the everyday lives and freedoms of US citizens. So if that isn't a good enough reason for everybody to be concerned about all of the lies that are being told, because it's just like web of lies, and all of the lies that are being told are interconnected and they all have direct relationship or will have direct relationship to your individual lives. And if you do not start to sit up and take notice well then you're definitely going to pay the price. That is a foregone conclusion.
Jonathan::
Now this is the land of Disneyland and that is such a strong addiction. Any like addiction, it's going to take an enormous shock to break that. So I'm kind of, I'm extremely cynical that America can pull itself out of this vast control system.
Joe:: Well it should be a shock at this stage, where if people are being exposed to what we talked about, about Cheney. Well then that should be a shock. If that isn't a big enough shock, well then
Jonathan: Sure but, think of New Orleans, people lost their lives and their families, and this was a "shock within a box", and you still have people saying "Oh, well this was a natural disaster", but the crimes that were committed by FEMA that there were obvious clear, distortions [
Jason:: I mean They went in cutting lines, they went in cutting phone lines so people couldn't call out from the disaster areas]
Jonathan:: Exactly. People still will not believe that that was the case.
Jason::
Not only that but there were FEMA was forcing first responders, people coming in from outside New Orleans, people who wanted to come in to help to bring water medical supplies, you know, other sheriff's departments. They told them to go back and they even put it on the website. You know "First responders - Don't just come. Coordinate with us" and basically they were just telling them to just go away.
Joe: Yeah, let me just read a bit from David McGunn's (?) latest newsletter where he says "Among numerous crimes other crimes against the people of New Orleans, FEMA declined an offer from the City of Chicago to send forty-four Chicago Fire Department rescue and medical personnal and their gear, more than one hundred Chicago police officers, 140 streets and sanitation [workers], 146 public health and 8 Human service workers, and a fleet of vehicles including 29 trucks, two boats, and a mobile clinic. Instead FEMA jsut asked Chicago to send a single truck. FEMA also to refused to allow into New Orleans up to 500 Florida airboats who had volunteered to rescue Hurricane Katrina victims, transport relief workers and ferry supplies. Many of the pilots had spent thousands of their own dollars stocking their boats and swamp buggies with food, water and medical supplies and fuel. More than 50 civilian aircraft responding to separate requests for evacuations from hospitals and other agencies swarmed to the area the day after Katrina hit, but FEMA blocked their efforts as well.
Jason::
So basically, I mean, 'cause right now I don't think there's too many people from New Orleans is listening but I mean, when they come out and see, you know, some of the evidence of what happened. I mean, all of these people have gone through these horrible tortures, I mean talk about legalizing toture! FEMA is torturing the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Joe: And we not that all of it, the conclusion we have come to is that all of it was designed to present this idea, this concept to the American people that the normal federal and local relief agencies were incompetent and were [
Jason:: It had to be the military.] and were unable to, they were unable, and it had to be the military from now on for any disaster, any natural disaster or any crisis of any shape or size will immediately acquire the input or deployment of the military.
Jonathan:: And we're also seeing an increasing reflection of what's happening in Iraq in America. There's really, you can see contrast. For example, corporations, Halliburton for example, and some of the clean-up operations and repairs done by American companies, Cheney's company. [
Joe: Yeah, the whole think is rotten to the core.] And the same with New Orleans. You've got this . . .
Jason:: I mean you've got this, I mean emergency services are corporations, for profit corporations. I mean, it's really quite, it's a sick and disgusting mess.
Jonathan:: Well, it's a very tight noose.
Joe: Of course, all of this information is not really available to the American people, mainly because of the mainstream media and the way they are completely co-opted into parroting the government's propaganda over and over again. And in fact in that article I just referenced "Pentagon Nominee aims for more positive Iraq stories" where he talked about embedding reporters with Iraq troops to project a more positive view to the American people of what happening in Iraq. When this was presented, it was discussed in Congress I think, and two senators gave two opposing opinions on this proposal that this guy had presented. One of them blasted US media coverage of the war on Iraq, saying that it mostly focused mostly on bad news and said he hoped Smith could be able to shame the press into providing more positive coverage. And then a second senator, a Democratic senator from Nebraska, Ben Nelson bristled at these charges saying that he thinks the media has done, and continues to do a remarkable job of telling us what we cannot see. [
Jonathan: (laughing) Good god. ]
This is the perfect example of the way that a lot of issues, not just the media, are dealt with in the world of American politics. Where rather than giving two real or actual opposing viewpoints, they create two kind of, false viewpoints and argue about those. So we have one guy saying that the media is terrible because it's not presenting a positive enough picture in Iraq, and the other guy is saying that the media is doing a remarkable job of presenting the real picture of Iraq, both of which are completely untrue. The media is, I mean it just becomes completely mind-boggling in a way because . . .
Jason:: Well the assumption, the implication of the argument is that the media is doing, is not in bed with the government, or the media is not reporting its propaganda, it's not being used as a tool. The implication of the argument is that they are having problems with what's going on here, and it's ridiculous. It's a faked argument entirely.
Jonathan:: But that's the thing about propaganda. It's a very clever tool to play one off against the other.
Joe: Well of course, but people, the average American citizen looking at this thinks there's some kind of representation going on here. [
Jonathan:: Exactly] that there's two opposing arguments going on here [
Jason:: Automatically. There's the implication . . .] two opposing arguments [
Jason:: that the media is doing its . . .] They take a completely false premise and then they argue two sides of that false premise as if to present some kind of a . .
Jason:: Just to go into something, because a lot of people in especially in America, and coming from America there this not only the whole freedom of the press, the sanctity of the press thing going on, ok? But the belief that what these news agencies, which are not agencies, they're corporations; these companies, these for-profit companies that are distributing the news. You know is that they basically they report what they see, but admit that there's some sort of requirement or some sort of regulation or requirement that they have to tell you the truth, that they will tell you the truth because they couldn't lie. They couldn't make it up. But if you were to go back and you were to look at the not-so-long-ago lawsuit by two reporters in Florida against FOX News Corporation which they won at first. They won a settlement because Fox News had tried to falsify, had falsified information in a story to paint a pharmaceutical corporation in a prettier light. So they sued. They went after whistleblower status, sued Fox and won. That was in a circuit court. Then a higher judge threw it out based on his decision that news corporations are not obligated to tell you the truth. That they are allowed to fabricate a story. That there is no law that says they cannot make it all up. So I mean, there is precedence for this sort of statement that they're making it up, they're faking it. There's precedence, they have done it before, they have been taken to court for it, and the court of the United States has said it is not illegal for a news corporation to falsify a news story, to just make it up. They can make it up. They are completely within their legal rights to lie.
Jonathan:: And then you'll find that the reporting of that particular news story will be on page 69 of a bumper issue newspaper right down on the left had column where no one's going to read it. So all this essential information, when it does come out in the mainstream media, is buried where you're least likely to read it.
Jason:: Well actually the humorous thing is actually I saw the recording of Fox News 13 of the news show, it was like 10 o'clock news reporting on the victory that they had had, the victory they they simply just said to all news corporations that they are within their legal rights to falsify a story and the reporter actually said, "You know, we're falsely accused of falsifying the story and a judge has completely exonerated us." And that was the end. "We were completely exonerated." He never even said the decision that the decisions was that they were not obligated to tell you the truth. He just said we were exonerated. As if like it nullified everything about the story and it didn't. It just basically said yeah, they did lie, but they were legally allowed to.
Joe: So we're going to end it there but this is obviously a very complex subject or subjects; dealing with the lies and illusions that are presented as the truth to the world, to the American people, governments and in particularly at this moment in time by the US government. But we'd just like to reiterate again that there is no way for anyone to really get away from this or to excuse themselves from any involvement in it, because quite clearly everyone is involved because you will be made to be involved by the very fact of your existence, of you being in the body on the ground, in America in Australia, in the world. You are going to be involved in the policies that are being handed down that are all based on lies, and we can say that pretty much to the T, that all of them are based on lies and they affect you very directly. So unless you start to do something about it, you're literally are going to be a victim of these psychopaths in power who have absolutely as we've talked about Cheney, who have absolutely no value, or place no value on human life and that includes your life. And if there's one quote that could sum up what we've been trying to convey here this evening is from Bertram Russell, who was a philosopher, who said that "I think the subject which will be of most important politically is mass psychology. Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated."
Jason:: I would like to thank everyone out there for joining us. Please remember to visit us at ;
www.signs-of-the-times.orgScott:: So thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next week.
