Feb 15, 2008
by Mack White
Source: 911 forum.org.uk
http://www.ar.utexas.edu/Staff/White/tv.html
Sixty-four years ago this month, six million Americans became unwitting subjects in an experiment in psychological warfare.
It was the night before Halloween, 1938. At 8 p.m. CST, the Mercury
Radio on the Air began broadcasting Orson Welles' radio adaptation of H.
G. Wells' War of the Worlds. As is now well known, the story was
presented as if it were breaking news, with bulletins so realistic that
an estimated one million people believed the world was actually under
attack by Martians. Of that number, thousands succumbed to outright
panic, not waiting to hear Welles' explanation at the end of the program
that it had all been a Halloween prank, but fleeing into the night to
escape the alien invaders.
Later, psychologist Hadley Cantril conducted a study of the effects of
the broadcast and published his findings in a book, The Invasion from
Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. This study explored the power
of broadcast media, particularly as it relates to the suggestibility of
human beings under the influence of fear. Cantril was affiliated with
Princeton University's Radio Research Project, which was funded in 1937
by the Rockefeller Foundation. Also affiliated with the Project was
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member and Columbia Broadcasting
System (CBS) executive Frank Stanton, whose network had broadcast the
program. Stanton would later go on to head the news division of CBS, and
in time would become president of the network, as well as chairman of
the board of the RAND Corporation, the influential think tank which has
done groundbreaking research on, among other things, mass brainwashing.
Two years later, with Rockefeller Foundation money, Cantril established
the Office of Public Opinion Research (OPOR), also at Princeton. Among
the studies conducted by the OPOR was an analysis of the effectiveness
of "psycho-political operations" (propaganda, in plain English) of the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). Then, during World War II, Cantril and
Rockefeller money assisted CFR member and CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow
in setting up the Princeton Listening Centre, the purpose of which was
to study Nazi radio propaganda with the object of applying Nazi
techniques to OSS propaganda. Out of this project came a new government
agency, the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS). The FBIS
eventually became the United States Information Agency (USIA), which is
the propaganda arm of the National Security Council.
Thus, by the end of the 1940s, the basic research had been done and the
propaganda apparatus of the national security state had been set
up--just in time for the Dawn of Television ...
Experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman reveal that, when a
person watches television, brain activity switches from the left to the
right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is the seat of logical thought.
Here, information is broken down into its component parts and critically
analyzed. The right brain, however, treats incoming data uncritically,
processing information in wholes, leading to emotional, rather than
logical, responses. The shift from left to right brain activity also
causes the release of endorphins, the body's own natural opiates--thus,
it is possible to become physically addicted to watching television, a
hypothesis borne out by numerous studies which have shown that very few
people are able to kick the television habit.
This numbing of the brain's cognitive function is compounded by another
shift which occurs in the brain when we watch television. Activity in
the higher brain regions (such as the neo-cortex) is diminished, while
activity in the lower brain regions (such as the limbic system)
increases. The latter, commonly referred to as the reptile brain, is
associated with more primitive mental functions, such as the "fight or
flight" response. The reptile brain is unable to distinguish between
reality and the simulated reality of television. To the reptile brain,
if it looks real, it is real. Thus, though we know on a conscious level
it is "only a film," on a conscious level we do not--the heart beats
faster, for instance, while we watch a suspenseful scene. Similarly, we
know the commercial is trying to manipulate us, but on an unconscious
level the commercial nonetheless succeeds in, say, making us feel
inadequate until we buy whatever thing is being advertised--and the
effect is all the more powerful because it is unconscious, operating on
the deepest level of human response. The reptile brain makes it possible
for us to survive as biological beings, but it also leaves us
vulnerable to the manipulations of television programmers.
It is not just commercials that manipulate us. On television news as
well, image and sound are as carefully selected and edited to influence
human thought and behaviour as in any commercial. The news anchors and
reporters themselves are chosen for their physical attractiveness--a
factor which, as numerous psychological studies have shown, contributes
to our perception of a person's trustworthiness. Under these conditions,
then, the viewer easily forgets--if, indeed, the viewer ever knew in
the first place--that the worldview presented on the evening news is a
contrivance of the network owners--owners such as General Electric (NBC)
and Westinghouse (CBS), both major defence contractors. By molding our
perception of the world, they mold our opinions. This distortion of
reality is determined as much by what is left out of the evening news as
what is included--as a glance at Project Censored's yearly list of top
25 censored news stories will reveal. If it's not on television, it
never happened. Out of sight, out of mind.
Under the guise of journalistic objectivity, news programs subtly play
on our emotions--chiefly fear. Network news divisions, for instance,
frequently congratulate themselves on the great service they provide
humanity by bringing such spectacles as the September 11 terror attacks
into our living rooms. We have heard this falsehood so often, we have
come to accept it as self-evident truth. However, the motivation for
live coverage of traumatic news events is not altruistic, but rather to
be found in the central focus of Cantril's War of the Worlds
research--the manipulation of the public through fear.
There is another way in which we are manipulated by television news.
Human beings are prone to model the behaviours they see around them, and
avoid those which might invite ridicule or censure, and in the hypnotic
state induced by television, this effect is particularly pronounced.
For instance, a lift of the eyebrow from Peter Jennings tells us
precisely what he is thinking--and by extension what we should think. In
this way, opinions not sanctioned by the corporate media can be made to
seem disreputable, while sanctioned opinions are made to seem the very
essence of civilized thought. And should your thinking stray into
unsanctioned territory despite the trusted anchor's example, a poll can
be produced which shows that most persons do not think that way--and you
don't want to be different do you? Thus, the mental wanderer is brought
back into the fold.
This process is also at work in programs ostensibly produced for
entertainment. The "logic" works like this: Archie Bunker is an idiot,
Archie Bunker is against gun control, therefore idiots are against gun
control. Never mind the complexities of the issue. Never mind the fact
that the true purpose of the Second Amendment is not to protect the
rights of deer hunters, but to protect the citizenry against a
tyrannical government (an argument you will never hear voiced on any
television program). Monkey see, monkey do--or, in this case, monkey not
do.
Notice, too, the way in which television programs depict conspiracy
researchers or anti-New World Order activists. On situation comedies,
they are buffoons. On dramatic programs, they are dangerous fanatics.
This imprints on the mind of the viewer the attitude that questioning
the official line or holding "anti-government" opinions is crazy,
therefore not to be emulated.
Another way in which entertainment programs mold opinion can be found in
the occasional television movie, which "sensitively" deals with some
"social" issue. A bad behaviour is spotlighted--"hate" crimes, for
instance--in such a way that it appears to be a far more rampant problem
than it may actually be, so terrible in fact that the "only" cure for
it is more laws and government "protection." Never mind that laws may
already exist to cover these crimes--the law against murder, for
instance. Once we have seen the well-publicized murder of the young gay
man Matthew Shepherd dramatized in not one, but two, television movies
in all its heartrending horror, nothing will do but we pass a law making
the very thought behind the crime illegal.
People will also model behaviours from popular entertainment which are
not only dangerous to their health and could land them in jail, but also
contribute to social chaos. While this may seem to be simply a matter
of the producers giving the audience what it wants, or the artist
holding a mirror up to society, it is in fact intended to influence
behaviour.
Consider the way many films glorify drug abuse. When a popular star
playing a sympathetic character in a mainstream R-rated film uses hard
drugs with no apparent health or legal consequences (John Travolta's use
of heroin in Pulp Fiction, for instance--an R-rated film produced for
theatrical release, which now has found a permanent home on television,
via cable and video players), a certain percentage of
people--particularly the impressionable young--will perceive hard drug
use as the epitome of anti-Establishment cool and will model that
behaviour, contributing to an increase in drug abuse. And who benefits?
As has been well documented by Gary Webb in his award-winning series for
the San Jose Mercury New, former Los Angeles narcotics detective
Michael Ruppert, and many other researchers and whistleblowers--the CIA
is the main purveyor of hard drugs in this country. The CIA also has its
hand in the "prison-industrial complex." Wackenhut Corporation, the
largest owner of private prisons, has on its board of directors many
former CIA employees, and is very likely a CIA front. Thus, films which
glorify drug abuse may be seen as recruitment ads for the slave
labour-based private prison system. Also, the social chaos and inflated
crime rate which result from the contrived drug problem contributes to
the demand from a frightened society for more prisons, more laws, and
the further erosion of civil liberties. This effect is further
heightened by television news segments and documentaries which focus on
drug abuse and other crimes, thus giving the public the misperception
that crime is even higher than it really is.
There is another socially debilitating process at work in what passes
for entertainment on television these days. Over the years, there has
been a steady increase in adult subject matter on programs presented
during family viewing hours. For instance, it is common for today's
prime-time situation comedies to make jokes about such matters as
masturbation (Seinfeld once devoted an entire episode to the topic), or
for daytime talk shows such as Jerry Springer's to showcase such topics
as bestiality. Even worse are the "reality" programs currently in vogue.
Each new offering in this genre seems to hit a new low. MTV, for
instance, recently subjected a couple to a Candid Camera-style prank in
which, after winning a trip to Las Vegas, they entered their hotel room
to find an actor made up as a mutilated corpse in the bathtub.
Naturally, they were traumatized by the experience and sued the network.
Or, consider a new show on British television in which contestants
compete to see who can infect each other with the most
diseases--venereal diseases included.
It would appear, at the very least, that these programs serve as a shill
operation to strengthen the argument for censorship. There may also be
an even darker motive. These programs contribute to the general
coarsening of society we see all around us--the decline in manners and
common human decency and the acceptance of cruelty for its own sake as a
legitimate form of entertainment. Ultimately, this has the effect of
debasing human beings into savages, brutes--the better to herd them into
global slavery.
For the first decade or so after the Dawn of Television, there were only
a handful of channels in each market--one for each of the three major
networks and maybe one or two independents. Later, with the advent of
cable and more channels, the population pie began to be sliced into
finer pieces--or "niche markets." This development has often been
described as representing a growing diversity of choices, but in reality
it is a fine-tuning of the process of mass manipulation, a honing-in on
particular segments of the population, not only to sell them
specifically-targeted consumer products but to influence their thinking
in ways advantageous to the globalist agenda.
One of these "target audiences" is that portion of the population which,
after years of blatant government cover-up in areas such as UFOs and
the assassination of John F. Kennedy, maintains a cynicism toward the
official line, despite the best efforts of television programmers to
depict conspiracy research in a negative light. How to reach this vast,
disenfranchised target audience and co-opt their thinking? One way is to
put documentaries before them which mix of fact with disinformation,
thereby confusing them. Another is to take the X Files approach.
The heroes of X Files are investigators in a fictitious paranormal
department of the FBI whose adventures sometimes take them into
parapolitical territory. On the surface this sounds good. However,
whatever good X Files might accomplish by touching on such matters as
MK-ULTRA or the JFK assassination is cancelled out by associating them
with bug-eyed aliens and ghosts. Also, on X Files, the truth is always
depicted as "out there" somewhere--in the stars, or some other
dimension, never in brainwashing centres such as the RAND Corporation or
its London counterpart, the Tavistock Institute. This has the effect of
obscuring the truth, making it seem impossibly out-of-reach, and
associating reasonable lines of political inquiry with the fantastic and
other-wordly.
Not that there is no connection between the parapolitical and the
paranormal. There is undoubtedly a cover-up at work with regard to UFOs,
but if we accept uncritically the notion that UFOs are anything other
than terrestrial in origin, we are falling headfirst into a
carefully-set trap. To its credit, X Files has dealt with the idea that
extraterrestrials might be a clever hoax by the government, but never
decisively. The labyrinthine plots of the show somehow manage to leave
the viewer wondering if perhaps the hoax idea is itself a hoax put out
there to cover up the existence of extraterrestrials. This is hardly
helpful to a true understanding of UFOs and associated phenomena, such
as alien abductions and cattle mutilations.
Extraterrestrials have been a staple of popular entertainment since The
War of the Worlds (both the novel and its radio adaptation). They have
been depicted as invaders and benefactors, but rarely have they been
unequivocally depicted as a hoax. There was an episode of Outer Limits
which depicted a group of scientists staging a mock alien invasion to
frighten the world's population into uniting as one--but, again, such
examples are rare. Even in UFO documentaries on the Discovery Channel,
the possibility of a terrestrial origin for the phenomenon is
conspicuous by its lack of mention.
UFO researcher Jacques Vallee, the real-life model for the French
scientist in Stephen Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
attempted to interest Spielberg in a terrestrial explanation for the
phenomenon. In an interview on Conspire.com, Vallee said, "I argued with
him that the subject was even more interesting if it wasn't
extraterrestrials. If it was real, physical, but not ET. So he said,
'You're probably right, but that's not what the public is
expecting--this is Hollywood and I want to give people something that's
close to what they expect.'"
How convenient that what Spielberg says the people expect is also what the Pentagon wants them to believe.
In Messengers of Deception, Vallee tracks the history of a wartime
British Intelligence unit devoted to psychological operations.
Code-named (interestingly) the "Martians," it specialized in
manufacturing and distributing false intelligence to confuse the enemy.
Among its activities were the creation of phantom armies with inflatable
tanks, simulations of the sounds of military ships maneuvering in the
fog, and forged letters to lovers from phantom soldiers attached to
phantom regiments.
Vallee suggests that deception operations of this kind may have extended
beyond World War II, and that much of the "evidence" for "flying
saucers" is no more real than the inflatable tanks of World War II. He
writes: "The close association of many UFO sightings with advanced
military hardware (test sites like the New Mexico proving grounds,
missile silos of the northern plains, naval construction sites like the
major nuclear facility at Pascagoula and the bizarre love affairs ...
between contactee groups, occult sects, and extremist political
factions, are utterly clear signals that we must exercise extreme
caution."
Many people find it fantastic that the government would perpetrate such a
hoax, while at the same time having no difficulty entertaining the
notion that extraterrestrials are regularly travelling light years to
this planet to kidnap people out of their beds and subject them to anal
probes.
Link: http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=13624
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