#25. The Information Age
Do you catch the news on CNN? Do you search the World Wide Web for info? Are you a Talk-Radio listener? Are you an avid reader of the daily news- paper? Do you correspond by Email? Have you memorized your favorite TV commercials? If so, then you have entered the "Information Age".It is also called the "Communication Age". One source suggests several other titles: "The Age of Lies; the Age of Disinformation; the Age of Indoctrination and Propaganda; the age of molding, shaping, corrupting, and perverting the masses ... "
The Information Age began in the mid-80's and became a global phenomenon with the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989. The name is a reference to the global economy's shift in focus away from the production of physical goods (as exemplified by the industrial age) and toward the manipulation of information. Although tons of information now orbit the earth in any and all directions within a matter of seconds -- is it accurate? I mean, is it true, valid, authentic? Or is there a mis-speak (whatever that is!)? And how do you determine which?
Are you concerned that commercials costing Corporate America millions of dollars are quite affective in influencing the masses to spend billions? How do you regard the propaganda tactics of our government ... upon us? Are you impressed with what celebrities say? what politicians say? Do you believe the information because you heard it on TV? Because it was in the newspaper?
Talk to me -- I'm addicted to information, and inquiring minds want to know! Oh, and one more thing, do you believe Oswald acted alone?
Labels: communication, honesty, propaganda
posted by Virgil at 1:59 AM
26 Comments:
I have never believed he acted alone. The reason they allowed Oswald to be shot while in custody further proves that they didn't want him to talk. A man who assassinated the President of the United States would have normally been under the tightest security imaginable. It was set up by the government to hire Jack Ruby to kill Oswald. Ruby was dying of cancer and knew it, so he had nohing to loose.
It just doesn't matter, we can think what we want, the truth will never come out. There are weird facts for everything that can't be explained, think about it... there are people trying to prove the United States took a missile to the pentagon. It is best to not worry about conspiracy theories because the truth will never come.
To think...this is our Government.
What disturbs me the most about the lies behind 9/11, what makes me see the most inconsistencies screaming out to be noticed, inconsistencies that make me wonder how much of the entire “story” from the “official sources” should be questioned, comes from the way the buildings collapsed. I watched as those buildings fell, a word I use intentionally. “Free fall” has been a word used to describe the way in which the THREE towers fell. Yes, there has always been that pesky WTC 7, untouched by a plane, and yet it too fell, at the speed of a building in “free fall”. Why? As one commentator I heard that day said, “it was like watching a controlled demolition.”
We will never know the truth behind 9-11. The White House with it's guest that we call our President... need to stop all those lies. I think the war right now is in the wrong country. OUR WAR IS IN OUR OWN WHITEHOUSE, maybe we should be kicking "President Bush" Ass,Maybe He's The ENEMY. HELL, HE'S HIS OWN WORST ENEMY. HE SHOULD BE TRIED FOR TREASON THE S.O.B.
The puppet Bush regime is using new, aggressive forms of brainwashing to change the very way Americans think and feel.
This is the psychological dimension of the demonic cabal's general onslaught against American workers, just as the "war on terrorism" is the military dimension and corporate crime and tax cuts for the rich comprise the economic dimension.
We are living under the beginning stages of a military dictatorship in precisely the same way that 1930s Germans suffered under the Nazi regime.
As in the case of Nazi Germany, state-sponsored propaganda (brainwashing) is a vital part of the Bush regime's strategy.
New propaganda slogans are being overtly and subliminally implanted by Bush and his gang through their speeches and actions:
Dissent is treason
Constitutional liberties are less important than security
The "war on terrorism" excuses any attack on civil liberties
The Bush administration has the right and the duty to bring about "regime change" in any nation it chooses
The economy is basically sound
Only a few bad apples are found in the corporate barrel, which requires no new oversight laws
If Bush and Cheney say they're not guilty of corporate crimes, then believe it and shut up
It's okay to lie about weapons of mass destruction as a pretext of starting a pre-emptive war against Iraq
The election in 2004 was completely fair and legal
Karl Rove can out a CIA agent and not have to face any legal repercussions
Using the Republican Party strangle-hold on the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government to institute a dictatorship is okay
Some of these mind programming tactics are so clever that they can be overlooked in the confusion of everyday life. For example, have you been aware that the very way in which the "public discourse" is being carried on is a clever brainwashing strategy? The Congress, the media, the man and woman on the street are encouraged to ask only this question: How should the U.S. conduct its war against Iraq?
What about the questions:
Should the U.S. start a second war with Iraq?
Does an unelected American president have the right to force a "regime change" on another nation?
Why aren't Americans up in arms about Bush starting a second battle in his "war against terrorism?"
Why should American military personnel die merely for Bush's insane quest for world domination and oil?
The Bush puppet regime is engaging in other rather clever brainwashing tactics:
an elaborate deception as to who was to blame for 9/11.
psychic and political numbing in preparation for war.
Insanity as Normalcy
The way in which the Bush group is conducting itself is an interesting brainwashing technique in itself: Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and the others continually commit OUTRAGES but don't excuse them, explain them, or invite reflection on these affronts to morality and sanity. In fact, when some timid media voice criticizes the Bush group, the person is demonized as questioning behavior which is beyond reproach.
Americans are being brainwashed to ask only the questions the Bushites allow and they are programmed to see everything the Bush group does as unquestionably correct. The brainwashing has gone so far that Americans no longer see what has happened to our country.
The phrase "honest politician has become an oxymoron. We should not be impressed by the prospect of having the first woman, first black or first Latino president. What would be far more radical would be to have the first honest president, if not ever, certainly in a very long time.
Presidents in recent memory have been excellent liars, contributing mightily to our culture of dishonesty. Bill Clinton had the audacity to look right into the TV camera and blatantly lie to the American public. George W. Bush has probably set a record for official lying, though it might take many decades to fully document them. Carl M. Cannon saw the bigger truth: "posterity will judge [George W. Bush] not so much by whether he told the truth but whether he recognized what the truth actually was."
Things have gotten so bad that hardly anyone can even imagine an honest president. But if we don't expect an honest president, how can we expect to trust government?
Don Nash made these insightful observations, "If America was ever faced with a politician who spoke truth to the people, no-one would know what to make of the oddity. This politician could probably not get elected to office. Sadly, Americans can't handle the truth. .Lies, then, are the consequential destruction of American democracy. Little by very little, the lies and lying politicians have chipped away at America's Constitution and the American form of government."
Rampant lying by politicians is a major reason why so many Americans have stopped paying attention to politics, stopped hoping for political reforms, and stopped voting
Lying politicians probably tell themselves that the public cannot take the truth. Many convince themselves (lie to themselves) that lies of omission are not really serious like lies of commission.
Just how bad things have become is shown by the recent decision by the Supreme Court of the state of Washington that lying politicians are protected by the 1st Amendment. They are free to lie as much as they can get away with. Free speech apparently is a green light for lying, even though it leads to rotten, dishonest government.
During this primary season it is worthwhile to look at Republican and Democratic candidates from this honest-president perspective. A truly honest president would have the greatest loyalty to honoring the rule of law, the Constitution and the needs of the public, rather than what we have grown used to: greatest loyalty to their party and the moneyed interests funding it. If the nation really wants a change president, honesty should be a requirement.
IT'S HARD TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS OR WHO IS TELLING THE TRUTH THESE DAYS. I DON'T BOTHER WITH THE T.V. OR THE RADIO FOR NEWS ANYMORE, IT'S A JOKE.
I believe that Oswald acted alone. I have a bunch of my friends over and we are likeing this web site and your think pieces.So expect to hear from all of us.
The truth is that the Kennedy assassination was the brain child of incoming football commissioner Pete Rozell as part of his plan to destroy the upstart AFL. What people don’t know is that they were aiming for Jackie and missed. The plan backfired and he eventually had to capitulate to the AFL-NFL merger.
Hey Seemie,You're forgetting the Cigarette Smoking Man, with a high-powered rifle, down in in the storm sewer... November 22, 1963.
The secret is that there is no magic bullet. Ballistics experts using full-scale models of the cars, dummies, lasers and computers in blocked-off Dalley Plaza already showed it. There was nothing odd, nothing unusual about the pattern of Oswald's bullets. Furthermore, they also determined that any theoretical shots fired from the grassy knoll, the overpass, or any of the other popular conspiracy theory locations could not possibly have hit the President the way he was hit.
I suspect that ABC did use footage from that investigation, amongst other things
You mean Oliver Stone was wrong?
This stretches credibility. Next, you'll be saying that Michael Moore is full of cr*p.
Wait, I'm confused. There's three bullets fired. One of them misses completely. The third's path is the infamous head-shot. The second bullet zigs back and forth defying the laws of physics and logic, and ends up just falling out on a stretcher, completely pristine?
Sorry, as someone who has fired a weapon many many times, that's just complete bunk. It cannot cause that much damage and be pristine, even if it *could* double back on itself (now THAT's a shitload of english to let it spin itself backwards and then regenerate some forward momentum to start causing damage again)
If they can come up with a plausible reason for that little hiccup in the Warren Commission, then maybe, but my real-world experience tells me that the magic bullet isn't magic at all. The "magic" of the magic bullet is in how someone made the bullet magically appear on the gurney at the hospital.
Sometimes conspiracies actually happen. Sometimes they happen at the highest level of government. Remember Watergate? It was pretty vast. Someone who believes that the JFK assasination was a conspiracy doesn't necessarily believe every conspiracy theory and isn't necessarily a whacko.
The funny thing to me is just how many people don't want to believe it."
That's because people like a good story with lots of intrigue, mystery, cover-ups and the rest of it. People are like that everywhere.
A lot of Muslims believe the Jews run the world and Mossad was behind 9/11. A lot of Americans believe in the man on the grassy knoll and that aliens crashed in New Mexico. They're just different flavors of the same theme.
This was exhaustively gone over in 1993, on the 30th anniversary of the assassination by "CBS Special Reports" and, I believe, U.S. News magazine. They reached the same conclusion. CBS's tone was almost apologetic, saying they had pursued every rumor, every angle, and every theory, and had never closed their investigation...and the only conclusion that made any sense and answered all questions was that Oswald acted alone.
There are also alot of people that WANT to believe that Oswald acted alone. It makes things so neat and easy. It's easy for the status quo to scream "conspiracy NUT!" I've flipped flopped on this topic so many times, but I'm looking forward to the upcoming program. I'll keep an open mind. I guess we will all have to wait for the secret report to be declassified.
Personally, I would have suspected the cable company (if they had cable back then) instead of the phone company, but they would have only been able to promise an assassination somewhere between the hours of nine and one.
I'm satisfied that the forensic evidence points to Oswald as the lone shooter. No problem there.
But Ruby... that one has always bothered me. The guy was a minor thug, and he threw his life away for love of the President? It's hard to accept.
Maybe they can offer some more insight into this. What do you think Virgil?
Did Lee Harvey Oswald shoot Jack Kennedy? Let's ask him: Q. "Did you shoot the president?" "No sir, I did not shoot anybody."
and "I'm just a patsy."
Did Jack Ruby shoot Oswald out of his love for Jack Kennedy? His comment after being sentenced to death: "I'm the only one in the background that knows the truth"
Everything pertaining to what’s happening has never come to the surface. The world will never know the true facts of what accrued, my motive.
The people had so much to gain and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I’m in, will never let the true facts come above board's to the world.
Q: Are these people in very high positions Jack.
Ruby: "YES."
I read the paper and I'm a CNN fan, and I watch a lot of television. There is too much nudity, foul language, sex ans a lot of violence on the airways.
Violence brings violence. Sex outside of marriage on television (soft porn) brings division and pain. Many married men sit and watch women who are perfect specimens of the female anatomy in scantily clad clothing, and the seed of lust is planted in their minds. Eventually they will begin to compare their wives with the women on TV. When their own wives get undressed at night, the men will begin to recall visions of what they have seen and many times imagine themselves having sex with the women in their minds during intercourse with their wives. Why do you think that most of the men in Topless bars are married? They have seen these amazing bodies on television, magazines, and the public and when they go home, they are usually going home to a wife that does not fit the mold. They go where they can physically touch what they have only had the opportunity to see on television. I think sex on television is ruining lives on both ends, one in older, married men, and in our youth who are having sex at 10, 11, & 12. Most of these kids don't get the idea from friends, they get it from television which shows them more than they need to see at their age. I know from experience that the experiences that I had in my relationships stemmed from things that I saw on television, movies, and the internet. Televison perverts everything, including sex and relationships. If an average person jumped in and out of bed with several people we would say that they were promiscuous, but when movie stars do it, it's o.k? We need to do a better job about policing what we put in our minds.
Seemie,
It seems to me, Seemie, that you and your buddies seem to enjoy "Dean's World" alot. Did you guys make those original comments, or are you trying out your newly acquired "copy and paste" machine? I encourage you and you friends to express your own thoughts rather than others. I look forward to your future comments.
Sam,
Are you acting alone? The forensic evidence points in the direction of a conspiracy -- that you and Mike Spenis are in cahoots. Or, that you are plagiarizing his comment found on "Dean's World". Now you know what I think. What do you think, Sam?
Thanks to everyone for sharing. My original intent in this think-piece is to discuss the manner in which communication has evolved in our society. I gave various examples of abuse to get you thinking. There are also various innovative benefits, such as emailing, chatting, and text messaging with friends on the other side of the planet. We can speedily search the www for information on practically any subject. We can access a wide variety of opinions through blogs, etc. Thanks for sharing and I hope to hear more.
I have to admit, I love the speed of finding information, now that the internet is available. I used to go to libraries to do research. One concern is that all the info is not always accurate. Another concern is how easy it will be for someone to 'rewrite' history. If enough people believe something and claim it is truth, many people accept it as fact. A pre-internet example that I remember is someone of German descent telling me and a group of people that the Holocaust did not happen. I mentioned that my father helped liberate Auschwitz and that tended to end that line of conversation. The internet could make that kind of misrepresentation very easy to accomplish.
I have a story to tell you. Although we have come such a long way to when I was a kid.The phone... Awe that wonderful invention.What a marvelous way to get in touch with someone.
When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember the polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked to it.
Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anyone's number and the correct time.
My personal experience with the genie-in-a-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer, the pain was terrible, but there seemed no point in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy.
I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. "Information, please" I said into the mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear.
"Information."
"I hurt my finger..." I wailed into the phone,
the tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
"Isn't your mother home?" came the question.
"Nobody's home but me," I blubbered.
"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.
"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."
"Can you open the icebox?" she asked.
I said I could.
"Then chip off a little bit of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.
After that, I called "Information Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts.
Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary, died. I called, Information Please," and told her the sad story. She listened, and then said things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was not consoled. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?"
She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly,
"Paul always remember that there are other worlds to sing in."
Somehow I felt better.
Another day I was on the telephone, "Information Please."
"Information," said in the now familiar voice. "How do I spell fix?" I asked.
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest . When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston . I missed my friend very much. "Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home and I somehow never thought of trying the shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me.
Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle . I had about a half-hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information Please."
Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well. "Information."
I hadn't planned this, but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?"
There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "
I guess your finger must have healed by now."
I laughed, "So it's really you," I said. "
I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time?"
I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your call meant to me.
I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls."
I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.
"Please do", she said. "Just ask for Sally."
Three months later I was back in Seattle . A different voice answered, Information." I asked for Sally.
Are you a friend?" she said.
"Yes, a very old friend," I answered.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said. "Sally had been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago."
Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute, did you say your name was Paul?" "Yes." I answered.
"Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you."
The note said, "Tell him there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean."
I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant.
I just reread my comment and I realized that just the opposite is very true as well - once someone knows a 'truth' and posts it. It would be very hard for the government to hush them completely. So it's sorta 'buyer beware' but overall freedom of information and open access to information is cool.
Hello Virgil, sorry that you thought otherwise. I'm Sam, my brother was Mike, he passed away last year from prostate cancer. I just wanted to bring him to life, sort of,as far as the rest of the old gang, well, they are mostly still together, the names are a little different, but the info was not copied, well it was but by most of them, but it's thier comments, Hey, Virgil, trying to take our fun away? Dean is cool! and we still are likeing your think piece. As for Seemie, well, thats another story.He needs lots of help! lol
Meadowlark,
Always glad to hear from you. I agree, there will always be the positive and the negative use of any new innovation.
Sam,
Thanks for clarifying -- I think. Sorry 'bout your brother. And just who could this Seemie be? I wonder. Glad you like! Keep on havin' fun.
Paul,
WOW, what an awesome story! Real-Life is greater than fiction! Today, I read your story out-loud to a friend and choked up (about 17 times) with tears driping from my eyes. I could hardly get through it.
I too remember that box on the wall in our kitchen. Did yours have a crank on it? We had a party line -- no, it's not a chat room! (the younger generation will have no idea what a party line means - LOL). Our gossiping neighbor would listen in when we got a call -- or was it the FBI?
Thanks again for sharing your story.
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