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Additional Titles

INTO A DARK NIGHT: THE END OF OBJECTIVE JOURNALISM AND THE RISE OF THE CORPORATE-MEDIA STATE
PART 2 of 3

 

 

by Benjamin Baruch
June 12, 2015
NewsWithViews.com

THE SCIENCE OF PROPAGANDA

Wikipedia defines propaganda as “a form of communication that is aimed towards influencing the attitude of the community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument… generally an appeal to emotion, not intellect. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the chosen result in audience attitudes…. often presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political, religious or commercial agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of ideological or commercial warfare.”[1]

“Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, we are bombarded with the cant and spectacle pumped out over the airwaves or over computer screens by highly-paid pundits, corporate advertisers, talk-show hosts, and gossip-fueled entertainment networks. And a culture dominated by images and slogans seduces those who are functionally literate but who make the choice not to read…. A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is left to interpret reality through illusion. Random facts or obscure bits of data and trivia are used both to bolster illusion and give it credibility, or discarded if they interfere with the message. The worse reality becomes -- the more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment sky-rocket -- the more people seek refuge and comfort in illusions. When opinions cannot be distinguished from facts, when there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the most valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes a place where lies become true, and where people can believe whatever they want to believe.”[2]

Modern media has evolved in ways far more sophisticated than the average viewer can observe. The foundational research which led to the development of the science of propaganda was done in the early part of the 20th century, and was the subject of the 1928 landmark book Propaganda by Edward Bernays; his opening words describes how the world of propaganda actually works.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.”[3]

The average person in the modern world has lived inside a propaganda bubble all their lives; and their understanding has been intentionally shaped for them without their awareness. Life as they perceive it has been molded by media masters, who provide the alternative opinions which are held by the general public. Of course there are numerous camps to choose from, whether left or right, red or blue, but they are actually just different flavors in the same ice cream store, or different heads of the same snake. All the while, this multi-colored paradigm of opinions keeps the public from perceiving the real issues, right in front of their eyes; in fact much of humanity has been born into, and lives their entire lives within, a completely controlled reality.

“Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy [state controlled public education and corporate controlled media] has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man's rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine.”[4]

Not merely content to use the global media for the dissemination of simple propaganda, there is objective evidence, that the media, news journalists, and even politicians themselves are using numerous forms of advanced propaganda techniques, which are more akin to hypnosis or brain washing. A detailed discussion of the numerous mind control techniques developed over the years such as MK Ultra, Monarch Programming, or Conversational Hypnosis would take a separate paper to expound. I will discuss one of these systems, Conversational Hypnosis in detail, and provide an example of Barak Obama’s use of this technique as an appendix.

CONVERSATIONAL HYPNOSIS

Barak Obama’s spectacular rise to power was based, to a great extent, on his expert use of the techniques of “Conversational Hypnosis” pioneered by Dr. Milton Erickson, M.D. His use of these techniques, which may be resisted by aware listening using critical thinking, explains in part why younger people were more easily affected by his propaganda message.

“Dr. Erickson was an American psychiatrist specializing in medical hypnosis. He was an important influence on neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), which was based upon his working methods. Erickson believed that the unconscious mind was always listening, and that, whether or not the patient was in trance, suggestions could be made which would have a hypnotic influence, as long as those suggestions found some resonance at the unconscious level. The patient can be aware of this, or can be completely oblivious that something is happening.”[5]

Erickson writes: “In all my techniques, almost all, there is a confusion. A confused person has their conscious mind busy and occupied, and is very much inclined to draw upon unconscious learning’s to make sense of things. A confused person is in a trance of their own making - and therefore goes readily into that trance without resistance. Confusion might be created by ambiguous words, complex or endless sentences, pattern interruption or a myriad of other techniques to incite trans-derivational searches.”[6] Erickson discovered that “by communicating indirectly, he could avoid the issue of resistance to a large extent… and that hypnosis could be used whether the patient was aware of it or completely oblivious to the fact that a hypnotic technique was being used. In this way, what seemed like a normal conversation might induce a hypnotic trance, or a therapeutic change in the subject. It is called conversational hypnosis because the subtleties are slipped into a conversation and the other person would not consciously realize it, while the tactics could have a very real subconscious effect.”[7]

“Obama is using textbook, clinical trance inductions in his speeches. Obama’s hypnotic techniques work on a subconscious level, and are designed so that people watching him in an audience or on TV are completely unaware of his techniques and their effects. Obama is using clear hypnotic anchoring, pacing and leading, and numerous other hypnosis techniques designed to take away our rational judgment in deciding for whom to vote in November. Not only is this the only explanation that makes sense for the amazing rise and ‘Obama phenomenon’ sweeping our nation, but the evidence is undeniable. His speeches intentionally contain trance induction language, hypnotic anchoring, pacing and leading, stacking language patterns … Obama’s techniques are the height of deception and psychological manipulation.”[8]

In order to maintain the effectiveness of any system of propaganda, its reception and its ability to replicate itself within the belief systems of the public must be monitored; thus the need for a system of global surveillance to monitor the thoughts and behaviors of the people. The justification for creation of a system of total surveillance would necessitate some type of global threat and the global war on “terrorism” fulfilled that need. Without the war on “terrorism”, a system of total surveillance would been impossible to erect; but now in the west, where the people are under a never ending threat of terrorism, the need for total surveillance of the otherwise free populations is justified, even extolled by some as for the “good of the people”.

THE RISE OF THE CORPORATE SURVEILLANCE STATE

The American Civil Liberties Union addressed the risks of the merger of corporate and state power in their 2004 report: The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society. “This report is packed with fascinating and frightening details about how the relationship between government and big business is changing before our eyes – or, all too often, behind our backs. Brought together, these details add up to a trend that would be almost hard to believe if it were not so well documented.”[9]

“Government agencies are not the only organizations that are interested in creating high-resolution pictures of individuals’ activities by drawing together data from a variety of sources. Companies called ‘data aggregators’ … largely invisible to the average person, but make up an enormous, multi-billion-dollar industry. The Privacy Act of 1974 banned the government from maintaining information on citizens who are not the targets of investigations – but law enforcement agencies are increasingly circumventing that requirement by simply purchasing information that has been collected by data aggregators.”[10]

The conclusions of the ACLU report: an alliance of unchecked corporate interests, in cooperation with the state, are constructing a global mass surveillance system of immense proportions and at a staggering financial cost notwithstanding the fact that “sifting through the lives of hundreds of millions of people is an inefficient, highly unreliable means of discovering a one-in-a-billion terrorist… this mass surveillance system threatens freedom more than it threatens terrorists.”[11]

The power of the state and the power of the global super corporations, instead of being set against each other, are now actually becoming aligned. The risk that this might one day happen is nothing new. Near the dawn of the Information Age, US President Eisenhower, in his Farewell Address of January 17, 1961, famously warned us the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.’ We might update his words to describe what we are facing today: ‘the conjunction of an immense security establishment and a large data industry.’ Eisenhower’s conclusion about what he dubbed the “military-industrial complex” was that: ‘The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.’ This warning applies just as strongly to the ‘surveillance-industrial complex’ that is emerging in our own time. And the consequences of ignoring it would be just as dire.”[12]

The true capabilities of the global surveillance system go far beyond the recent limited public disclosures of NSA eavesdropping activities. A coordinated system of supercomputers running Echelon and Prism software programs, enhanced with artificial intelligence algorithms is listening to, analyzing and extrapolating information from all global electronic communications, and this data is being used to monitor and evaluate public opinion and understanding, while also identifying dissidents, for future interdiction.

Having successfully erected a global propaganda and surveillance system of incredible capabilities, the global corporate oligarchy now hold virtually absolute control over the popular opinions which are provided to the masses; and they also hold the ability to measure the success or failure of their propaganda campaigns, through their ability to monitor, in real time, virtually all voice and data transmissions, and thereby ultimately, monitor what you think on a day by day basis.

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This total information dominance has permitted the corporations working hand in hand with the imperialist nation states, to begin their next, far more aggressive step, of taking overt action towards the final expansion of their global power. To wit, they created, or if you prefer, have exploited, the global “war on terror”. When historians finally write the history of our time, the 21st century will be known as the Century of Permanent War.

Click here for part -----> 1, 2, 3,

 

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Benjamin Baruch is a professional financial advisor, author and public speaker.

Benjamin Baruch is the author of the best-selling book; “The Day of the LORD is at Hand.” First released in 1998, it immediately became an underground best-seller, with over 20,000 copies sold. The 7th Edition was released in December, 2014 and includes insight into the today’s major news headlines including the crisis in the Ukraine, and the growing wars of the Middle East. Benjamin also uncovers what has been occurring behind the closed doors of power in the United States offering the reader a clear view of what our rulers are doing in the dark.

Benjamin’s has recently released his second book, a seven volume series; entitled “Search the Scriptures Volume One: Out of the Darkness” which is now available at Amazon.com.

Benjamin Baruch is a Chartered Financial Analyst and a Certified Public Accountant and is a financial advisor to some of the largest privately held real estate companies in America. His academic background includes studies in International Finance and Economics at UCLA and graduate studies in the Middle East conflict at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. Benjamin is a recognized expert in real estate taxation, and his professional experience includes the management of institutional investment portfolios. For more information, or to book Benjamin for a speaking or media appearance, please contact him through his website.

Amazon authors page: Benjamin Baruch, Author

Website: BenjaminBaruch.net

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