How Yellow Is Your Journalism

To many people, especially those who have not studied media history, the phenomenon of "Fake News" may seem like a new issue.  The idea of massive media empires controlling the political discourse and publishing questionable stories has a long and sullied history, notably in the United States, but certainly not limited to that flamboyantly exceptional nation.

In fact, Fake News used to be known as "Yellow Journalism" and was inextricably linked to Democrats and Progressives well over 100 years ago by a mythical character names William Randolph Hearst.  His media empire still exists, though certainly not as influential as is once was with over 30 newspapers and dozens of magazines and periodicals.  For one thing, no one reads anymore.

The term "Yellow Journalism" originated during the war between Hearst and Pulitzer in the mid-1890s, when the two media moguls dueled with glaringly bold headlines, sensational topics and lurid front-page images - much like most media today.  Hearst is frequently credited with the dubious honor of having single-handedly starting the Spanish-American War by using his media outlet to drum up public support and pressure on politicians.

Yellow journalism is characterized by hear-say, anonymous sources, little actual research, manufactured facts, and a fairly colloquial style of writing that appealed to large numbers of working-class readers.  The "yellow" part comes from the color of the cheap paper used for the publications to maximize profits.  Cheap ink and shoddy printing practices also caused significant "rub off", or blackened fingers, adding to the 'dirty' reputation of yellow journalism.

Orson Welles' brilliant first film, Citizen Kane, was a fictionalized tale of a Hearst-like character.  AT one point, the jaded Kane and his wife are sitting at the breakfast table reading competing newspapers.  The wife complains and Kan's antics will cause people to think...and he finishes he thought with, "What I tell them to think."

The scene and the dialog perfectly encapsulates not only the Hearst (and Pulitzer) philosophy of journalism, but neatly summarizes what much of the mass media have become over the last century and a half.  On any given Tuesday, one can hear "unnamed sources" or "tweets" taken as quotes without even modest follow-up.shows how pervasive yellow journalism has become.  In addition, the reverence and deference shown to Obama and Clinton, versus the vitriol given to Trump belie the still inherent Progressive bent of the mass media.

This is not to apologize for the modern media - they are slimy, vile dogs fighting over scraps at the city dump.  Instead, the point is to understand that fake news did not appear overnight, is not unique to the current culture, and in fact is part of a long tradition in American media, which has spread its error to the world at large.

Granted, the dry reporting of facts and figures can send even the most ardent insomniac into deep slumber, but the boundaries between facts, opinions and outright lies has long had a 100-pixel Gaussian blur applied to them.

The current Fake News scandal does have its advantages.  It serves to make us aware that accepting anything from the mass media at face value is at least anti-intellectual, if not actually dangerous.  To be fair, it is very difficult to write on any topic without the writer's opinions sneaking into the narrative; however, the best writers clearly separate fact from interpretation.

For all its own fantastical yellow journalism, the Bible does rightly point out that there is nothing new under the Sun. Fake News is far from being new and really not even that scandalous anymore.  The recent awareness of it should, however, cause us all to pause and ask whether what we are reading and hearing actual facts, or interpretations with often severe ideological slants  Consider the recent uproar a freshman-level class in mass media and a wake-up call to prevent ourselves from being led by those with somewhat obscured agendas who use their privileged platforms to create news, rather than report it.

Folks would do well to watch Citizen Kane, in many cases fo the first time.  Not only is it a masterful film with an engaging story, but its observations on the Media Beast are well made and apropos.

It would also help to click the link above and read up on "Yellow Journalism".  It may surprise some to realize just how little has changed in 150 years.  It will not only greatly reduce the credibility of the talking puffballs on your 4K Plasma Home Theater, but it would also be helpful to know that the effort to bamboozle large numbers of people into believing things that aren't true has a long and sordid history.

The Last Word

Much to the joy of many readers, I'm sure, this will be my final analysis of the election.  It has taken me some time to absorb and dissect the events of last week, and there are still a few observations left to express before I move on to more interesting things in the future.

To begin with, I believe at this point, that Trump was not part of whatever it was that got him elected.  The look on his face as he sat in the Oval Office with Obama was priceless and shown through even his best attempts to mount a poker face.

The look in his eyes said that, a) he had learned some things in his new level of intel briefings that he was wholly unprepared to know, and b) he was actually cowed by the realization that within two months, he would occupy the White House.  His conciliator tone towards the Clintons in recent days tells me that his world just exploded.

That is a major clue that the entire world has just been victim of a psy-op, but one that the players, Hillary included, were not ready for, meaning whoever pulled it off was not part of anyone's inner circle.

This is doubly true for the pundits and the general public.  I have little sympathy for the media heads.  They have knowingly and with full complicity been a part of the mass mind control that is the center of today's column.  I feel sorry for the general public, though.  They have gone through an "Awakening" without any preparation or desire on their part.

Most of the people who come here regularly are already awake, to one extent or another.  We have all been through the process of having our eyes opened to the "real" world and have powered through the shock, pain and disorientation that comes with it.  But imagine the worlds of millions of people who are literally hypnotized by the media suddenly being exploded under them.  It is no wonder there is literal wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Though they bear a significant responsibility for not having pushed themselves beyond their conditioning, it is fair to say that most do not have the tools to do so, thanks to the so-called Education System.

An Awakening is a powerful moment, when the scaffolding that has supported your worldview for however many years suddenly collapses.  Most folks are not ready for this and for the most part don't want it.  \

My Awakening was brought on by a conscious choice and effort to achieve it.  Even with the express goal, having sought out information and teachers to help me achieve it, when it actually happened, it was a truly terrifying experience.  I can only imagine what people are feeling, whose entire framework of reality is suddenly gone with no preparation or warning.

It is the reaction of the general public that intrigues me the most.  Someone set out to purposefully achieve this effect, the purpose of which remains to be seen.  Furthermore, the party or parties who pulled it off had access to the network of voting machines, had carefully orchestrated expectations and had timed events for maximum effect.  It was every bit as planned and executed as the JFK assassination or the 9/11 attack.  From a strictly objective viewpoint, it was masterfully choreographed, leaving no trail that has been uncovered so far as we know.

What is truly astounding is the global effect the election results had.  Leaders in nearly every major nation seem as stunned and mystified as everyone else.  Many rolled over and made a complete about-face almost immediately.  Canada and Mexico surrendered NAFTA.  The EU threw up its hands over TTIP.  Only China seems unfazed and is still demanding adherence to both the TPP and the Paris Climate Accords, which I find a rather interesting reaction.  Even stone-faced Putin seemed momentarily shaken, having fully prepared for and expected war with the NeoCons in the near future.

Most curious, though, was Trump himself.  I believe he had resigned himself to a loss sometime during election day.  One thing is quite certain, watching him in the days since, he was not prepared to win.  Having spent his life on the sidelines with politicians kow-towing to him for money and attending formal functions with government types had him thinking it was not all that difficult.  He obviously has had a rude awakening of his own.

One very alarming result of all this is the way so many people are going around reciting words like "misogynist," "xenophobe" and "racist," seemingly without knowing what they are doing.  It seems to be some kind of programming that has been installed that has been triggered by certain events.  Many of the people reciting these mantras strike me as not even having a clue what the words mean, they are just automatically spewing them in response to specific stimulae.  The Teens and Tweens I have seen using the words are not putting them in any kind of meaningful context, they are just reciting them in response to any unpleasant situation.

Related to this were the reports of a great many adults unable to function on an adult level.  Classes were cancelled, people didn't go to work, and a great many reports came in of university students reverting to childish behavior, part of which I blame on the self-esteem/exceptional conditioning, but there seems to be an additional dimension to it.  That they would revert to a child-like state, rather than just go into a daze or shock was very curious.

At this point, we need to ask ourselves, to what purpose was this forced Awakening done? Here we are no longer able to observe, we must speculate on the motives of a group or groups unknown.  Without further data, it is very difficult to say what the desired outcome is.  But let's try anyway.

First of all, who did it?

We can safely say that there are a number of competing factions within the US deep state.  At the very least are the Industrialists and the Financiers represented by the two major candidates.  However, given that both the candidates were obviously shocked, it is safe to assume that neither of these two groups pulled this off.  Which is not say that they weren't trying to effect their own operations, but they were overridden by a third party.  To my mind, at least, that much is clear.

The obvious culprits would be Russia and China.  China had more to lose with Trump's election, since they clearly wanted certain agreements and relationships represented by the Hillary faction.  Russia, on the other hand, stood to lose quite a bit if Hillary were elected.  They would very likely end up in a real shooting war with the US, had Hillary been installed.  However, Russia also stood to lose a great deal if their tracks were ever uncovered.  They couldn't afford to give any ammunition to the war hawks that would so clearly give cause to go to war.  With so much at risk, I believe that Russia can be ruled out.  It seems to me that they had better options, such as blackmail, to control the Hillary faction.

No other countries seem to benefit from Trump being elected.  Nearly every major power had some reason to want Hillary installed, if for no other reason than to maintain the status quo.  Even Japan would stand to lose more in trade with a protectionist president, than it would have to gain in its geopolitical positions with Russia and China.  Certainly, Hillary would be far more likely to back-up Japan militarily should anything go wrong in the South China Sea or the Kuril Islands.

What we are left with is a non-state entity.  That would include multi-national corporations, private associations and other similar groups.  In this case, the corporations would seem to have an interest in Trump being elected, in the sense that they would benefit from tax cuts and reduced regulation, but that would come at the price of protectionist treaties, such as TPP and TTIP, that offer them much greater benefits, not to mention the ability to offshore jobs to low-wage countries - something that Trump has promised to curtail.

That leaves NGOs and billionaire busy-bodies like George Soros.  Nearly every entity included in this group, even Soros, benefit greatly from a globalist NeoCon environment.  It seems quite clear, at least from Trump's campaign rhetoric, that none of these groups would derive much benefit from a Trump presidency.  They would encounter significant opposition to their operations that they do not have under a Hillary administration.  In fact, they would have had nearly free rein in that case.

By process of elimination, we are left with a nationalist/patriot faction within the US deep state, or a third party that is completely hidden from the cast of usual suspects.

The nationalist/patriot faction seems plausible.  They would want a protectionist - preferably outsider - president who might even be "grateful" once he found out what had been done on his behalf.  They would also benefit from a mass awakening from media programming, so as to clear the channels for installation of new programming.  This must be confirmed by what messages start getting broadcast to the general public.  If the media or other outlets started taking on a distinctly nationalistic tone, this would serve to confirm in part this particular scenario.

The other prime option is Richard Dolan's Break-Away Civilization.  Based on well reasoned arguments put forth by Dolan, Farrell and others, it is safe to assume that there could be a new civilization, completely divorced, or nearly so, from what most of us know.  This group is reasoned based on supposed advances in technology, including the ability to traverse vast distances in space.  This technical superiority would increasingly isolate this group from the rest of us here on terra firma to the point that ultimately it would simply break off and form its own unique culture.

Due to the nature of this supposed entity, its motivations and abilities are unknown to us and any attempt to fathom them is pointless without more information.  We cannot even speculate on whether Trump's victory would be a benefit or detriment to them, since we don't know what their needs or desires are.  By necessity, we must eliminate this possibility until additional information is available.

So that leaves us with the Nationalist/Patriot faction of the deep state as the most likely culprit.  In this regard, we have several data points, including the mysterious Steve Pieczenik and his coup/counter-coup.  He has continued to update his website and frequently posts rather cryptic messages on his Twitter account aimed at a rather bizarre assortment of people, leading to further speculation that this is an ongoing psy-op.  These posts contain thinly veiled threats regarding who will and won't be allowed to join the administration.  This strongly suggests a deep state actor, but we must be careful, as that impression is likely to be a deliberate misdirection in itself.

Suffice it to say that this has been a most unnerving election on all fronts.  There are far more pieces in play than is comfortable to ponder.  Going forward, all of the players bear close examination as we try to get a handle on what happened and will happen.  Without a doubt, though, 2017 and beyond will be a most interesting experience for most of humanity.

Spectators At The Apocalypse

Did you miss me?  Sorry for the day and a half off.  I do occasionally work at productive, paying jobs, and as a freelancer, I have to do a little selling in between to keep the work flow going.

At any rate, I was having a little conversation with Roy over on our Farcebook page about the stunning media melt-down this past year and a half.

As a career media guy who has worked in local news departments for Fox affiliates, large daily newspapers in the Rockies and the film industry, I know for a fact that everything you see on TeeVee is a complete fraud.  It is why I often rant on about turning off your media streams.

Once upon a time, we were still biased, but we were subtle.  We gave better lighting, more favorable camera angles and a few extra seconds of air time to the "preferred" candidates.  Often, we would lead with the "good guy" or focus a bit more on the "bad guy's" foibles.

Now, however, you can practically see them cashing the Hillary for Prez checks.  The late-night "comedy" shows have practically forgotten there are five candidates.  If you watch them regularly, there is only one and he is completely nuts, according to the near-incessant lambasting Trump gets.  If Hillary gets any attention at all, it is more or less an "oh yeah" mention at the end of a five-minute monologue on the evils of Trump.

The "news" organizations might as well just come out and give us a list of all the things they aren't going to cover.  It's that obvious.  I make a habit of reading news sources from all over the world on a daily basis, including a number of "alt" sites that I consider relatively trustworthy.  Frankly, if I didn't, I would have no idea what was really going on.  The Western media, and especially the US, have just gone off their rockers over this election.  Many of the media pie-holes has already blatantly admitted that they are protecting and promoting Hillary.  Since Americans, for the most part, don't believe anything until someone in authority tells them in simple English, we can safely say that the "conspiracy theories" have been put to rest.

What astounds me the most, though, is the bum's rush to demonize Russia.  Having watched several hours of MOS (man-on-the-street) interviews with "average" Americans, it is no wonder this particular piece of brainwashing is working so well.  In fact, most people have no clue about Russia, why it is being railroaded, or the very real and imminent danger that "poking the bear" brings.  The rhetoric is beyond even the more dire and propagandistic things I remember from the Cold War.

If the anti-Russian rhetoric proves anything, it is that Hillary has absolutely zero problems with starting wars and killing thousands, if not millions of people to hide her corruption.  Can you imagine the depravity of a mind that can conceive of such things, much less act on them on a global scale?  Though I cannot in good conscience bring myself to vote for any of the candidates, it is quite clear that Hillary should not even be considered a serious contender at this point.  Anyone who can proudly say they are voting for her has got to be under the most exigent spells ever witnessed.

In yet another layer of amazement, one has to wonder what these people think they will get in exchange for selling their profession and their souls to the devil.

Is there some well-hidden pot of gold waiting somewhere enticing these balloon-headed hair-spray catchers into destroying any semblance of professionalism?  Of course, at this point Hillary must win, because there is no other exit than to have the gratitude of the queen.  Any other outcome will leave these padded wallets in the cold with no credibility and only the most brain-dead audiences.  They have literally cashed in centuries of media development on this election.

The only real winners that I can see are the alt media.  As the depraved Hillary implodes on stage, it will become increasingly obvious, even to the most fried of couch potatoes, that the alt media were the only ones accurately reporting the news.  On way or the other, we are witnessing the greatest shift in power since the fall of Rome.

I have no love lost for the alt media.  For the most part, they are illiterate slime diggers, but folks like Julian Assange get my greatest respect.  He is literate and he has quite literally put his life on the line to let all the poisons in the mud hatch out.  He is a journalist in the great tradition, and a patriot of rare constitution.

Regardless of how all this shakes out in the near term, we are witnessing one of the most profound moments in history.  The repercussions from Election 2016 will touch nearly every life on the planet, and I do not resort to hyperbole in saying this.  If Hillary wins, the resulting destruction of Western civilization will shake the world for the next 100 years.  If Trump wins, the collapse of the media and whatever follows from his administration will have equally earthshaking consequences.

I admit that I have prepared for, and in many ways hoped for this moment, but now that it is upon us, I can hardly comprehend the way it has come about.  It is one thing to image such historic moments, but another entirely to witness it.  I cannot say that I am sorry, because my disgust with the political and media establishments is acute.  What is regretable, though, is the numbers of people that will suffer because it has gone this far, having built up for well over a century now.  However painful it will get - and it looks as if it will hurt quite a bit - we must all take responsibility for having allowed ourselves to be led so far down the garden path.

The collapse of the media is only the most visible and remarkable of the changes occurring, but certainly not the only one.  We can be sure that at every level of the establishment, the ground is heaving and the sky is falling.  They have painted themselves into a very tight corner from which there is only one escape, and that is to put Hillary in the White House in order to complete the take-over.

The blow-dried nincompoops have bought the promise of great power and wealth if they jump onto the establishment lap like a good dog.  What they apparently fail to realize is that either way, they have already lost everything, it's only a matter of gallows or guns as to how they are dispatched.  At some level, I feel sorry for them, because they bought the same siren song that we all did, they just had better seats and the feeling that they were part of the inner circle.

As for the rest of us, the best thing we can do to save our sanity at this point, is to become dispassionate and remove ourselves as far as we can from the emotional destruction that is heading our way like a light-speed freight train.  Panic is self-defeating and fear prevents clarity.  This has been inevitable since it began.  Nothing lasts forever, even the best laid plans of mice and men.  We can choose to be victims, or take control of the situation and, as the Chinese say, find the opportunity in the chaos.

The rather amazing run of relative stability we've enjoyed since WW2 is at an end, and the scale of the collapse ensures that at least the next three generations will find the world little resembles what they were told to expect.  Ultimately, this is a good thing, but like a good roller coaster, there will be many hair-raising moments getting to the other side.

Turn off the TeeVee, tune in reality and prepare yourself to witness something that will be the stuff of legends long after we are gone.

Kabuki Apocalypse

I really enjoy writing about politics, because no matter what I say or which side I appear to be on, it always elicits a lot of responses that span the range of human emotions.  It's no wonder the Reader Survey had politics as being the number one topic that people loved to hate.

I get accused of shilling for this party or that, or being a "fence sitter" for declaring myself to be a political atheist.  I should mention, for those confused by the term, that a political atheist refers to a complete disbelief in establishment politics and has little or nothing to do with religion.  That's a completely different conflict.  In the end, I get accused of being everything, since I believe in nothing, is the way I read it.

But how does one get to be a political atheist, you ask.

As I've mentioned before, my father was a politician.  He was first elected in 1960, as a Democrat from Houston.  He served three terms in the Texas House before switching parties, due in large part to the corruption and pure evil of the Johnson Machine.  For those unfamiliar with this term, Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) was a Texas politician who became president upon the death of John F. Kennedy (in Texas, but there are books on that connection).  Johnson's network ran Texas politics with a platinum fist, fed by oil money and raw lust for power.

In 1966, Dad jumped parties and was elected to the Texas Senate as a Goldwater Republican, and in 1972, ran for governor, coming within 200,000 votes of becoming the first Republican to hold that office since the Civil War.  Of course, the jump came just in time for the corruption and paranoia of the Nixon years, which ultimately resulted in Nixon's impeachment and resignation in 1974.

Watching all this as an impressionable kid, I grew disgusted with politics, having seen that there were no sides with clean hands.  I also saw the toll it took on my father - the frustration, anger and ultimate withdrawal from the process, since one could never get a message directly to the voters.  There were always layers upon layers of control in between that had their hands out - ass, gas or grass, nobody rides for free.

When the time came for me to receive my enfranchisement, I didn't want it.  There was nothing there that I found appealing or desirable.  What I did learn, though, was the power of the media.  I had already spent my entire life to that point on stage.  I was a political prop, rolled out at the appropriate moment to enhance the "family man" image.  I instinctively understood this.  I saw how it all worked, and I liked the power of controlling people without ever being seen.

I spent many hours in TeeVee studios and back stage.  I was agog at the technology and machinations that turned into programs and productions.  I loved listening to the production meetings - throwing out ideas, anticipating responses, calculating demographics.  It reminded me of all those WW2 movies my father loved and forced me to watch.  The generals in dimly lit rooms, smoking furiously, moving pieces around on a map.

I knew what I wanted to do with my life - and what I didn't want.

What I didn't want was to be in the political system. I preferred the position of being on the outside, watching the rubes argue and lambaste each other.  When they were done, they came to me to polish and present the results of their bloody in-fighting.  I enjoyed being above them, looking down with mild distaste at their grubby faces as I bestowed my talent, knowledge and skill upon their message.

Through all of it, politics and politicians were potential clients.  I never invested any importance or meaning in their system.  All I wanted was their money, and all I gave them was a product.

Eventually, I came to realize that I was deceiving innocent people in the process.  Sure, they donated to the parties and were active in campaigns, but they honestly had no idea what went on behind the scenes - the cynicism, corruption, greed and lust.  The masses truly believed that they were doing some good by supporting this or that cause, party or politician.  They were completely unsuspecting of the blackness that sucked their money and passion away and spit it back at them.

The other day, I posted a link to an Infowars video on my private Facebook account.  It was a hidden camera recording of a DNC delegate saying Hillary would ban all guns and destroy the Second Amendment (right to own guns).  Almost immediately, I got a response from a good friend and the person I interned with lo, these many years ago:

"Stop posting these links to bullshit sources.  Can't you see what he's doing?  He's leading that poor idiot to get her to give the answers he wants."

Incredulous, I replied, "Really?  You and I have done that exact thing to elicit the response we wanted from an interview hundreds of times.  And Infowars has more followers than many cable news hosts.  What makes them less legitimate than any other source, especially given the revelations in the past two weeks concerning Fox, CNN, MSNBC, Reuters, and Politico?"

I thought about it for a few minutes, then added, "You know as well as I do that there is no such thing as an objective reporter.  Every story has at least seven people injecting their personal views into every story that goes on the air.."  I was referring to the producer, reporter, editor, news chief, owner, sponsor, and viewer.  Each places their prejudices and assumptions into a story at every step of the process.

There was no response, and there can be none.  It is true.  Because I grant more credibility to one source over another does not change the process itself, which is the same for any media outlet.  For every form of communication, there is a standardized process for encoding and decoding information.  Regardless of who or what is communicating, the process is the same.  In any given language, the rules of grammar must be followed or the message is scrambled and unintelligible.

Ultimately, I have withdrawn from politics, media and as much of the bullshit as I can.  I prefer pure entertainment now, like the stage and film.  The reason is that at some level, everyone in the audience understands that the actors and scenery are a lie.  TeeVee crosses that line by pretending to reveal reality - but whose reality?

As I disucssed previously, it is all magic.  It invokes spirits and presents possession as a mirror of reality, however distorted.  As a professional in "show biz," I have come to see media as either benign (theater, film) or malignant (TeeVee, especially "news").  In the benign form, the audience is aware that they are being manipulated, so they have a fighting chance.  In the malignant form, the audience believes what they are seeing is at least some form of truth, which of course, none of it is.

In the end, I have washed my hands of politics and mass media, and have tried in some small way to absolve my sins.  Generally, though, people don't want to hear it.  During election season they dive in, regardless of how much distance they keep during the "off" years, and most people reach for the TeeVee remote almost immediately upon coming home from another day as corporate drone.

We have all been so conditioned that we can't imagine, much less remember a time when life wasn't like this.  It seems quaint to think of days when TeeVee didn't exist and campaigns rode around in trains, giving stump speeches along the route.  We have pulled the wool over our own eyes, seemingly as a choice, but really what choices do you consciously make?

When you vote for a candidate, do you think, "I can't choose a third party because they will lose.  I want to go with a winner."  Ask yourself this: regardless of which party won, have you ever won?  Have you ever been happy with the choice you made?

Remember back when Obama was first elected?  There was a kind of religious aura about it.  None one could say a cross word about him.  It was a sacred moment.  Now, it is hard to find someone who will admit to voting for him.

That's why I'm a political atheist.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Many readers will immediately dismiss this link as being "conspiracy theory," though I thought it was rather level-headed about the whole thing.

At its root is some very true and very powerful information that every human being should know before they are ever allowed to sit in front of a TeeVee or watch a movie.

Many readers here will know that my long and rather eclectic career began in the theater at the tender age of 12.  I played Christopher Robin is a semi-professional production of Winnie the Pooh.  That and my life-long fascination with Orson Welles started me down the circuitous path that (so far) brought me to Indonesia.

What precious few people realize about the entertainment business is that it has very deep roots in occult practices.  Oh yes, you read that right, and no I don't mean since the 1800s, I mean since the 1800s BC.

The theater is actually a descendant of, for all intents and purposes, a temple.  All the modern schools of acting and stagecraft and art are little more than window dressing on a mystical experience that has, or often has, a very profound effect on the minds and spirits of anyone who participates in it, regardless of which side of the stage you are on.

Originally, scripts were mystical intonations and spells designed to invoke the actual gods themselves, or a circus (in the original sense) of demons and spirits.  The purpose was to guide and inform us on the proper way to behave and how to solve our everyday problems.

When an actor dons a mask and costume, they are actually creating a vessel for a spirit to inhabit.  I have heard actors (and said it myself) a thousands times saying that they really didn't feel a role, until they saw themselves in full costume.  Suddenly, it was if they had become someone else.  The words and actions came from "somewhere" and they simply allowed the character to "come out."

When Thespis first assumed a role as a character, and not just as someone reciting words, he became the first actor - a vessel through which the gods and unseen world could speak.  He was no longer Thespis, but had assumed the words and manners of another being, and incorporate being until that point.

We often talk of actors "inhabiting a role" or "becoming a character," but we rarely stop to consider what we are actually saying.  We are, in fact, admitting that we pay someone to be possessed by a spirit for our entertainment and edification.  In this sense, stage fright is actually fear of letting go of one's self and allowing an incorporate being to inhabit our bodies.

You may, at this point, be thinking, "What hogwash," and "Superstitious balderdash," or words to that effect.  Yet, how many times have your heard something like, "So-and-so IS __________!" (insert your favorite movie character)

I have invited friends and family to shows that I was in, and at the end, they were genuinely perplexed.  "Where were you?" they would ask.  "I was the lead character," I would respond.  "GASP!  That was YOU?!"  Truly, on the nights when everything was "on," actors don't think or act as themselves, they feel remote from the event, as if they are watching someone else that kind of looks like them.

What is even more powerful than the actor's experience is the effect on the audience.  Regardless of what we think about going to a show or watching TeeVee, we are part of a spell that is teaching us to act and react in a certain way and in certain circumstances.  As the audience, you are being manipulated emotionally and intellectually at a level most of us hardly understand or think about.

As jaded and suspicious as I am about media, I know it works on me.  I cannot watch Titanic or Apollo 13, without crying at the end.  I have actually tried on several occasions.

This is remarkable because I know what is being done.  I don't watch movies like most people.  I don't see a drama, I see lighting, set and sound design, camera angles, microphone placements and music cues.  I analyze movies, I don't enjoy them the way the general public does.  And yet, when Rose tosses the Heart of the Sea into the ocean, or the parachutes open as the capsule floats down, tears are streaming down my face.  I know I am being manipulated.  I know how it is done.  I can and have done it to other people.  And yet...

Think back to when you were a kid, and be honest here.  When you played with dolls (or "action figures" if you prefer), did those bits of plastic - in your mind - have unique personalities?  Did they say things and act in ways that were NOT YOU?  Did they have to do or say certain things to be who they were?  If you answer "yes," then you were part of a magical spell.  If you answered "no," I am deeply suspicious of your honesty.

The fact of the matter is that those who control the media are quite literally casting spells over the audience.  We are being told who to emulate and admire.  We are being told what we want out of life.  We are being shown how to behave and what is expected of us.  That's why the good guys get the girl and admiration, and the bad guys get rubbed out.  That's why stereotypes exist and how they form.  That's why we have memes and archetypes.  They are occult workings and you are the target.

Ask pretty much anyone who their heroes are, and I will lay good money that they will give you a list of media personalities or fictional characters.  That we even have heroes is a function of media telling us who to emulate, for whatever reasons the gatekeepers have.

Entertainment is a form of mind control, and even more profoundly, an occult magic.  It is manipulating reality in such a way that many people come to believe it is real. That is the definition of magic.  It bypasses our natural filters and goes straight to the parts of our minds that control how we perceive the world.

Still don't believe me?  Look at Pokemon Go.

People actually follow virtual cues to physical locations to collect things that don't exist!  It astounds me that nearly everyone I talk to, especially the players, don't see what is happening to them.  If, at the top of this article, you had any doubts whatsoever that the media are performing magic and mind control on a mass scale, then I rest my case on this one example.

Having been trained in media, having performed nearly every function on and off stage/before and behind the camera, I can attest that anyone consuming entertainment of any kind in any form is being manipulated.  It is an ancient and powerful ritual of incantations and actions that invoke very dark forces.  No matter how one tries to rationalize it, in the end it is true when viewed with an unprejudiced eye.

The US is just waking up from a two-week stupor of media manipulation called the political conventions.  Depending on you predispositions, one or the other of them have left their followers feeling more energetic and enthused, ready to fight the final battle.  This is a magical working.  Those viewers have been manipulated.  They are under a spell now.

And it is precisely why I haven't watched TeeVee in a decade.

Chika-Lika-Zika

Know what?

I could start a global health crisis tomorrow with the help of about three people.  I could do it alone, but I might break a sweat, and that wouldn't do.

I get my camera buddy and a Western actor, preferably female.  I put her in a lab coat...no, even better, an environmental suit.  We all go down to one of Indonesia's Level III wards - those are the ones with 20 people in one room, no A/C or TeeVee, just basic ultra-cheap medical care.  There's always someone moaning, since one room can have everything from a mild flu to a sucking chest wound.  The folks on that ward don't worry about things like Talent Releases and the families are just happy to be on TeeVee.  They don't care about privacy or any of those abstract ideas.

Now, I stage the shot a bit: open some of the curtains, pay a couple of nurses and families to mill around in the background.  I stand my actress in front of the scene, making sure I have a second mic picking up the environmental sounds of pain and suffering.  I have her spout some medical-sounding gobble-di-gook about viruses, lack of innoculation and throw in mention of WHO and Doctors Without Borders, just for good measure.

We wrap it up and head back to the office, stopping for a hot bowl of bakso on the way.

Back in the office, I put my white girl behind the camera and dress my Indo guy in a nice suit and put him in front of a green screen.  I give him a script to read - in Indonesian, of course, because stupid Americans can barely speak English, much less some tropical language.

When he's done, I drop some subtitles over the "doctor" and CGI a news set on an Indo network.  Doesn't even matter if it's a real organization, no one will ever search it to see if the network actually exists.

I upload it to YouTube and blast the link to my social network of two or three thousand folks.  I also call my buddies at CBS and Fox and tell them I've got a hot news story for them.  It gets picked up, I manufacture a couple more videos - let's say out in the jungle this time - and viola!  I just created a global health scare.  With the proper setup, I could do this in an afternoon, with another day to do some follow-up videos about an hour south of Jakarta in the mountains.

Since folks believe anythng they see on TeeVee, and almost never check facts, I could create...oh, I do't know, how about a virus called Zika that was discovered in Africa in the 50s, but somehow is causing...um, what sounds really scary?  Ooh!  How about babies born with micro-brains!  I'll get my chums over at the CDC to release some pseudo-facts and BS statistics on a weekly basis.  No need to actually show anyone suffering from the virus.  Just need to tell them that it is spreading and coming way too close to their home town.  That should scare the shit out of them.

Hell, while I'm at it, I'll issue a travel warning to Indonesia.  After all, there are "thousands" affected and we don't want it to spread.  That should kill the tourist trade and punish those evil Indonesians for not passing that bankster friendly law last month.

It's that easy folks.

Takes about a week and most of it is paperwork and phone calls.

And since you will believe anything on the TeeVee, and can/will never check the facts, and will panic on command, I will always win.

Honestly, before a few months ago, had you ever heard of Zika?  Most of the info I can find on it is only a couple of years old, even though it was supposedly discovered in Africa in the 1950s.  On top of that, I live in the tropics, and everyone here has had, or knows someone who has had most of the nasty little bugs that live in the tropics - dengue, yellow fever, hemorrhagic fever, amoebic dysentery, typhus, etc. ad nauseum.  But I can't find a single person who ever heard of Zika, much less had it before, and all references that are easily scared up on Google are within the past few hours or days.

Suddenly, just before the Rio Olympics and just when President Rouseffe was under fire for thinking her country's oil and mineral wealth belonged to the Brazilians, this Zika virus comes out of nowhere, infects thousands of folks, causes microcephaly (lit. small brain) births, spreads all over North America, and is transmitted by casual and sexual contact.

Pardon me if I don't buy this truck-load of horseshit for a moment.

OK, so it causes microcephaly, and you can show me all kinds of pictures of rashes, deformed babies and people suffering, but I have no way of knowing if these photos are connected to Zika.  You can show me live video of someone with fever and all sorts of nasty things, but I couldn't tell you if it was a virus or chemical poisoning, much less Zika,  There are no test results posted anywhere that I can find, and even if there were, there is no chain of evidence proving that the results are tied to any particular patient, and even if there were, I have no way to verify that the patient actually exists, since I know precisely how to manufacture such "evidence" with exactly the same "look and feel" as anything I can find in the media.

There may be thousands of people in Brazil and elsewhere suffering some kind of symptoms, but do you have ANY proof whatsoever that they are suffering from Zika infection?  As for the microcephaly, do you have any way of knowing that it was caused by a virus and not, say...Monsanto products?  In fact, do you have any way of verifying that any of these cases exist at all, other than reports in controlled media?

I didn't think so.

It is so easy to manufacture false stories.  I can destroy people's lives and mark them for life with nothing more substantial than a well-spun story.

We, the masses, never stop to ask questions.  We just sit in front of our TeeVees and absorb the party line.  Global events can be completely manufactured in minutes or hours with no more than about 10 people who know the truth.  More than 99% of the population will believe anything that has the smell of "authority" on it.  That's no more than a group of high school chums creating the news that drives the world of seven billion people.

When you think about it, the only reason we think there are seven billion people is because an "authority" gave us that number.  Have you verified the data?  Have you ever researched how that number is created?  Have you ever thought about anything you've been told is true?

All I need is some yahoo in a lab coat with a stethoscope spouting gibberish, and you'd never know the difference.  Especially if I can call on two or three buddies to help spread the word.

I am personally responsible for shooting video that was sold to the world as a race riot in South Africa, when in fact it was a blood feud between two black families over some chickens.  Even now, my confession will change nothing.  And you really think a conspiracy cannot be propagated without someone knowing the truth?  I know the truth.  I can give you dates, times and which major media network published it, and on which dates.  It won't change the fact that South Africa was destroyed over a manufactured problem to achieve goals that had nothing to do with human rights.

I quit mass media with a promising career because I had too much integrity to take money for fooling millions of people.  In the theater, people pay for tickets both knowing and wanting to be fooled, but with mass media, we assume that what we see is true.  It's frightening...really frightening.

Question everything!

Weaponizing Heroes

Whatever happened to the hero?  This word 'hero' and the idea it represents have been so watered down as to be not only meaningless, but to have even negative connotations.

Joseph Campbell probably best summarized the classic hero in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

The hero was an individual to be admired and emulated in spirit.  The hero overcomes personal limitations and supernatural forces to achieve some goal that benefits the rest of us at great personal cost the hero.

In our age, the hero has been destroyed in what appears to be a deliberate and systematic manner.  The media and cultural gatekeepers throughout the 20th century and into the 21st have continually set up 'heroes', only to turn around and shoot them down.  There is an agenda to destroy the classic hero to prevent us from striving for great achievements.

One ubiquitous method of destroying the classic hero is the media-induced worship of sports figures.  These figures are constantly marched out in front of us and we are encouraged to emulate them.  Then they are shot down and their public images trashed.  This, in turn, causes those who grant these individuals hero status to question themselves and to be increasingly wary of all heroes.

In Pavlovian style,  we are trained repeatedly to reject heroes and  deride them for their personal short-comings.  In fact, the classic heroes were in part admired because they overcame their personal faults to achieve greatness.  Eventually, we are trained that humans are incapable of becoming heroes and that we should just wallow in our weaknesses and forget the idea of rising above our natures.

Three prime examples from recent pop culture are O. J. Simpson, Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong.  First of all, none of them achieved anything approaching the classical hero status.  They did not enter supernatural realms, did not achieve amazing victories, and nothing they did gave them a special power to grant favors or blessings on others.

All three were instead set up as modern heroes by our media culture based solely on their genetic dispositions that gave them physical prowess.  After being set up, though, they were summarily trashed sending a psychological shock through those who held them in high esteem. 

Simpson was brought down by murder charges and he was shown in dramatic fashion on global TeeVee to be a coward.  His reputation as an athletic hero who braved grave physical harm to bring victory to his team was shown to be false as he ran from his greatest challenge.  Even though he was acquitted, no one would believe his innocence after that, since he showed his cowardice so publically via the media.

Woods was hardly an athlete.  Golf is not exactly the most demanding of physical activities, especially when someone else carries your bag and you use a cart to zip from one arena to the next.  Nevertheless, he was built up to hero status primarily for being a black competitor in a sport dominated by white upper-class executives.  His very public downfall was based simply on his extramarital dalliances, something hardly shocking in any age with people of wealth and influence.  Again, the same media that had created his hero status turned and devoured him.

Armstrong was another media darling.  His hero status was created not only by his prowess as a bicycler, but by his personal fight against cancer and eventual 'resurrection' to be a strong competitor once again.  Almost as fast as the media 'resurrected' him, they ate him alive for doing what any strong competitor would do: seek an edge over the competition.  This sort of thing goes on in every level of society, yet Armstrong was brought down by it.

All three of these cases highlight a pattern.  It is easy to see an agenda within the media to build up these modern heroes and then crush them as a means of implanting psychological defeatism in the minds of those who buy into this form of worship.  It is done repeatedly with athletes, movie stars, business and political leaders, and military heroes.  We are enticed to emulate then castigate these individuals over and over again.

The long-term effect of this pattern is to destroy the hero as an inspiration to achieve great deeds.  Either we are made to hopeless or to fear our impulse to rise above ourselves in altruistic fashion. 

We know this pattern exists because we can also see its opposite in the same media.  President Franklin Roosevelt was wheelchair-bound due to childhood polio, yet the media went out of their way, then and now, to hide the fact in order to not reduce the man's hero status.  President Kennedy's extramarital dalliances are somewhat legendary, though there is no attempt to bring down the man because of them.  Why?

Because it serves a greater psychological purpose to build up these men to hero status.  In FDR's case, because the media do not want to tarnish in any way the socialist reforms introduced by that administration.  In the case of JFK, it is because of the psychological shock value of assassinating a hero.  All of these cases spotlight a deeper agenda in the media's ability to create and destroy heroes.

Furthermore, we can ask how much of a role did media adulation play in creating the stresses that led to the hero's downfall?  Would Armstrong have felt the need to use steroids to gain a competitive edge if the media had not placed so much pressure on him to achieve?  Would Woods have felt empowered enough to seek the extramarital company of high-profile women without his special status?  Would Simpson have felt compelled to run if he didn't have a privileged status to protect?  Did the media attention itself actually pressure these men, or give them license, to create their own downfall?

In any case, it seems fairly obvious that there is an agenda to destroy cultural icons in order to undermine the strength and cohesiveness of social bonds.  According to Campbell, there is an understood contract between heroes and their societies that bestows benefits on everyone through the process of heroism.  These psychological benefits are severely undermined by destroying the hero.  It takes away our collective strength and feelings of goodness and righteousness.

When the hero is destroyed by his own humanity, then we all feel as if there is no point to strive for greatness.  Instead of trying to rise above our mundane existence, we instead wallow in our hopelessness.  And what could better serve the agendas of controlling elites than to take the moral high ground out from under society at large?  There would be no call to rise against injustice if we believe that our reputations would only be destroyed in the end by some personal foible.

Hero worship of any kind is a precarious thing in any case, but it is especially dangerous when the heroes are selected for us, and then destroyed in front of us, by a voracious and deeply manipulated media.  Those who control the media are able to manipulate cultural archetypes at the most profound levels of our individual and collective subconscious.

Efforts to debase the hero image, undermine the father figure, masculinize the female figure, and any number of similar exercises can be repeatedly demonstrated, especially since the dawn of TeeVee.  In destroying our cultural archetypes, the media masters destabilize society and allow them to replace the time-tested underpinnings of our civilization with those of their own creation.  Ultimately, we end up at the mercy of these manipulators without every knowing why, or even that it was done to us.

The power and subtlty of media is the reason why we must be defensive in our consumption of them, and also why we must push to maintain as much diversity in media ownership as possible.  As the media fall into closer and closer hands, so too does the power of the media.

As long as we continue to buy into the false culture created by the powerful media conglomerates, we will continue to be prey to forces most of us hardly understand.  It is up to us to recognize what is being done, how it is being done, and what we can do to counter it.  We must become our own gatekeepers and carefully guard access to our subconscious minds.

Uncle Fraud And Aunt Perfidy

Must have been too quiet over there in Afghanistan.  Either that, or the US wasn't ready to go home and needed more excuses to stick around and bomb caves and goat herders.

First, it was the Koran burning incident.  Now, think about it.  If they had put the books in a bag and taken them to the dump and burned them with the weekly trash pile-up, no one would have been the wiser.  Instead, it was done in such a way as to make worldwide headlines.  Obviously, this was an intentional act of provocation.

But it didn't stir up enough backlash.

So, a soldier is ordered to go out and mow down some women and children in their homes.  That seems to be doing the trick.  It has stirred up a hornet's nest over there.  Of course, the completely screw-ball excuse being floated is that the man had a 'brain injury'.  First question: why is he still there and not at the military hosptal in Germany?  Second question: if he had a brain injury, why was he issued a weapon and allowed to leave base with a loaded weapon?  Third question: why is the US hell-bent on making as many enemies as it can, especially amongst Muslims?

Obvious conclusions: the US is the real terrorist organization, and it ain't finished cremating the Middle East yet.

The whole troop withdrawal thing was nothing more than an election year ploy, and by stirring up fresh hatred and opposition, they can justify keeping boots on the ground and still get the propaganda boost of being ready to come home.  What a farce.

In fact, there are a lot of farces going around these days.  The whole KONY 2012 (link intentional not given) thing reeks of psy-op.  I managed to choke down about 8 minutes of it before I had to cut it off.  This is so plainly an attempt to stir up 'invade Africa' sentiment that I can hardly believe anyone is falling for it.

China has spent the last ten years, while the US was dipping Iraqi fingers in purple ink, winning hearts and mines (sic) across the Dark Continent.  Unlike the West, which has used deceit and subterfuge to literally steal the mineral wealth of Africa, the Chinese have been trading roads, bridges and power plants for energy, rare earth and timber.  Naturally, the local folk are gravitating towards them, and the West needs an excuse to do what it does best...bomb, slay and steal...to put an end to the Oriental Express.

The whole KONY thing just drips with one of those slick 'save the children' tear-jerkers with Archie Bunker's daughter, only instead of ostensibly feeding kids, the goal is to bomb them for financial gain.  Yup, when I see a slick 30-minute video with high production value that runs about $50k to $100k to produce, my spidey-sense starts a-twitchin'.

Then there's the whole Bammy farce.  Sheriff Joe found probably cause for outright fraud and forgery of government documents that supposedly establish the man's identity.  LapDog Media response?  s-i-l-e-n-c-e  But don't worry, at least Pravda picked up the story.  And what does Pravda mean in English?  Oh yeah, "truth".

But hey, give the man a break.  He's been busy justifying killing and secretly detaining American citizens, stirring up fresh fighting in Afghanistan, and finding ways to keep gasoline prices down for the wage slaves at home.

The one thing that I've really been keeping an eye on though is Ron Paul.  Oh sure, everyone has written him off and the media have redoubled their efforts to ignore him, but I think a lot of folks are going to be surprised come the Convention.

See, Paul learned something from my dad.  Dad had a plan to run for prez one day, if Nixon hadn't killed his dream.  He knew that the primary voting was just window dressing.  All the hype and hollering is nothing more than a popularity contest, and means absolutely nothing in the end.

The key is getting delegates, and that is done in the caucuses.  I'll use my native Texas as an example.  During the day, folks go to the polls and pull the lever (or tap the screen now) and that tallies up how everyone feels, but does not select a single delegate.  That part is done after the polls close and the two or three people who know about it show up to choose delegates to the precinct convention.  At that convention, they select delegates to the district convention.  At that event, they select delegates to the state convention.  At that level they select delegates to the national convention.  At the national convention, they nominate the candidate.

Newtneyrum can win every vote in Texas, all three or four million of them, and not get a single delegate.  The media and Newtneyrun are blindly focused on the popularity contest, but Paul is focused on the caucuses.  His supporters are packing the caucuses and making sure the true believers are sent to each level of the convention process.  He could conceivably sweep the national convention without ever having won a single state popularity contest.

That's what happens when people believe the bullshit that America is a democracy and not a republic.  That's also why they stopped teaching civics in high school and no one ever talks about the real election process.  Ignorance elects idiots.

The fraud is at every level and everywhere.  And right about now, it is particularly thick and sticky.  Why, just yesterday, Drudge had a headline: Tel Aviv in ruins after Iran attacked.  If you look at the words, it implies that it had already happened.  I even got fooled into clicking.  Turned out to be a Mossad hit piece, but banner headlines like that are pure fraud, plain and simple.  Not that one should be surprised when the Mossad is involved.  They can't even find their ass with both hands when it comes to truth.

One must be extra careful in filtering the news.  It's best to read several international rags and compare stories.  I'm figuring that the average of 5 or 6 rags from each continent is about as close to truth as we're ever likely to get.  To facilitate your efforts, check out ThePaperBoy.com..  And watch out for any publications with the words "Times" or "Herald Tribune" in it.  Most likely pure, unadulterated, no artificial coloring bullshit.

Medium As Message

Bird Flu Virus

It is a frequent topic here on the Far Side about the use of media to instill 'behavioral templates' in the mass mind, so that when certain situations arise, we automatically drop into role and follow the pre-installed program.  Given that there are a number of scenarios about at the moment, it might be instructive to examine how this process works, and how you are programmed to react in a certain fashion.

That media work is not at issue.  It has been proven repeatedly that mass groups of people can be easily controlled and cajoled by what they see and hear in the media.  All advertising operates by creating a need or impression in you mind, and then supplying that need with some product.  Even media moguls are susceptible to it.

When Euro Disney opened back in the early 90s, Michael Eisner, then CEO, went to inspect the damage, I mean...new park.  Upon arriving, he began the tour with an inspection of the park's hotels.  If you're not familiar with Disney parks, they have on-site hotels for every budget, from discount family style to adult over-spender style.  Eisner went to the low-budget family box and found all these people arriving in Mercedes.  Well, he had a fit.

"Why are all these Mercedes staying at the cheap hotel," he demanded.  He was then made aware that the Mercedes C-class was nothing more than the Oldsmobile of Europe.  The brand had nothing to do with wealth, only the class of design.

Eisner, like many Americans, had succumbed to the marketing that had convinced everyone that the Mercedes brand meant high-priced luxury.  It didn't occur to him that they operate just like Disney, pimping low-rent and high-rent products for every budget.  Heck, just south of him in north Africa, every beat-up, run-down taxi is a Mercedes.

It works for just about every product.  Body odor was not an issue until the end of WWII, when a product called MUMM came out and they shamed everyone into 'needing' this product, so they didn't smell.  Feminine hygiene products, toothpaste, sodas, electronic gee-gaws...they all use your desire to project an image to sell you useless crap.  Everytime you look at a product and think, "Rich guy, lucky guy, wish I had one," you have been programmed.

A little reading on the subject of mind control and how this process works will give you at least some defense against the Dark Arts.

But, back to our topic at hand...behavioral templates.

What sparked this discussion was the CNN article pimping the latest designer virus called, ominously enough, Mutal Bird Flu.  Not only does the word 'mutant' engender fear, which we spoke of previously, but it is caused by something unseen, a virus, and it is vectored through something cute and cuddly, a bird.  All perfect plot points for mass mind control through fear.

For our discussion, we're going to choose the 1995 Hoffman flick called Outbreak.  We could choose any of dozens of flicks on this subject, including the brilliant Andromeda Strain, but this one is fairly blatant and easy to follow.

The primary message of the film is that the authorities have all the answers.  Don't be afraid, just follow orders and you'll be saved.  That there is a back story of a battle of wits between the Good Authorities and the Bad Authorities is secondary.  It serves to re-inforce the idea that at some level, there are people in power who have your best interests at heart, so just pile in the cattle cars and go to the detention centers and we'll get all this sorted out right away.

Among the many messages contained in the flick are: bad viri are manufactured to kill bad guys, cute and cuddly animals are scary, people who don't follow import/export laws are bad, the Good Authorities always win, and you're quarantined for your own good...if you try to escape you'll be blow to bits to save the world.  But the most important thing to learn is, the Authorities have all the answers; you're just a little, stupid civilian; just do as you're told and we'll figure this all out at levels much higher than you.  Oh, and take any medicine we tell you to take, for your own good...but more importantly for the safety of the world.

Basically, it comes down to a message you will hear repeated in all media all the time: You Can't Handle The Truth.

Even Batman tells you that.  In The Dark Knight, which you might think celebrates the empowered individual, we are told that we are incapable even of being a vigilante.  Only men with power and money, who work closely with the Authorities, are allowed to perform freelance law enforcement.  After all, you're only wearing hockey pads.  The same message is everywhere.

Back to Outbreak.

So, even though the Authorities created the viral menace, and a cute and cuddly vector (monkey) carries it, don't worry because they've also got the antidote.  That's right, even though they took your tax money at gun point and created a devastating and horrible disease while playing God with it, it's OK because they have the cure and if you just submit and follow orders, you'll be fine.

Don't worry that the Good Authority (Hoffman) is really only motivated to save his mean ex-wife (Russo) by fighting off the Bad Authority (Sutherland), the grandfatherly Shadow Authority (Freeman) will come to our rescue and give the hero the answer.

To tie all this together, any of the manufactured diseases that are currently in the wild or will be have already been 'cured'.  Our job as sheep is to follow directions and be penned up so that we can either be exterminated (to save the world) or innoculated (to save Big Pharma).  Those who don't follow the orders will be gunned down like rabid dogs and no one will question it out of fear and because that's what our 'behavioral template' tells us will happen.

No matter what happens, whether it's alien invasions, plagues, severe weather, or terrorism, we are to follow Authority at all times, because they always have the answers and will always come to our rescue.  We must allow them to do anything, be it torture, killing or round-ups, no matter what violations of liberty and freedom it requires, because it's for our own good.  The Authority always knows more and better than we do.

Whether it's 24, or Beverley Hills Cop, or Law and Order, the message is always the same: do not hinder the Authorities.  Their badge and gun means they can do anything in the name of saving us.  Our job, as stupid goy, is to stay out of their way and follow orders, for our own good.  In other words, we are all 3-year-olds, and Mommy and Daddy Authority are child-proofing the world for us.

Oh, and the 'behavioral templates' work both ways.  They teach us that being an Authority is fun because you have power over the goy and can do anything you want.  You can grope children's genitals and steal people's things and beat folks to a pulp if they don't show proper respect for your Authority.

The media teach us how to act if we are goy, glorify Authority to make us want to become Authority, and then show us all the cool things we can do with impunity once we pass the Mystical Test and become a member of Authority.  That's why cops strut like preening roosters and TSA agents violate every boundary of prudence and FBI agents all look like they stepped out of Men In Black.  They've been implanted, too.

Sigmund Freud

If you really want to feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up, read some of the theory and practice of media, especially from the turn of the 20th century.  It was a little more open and honest back then.  Read up on the history of media, and how it followed a parallel track with phychology, as both professions learned how to manipulate and control minds.  They truly worked hand-and-glove to bring you to submission.

Read up on how they telegraph events through dramas, how they subtly change your behaviors and beliefs through comedies.

In physiology, they have studied how persistence of vision creates the illusion of motion with as little as 12 frames/second, and how the flickering of the frames cause a sort of trance state that allows messages to by-pass your normal defenses.

It's bone-chilling and it's far worse than is possible to cover in a single column.  Suffice it to say that if your are consuming media, then it is consuming you.  And yes, even markerting geniuses like Michael Eisner are prone to its control.  Educating yourself on something so ubiquitous as media is the first step towards freeing yourself from its control.

The Big Question is, what will you do with the knowledge?

A Whiff Of Adolf

What to make of the news?  NATO claims to be encircling Tripoli and is moving in for the kill.  The 'rebels' have announced the capture of Qaddafi's son and heir-apparent.  We are told that it's just hours now before Libya falls and Qaddafi is in the hands of the banksters.

I worked long enough in news to develop a sort of 'news nose'.  I can usually smell BS a mile and a half away, and I'm catching the strong whiff of it right now.

The part that has me sitting on the fence that this is a huge gamble, even for folks so used to lying they don't know truth when they trip over it.  To go out on a limb and claim victory when it ain't even close is a pretty big risk.

But then I flash back to GW Shrub standing on the carrier flight deck in his nifty jumper, that he was too drunk to wear in real combat, as he declares "Mission Accomplished" a few months after invading Iraq.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we still there 10 years later?  TEN YEARS?!  Half a generation?  For a victory already accomplished?

I just have this feeling that something ain't kosher in the mosque.  If in fact, NATO and their mercenaries have truly made it to Tripoli and are in the process of taking the capitol, then my gut says that Qaddafi has a welcome gift for them somewhere in the city.

What all this really gets me to pondering are the similarities to Hitler and the Third Reich.  When he marched into Poland in '39, Europe and really the rest of the world adopted an appeasement policy towards Germany. After all, commies were Hitler's Arab terrorists.  He used them to invade Europe and Russia, as well as blaming the Reichstag fire on them.  He also claimed parts of Poland as ancestoral German homeland that needed reclaiming.

Fast-forward 3/4s of a century, and all this Mid East stuff just smacks of 'replay'.  One must remember that in the early days, the US and UK were big supporters of Hitler.  The Bush family (of US presidential infamy) were even convicted by Congress of giving 'aid and comfort'.  Certainly, the queen's daddy and FDR and even Churchill were pretty much hands-off.  Hitler had free run, until his Big Mistake.

I know what your thinking (holocaust, Russian winter, etc.), but no.  He decided to create a debt-free money system, based on labor/output of the German people.  In other words, he stopped dancing with those what brung him.  The only reason Hitler felt able to march into Russia was the real wealth his monetary policies were creating, and because the Allies were putting up little more than wrist-slap opposition...until the money thing.

Libya has/had an extemely high standard of living, with a monetary system completely cut-off from the banksters.  On top of that, it sits on some of the lightest, sweetest crude in the world.  Oh, and Qaddafi was selling an awful lot of it to China.

The real issue with all this war crap, besides naked empire-building, is trying to choke off China before it can get too out of hand.  China, for all it's economic dynamism, is resource-poor.  Heck, a good chunk of the country is Gobi desert.  In order to feed itself, it must import almost everything.

China draws it's energy from Indonesian coal, Libyan and South American oil and raw materials from most of the "Third World," which it turns into gee-gaws and re-sells it to the world.  Furthermore, it has been targeting markets the West has soundly ignored.  Sure, the US is a major market for it's products, but they pay in Boobie Bux.  So, China turns around and distributes it to the huge but grossly under-served global markets.

In this way, China provides a valuable service to the West, but its success is allowing it to slowly cut off the bankster network and go freelance.  It has the firepower and manpower to hold the rest of the world at bay.  That's what frightens the banksters.  They don't like competition.  The only way they have to control China is energy.  Cut off the energy and you can put the tiger back in the bag.

For this reason, China's border allies like Pakistan are under constant, but very quiet attack.  Libya is under constant and rather noisy attack (though much of it I don't believe).  Chavez is trying to circle his wagons, because he's next.  He's pulled his gold out of the UK, nationalized all the Big Oil properties and pretty much pulled in his toys.

It's only a matter of time before there's an all-out war on the US southern border.  When the floodgates open, nothing between Brownsville and Tierra del Fuego are going to be safe.

The US is hemorrhaging money, not to save the economy, but to buy off its allies and gain new ones.  From Europe to Asia, they're all lining up, hat in hand, saying they'll be happy to stick around, and oh, could you throw 10 or 15 billion into our markets?  We love you, man.  The US is selling its very soul to puff up it's sphere of influence, but the engine of its growth has begun taking on a life of its own.  Nixon created a Frankenstein's Monster.

It's a race against time.  Can the banksters choke off the power supply before China achieves complete independence.  The big problem is, China owns 9% of the US and has all the manufacturing.  Furthermore, they have pretty much all of Asia in their back pocket.

The US, and by extension NATO, must declare victory and bug the hell out of Libya to jump over to Syria.  They've got to lock down the Mid East power conduit to China, before China calls in the debt.  It's economic brinkmanship, just like the Cold War, but fought with paper rather than nukes.

If one stipulates the ability to control weather and geology, just for argument's sake, then Fukushima could be seen as a strategic blow to China's food supply, since a great amount of its protein comes from the sea...in that area.  Certainly, behind closed doors, I could hear Biden saying:

"Listen, you should really be concerned about Three-Gorges Dam.  I mean, one good earthquake and..."

Of course, felling cocky, Biden would hoot and yell, "Hu's yer daddy?  Hahahahaha!"

That's just how it all smells over here on the Far Side.  The games with markets, debt deals, bail outs, gold prices, oil wars...it's just all too, what's the word, convenient.


And from the looks of things, the banksters are whipping up some war between Israel and Egypt.

There's no doubt the West is trying to push China off balance, so it can attack directly.  The problem is that the West has never fully understood the Asian mind.  The Chinese are both ruthless and inscrutable.  I've sat across the negotiating table from them, I know whereof I speak.  They love strategy games and are disciplined thinkers.  It stands to reason they have already thought out many moves ahead and have answers for them.  And the West certainly doesn't know every card up China's sleeve.  I feel quite sure about that.

Qaddafi is a survivor.  He has outlasted a lot of BS.  The propaganda is trying to convince us that the people there want him hout, though if you had a really good standard of living, free education and health care, the best roads and infrastructure in Africa, and a yearly stipend, would you revolt?  Especially if it meant jerks like NATO coming in and blowing up the schools, hostipals, TeeVee stations, road, and airports?  Honestly, which would you pick?  FDR didn't get elected to four terms because everyone was starving to death and living in squalor.

I've just whipped up a fresh batch of popcorn, and now I'm going to watch this show.  Will the bankster BS get its trousers pulled down before they can drag Qaddafi's corpse through the town square?

Stay turned...

Let's start off today with a little thought.  I know, I'm asking a lot, but work with me here.

Have you ever been doing something and thought to yourself, "Hey, this sure is like [TeeVee show/movie/commercial]."

Do you ever find yourself talking like someone you've seen in the media?  For instance, you're talking about sports and you use words like trample, vanquish, topped, et cetera?  Do you ever notice the things you say to other people sounds a lot like what you heard on the news or in a program somewhere?

The reason I ask this, is because I've gotten two email now asking me to explain how the media influences us.  The both pointed to my constant berating of the media.  They're thoughts run along the lines of, "If I know they're trying to program me, doesn't that cancel it?"

Short answer: No.

Being a creature of the media, I am quite guilty of using movie quotes and advertising tag lines.  I've written quite a few of them myself.  I try to sprinkle some real literature in for good measure, and whenever possible, I plug really high-quality movies, but I rarely resort to TeeVee programs, unless it's Star Trek.

The point is, even though I am trained in media, am fully aware of how it is used and why it works, and am fully cognizant of the mind control that comes out of the TeeVee and movie screens, I'm still susceptible.  I just got cable installed in my home office so i can watch the other-than-US news, though that's increasingly hard to find.

Last night, my wife and I were watching Ang Lee's Hulk, which I consider to be high art, and I noticed that my wife was gripping my arm and actually buying into the movie.  She was sucked into the suspense and action.  I laughed, which nearly scared the life out of her, because I haven't been able to watch a movie like that in decades.  About the only thing that can actually get to me is Apollo 13.  Makes me cry when I see the parachutes...every damn time.

Anyway, back to my point.  The media use a tool that Madison Ave. figured out years ago, and which most media rats know about.  It's something called 'template implanting.'  What the media does is bury behavioral 'templates' deep in our minds.  Even if you think you are blocking it, you're not.  What happens is that when you are confronted by a situation, you will tend to react using one of the implanted templates.

When I was in grade school, I actually ran track...after a fashion.  As part of my psych-up, I would envision the 6-million dollar man so that I could run at 60mph.  The result was I ran just like Col. Steve Austin...in slow motion.  The thing is, I was using media-implanted templates to guide my real-life actions.

Maybe you've used lines like, "Where's the beef," or "I'm lovin' it," or "Just do it!"  You used those lines to imply something you learned from the media.  A template was implanted in your sub-conscious, so that when you wanted to express a certain idea, the only way you could come with to express it was an ad tag line.

Why do you think the young folk in America all sound like they are from the middle of Harlem?  Why do so many boys think it's fashionable to wear their pants half around their knees like prison whores?  Why do kids all go crazy about certain toys right around October (just in time for Christmas)?  They've all been implanted with templates.

Watch movies really closely, and by that i mean turn off the sound.  Focus on the pictures.  How many brand-names can you identify in the average 10-minute reel time?  How many are being touched or used by the stars?

Have you ever purchased a product because someone famous that you looked up to or admired promoted it?  Why do you give someone you've never met any credibility at all?  You really have no idea who they are or what their motivations are.

The upshot of all this is, your behavior, at least in groups of 100 or more, is completely predictable.  Why?  Because you've been imprinted with templates that control how you will react in just about any given situation.  It's part of the supposed 'mind-reading' machines that security agencies are deploying.  Your behavior can be predicted by your body language and the general context in which you find yourself.  It's just a few algorithms to calculate your most likely future actions in any given situation, based on how you move and react.

The thing is, cave-dwelling 'terrorists' who never watch TeeVee or movies are less predictable than you are.  So who do think all those surveillance toys are really intended for?

Is there any hope?

Yes.  You can deprogram yourself.  Be very careful what you allow to enter your eyeballs and eardrums.  Surround yourself with art and fine music and good movies.  Avoid violent content and seek things with high language, not the ghetto trash that passes for dialogue in most 'entertainment' now.  When you're wondering what to do for entertainment, consider the museum or a live play, rather than recorded media.  It's much easier to program 'templates' when someone can edit the visuals and audio for just the right effect.

I hear many people wondering how so many folks could willingly give up their rights and liberty just to get on a plane.  It's because nearly everyone in the world now has a template implanted.  The constant barrage of images of planes flying into buildings has implanted a sub-conscious fear of being one of the people on a plane like that.  Even if you hate the TSA, you are willing to submit because the behavioral template in your mind tells you that if you don't, you will die when your plane crashes into a building.  The actual chances of that happening are nearly zero, but fear is not rational.

Want another example?  Why do you think of government employees as 'authorities'?  They have no more clue about the world than you do, but you are more prone to believe someone you are told is an 'authority,' than any old person on the street.  Obama is using a fake SS#, has a house that he has not paid taxes on, gave the people an obiviously fake birth certificate, has violated just about every clause of the US Constitution, and yet I still read where he's an authority, since he (let me finish laughing here) Constitutional law.

There are thousands of examples of behavioral templates.  I guarantee if you think about it, you will catch yourself reacting with a template at least a couple of times a day.  Hell, when you want to come off as romantic to your squeeze, what do you think of?  Flowers?  FTD.  Cards?  Hallmark.  A drive in your hot wheels?  Chevy.  Candy?  Hershey.  You've been programmed.

If you find it almost impossible to cut yourself loose from the TeeVee, try this: don't watch the news or any of the lame cop/lawyer/federal agent shows, or especially comedy (one of the most dangerous).  Instead, choose classic movies and entertainment with classic themes.  Better yet, watch Mel Gibson flicks back-to-back.  That'll clear your head.

Another good way to deprogram is try not to buy anything in a package with a logo.  Buy fresh veggies and get meat at a proper butcher shop wrapped in white paper.  Why?  Because when you buy Ragu sauce and enjoy it, you are re-enforcing the programming by associating good experiences with a brand.  If you can break that cycle, you can start defeating the templates.

One more thing.  If there are extension classes near your house, think about taking a course or two in media and advertising, or film and art history.  Learn where our cultural symbols come from.  Learn about the thing that invades your mind 24-hours a day.  Take the mystery out of it and learn how it works.  There are some great books, too.  Check out Marshall McLuhan.   It might interest you to know that much of modern theory about advertising originated with Nazi propaganda and freaks like Sigmund Freud.

Know your enemy.