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Glia
08-13-2013, 09:36 PM
Posted on Daily Kos Sat Aug 10, 2013 at 12:34 AM PDT
by Ray Pensador

I stopped watching all broadcast TV news (CBS, NBC, ABC), as well as cable TV news channels like CNN, and MSNBC, except in very rare occasions... Long ago I realized how extremely toxic and manipulative to the mind being exposed to programming by these media outfits is. And as I detoxed my mind from exposure to that type of blatant corporate propaganda, I am now realizing that NPR programming, although of much higher quality, in the final analysis, it has similar effects if one is exposed to it throughout the day.

Here's what I've been able to notice (on my own, just by simple observation) when it comes to the effects of being exposed to the American mass media: There is a very serious and marked disconnect between the messaging and narrative being broadcast, and reality.

The programming's subliminal message is: "Everything is fine; people are working, and happy, and going on vacation, saving money to send their kids to college, or buy a house, going to baseball, and hockey, and football games, or to a concert." And of course, there is the messaging related to fear (crime, terrorism, etc.).

There is other type of narratives and messaging, but it all seems carefully calibrated to manipulate and to control, for the benefit of the ruling class.

Again, these are things I became aware of just by observing as a regular person, without having been exposed to formal analysis or studies about the corporate propaganda phenomena.

Then of course, once I started looking into it, I've found that people like Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, and many other thinkers and intellectuals have already exposed this phenomena.

Before I continue, and after thinking about this issue for very long time, I've determined that the propaganda is designed to keep citizens from becoming aware of the true nature of the system, and most importantly, to prevent those who do become aware of it from finding each other and forming coalitions against it.

That is why the Police State brutally suppressed the Occupy Wall Street movement, and that is why you see the increasingly draconian and repressive response to the sing-along protests in Wisconsin, to Moral Mondays in North Carolina, and to the fast-spreading resurgent protest movements around the country.

And so it looks like the biggest threat to the Corporate State is awakened people meeting face-to-face in the public square. Because once that happens they quickly realize that they're no crazy; that there are other people who have come to the same conclusions and understanding about the system.

And once that happens, the mind control ceases (or diminishes greatly), and this could pose a threat to the ruling class because that type of awakening can spread like wildfire, given the right conditions...

https://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/38428/large/mind_unleashed.png?1372462816To learn more about this, I encourage people to read about Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_The_Political_Economy_of_the_Mass_Media)
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, is an analysis of the news media, arguing that the mass media of the United States "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion"

Another great resource to help us understand how the ruling elite manipulates the population is the propaganda model. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model)
The propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that states how propaganda, including systemic biases, function in mass media. The model seeks to explain how populations are manipulated and how consent for economic, social and political policies is "manufactured" in the public mind due to this propaganda. ...

read the rest on the Daily Kos at
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/10/1230243/-The-Most-Serious-Threat-to-Freedom-And-Democracy-in-The-U-S?detail=email

CSummer
08-15-2013, 01:05 AM
With appreciation for sharing this insight about the corporate-controlled media, I disagree that it's important to read about their propaganda-generating methods. What seems important to me - once we know that media power is abused for the purpose of manipulating public opinion - is to simply tune it out and build connections with each other and with people who really know what's going on. One possibility is building a network or community around our legislators - especially US federal gov't. We would also need to include other knowledgeable and truthful people. Who knows, we might even be able to bring democracy to America!

C. Summer


Posted on Daily Kos Sat Aug 10, 2013 at 12:34 AM PDT
by Ray Pensador

I stopped watching all broadcast TV news (CBS, NBC, ABC), as well as cable TV news channels like CNN, and MSNBC, except in very rare occasions... Long ago I realized how extremely toxic and manipulative to the mind being exposed to programming by these media outfits is. And as I detoxed my mind from exposure to that type of blatant corporate propaganda, I am now realizing that NPR programming, although of much higher quality, in the final analysis, it has similar effects if one is exposed to it throughout the day.

Here's what I've been able to notice (on my own, just by simple observation) when it comes to the effects of being exposed to the American mass media: There is a very serious and marked disconnect between the messaging and narrative being broadcast, and reality.

The programming's subliminal message is: "Everything is fine; people are working, and happy, and going on vacation, saving money to send their kids to college, or buy a house, going to baseball, and hockey, and football games, or to a concert." And of course, there is the messaging related to fear (crime, terrorism, etc.).

There is other type of narratives and messaging, but it all seems carefully calibrated to manipulate and to control, for the benefit of the ruling class.

read the rest on the Daily Kos at
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/10/1230243/-The-Most-Serious-Threat-to-Freedom-And-Democracy-in-The-U-S?detail=email