DragonFlight

It is unfortunate when a tool like television that could be used for so many good purposes has become instead the primary instrument used to “dumb down” the American populace.

The commercials aimed at children have resulted in rampant obesity, a materialistic mindset that confuses wants and needs, and a reduced attention span that replaces critical thinking with sound bites and talking points.

Establishment “news” is a ratings race rather than a report on national and world events; news anchors are TV stars rather than investigative journalists digging out the truth. Sitcoms and dramas present bathroom humor, promiscuity, and getting drunk as cool and sophisticated behavior. Parental controls offer only minimal help unless you lock up your kids so they are not exposed to television anywhere except at home. Even then they will hear about what goes on in TV shows from friends who are allowed to watch them.

Television could be used to give us a truly informed population; to educate; and to give us access to really good entertainment. Instead it is used to misinform, manipulate and distract. Once again it seems we seek our leveling point at the lowest common denominator.

I am currently listening to Al Gore's book, "The Assault on Reason" and he has a whole section on television. The worst part about television is that it is a one-way medium. Since there is no interaction involved, the viewer simply receives the message. Television also has been shown to deactivate the brain, so it's kind of a double whammy: we talk, you listen and watch, and we'll shut down your brain in the process. Maybe commercials are getting more and more inane because brains are getting more and more atrophied.

Amen Trish. I hadn't even focused on all the child "programming" which TV is fostering when I wrote this blog. They are, of course, the most vulnerable. I'm afraid all too many parents are using TV as a surrogate babysitter for their children. It's so much easier to park them in the front of the boob tube instead of having to actually interact with them constantly (and I do understand what a handful children can be, and how time consuming. But there is a price for that babysitter.)

And as far as all those eat eat eat crap commercials. In my opinion, they should be banned just as the cigarette and hard liquor ads have been -- poison by any other name, is still poison.

TV could be a blessing, as you said, informing and educating. But just as anything that is created, such as splitting the atom, or genetic engineering; there is always some slime ball segment of Homo sapiens looking to use it for their own selfish and harmful purposes, like the perfect soldier or the ideal indoctrinating and control device.

I'm reading the same book Renee, and would highly recommend that others also do so. TV can indeed numb the mind; I've partaken of it myself, and discovered what a bad habit it is, when it becomes an addiction.

One thing that did come to mind while reading Gore's book, is that if he believes the threat against our society and nation is so grave, it's a cop out that he is not running for President. I think the nation needs such a person in high office. The idea that he can do more to raise our awareness in regards to global warming by not being President sounds specious to me. I wish he would just come out and say "no way you are going to get me into that meat grinder, I'm presently enjoying my life too much just the way it is at present, thank you very much."

wow, what a question indeed!
First of all, I have been on television several times and I can personally attest to the fact....NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU: I learned fast those who have tv shows don't care for who they destroy, who they love.

As for the tv screen in itself. It is a powerful motivater. Not realizing it the mind watching these ads and things you speak of are already clinically available for being receptive. There are special moments when the brain absorbs material not realizing it..that is why it is such a powerful mode.

It isn't a matter if you feel like you should run out and get something........the world of image making to the brain to the pocket book makes one more aware of the threat and power on the mind.

A busy mind will watch and challenge. A lazy mind absorbs. As some people get committed to the web, they are compulsive addiction addicts..which puts them in a place either to question, use a search, or fall victim to the brain washing.

No Steve, I look at something on tv and find it a challenge to research whether it can help me or not. I am not well, so I read every label, question every promise. I am indeed a hard sell, always was.

Show me dark chocolate and someone smiling, hey that's me before tv.

Steve, television is one of the most dangerous mediums to the human mind in a world of lies, greed, and not caring for your fellow mankind.
Brainwashing has already been applied to so many things I see it would amaze people. Tv can be speaking what we are expected to honor and respect while we know we are being lied to.

I am glad this is one of your blogs. Right now, televison is our life in front of us.
It lies to us, it affects the cellular structure of the mind, and people like politicians etc., use it now too much. Who wants to see some blabbling idiot telling us this is true, when we who think and know we are being misjudged as stupid.

No, I do not let anything on tv affect my choices, unless I have already been thinking of what is good for me. My health is primary....we are what we eat...omg help us all..lol.

I am just writing this and rambling, not even taking the time to think. You don't invest $1 million dollars for an ad of 45 seconds at prime time unless you know you are going to get your money back. That is the manipulation factor. They grab the biggest audience,say you must have this....it is the best of it's kind! No two people are alike...so why buy anything except pure entertainment from tv. I do have an exception. (looks guilty) I do buy from the shopping networks because I am trying to learn to survive as my strength goes, The latest is kitchen thingees that will still allow me to cook, open things, grill things...you got the picture????SMILE EVERYONE, THIS IS TRUE, WE ARE ON CANDID CAMERA...YOU ARE LOOKING AT THE SCREEN AREN'T YOU?

GOD BLESS.
BENITA

Benita, thank you for your very informed comment and information. I have no doubt that TV is used in many ways which we don't even realize, and aren't meant to. There are no doubt many subliminal messages sent and received. It's a medium that can be used for good or bad, and like I commented to Trish, there are plenty of insecure, unconscious and unaware people willing to take full advantage of it for their own self-serving purposes.

Of course they don't know they are insecure, unconscious and unaware, but remain in denial. They think they are only greedy and powerful, and God forbid, "successful." Yuck!

Let's hope that sooner or later, something catalyzes this race to finally wake up to it's real potential, one based on love, not fear. Jesus and Buddha and many others have done their best, but the world at large is not yet ready for their message. It's up to each individual at this point to separate themself from world thought and the "deep sleep." It's a simple thing (life is simplicity itself), but not easy -- if it were, more would be doing it. We identify with ego, and are attached to our present state of zombieism (probably not a word, but I like it), and make the enslaving effect of TV possible.

Response: Steve, what you wish for may never happen! This present time is so shaky many people like me can barefly survive. Having trained also in Forensic Hypnotherapy, you cannot lead someone falsely down the track. You cannot act or ask questions of the alleged subject,, yet the search is for truth.

The new Pope,contrary to the last who I deeply respected, is trying to take power with Religion and make statements ...if you don't his christian ways you are condemned...the wording is different. So, here is a man of God telling the WORLD if you are not christian you will go to hell. This man speaks on the tv and everyone is being told by God's Leader? "If you don't do as I say, you ain't going home baby!" At that point this worshipped man is speaking God's word?????not! People are suddenly fearing how they independently think. I here have to interject: I had a very handsome priest come to me as a patient. He said he had trouble relating to females. Let me say, this is the only man to ever manage to get me down on the floor in my office running his fingers through my hair...I was still naive about respecting priests.

I looked at him and simply said,"Father, I believe this is unethical" Now I would have made him wish he would not see another day....so even I was gullible to the power of the uniform. He quit the church and became a New York model...I think this was one of the times I had bought into the uniform of God! I learned it somewhere, since we both know I am not a christian. So as you speak of the power over sleeping people,I had not awakened yet to the sin of those in the cloth and people like them.....I am rambling again..having a multi-level mind is hard to condense.

This pope has taken the power that Bush wanted to take to use humanity at different scales. A pope on tv can confuse minds the world over.
However, this pope gets free designer shoes, and is into the money aspect, now the power aspect. He owns christians. Speaking of mindless people, he has been brought up in AP and these people believe 100% because the pope said it that it is fact. Did that speech on tv buy the souls of those you speak about who are mindless? Yep.

Doing profiling, and working on Missing Children etc. has awakened the time factor of life and death in reality and in spiritually. People need to awaken their spiritual warrior for the good of mankind and not the political, capitalistic, crooked mind benders bleeding us with their reality. BUSH IS ON TV almost every time I turn it on. WATCH his facial manifestations and you will see he is lying. When we are lying an involuntary response happens to everyone. Watch Bushes eyebrows for one.

Steve, we both have minds that challenge. We both want to fight injustice I think.

When I was on Nation-wide televsion, was I not demonstrating to millions my own research? Was I not representing a different mindset? Of course. When I taught and applied the technique rather than words, did I not have the power to brainwash if I was so inclined?

I could go on and on about this tv subject and people trying to grasp a sleeping mind that will cause some people to commit suicide. That is another factor that very little is said about.

The net is dangerous!
Danger does come to those of us who speak out. We know what exists and play along, but denial of reality is the death of mankind.

Sorry, I could write about tv and the mind, people who purposely control the mind.

If people do not wake up, see our world dying we are rendered powerless against the massive media. I do apologize if I seem rambling, but again I am just writing without prior thought to your response.

BENITA

the numerous recalls exposed that most name brands and generic products are made by the same companies and with the same ingredients - so of course advertising is needed to seduce shoppers into paying more for a product with a "name brand" - or why in the world would anyone pay more for the same product they could get for less? without advertising why would any sane person pay for bottled tap water? indeed why would anyone even want carbonated water full of sugar and unnatural flavorings? TV advertising sells - why else would companies pay so much? the message regardless of substance repeated over and over becomes part of the national conscienceness. sell
penis enlargement pills or wars - sell prayer cloths or fake news - it all works the same... and we have 24/7 shopping channels which are just 24/7 advertisements - the commercial IS the programming... and 500 cable channels where the majority are "paid programming" - programs that are commercials filling up channel after channel. if it didn't work to sell - to manipulate public opinion, desires, then it wouldn't be used. "public airways" used for private profit. media consolidated into fewer and fewer hands - "we control the verticle - we control the horizontal - do not attempt to adjust your tv set" just sit back and get your brain washed... unfortunately it's easier to recall pet food than a war.

Just for fun we got one of those gizmos that attaches to a keychain that shuts off tvs. When going out to a small divy spot to listen to live music, it's just insulting to have a (*%&$ television going while real people play real instruments in real time. It works. Most all the time no one notices the tv has been shut off. Needless to say, we don't do it while Monday Nite Football is on.

It's interesting to notice what tv does to you in a pulbic place, the bank, the grocery store, the airport... you can feel it taking your attention away. It's very seductive and penetrating, even if you don't think you are paying attention. Get a gizmo. Have some fun.

The use of tv and it's power exploded during the '60s, I think. I was just watching a dvd about San Francisco and the scene there in the Haight in '65. By the summer of "Love" the press was all over the street and the essence of what happened there was co-opted and evaporated. Soon we all wanted to 'buy the world a coke'.

I am grateful to only have Captain Kangaroo and Miss Nancy around in my formative childhood years. Other than that, it was 'go outside and play'. Imagine that!

All this technology only serves one master, and that is the corporate dollar. It's not about the news, it's about the ads between the news and what it takes to keep you tuned. Just do what the man says. Stay scared and everything will be fine, right?

heartfood, I'm proud to say I never tune in to any of the shopping channels; just listening to them is a lesson in insanity. Perhaps most puzzling is the long line of junk they offer. It's rather telling that so many people have nothing better to do than remain plastered to their TV screen watching such inanity for hours on end, and actually buying stuff they can't possibly need, and which mostly seem to resemble trinkets at best. At least when one actually goes out into the world to an actual store there is some interaction with the rest of the world apart from hypno-buying in front of an electronic monster. I often wonder about the mentality of those sales spokesman that can BS for hours, only pausing to breath. These would have been the carnies and snake oil salesmen of a by gone age.

And as Benita infers there is a certain hypnotic spell cast by such a venue, not only in the presentation, but no doubt subliminal messaging and the medium itself. Who knows what form of electronic signals go out of that box effecting the brain on various levels, and not only the sales presentations, but the signals themselves, putting one in a particular mindset preparing one to respond. I'd recommend that everyone disconnect the power from the TV at any time when it's not being watched. The house doesn't need to be filled with unknown signals 24/7 designed for purposes we can't even guess. And if this is just paranoia, and isn't actually occurring nothing is lost by having them disconnected. It is indeed a brave new world that commericalism and government owned by same have foisted upon us. Only one thing is for certain; I don't trust to anyone who perceives me as just another target for their bottom line, be it motivated by money or control.

Your inference to the Outer Limits formatting has some merit.

beanie, that little gizmo sounds interesting. You'll have to email me some of the details and where to buy information. I'm often amazed at how many houses appear to have the TV on all the time, whether it's being watched or not, and not only in one room. Not even the noise pollution seems to bother them. It reminds me of white noise that blends in until someone turns it off finally and you sigh with relief at the sudden silence. No doubt the brain is easily bombarded with junk in various ways, even if it's only annoying sounds instead of full fledged mind tinkering devices.

www.tvbgone.com

it works! tee hee

OK, Stephen, I'll weigh in on this one. I've had my own rant for about 20 years now, and the only thing that's changed is intensity.

Television is a mirror.

What we see in commercial programming is the lowest common denominator of our society or segments of society. Somebody mentioned "dumbing down;" I agree with that to a large extent, but there are rooms filled with people doing statistical analyses on demographic data, such that you're more likely to see Cialis and Cadillac ads for golf or tennis events, and Head On and Chevy truck ads for football games. The advertisers aren't the dumb ones. As difficult as it is to comprehend, advertising apparently works. There are "special circumstances," such as some political advertising, where money will be spent to deliver a "message," regardless of cost, but, for the most part, there must be enough data available to lead advertisers to believe that the money they spend contributes to increased sales. That means some of us actually believe their shit.

My rant started back sometime when there was a baseball strike, or maybe it was just a threatened strike. It seemed utterly mind-boggling that the players could be so greedy, making ridiculous demands on top of already bloated salaries. Of course, their representatives had done their own homework and knew what the owners were making, but the very fact that such huge amounts of money were in play was due to television contracts. Major League Baseball, as well as every other major sport, has lucrative multi-year television contracts, and the networks dance on their heads to get those contracts, because advertising revenues are so great. And why is that? Because there are enough people buying Budweiser beer and eating fast food to make it worth the expense. Go figure.

Just as I can't comprehend the mind that's influenced by ads, I cannot comprehend the mind that seeks some of the trash I've seen on the tube; things like reality shows, shopping network, bass fishing, and the like. I confess that I do watch 2 comedy shows regularly, and I occasionally watch golf tournaments, and I watch the Tour de France every summer. So I'm really no different than anybody else, except for my tastes and the fact that I know how to turn the damned set off. Also, I'm more likely to NOT buy a product than buy, if I could remember what was advertised. It really doesn't matter who dreams this crap up, does it? What matters is who eats it? Who is willing to sit on their butts and watch a shopping channel or a Nascar race than do ANYTHING else? Lots of people. Who is then willing to sit through advertisements with enough retention to go out and buy? Lots of people.

None of this really matters, unto itself. If people want to buy stuff based on the ads they see, fine, and if they want to see junk shows, there's plenty to choose from. If you don't watch television, or you keep things in perspective, then why fuss? It is annoying to be slammed with TV in public places, or waiting rooms, or Beanie's music joints, but if you know how to not watch, you're safe. Right? Almost.

There are two things that I find extremely troubling. The first is entertainment disguised as news, as we see with cable giants Fox and CNN. They are big, they deliver 24 hours a day and they often have an agenda beyond news or bottom line. Fox News is a propaganda machine, and CNN is trying very hard to copy the Fox business model. Why is it that the FCC is more concerned about Janet Jackson's nipple being revealed than the lies being passed on as news? And where is the public outrage?

The issue of political advertising is something that we should all be deathly afraid of. There's a huge audience out there, and I believe it's largely an ignorant audience. Over $1 billion was spent on the 2006 elections, and most of that was television advertising. Just imagine what will be spent this year and next on the presidential election, with primaries first, then national campaigns. It's disturbing to consider the immensity of television advertising, but when you consider all the stories of negative or outright false advertising, and you know this advertising is being offered to a population that hasn't shown a great deal of discriminating thought, it's downright frightening. It's impossible for a candidate to be elected on a national level without an extensive advertising budget. War chest, used in the heat of battle. Terms that have far more validity than they should, when we're supposedly peacefully selecting the "good guys."

I can't imagine how the public might influence television producers to offer better, more public-minded programming, but then I can't imagine what it would take to influence the public to care enough to do something. I do believe that realistic campaign finance reform is absolutely necessary to influence the amount of money that can be spent, the timing of the spending and the content of the ads. Is anybody satisfied with the candidates, either Democrat or Republican, running for President? No? Me neither. I wonder who might step forward if they didn't need to be a multi-millionaire. Who might be interested in serving America if they could be sure their lives wouldn't be presented to the public like just another reality show.

Very well stated Doug, and I do agree with you that political advertising might be the worse, though the pharmaceutical ads would merit a close second in that I believe they often create conditions (psychologically) they offer to usually just mask for a price (like pain medicines and cholesterol lowering drugs that offer you an alternative to simply eating right). I feel it is the obligation of doctors to be “intelligently informed about drugs, their properties and applications, not the public. And consider the public gets no real information about those drugs just Madison Avenue PR hype, and some side effects rattled off so swiftly that they are made to sound inconsequential, even when they include heart attack, blood clot and stroke. In addition, I think even many physicians, being sometimes highly overworked or just mediocre, don’t really pay much attention to the drug studies, but are more influenced by cute detail sales woman and men from the pharmaceutical companies that blather on superficially various aspects of drug therapy without real scientific knowledge. I actually heard this on KGO from a person in the know.

In my humble (if any such thing is really possible) opinion anyone actually getting hooked on a drug or political candidate based on TV advertising as had one lobotomy too many. I agree with you there is something to be afraid of here.

I also believe TV goes beyond the simple selling of junk, and see a lot of it as hypnotic programming. So in effect, even though one does or does not buy a product, one is becoming more and more acclimated to suggestion and manipulation that becomes a dangerous habit eventually turned against them when it comes to something more serious than a product or person. Look at the rush to the Iraq War, the lie that decisions were based on faulty intelligence rather than cherry picked, and the fact that close to seventy percent of Americans bought into the myth that somehow 9/11 and Al-Qaeda were some how connected to Sadam Hussein and Iraq. It kind of reminds me of the “Manchurian Candidate” hypothesis of creating and then triggering a hypnotic response to some stimuli at a later date.

Yes, the most effective answer to political advertising would be campaign finance reform (food for a future blog). It, more than anything else, is what cements candidates to special interests. It must end, and soon! But of course, it appears that both the political hacks and the special interest groups don’t want that to happen, and are making sure it doesn’t.

Your statement about becoming acclimated to suggestion resonates with me because I began to notice a while ago that some of the dramas and movies on TV were showing the “good guys” using some form of “enhanced interrogation.” It was always done in a situation that made it look like the end justified the means.

I was curious and asked several people I know to be frequent TV watchers to be on the look out for this kind of thing and let me know if they noticed it. So far I have heard about it showing up on multiple Law and Order SVU and CI shows, Without A Trace, and several movies (unfortunately I don’t have the titles).

According to the descriptions I got, it always happened in situations where there was information needed to save a child, save a kidnapped person, or thwart a dastardly plot of some kind. The timing seems so coincidental. Do you suppose the intention could be to desensitize the citizenry to torture?????

That wouldn't surprise me at all Trish. The noteworthy incidences that I witnessed were on last season's "24." Jack Bauer tortured several of the bad guys while we all watched, and it was done as you said, as if nothing could be more natural in the moment. At least in the context presented it made some sense because the viewing audience knew that the bad guy was involved in something dastardly, and the clock was running out.

What we don't see in most of this type of programming are situations like in the new movie "Rendition" where the victim of such action is not necessarily a real bad guy, but simply suspected of something, perhaps and maybe; just a faint suspicion based on very flimsy data is enough to send a guy off to some dark place and have him tortured. That I'm afraid, is what is currently going on in the the real world where many people are rounded up without any real tangible evidence that the large majority of them are really guilty of anything.

There is no oversight and accountability in those situations. It is in marked contrast to our system of jurisprudence where one must be convicted beyond a reasonable doubt, and where it is better to let a guilty man go free than convict an innocent one. The line has become very hazy, and though I know that if lives are truly in eminent danger it is neccesary to get information quickly and perhaps by whatever means works. But, remember the eminent danger of the "mushroom cloud" and Iraq which turned out to be pure poppycock, and what John McCain said about torture -- it doesn't really work because one will tell you anything to stop the pain.

The real answer may lie somewhere inbetween extremes, or in actually knowing who really has information and who doesn't, but I sure have to tell you that I don't trust in allowing people like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales to be the ones making such decisions. This is not an area well suited for the blanket approach.

And as some seem to forget, mostly those in no danger of any physical harm themselves, such accords as the Geneva Conventions were established to protect soldiers on both sides, from such methods of interrogation as torture. Accordingly, I don't trust to the armchair generals making such decisions, about torture or war, because they aren't the ones who will be called upon to be at risk.

It is one thing to say, in times of peace, that we should never do anything even resembling torture and quite another to say it in the midst of a crisis with lives hanging in the balance. Driven by fear, anger, maternal/paternal instinct or simply the human survival instinct, people will do things they would not ordinarily do and the sharp black and white of right and wrong blur to grey.

You are right, Stephen, it is having such decisions in the hands of men like Bush, Cheney, et al that is so dangerous. Men of wisdom recognize the complexity of today’s problems and their own vulnerability in decision making. Only men of supreme arrogance such as Bush and Company could, in times like this, be so convinced that they know better than anyone else.

It should be difficult to ever, under any circumstances, decide to abuse a human being. The danger is having such a decision become easy or automatic. That is why the suggestion in popular TV shows that such abuse is necessary and right as long as it accomplishes a good end is an insidious attack on people’s resistance to the idea of torture.

BINGO Trish! It is that automatic reaction, response, policy which is so irresponsible and dangerous. So many have forgotten, or never really got, that we do indeed create the world in which we live. Metaphysically one would say, "what goes around comes around,' and Jesus said, "as ye reap, so shall ye sow." The state of the world will ultimately be determined by the actions of Homo sapiens, not in spite of them.

This is another very slippery slope, and not one I myself know how to navigate at present. I find myself caught between two forces, what seems to be, and what might be possible instead. And, even though caught inbetween, I still very clearly see the reality of the choices.

I have for some time been slowly putting a blog together in my mind in an attempt to make it easier to expose both sides of this war/defense mentality and behavior. Yes, it appears we need the war machine because it seems that the World is a very dangerous place. That is the world seen through the eyes of seeming practicality, and of course, fear. In the moment, it is very seductive, yet some would tell us that the future is based on this present moment.

Thus the need for the idealist and visionary. There must be those who can see the future as it should be, not as it seems it must be. These people are often called pacifists, tree huggers and various and sundry other terms used in derogatory fashion. However, without them, we as a race might have no future, for in coming back full circle, we will still create the future based on how we think and act today. Both sides of this equation must meet in equilibrium.

The ultimate choice and huge challenge is between deciding to create using love or fear. And though of course it is ultimately a choice, it does not appear to be one, when one is trapped in perceiving the world through the eyes of fear. It is of course a paradox.