Mind Control

By Bob Wood, TMO

In this space I’ve been covering the topic of things we know that aren’t true. Long-held beliefs that fail when subjected to honest scrutiny are used against us when voting or supporting government policies that repeatedly harm our best interests. A deeper look into how we come to believe merits further discussion.

In a prior article I related information about how the media has been co-opted by the government, including the CIA, in shaping the stories we read or hear about geo-political events.  Our indoctrination doesn’t stop there, and even our children are being influenced to think the way our leaders need them to be.

The news media seems a one-sided product that serves the best interests of government and those who control it through financial means.

It seems all have devolved into critical mass infomercials aimed at shaping opinions and beliefs that make it easier to gain our support for fiscal policies that enrich the fewest of us, or the need for yet another losing war that is deemed necessary to fight off another threat that was never serious.

We are scolded for supporting policies aimed at spreading the wealth at the expense of those who already have far more than they can ever spend. Socialism has always failed anywhere it’s been tried. We know that since we hear it repeated often.

Those doing the scolding seem oblivious to how the beacon of Capitalism was brought to its knees in the recent economic melt- down of 2008. They also want us to ignore that our ‘superior’ economic system comes with a price tag we can never hope to pay.

When adding the total government debt, including state and local government, as a nation we are nearing $21 trillion in debt that can only be managed with printed money from the Federal Reserve. No one in government offers any pretense that this debt load can be managed honestly.

Add in all debt, public and private, and the total swells to around $60 trillion. Throw in unfunded liabilities, paid for in advance by us but after successive governments squandered the savings, we’re now talking somewhere around $200 trillion!

Debasing the currency, our dollars, is considered the classic remedy for managing promised payments on those debts. That means the money we’ve earned and saved will be steadily eroded in value. This is how a superior economic system runs?

Any economic system that periodically requires massive money printing, a debased currency and historically high budget deficits to keep from imploding seems flawed to any objective observers.  But isn’t it hard to advocate for something different when so many firmly believe in the status quo?

It’s readily accepted that the genius of Capitalism is to reward hard work. But how many work hard for subsistence wages? Self-reliance through innovation and creativity are lauded as ways to go further up the socio-economic ladder. When looking at the number of small business failures each year, is it really that simple?

It was recently reported that small business ownership in America is at an all-time low. That came directly from a report from the Fed itself.  According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, real wages in America has not risen for workers here in 40 years.

Those data points seem to strongly refute the oft-told tales of how Capitalism is best for everyone. We ‘’know’’ that since we hear it so often. But from whom do we hear it relentlessly repeated?

I’ve already covered the big media outlets and their corporate status, and the inherent biases in their coverage favoring what’s good for them. Propaganda requires outlets with a mass audience. This validates the government’s efforts at controlling the messages we hear. Maybe we should be more worried about signs of Fascism than of Socialism.

There is another important mass audience to influence, that of our students. I ran a Google search on ‘’mind control’’ and the second link to appear listed ‘’ten popular mind control steps’’, listing Education as number 1.

From themindunleashed.org’s piece;

‘’Education — This is the most obvious, yet still remains the most insidious.  It has always been a would-be dictator’s ultimate fantasy to “educate” naturally impressionable children, thus it has been a central component to Communist and Fascist tyrannies throughout history.  No one has been more instrumental in exposing the agenda of modern education than Charlotte Iserbyt — one can begin research into this area by downloading a free PDF of her book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, which lays bare the role of Globalist foundations in shaping a future intended to produce servile drones lorded over by a fully educated, aware elite class.’’

This is one theory, but does it stand up under scrutiny? Recent events suggest it is. In late September a group of high school students and teachers in Jefferson County, Colorado protested ‘’ the removal of all mentions of civil disobedience from texts and classroom materials intended for the teaching of AP U.S. history.’’

Couple that with a recent post on ThinkProgess.org detailing the agreement between the Koch Brothers and Florida State University. The Kochs agreed to fund scholarships for ‘deserving’ students and teachers of economics study. This financial support was conditional. Students and faculty must get prior approval to participate.

‘’The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it’s not happy with the faculty’s choice or if the hires don’t meet “objectives” set by the Kochs during annual evaluations.’’ Professors benefitting from Koch funding will have all work and papers written reviewed by the foundation to assure teaching consistent with Koch Brothers beliefs.

This example was but a small slice of the total effort expended by the Kochs. In total, $12.7 million in funding was dispersed conditionally to 163 schools. An added benefit to spreading their views to students is the political cover they gain when a funded academic is quoted supporting their agenda.

Few of those doing the interviews in the media will think to ask if there is any association between the learned scholar and the Kochs. The next time you see a scientist on t.v. offering an opinion denying the realities of global warming, wonder as I do as to where his funding or grant money comes from.

None of this is new. Conservative and corporate interests have fought the influence of ‘’liberal academia’’ and their corrupting influence of our youth. Name calling is an accepted form of propaganda. For anyone teaching ideas that compete with corporate America’s needs, attacks like this are common.

What conservative donors who work to influence education standards most object to is a student able to think objectively after weighing the facts. For instance, media giant NBC is owned by General Electric. That company is also the fifth largest defense contractor.

An objective observer might consider the obvious conflict of interest when seeing a retired Army General appearing on that network warning us of the imminent threat of terrorists, and how cutting the defense budget equates to laying out the welcome mat at America’s borders for those ‘’determined to kill us’’.

An objectively educated person would push back, knowing that he is far more likely to die from more mundane causes than from any terrorist wiping his feet on that welcome mat. In fact, he is six times more likely to die from hot weather, and eight times more likely to die from a police bullet than from a terrorist.

He is 404 times more likely to die from a fall, 1048 times more likely to die from an auto accident, 12,570 times more likely to die from cancer, and 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease.

Our elected representatives are calling for more funding to fight the ‘’bad guys over there’’, with untold billions a reasonable price to pay, while fractions of that amount used to make our roads safer or to expand Medicaid funding for preventative health screenings are simply ‘’budget-busting big government boondoggles’’.

I sometimes joke with parents that the hardest day for them is when they realize their kids are smarter than they are. I hope this is the case on a widespread basis. The generations to come must be more independently informed, more skeptical, and aware of our history than the current electorate has been.

When hearing someone advocating war at all costs while valuable social programs are unaffordable, we will need citizens unafraid of questioning our representatives and corporate spokesmen on their true agendas.

Simply working to further enrich their biggest campaign donors is what got us into the mess we’re in. That our children understand their motivations and the methods of spreading their propaganda is vitally important to our country becoming a better place, and to stop us from making other places around the world worse places for their children.

If anyone should control our children’s minds, it is them.

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