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What is the best way to change public perceptions on any topic?
Through entertainment.
The battle to control us through changing (or creating) our opinions is as old as history. Carefully disseminated disinformation was first documented in ancient Greece, when playwrights and poets created dramas for the sole purpose of indoctrinating their audience to a certain set of morals, standards, and beliefs. When creating his empire, Macedonian king Alexander the Great inundated the places he conquered with his image, on the coins, adorning building, and in the form of statues. Grand stories were written and shared about his generosity and the legends that were created on his behalf to this day make him larger than life.
In 324 B.C.E., Alexander requested that he be deified so that he could carryout a scheme of repatriating 20,000 Greek exiles, which was contrary to the established laws of the League of Corinth. He became the son of Zeus, and his face soon appeared on coins, replacing that of Heracles, the real mythological son of Zeus. He commissioned, or allowed to be built, many statues and monuments in his honor, and representations of his portrait were to be found everywhere in his empire, adorning pottery, coins, buildings, and formal art (P. M. Taylor, 1990, p. 31). Alexander was the first to recognize that to maintain cohesion and control over his vast empire, such propaganda symbols could serve as a constant reminder of the various subjugated populations just where the center of power resided. (source)
So through works of fiction, the unacceptable became acceptable, the alien became familiar, and the minds of the masses were changed and manipulated.
It’s the same today
One of the biggest fights on the planet right now is the fight for safe food and non-toxic farming practices. The biggest enemy to those of us who battle for natural, healthy food is the biotech industry, particularly companies like Monsanto and Dow.
Up until recently biotech was winning the fight simply because they pretty much own the government policy makers and agencies. Monsanto has served as a “human resources bank” for the federal government, with direct ties to Supreme Court justices, the Food and Drug Administration, and presidential cabinets. They have donated mountains of money to politicians and have sneakily managed to write their own laws using those bought-and-paid for members of Congress.
But now with the success of the recent global March Against Monsanto and grass roots activism that is spreading like wildfire, they have had to step up their game.
First, they created a disinformation website called “GMO Answers” in which they provide “answers” for anyone who is curious about genetically modified foods. On this website they support all of the GMO myths that they are trying to perpetuate and make acceptable. They are also infiltrating popular culture and are particularly targeting the minds of our children.
Most people don’t want to believe it
They say, “Oh, it’s just a cartoon.” They tell us to take off the tinfoil hats. They scoff at our paranoia.
But the fact remains that cartoons abound with references to GMOs, pesticides, and biotech. These things are portrayed in a heroic positive light. No, they aren’t whispering in the background “Monsantoisgood … Monsantoisgood … Monsantoisgood“. (At least I don’t think they are.) But they are portraying biotech as the saviors of the world, the solvers of world hunger, a presence that is just THERE and must hence be accepted.
One of the administrators on the March Against Monsanto page on Facebook posted the following picture to the right and commented:
It is sickening how our youth are being indoctrinated to think pesticides are great. Are you aware the newest Pixar movie, Planes, main character is a crop duster? Why?? Another children’s movie, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2, has a synopsis that is about cross-breeding animals with food. This is unacceptable.
What are your thoughts on this?
I recently wrote about something similar, when I discussed the product placement and the “GMOs are good” propaganda in Futurama.
The admin from MAM ran into the same problem that I did: people scoffed.
“It’s just a cartoon, chill out.”
“There are legitimate problems out there. This is the complaint of some far reaching parent who sues the school when their kid get a scraped knee.”
” I think you are reaching on this one…”
” I’m really getting annoyed by March Against Monsantos hysterical propaganda. I’m against GMO and support the cause, but seriously stop filling the site with this bullshit. It’s enough with the terrifying truth no need to oversell the legitimacy of this cause.”
Sheer cognitive dissonance in action.
No one wants to believe that they and their children are being subtly brainwashed, that their opinions are being slyly altered, and that their perceptions are being manipulated.
Right now, our kids are under a mental attack. They are learning that this is just how farming is, and that GMOs are nothing but beneficial-GMOs are heroic even. By subtly placing mentions of genetic modification and toxic farming methods with positive connotations, this suddenly becomes a societal norm.
By making it seem normal and innocuous, our arguments against GMO and toxic farming make us sound like a bunch of flat-earth believing fruit cakes. And this is exactly what the plan is – to marginalize the debate and to make nay-sayers seem ignorant and ill-informed about the “benefits.” They are trying to create a platform of “common knowledge” by making it appear that this is the accepted reality.
By presenting this perceived reality to children, they are attempting to make it actual reality, and by the time these children reach adulthood, it will be all that they have ever been exposed to – a toxic world full of toxic manipulated food.
Even more harmful is the trancelike state that most people go into when watching television and movies. People drift into a level of consciousness during which they are very susceptible to suggestions.
Type ‘television’ and ‘low vibrational energy’ into a search engine, and it’ll quickly return the fact that watching a lot of TV is like undressing your mind and submerging it into a bath of negative energy. TV effectively numbs the left side of your brain and renders you helpless to your right brain which is incapable of decoding and critically analyzing the information being presented to you. Essentially, you go on ‘auto-pilot’.
Thus, everyone is put into a hypnotic state that author Wes Moore says, “produces highly functional, mobile ‘bio-survival robots.’” There’s a reason he dubbed television an “opiate of the masses“.
TV programs us. We tune in, drop out and stop asking questions.
Some of Krugman’s more interesting conclusions from his 1969 TV brainwave research include:
- “Internal Alpha responses can be stimulated by appropriate external rhythms or frequencies.”
- “The time may come when the mass media may create special programs to help people modify certain attitudes or behavior.”
- “This means that passively learned material has an important ‘advantage’ which some have also associated with so called subliminal perception, extrasensory perception, or hypnotism.”
- “For early education there may be an opportunity to accept the fact that many children fidget in class, and that this interference with their attention is not to be blamed on parents, teachers, or the child. Mild drugging of these children, or training in relaxation through Alpha driving, may be dramatically helpful to their educational achievement.” [Emphasis Added]
- “For public television there may be an opportunity to accept without shame the fact that it has taught violence to an entire generation. The clear store of television violence is not that a new generation is more violent but that the new generation knows more violence. The political consequences of this may yet be what some would call ‘good’ (e.g., pacifist).” [Emphasis Added]
- “It is possible that the relaxed and successful character of passive learning can be enhanced by the artificial induction of Alpha rhythm, this with the aid of a flickering light.” [Emphasis Added]
Your brain on TV, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a basic form of mind control. (Check out this MUST READ article, HERE!)
The biotech industry rakes in billions of dollars every year for poisoning our food, our groundwater, and our air. It isn’t unrealistic to believe that some of their budget would be turned towards fighting the growing awareness of their deadly impact on the world. Through insinuating a set of beliefs into the next generation, they are paving the way for even further domination of farming.
- The only antidote to the brainwashing is the knowledge that it is occurring.
- Watch what your children watch and look for teachable moments.
- Make your home GMO-free.
- Explain to your kids on a regular basis why you avoid toxic ingredients.
- Talk to your children about the concept of propaganda and encourage them to notice when they are subjected to it.
Each of us, as parents, can have more influence than the media, but we must exercise that influence through our lifestyles. We must be alert to the paid propaganda that constantly inundates our kids and inform them that it’s happening. It’s virtually impossible to keep them in a bubble, insulated from propaganda but we can fight back with information and truth.
Daisy,
Great article! You are right. They are using the media to indoctrinate children.
I believe promoting/pushing GMO’s on the people is all part of achieving the goals of Agenda 21. They want/support a dramatic decrease in worldwide population.
Thank you for bringing these issues to light!
Take care! 🙂
KY Mom
I actually graduated with a BA in Television and Radio production, so am very familiar with why they call it, “programming”. Once I became fully aware of the repercussions of subjecting myself and my kids to 30+ hours of programming a week (US average) we decided the safest course of action would be to forego TV completely. No “educational” shows, no crime dramas, no PBS, nothing. That was 12 years ago, and it has made a tremendous improvement in our lives. Our two children are happy, articulate, and creative. They read daily. They are curious. They interact well with each other, as well as anyone else they happen to meet, regardless of age. They are actively engaged in developing their own opinions, values, and character based on what they have learned to be true, instead of what the media or school tells them. They have also escaped the curse of materialism and consumerism. Their birthday and Christmas lists typically contain one or two items, instead of tossing the ‘Toys R Us’ catalog at us with every other item highlighted. Recently, our daughter was selected a finalist in a prestigious national scholarship, thanks in large part to her ongoing focus on learning instead of droning out in front of the tube. In short, if you want to change people’s mind for the better, throw out the damn TV.
This is one very good reason to GET RID of GMOs NOW!!!
If they do not exist, the children cannot be propagandized about them.
Planes is not a Pixar movie.
Disney owns Pixar http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/companies/disney_pixar_deal/
Steve Jobs sold Pixar to Disney but Pixar DID NOT produce the film, though it may have the look and feel of Pixar’s “Cars.”
Great article1 Well written and easy to understand. My husband and I have been educating our friends and family about GMO’s for many years. We started back when no one knew anything about it. We even had an organic dinner for 14 of our friends to give them information about buying organic, eating local and staying away from GMOs. It was such a surprise to find out that none of these “educated” friends of ours had even heard of Monsanto and GMO’s. By now the bio-tech, chemical food companies have gotten away with so much for so long. It is very exciting to see this massive movement taking place around the world. For the love of this planet, I hope it never ends until Monsanto and its bed buddies (government, justice system, partner companies, etc.) never again see the light of day again. Keeping fighting the good fight!
I was at the in-laws last weekend and one of the kiddos was watching Dora. It really pissed me off because in the show the class was playing with a ball and the owner of the ball wanted to go home. He wanted to take his ball but the teacher intervened and said the whole class was enjoying his ball so he could not take it. Sounds like they are teaching kids early their property is not theirs and they need to share it with people who don’t have any.
Wow – that one is scary. Basically it was communism in action. The ball isn’t yours, it’s ours. Sure you brought it but because you are part of our country/class/state, whether voluntary or not, you must ‘share’ (give up.) Communism is a great idea. But it doesn’t work – the human being is naturally greedy by default and if there is a way to game the system, ‘we’ will do it.
So it’s like the whole “interdependence over independence” thing I saw someone going on about in a review of a documentary about a man with brain cancer and his also unhealthy daughter….I think this is all PC bullshit designed to avoid offending those who “can’t” take care of themselves….like, “don’t/ don’t get self worth from the fact that you learn martial arts/get a gun/earn your own money/grow your own food/can cure cancer because so-and-so caaaaaaaan’t!” I mean severe disability and illness are terrible, I do care but I’m not going to limit myself because some overly sensitive people might be offended.
This articel hits the nail on the head, in so many ways. It IS a fact, TV is used to mild minds, effect change slowly, make people slowly except things. One of the most obvious things right now, is the open media news, now even fox is fulla sheet. Lies, disinformation, and folks, the fact is, ya read what they wriyte, or your job, is gone. yeah, bout 450 to 650 k a year. Notice how many famous trusted media people have quit in the past two years… look behind why, look how maqny officers have taken “early retirement” look whats behind it.
Daisy knows why im about to say this, ask her if ya know her. They are perpatrating the biggest lie in all of our modern history, right now. ALL sources of science have been shut off, no live feeds, and NASA , wont speak..the military IS at defcon 1, {shut up about it] The magnitude, of what they nhide, you can find, just BY TRYING TYO FIND it, look and see if you can get ONE live feed of the sun….ya cant, umnless ur in NADSA, but WE got some, and they are hiding what all should be told. I have learned, to respect miss Daisy tremendously. She has the kind a heart, that says NO WAY will you lie to me. She gets pissed, enough to do something, to TELL THE TRUTH. WHY! is so so f in hard, to get the truth?? Cause its yerifing one, and two, we are all too stupid, to know, so they say, they say shut up, live ur lives, we will handle it all, and if we f up, well, no one will know, cause no one will be around. Be careful waht you belive about syria, many here know what im saying, if syria falls, well, kiss the life you have known goodbye. yes, we are on the edge of WW II, and worse too. Im tired.. G night.
Vile… but we and our kids are smarter than Monsanto! You’re going down biotech~
for the umpteenth time DOES ANY HONEST RELIABLE LIST EXIST THAT DOCUMENTS WHAT FOODS ARE NOW CREATED WITH THE GMO FORMAT? I.E. HOW FAR Reaching is this? getting tired of hearing all the down side, how about what foods to avoid!?
http://www.nongmoproject.org/
Planes was produced by Disney’s Toon Studio, and the Disney company has had a fair amount of dealings with Monsanto. Adventure Thru Inner Space, presented by Monsanto Company, was an attraction in Disneyland’s Tomorrowland and ran until 1985. Check out http://www.yesterland.com/futurehouse.html for more information on Monsanto’s involvement with Disney. Monsanto sponsored this exhibit until 1977.
Also another great article shows how biotechnology is making its way into our children’s life, “At Disney World’s ‘Living with the Land’ exhibit, teaching children about GMO agriculture is a fun activity for the whole family.” http://www.naturalnews.com/035861_Disney_World_GMO_agriculture.html
This is why I dont have a TV. I ocassionally watch a movie but no TV. I love it! Im also a middle school science teacher and I told my students about GMOs. They had never heard of them and they were terrified. They didnt want to eat anything… ha!
It seems it is just not cartoons, but also textbooks, as well. This article is from Natural News, http://buzz.naturalnews.com/001000-biotech_industry-GMO_propaganda-school_textbooks.html
I felt that Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs showed more of the cons of gmos than the pros. It did provide the public’s typically reaction to gmos being initially positive since there was so much extra food with little cost and ended with them realizing hoe bad the food was for them and trying to put an end to the food machine. Any other thoughts?