Turn Off Your
by L. Wolfe
Hey buddy, I'm talking to you. Yes, you, the guy sitting in front of the television. Turn down the sound a bit, so that you can hear what I am saying. Now, try to concentrate on what I am going to say. I want to talk to you about your favorite pastime. No, it's not baseball or football, although it does have something to do with your interest in spectator sports. I'm talking about what you were just doing: watching television.
Do you have any idea about how much time you spend in front of the
television set? According to the latest studies, the average
It's even worse with your children. According to these same studies, young children below school age watch more than eight hours each day. School age children watch a little under eight hours a day. In 1980, the average 20-year-old had watched the equivalent of 14 months of television in his or her brief lifetime. {That's 14 months, 24 hours a day.} More recent figures show that the numbers have climbed: the 20-year-old has spent closer to two full years of his or her life in front of the television set.
At the same time, the researchers have noted a disturbing phenomena. It
seems that we
It's the change--the constant trendline downward--that interests
these researchers. More than one study has correlated this increasing
stupidity of our population to the amount of television they watch.
Interestingly, the studies found that it doesn't matter what people watch,
whether it's "The
The growth in television watching had surprised some of the researchers.
Back a decade ago, they were predicting that television watching would level
off and might actually decline. It had reached an absolute saturation point.
They were right for so-called network television; figures show a steady
dropoff of viewership. But that drop is more than made up for by the growth of
cable television, with its
The researchers had also failed to predict the market penetration of first
beta and then VHS video recorders; they made it possible to watch one thing and
record another for later viewing. They also offered access to movies not
available on networks or even cable channels as well as home videos,
recorded on your own little camcorder. The proliferation of home video
equipment has involved families in video-related activities which are not
even considered in the cumulative totals for time
You might not actually realize how much you are watching television. But think for a moment. When you come home, you turn the television on, if it isn't on already. You read the paper with it on, half glancing at what is on the screen, catching a bit of the news, or the plot of a show. You eat with it on, maybe in the background, listening for a score or something that happens to a character in a show you follow. When something you are interested in, a show or basketball game, is on, the set becomes the center of attention. So your attention to what is on may vary in intensity, but there is almost no point when you are home, and inside, and have the set completely off. Isn't that right?
The studies did not break down the periods of time people watched television, according to the intensity of their viewing. But the point is still made: you compulsively turn the television on and spend a good portion of your waking hours glued to the tube. And the studies also showed that many people can't sleep without the television turned on!
Brainwashing
Now, I'm sure you have heard that watching too much television is bad for
your health. They put stories like that on the evening news. Bad for your eyes
to stare at the screen, they say. Especially bad if you sit too close.
Well, I want to make another point. We've already shown that you are
addicted to the tube, watching it between six and eight hour a day. But
it is an addiction that {brainwashes} you.
There are two kinds of brainwashing. The one that's called {hard}
brainwashing is the type you're most familiar with. You've got a pretty good
image of it from some of those old
This brainwashing is called {hard} because its methods are overt. The controlled environment is obvious to the victim; so is the terror. The victim is overwhelmed by a seemingly omnipotent external force, and a feeling of intense isolation is induced. The victim's moral strength is sapped, and slowly he embraces his torturers. It is man's moral strength that informs and orders his power of reason; without it, the mind becomes little more than a recording machine waiting for imprints. No one is saying that you have been a victim of {hard} brainwashing. But you have been brainwashed, just as effectively as those people in the movies. The blank stare? Did you ever look at what you look like while watching television? If the angle is right, you might catch your own reflection in the screen. Jaw slightly open, lips relaxed into a smile. The blank stare of a television zombie. This is {soft} brainwashing, even more effective because its victims go about their lives unaware of what is being done to them.
Under these circumstances, in a brainwashing, controlled environment, such choice-making is not a "rational'' experience. It does not involve the use of man's creative mental powers; instead man is conditioned, like an animal, to respond to the tension, by seeking release.
The key to the success of this brainwashing process is the regulation of both the tension and the perceived choices. As long as both are controlled, then the range of outcomes is also controlled. The victim is induced to walk down one of several pathways acceptable for his controllers.
The
If you doubt me, think about one important choice that you have made recently that was not in some way influenced by something that you have seen on television. I bet you can't think of one. That's how controlled you are.
Who's Doing It
But don't take my word for it. Ten years ago we spoke to a man from a think
tank called
{"I know the secret of making the average
"Your mind is being shaped and moulded.'' If that doesn't sound like
brainwashing, I don't know what is.
And though they work for many diverse groups, these
One of the oligarchy's institutions for manipulation of
populations is located in a suburb of
Like his fellow
"Soft'' brainwashing by television works through power of
suggestion.
Another
"1) The constant visual stimulus fixates the viewer and causes the habituation of response. The prefrontal and association areas of the cortex are effectively dominated by the signal, the screen.
"2) The left cortical hemisphere--the center of visual and analytical calculating processes--is effectively reduced in its functioning to tracking changing images on the screen.
"3) Therefore, provided, the viewer keeps looking, he is unlikely to reflect on what he is doing and what he is viewing. That is, he will be aware, but unaware of his awareness....
"In other words, television can be seen partly as the technological analogue of the hypnotist.''
The key to making the brainwashing work is the {repetition of suggestion} over time. With people watching the tube for 6 to 8 hours a day, there is plenty of time for such repeated suggestion.
Some Examples Let's look at an example to make things a bit clearer. Think back about 20 years ago. Think about what you thought about certain issues of the day. Think about those same issues today; notice how you seemed to change {your} mind about them, to become more tolerant of things you opposed vehemently before. It's your television watching that changed your mind, or to use Becker's terms, "shaped your perceptions.''
Twenty years ago, most people thought that the lunacy that is now
called environmentalism, the idea that animals and plants should be protected
on an equal basis with human life, was screwy. It went against the basic
concept of
This contrary, anti-human view of man being no more than equal to animals
and plants was inserted into our consciousness by the suggestion of
television. Environmental lunacy was scripted into network television shows,
into televised movies, and into the news. It started slowly, but picked up
steam. Environmental spokesmen were increasingly seen in the favorable glow
of television. Those who opposed this view were shown in an unfavorable way.
It was done over time, with repetition. If you weren't completely won over, you
were made tolerant of the views of environmental lunatics whose statements
were morally and scientifically unsound.
Let's take a more recent example: the war against
Finally, the
Those were the images that overwhelmed our population. Only now,
months later, do we find out that the images had nothing to do with reality.
The
Looking at the question more broadly, where did your children get most of their values, if not from what they saw on television? Parents might counteract the influence of the infernal box, but they could not overcome it. How could they, if they themselves have been brainwashed by the same box and if their children spend more time with it than them? Studies show that most of television programming is geared to a less than 5th grade comprehension level; parents, like you, are themselves being remade in the infantile images of the television screen. All of society becomes more infantile, more easily controllable.
As
Nowhere is this clearer than with politics.
Such an important matter as choosing a president becomes the same as choosing a box of laundry detergent: a set of possibilities, whose limits are determined, by the images on the screen. You are given the appearance of freedom of choice, but that you have neither freedom nor real choice. That is how the brainwashing works.
"Are they brainwashed by the tube,'' said
Turn It Off!
That was ten years ago. It has gotten far worse since then. In coming
issues, we will show you the
So, after what I just told you, what do say, buddy? Do you want to stay stupid and let your country go to hell in a basket? Why don't you just walk over to the set and turn it off. That's right, completely off. Go on, you can do it. Now isn't that better? Don't you feel a little better already? You've just taken the first step in deprogramming yourself. It wasn't that hard, was it? Until we speak again, try to keep it off. Now that will be a bit harder.
From