Turn Off Your Television!!<\/p>\n
by L. Wolfe <\/p>\n
Hey buddy, I’m talking to you. Yes, you, the guy sitting in front of
\nthe television. Turn down the sound a bit, so that you can hear what
\nI am saying. <\/p>\n
Now, try to concentrate on what I am going to say. I want to talk to you
\nabout your favorite pastime. No, it’s not baseball or football, although it
\ndoes have something to do with your interest in spectator sports. I’m
\ntalking about what you were just doing: watching television. <\/p>\n
Do you have any idea about how much time you spend in front of the
\ntelevision set? According to the latest studies, the average American now
\nspends between five and six hours a day watching television. Let’s put that in
\nperspective: that is more time than you spend doing anything else but sleeping
\nor working, if you are lucky enough to still have a job. That’s more time than
\nyou spend eating, more time than you spend with your wife alone, more time
\nthan with the kids. <\/p>\n
It’s even worse with your children. According to these same
\nstudies, young children below school age watch more than eight hours each
\nday. School age children watch a little under eight hours a day. In 1980, the
\naverage 20-year-old had watched the equivalent of 14 months of television
\nin his or her brief lifetime. {That’s 14 months, 24 hours a day.} More
\nrecent figures show that the numbers have climbed: the 20-year-old has
\nspent closer to two full years of his or her life in front of the
\ntelevision set. <\/p>\n
At the same time, the researchers have noted a disturbing phenomena. It
\nseems that we Americans are getting progressively more {stupid}.
\nThey note a decline in reading and comprehension levels in all age groups
\ntested. Americans read less and understand what they read less than
\nthey did 10 years ago, less than they have at any time since research
\nbegan to study such things. As for writing skills, Americans are, in general,
\nunable to write more than a few simple sentences. We are among the least
\nliterate people on this planet, and we’re getting worse. <\/p>\n
It’s the change–the constant trendline downward–that interests
\nthese researchers. More than one study has correlated this increasing
\nstupidity of our population to the amount of television they watch.
\nInterestingly, the studies found that it doesn’t matter what people watch,
\nwhether it’s “The Simpsons” or “McNeil\/Lehrer,” or “Murphy Brown”
\nor “Nightline’:’ the more television you watch, the {less literate, the
\nmore stupid} you are. <\/p>\n
The growth in television watching had surprised some of the researchers.
\nBack a decade ago, they were predicting that television watching would level
\noff and might actually decline. It had reached an absolute saturation point.
\nThey were right for so-called network television; figures show a steady
\ndropoff of viewership. But that drop is more than made up for by the growth of
\ncable television, with its smorgasbord of channels, one for almost every
\nperversion. Especially in urban and suburban areas, Americans are hard-wired
\nto more than 100 different channels that provide them with all
\nnews, like CNN, all movies, all comedy, all sports, all weather, all financial
\nnews and a liberal dose of straight pornography. <\/p>\n
The researchers had also failed to predict the market penetration of first
\nbeta and then VHS video recorders; they made it possible to watch one thing and
\nrecord another for later viewing. They also offered access to movies not
\navailable on networks or even cable channels as well as home videos,
\nrecorded on your own little camcorder. The proliferation of home video
\nequipment has involved families in video-related activities which are not
\neven considered in the cumulative totals for time Americans spend
\nwatching television. <\/p>\n
You might not actually realize how much you are watching television. But
\nthink for a moment. When you come home, you turn the television on, if it isn’t
\non already. You read the paper with it on, half glancing at what is on the
\nscreen, catching a bit of the news, or the plot of a show. You eat with it on,
\nmaybe in the background, listening for a score or something that happens to a
\ncharacter in a show you follow. When something you are interested in, a show
\nor basketball game, is on, the set becomes the center of attention. So
\nyour attention to what is on may vary in intensity, but there is almost no
\npoint when you are home, and inside, and have the set completely off. Isn’t
\nthat right? <\/p>\n
The studies did not break down the periods of time people watched
\ntelevision, according to the intensity of their viewing. But the point is
\nstill made: you compulsively turn the television on and spend a good portion
\nof your waking hours glued to the tube. And the studies also showed that many
\npeople can’t sleep without the television turned on! <\/p>\n
Brainwashing<\/p>\n
Now, I’m sure you have heard that watching too much television is bad for
\nyour health. They put stories like that on the evening news. Bad for your eyes
\nto stare at the screen, they say. Especially bad if you sit too close.
\nWell, I want to make another point. We’ve already shown that you are
\naddicted to the tube, watching it between six and eight hour a day. But
\nit is an addiction that {brainwashes} you.<\/p>\n
There are two kinds of brainwashing. The one that’s called {hard}
\nbrainwashing is the type you’re most familiar with. You’ve got a pretty good
\nimage of it from some of those old Korean war movies. They take some guy,
\nan American patriot, drag him into a room, torture him, pump him full of
\ndrugs, and after a struggle, get him to renounce his country and his beliefs.
\nHe usually undergoes a personality change, signified by an ever-present
\nsmile and blank stare. <\/p>\n
This brainwashing is called {hard} because its methods are
\novert. The controlled environment is obvious to the victim; so is the
\nterror. The victim is overwhelmed by a seemingly omnipotent external force,
\nand a feeling of intense isolation is induced. The victim’s moral strength is
\nsapped, and slowly he embraces his torturers. It is man’s moral strength
\nthat informs and orders his power of reason; without it, the mind becomes
\nlittle more than a recording machine waiting for imprints.<\/p>\n
No one is saying that you have been a victim of {hard}
\nbrainwashing. But you have been brainwashed, just as effectively as
\nthose people in the movies. The blank stare? Did you ever look at what you
\nlook like while watching television? If the angle is right, you might catch
\nyour own reflection in the screen. Jaw slightly open, lips relaxed into a
\nsmile. The blank stare of a television zombie.<\/p>\n
This is {soft} brainwashing, even more effective because its victims
\ngo about their lives unaware of what is being done to them. <\/p>\n
Television, with its reach into nearly every American home, creates the
\nbasis for the mass brainwashing of citizens, like you. It works on a
\nprinciple of {tension and release}. Create tension, in a controlled
\nenvironment, increasing the level of stress. Then provide a series
\nof choices that provide release from the tension. As long as the victim
\nbelieves that the choices presented are the {only} choices available,
\neven if they are at first glance unacceptable, he will nevertheless,
\nultimately seek release by choosing one of these unacceptable choices. <\/p>\n
Under these circumstances, in a brainwashing, controlled environment,
\nsuch choice-making is not a “rational” experience. It does not
\ninvolve the use of man’s creative mental powers; instead man is
\nconditioned, like an animal, to respond to the tension, by seeking release. <\/p>\n
The key to the success of this brainwashing process is the regulation
\nof both the tension and the perceived choices. As long as both are
\ncontrolled, then the range of outcomes is also controlled. The victim is
\ninduced to walk down one of several pathways acceptable for his
\ncontrollers. <\/p>\n
The brainwashers call the tension-filled environment {social
\nturbulence}. The last decades have been full of such {social
\nturbulence}–economic collapse, regional wars, population disasters,
\necological and biological catastrophes. {Social turbulence} creates
\ncrises in perceptions, causing people to lose their bearings. Adrift and
\nconfused, people seek release from the tension, following paths that appear to
\nlead to a simpler, less tension-filled life. There is no time in such a
\nprocess for rational consideration of complicated problems. <\/p>\n
Television is the key vehicle for presenting both the tension and the
\nchoices. It brings you the images of the tension, and serves up simple
\nanswers. Television, in its world of semi-reality, of illusion, of escape
\nfrom reality, {is itself the single most important release from our
\ntension-wracked existence.} Eight hours a day, every day, through its
\nprogramming, you are being programmed. <\/p>\n
If you doubt me, think about one important choice that you have made
\nrecently that was not in some way influenced by something that you have
\nseen on television. I bet you can’t think of one. That’s how controlled you
\nare. <\/p>\n
Who’s Doing It<\/p>\n
But don’t take my word for it. Ten years ago we spoke to a man from a think
\ntank called the Futures Group in Connecticut. Hal Becker had spent more
\nthan 20 years of his life manipulating the minds of the leaders of our
\nsociety. Listen to what he said: <\/p>\n
{“I know the secret of making the average American believe anything I
\nwant him to. Just let me control television. Americans are wired into
\ntheir television sets. Over the last 30 years, they have come to look at their
\ntelevision sets and the images on the screen as reality. You put something on
\ntelevision and it becomes reality. If the world outside the television set
\ncontradicts the images, people start changing the world to make it more like
\nthe images and sounds of their television. Because its influence is so
\ngreat, so pervasive, it has become part of our lives. You lose your sense of
\nwhat is being done to you, but your mind is being shaped and
\nmoulded.”} <\/p>\n
“Your mind is being shaped and moulded.” If that doesn’t sound like
\nbrainwashing, I don’t know what is. Becker speaks with the elan of a
\nnetwork of brainwashers who have been programming your lives, especially
\nsince the advent of television as a “mass medium” in the late 1940s and
\nearly 1950s. This network numbers several tens of thousands worldwide.
\nOccasionally one appears on the nightly news to tell you what {you} are
\nthinking, by reporting the latest “opinion polls.” But for the most
\npart, they work behind the scenes, speaking to themselves and writing
\npapers for their own internal distribution. <\/p>\n
And though they work for many diverse groups, these brainwashers are
\nunited by a common world view and common method. It is the world view of
\na small elite, whose financial and political power rests in institutions
\nthat pass this power on from generation to generation. They view the common
\nfolk like yourself as little better than beasts of burden to be controlled
\nand manipulated by a semi-feudal international oligarchy, whose wealth,
\npower and bloodlines entitle them to rule. <\/p>\n
One of the oligarchy’s institutions for manipulation of
\npopulations is located in a suburb of London called Tavistock. The Tavistock
\nInstitute for Human Relations, which also has a branch in Sussex, England, is
\nthe “mother” for much of this extended network, of which Becker is a
\nmember. They are the specialists in {both} hard and soft brainwashing. <\/p>\n
The Tavistock Institute is the psychological warfare arm of the
\nBritish Royal household. The oligarchs behind Tavistock, and similar outfits
\nin the United States and elsewhere, are determined that you should be a
\ntelevision addict, sucking up a daily dose of brainwashing from the “tube;”
\nthat is how they control you. <\/p>\n
Like his fellow brainwashers, Becker prides himself in knowing the
\nminds of his victims. He calls them “saps.” Man, he told an interviewer,
\nshould be called “homo the sap.” <\/p>\n
“Soft” brainwashing by television works through power of
\nsuggestion. Television watching creates a state of drugged-like oblivion to
\noutside reality. The mind, its perceptions dulled by habituated
\nviewing, is ready to accept any new illusion of reality as presented on the
\ntube. The mind, in its drugged-like stupor of television watching, is
\nprepared to accept that the images that television {suggests} as
\nreality {are} reality. It will then struggle to form fit a
\ncontradictory reality into television image, just as Becker claims. <\/p>\n
Another Tavistock brainwasher, Fred Emery, who studied television for
\n25 years, confirms this. The television signal itself, he found, puts the
\nviewer in this state of drugged-like oblivion. Emery writes: “Television as
\na media consists of a constant visual signal of 50 half-frames per second.
\nOur hypotheses regarding this essential nature of the medium itself are: <\/p>\n
“1) The constant visual stimulus fixates the viewer and causes the
\nhabituation of response. The prefrontal and association areas of the cortex are
\neffectively dominated by the signal, the screen. <\/p>\n
“2) The left cortical hemisphere–the center of visual and
\nanalytical calculating processes–is effectively reduced in its functioning
\nto tracking changing images on the screen. <\/p>\n
“3) Therefore, provided, the viewer keeps looking, he is unlikely to
\nreflect on what he is doing and what he is viewing. That is, he will be aware,
\nbut unaware of his awareness…. <\/p>\n
“In other words, television can be seen partly as the technological
\nanalogue of the hypnotist.” <\/p>\n
The key to making the brainwashing work is the {repetition of
\nsuggestion} over time. With people watching the tube for 6 to 8 hours a
\nday, there is plenty of time for such repeated suggestion. <\/p>\n
Some Examples<\/p>\n
Let’s look at an example to make things a bit clearer. Think back about
\n20 years ago. Think about what you thought about certain issues of the
\nday. Think about those same issues today; notice how you seemed to change
\n{your} mind about them, to become more tolerant of things you
\nopposed vehemently before. It’s your television watching that changed your
\nmind, or to use Becker’s terms, “shaped your perceptions.” <\/p>\n
Twenty years ago, most people thought that the lunacy that is now
\ncalled environmentalism, the idea that animals and plants should be protected
\non an equal basis with human life, was screwy. It went against the basic
\nconcept of Christian civilization that man is a higher species than and
\ndistinct from the animals, and that it is man, by virtue of his being made in
\nthe image of the living God, whose life is sacred. That was 20 years ago. But
\nnow, many people, maybe even you, seem to think otherwise; there are even laws
\nthat say so. <\/p>\n
This contrary, anti-human view of man being no more than equal to animals
\nand plants was inserted into our consciousness by the suggestion of
\ntelevision. Environmental lunacy was scripted into network television shows,
\ninto televised movies, and into the news. It started slowly, but picked up
\nsteam. Environmental spokesmen were increasingly seen in the favorable glow
\nof television. Those who opposed this view were shown in an unfavorable way.
\nIt was done over time, with repetition. If you weren’t completely won over, you
\nwere made tolerant of the views of environmental lunatics whose statements
\nwere morally and scientifically unsound.<\/p>\n
Let’s take a more recent example: the war against Iraq. That was a war
\nmade for television. In fact, it was a war {organized} through
\ntelevision. Think back a year: How were Americans prepared for the eventual
\nslaughter of Iraqi women and children? Images on the screen: Saddam Hussein,
\non one side, Hitler on the other. The images repeated in newscasts, backed up
\nby scenes of alleged atrocities in Kuwait. Then the war itself: the
\nvideo-game like images of “smart” weapons killing Iraqi targets. <\/p>\n
Finally, the American military commander-in-chief Gen. Norman
\nSchwartzkopf, conducting a final press briefing that was consciously
\norchestrated to resemble the winning Superbowl coach describing his victory. <\/p>\n
Those were the images that overwhelmed our population. Only now,
\nmonths later, do we find out that the images had nothing to do with reality.
\nThe Iraqi “atrocities” in Kuwait and elsewhere were exaggerated. Our
\n“smart” weapons like the famous Patriot anti-missile system didn’t
\nreally work. Oh, and the casualty figures: it seems that we murdered far
\nmore women and children than we did soldiers. Hardly a “glorious
\nvictory.” But while it might have made a difference if people knew this while
\nthe war was being planned or in progress, polls show that Americans no
\nlonger find the war or any stories about it “interesting.” <\/p>\n
Looking at the question more broadly, where did your children get
\nmost of their values, if not from what they saw on television? Parents might
\ncounteract the influence of the infernal box, but they could not
\novercome it. How could they, if they themselves have been brainwashed by the
\nsame box and if their children spend more time with it than them? Studies
\nshow that most of television programming is geared to a less than
\n5th grade comprehension level; parents, like you, are themselves being
\nremade in the infantile images of the television screen. All of society
\nbecomes more infantile, more easily controllable. <\/p>\n
As Emery explains: {“We are proposing that television as a simple
\nconstant and repetitive and ambiguous visual stimulus, gradually closes down
\nthe central nervous system of man.”} <\/p>\n
Becker holds a similar view of the effect of television on American’s
\nability to think: {“Americans don’t really think–they have opinions
\nand feelings. Television creates the opinion and then validates it.”} <\/p>\n
Nowhere is this clearer than with politics. Television tells Americans
\nwhat to think about politicians, restricting choices to those acceptable
\nto the oligarchs whose financial power controls networks and major cable
\nchannels. It tells people what has been said and what is “important.”
\nEverything else is filtered out. You are told who can win and who can’t. And
\nfew people have the urge to look behind the images in the screen, to seek
\ncontent and truth in ideas and look for a high quality of leadership. <\/p>\n
Such an important matter as choosing a president becomes the same as
\nchoosing a box of laundry detergent: a set of possibilities, whose limits are
\ndetermined, by the images on the screen. You are given the appearance of
\nfreedom of choice, but that you have neither freedom nor real choice. That
\nis how the brainwashing works. <\/p>\n
“Are they brainwashed by the tube,” said Becker to the interviewer.
\n“It is really more than that. I think that people have lost the ability to
\nrelate the images of their own lives without television intervening to tell
\nthem what it means. That is what we really mean when we say that we have a
\nwired society.” <\/p>\n
Turn It Off!<\/p>\n
That was ten years ago. It has gotten far worse since then. In coming
\nissues, we will show you the brainwashers’ vision of a hell on earth
\nand how television is being used to get us there; we will discuss television
\nprogramming, revealing how it has helped produce what is called a
\n“paradigm” shift in values, creating an immoral society; we will explain how
\nthe news is presented and how its presentation has been used to destroy
\nthe English language; we will discuss the mass entertainment media, showing
\nwho controls it and how; we will deal with America’s addiction to
\nspectator sports and show how that too has helped make you passive and stupid;
\nand finally, we will show where we are headed, if we can’t break our addiction
\nto the tube. <\/p>\n
So, after what I just told you, what do say, buddy? Do you want to
\nstay stupid and let your country go to hell in a basket? Why don’t you just
\nwalk over to the set and turn it off. That’s right, completely off. Go on,
\nyou can do it. Now isn’t that better? Don’t you feel a little better already?
\nYou’ve just taken the first step in deprogramming yourself. It wasn’t that
\nhard, was it? Until we speak again, try to keep it off. Now that will be a bit
\nharder. <\/p>\n
From New Federalist V6, #29. <\/p>\n
