Tag: TV

Tyler
Durden heeft op Zero Hedge een artikel geplaatst van John Whitehead,
eerder gepubliceerd op de site van The Rutherford Institute.

In het
artikel schrijft Whitehead over de films van John Carpenter, waar hij
zijn schrijven m.n. baseert op de film ‘They Live’, een film van meer dan
30 jaar geleden. Hoewel 30 jaar oud, ziet Whitehead in de film
opvallende overeenkomsten met de huidige politiestaat die men VS
pleegt te noemen. Met gebruik van media als de tv prent men de bevolking zaken in als gehoorzaam te zijn en bang te zijn, dit door boodschappen die je normaal niet ziet, maar die de hoofdpersoon met een speciale bril wel kan zien. Voorts heeft de tv dan ook nog het effect op mensen hun zorgen even opzij te zetten, iets dat zonder meer gebeurt met de argeloze kijker….

Men jaagt de mens angst aan voor ‘het onbekende’, ofwel voor bijvoorbeeld terroristen in een ver land, aanvallen op publiek door éénlingen, of zelfs angst voor buren die men niet kent. Alles gevoed met series, films en programma’s over daadwerkelijke misdaad, zoals Opsporing Verzocht (fopsnorren verkocht*). Let wel het gaat hier om de bevolking van de VS, de manier waarop de maatschappij daar is ingericht en hoe de reguliere massamedia worden beheerst door plutocraten en grote investeringsmaatschappijen, hoe Hollywood middels films en series het volk angst aanjaagt middels wat je niet anders kan zien dan een vorm van hersenspoelen….. 

De VS is maar al te vaak het slachtoffer in deze films en series, terwijl de VS een paar keer is aangevallen: Pearl Harbour, in feite niet behorend tot de VS en een aanval die voorkomen had kunnen worden, maar die men expres liet gebeuren zodat de VS zich in WOII kon mengen….. Verder uiteraard 9/11, waarvan intussen meer dan duidelijk is dat deze terroristische aanslagen werden georganiseerd en geregisseerd door de VS zelf…. Niet moeilijk te bedenken dat we in Nederland en de rest van het westen dezelfde kant opgaan, zie alleen al al het fake news en manipulaties in onze reguliere media, voorafgaand en tijdens de illegale oorlogen die de VS deze eeuw begon, waarbij meer dan 2,5 miljoen mensen zijn omgekomen, ofwel feitelijk vermoord door de VS en haar hielenlikkende NAVO-partners, waaronder Nederland (en ja daar betalen we met z’n allen aan mee…)…..

Hoe is het mogelijk dat er zoveel films en series zijn die zogenaamd aantonen dat het westen slachtoffer is van terreur en het onbekende, zodat het terecht lijkt dat het westen met grootschalige terreur ingrijpt in landen waar we niets, maar dan ook helemaal niets te zoeken hebben…??? De werkelijkheid is volkomen omgedraaid, de VS en haar NAVO-partners gebruiken grootschalige terreur in het Midden-Oosten, Afrika en Latijns-Amerika (sinds kort ook met NAVO troepen uit Europa), deze terreur roept logischerwijs agressie op bij de nabestaanden van het enorme aantal slachtoffers…  Hoe meer van deze films en series vertoond worden, hoe meer de mens angst krijgt voor het bestaan en achter de ongebreidelde westerse agressie gaat staan, terwijl geen hond nog ziet dat de terreur die we zelf uitoefenen van een grootte is, waarbij aanslagen in het westen in het niet vallen…… Gevolg van die westerse terreur: het kweken van aanslagen in het westen en enorme vluchtelingenstromen (waar dan schunnig genoeg zelfs angst wordt gekweekt voor die vluchtelingen)…… 

Kortom we laten ons leven en beseffen niet dat e.e.a. zich voltrekt over ons bestaan, we dromen vrij te zijn, maar zijn dat in werkelijkheid allesbehalve…..

Carpenter
is in zijn films altijd sterk anti-autoritair en hij laat de kijker
zien hoe de mens in feite slaapt terwijl onzichtbare machten zich het leven van de slapenden toe-eigenen, dit geldt des te meer voor de
film ‘They Live’.

Vanmorgen hoorde ik dat een geschifte generaal het internet van Nederland wil bewaken, lees: zuiveren van kritiek, waarvoor hij dan het sprookje aanhaalt dat ‘men’ (lees: Rusland) ons manipuleert via de sociale media….. Als iets dergelijks doorgang zou vinden, kunnen we het laatste restje echt objectieve journalistiek vaarwel zeggen en worden we alleen nog volgepropt met neoliberale leugens…….

Lees het volgende uitstekende artikel en de rillingen zullen je over de rug lopen (ach ja, het is het hele jaar Halloween):

They
Live, We Sleep: Beware The Growing Evil In Our Midst

by Tyler
Durden

Wed,
10/30/2019 – 00:05

Authored
by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“You
see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You
might even vote for one this fall. You
think they’re people just like you. You’re
wrong. Dead
wrong.”

–
They Live

We’re
living in two worlds, you and I.

There’s
the world we see (or are made to see) and then there’s the one we
sense (and occasionally catch a glimpse of), the latter of which is a
far cry from the propaganda-driven reality manufactured by the
government and its corporate sponsors, including the media.

Indeed,
what most Americans perceive as life in America—privileged,
progressive and free—is a far cry from reality, where
economic inequality is growing, real agendas and real power are
buried beneath layers of Orwellian doublespeak and corporate
obfuscation, and “freedom,” such that it is, is meted out in
small, legalistic doses by militarized police armed to the teeth.

All
is not as it seems.

This
is the premise of John
Carpenter’s film They
Live,
which was released more than 30 years ago, and remains unnervingly,
chillingly appropriate for our modern age.

Best
known for his horror film Halloween,
which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can’t be
killed, Carpenter’s larger body of work is infused with a strong
anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to
the filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society,
particularly our government.

Time
and again, Carpenter portrays the government working against its own
citizens, a
populace out of touch with reality,
technology run amok, and a future more horrific than any horror film.

In Escape
from New York,
Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America.

In The
Thing, a
remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter
presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.

In Christine,
the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a demon-possessed
car, technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes
on a murderous rampage.

In In
the Mouth of Madness,
Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose “the ability to
know the difference between reality and fantasy.”

And
then there is Carpenter’s They
Live,
in which two migrant workers discover that the world is not as it
seems. In fact, the population is actually being controlled and
exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite.
All the while, the populace—blissfully unaware of the real agenda
at work in their lives—has been lulled into complacency,
indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and
hypnotized by subliminal messages beamed out of television and
various electronic devices, billboards and the like.

It
is only when homeless drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by
the late
Roddy Piper)
discovers a pair of doctored sunglasses—Hoffman lenses—that Nada
sees what lies beneath the elite’s fabricated reality: control and
bondage.

When
viewed through the lens of truth, the elite, who appear human until
stripped of their disguises, are shown to be monsters who have
enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on them.

Likewise, billboards
blare out hidden, authoritative messages:
a bikini-clad woman in one ad is actually ordering viewers to “MARRY
AND REPRODUCE.” Magazine racks scream “CONSUME” and “OBEY.”
A wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR
GOD.”

When
viewed through Nada’s Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden
messages being drummed into the people’s subconscious include: NO
INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WATCH TV, NO
IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.

This
indoctrination campaign engineered by the elite in They
Live is
painfully familiar to anyone who has studied the decline of American
culture.

A
citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question,
is submissive, does not challenge authority, does not think outside
the box, and is content to sit back and be entertained is a citizenry
that can be easily controlled.

In
this way, the subtle message of They
Live provides
an apt analogy of our own distorted vision of life in the American
police state, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to
as dictatorship
in democracy,
“the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.”

We’re
being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no
resemblance to reality.

The
powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our
control (terrorists, shooters, bombers).

They
want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized
armies for our safety and well-being.

They
want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at
each other’s throats.

Most
of all, they want us to continue to march in lockstep with their
dictates.

Tune
out the government’s attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us
and tune into what’s really going on in this country, and you’ll
run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable truth: the moneyed
elite who rule us view us as expendable resources to be used, abused
and discarded.

In
fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University
concluded that the U.S.
government does not represent the majority of American citizens.
Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and
powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover,
the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental
elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.

In
other words, we are being ruled
by an oligarchy disguised
as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of
government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the
shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.

Not
only do you have to be rich—or beholden to the rich—to get
elected these days, but getting
elected is also a surefire way to get rich.
As CBS
News reports,
“Once in office, members of Congress enjoy access to connections
and information they can use to increase their wealth, in ways that
are unparalleled in the private sector. And once politicians leave
office, their connections allow them to profit even further.”

In
denouncing this blatant corruption of America’s political system,
former president Jimmy Carter blasted the process of getting
elected—to the White House, governor’s mansion, Congress or state
legislatures—as “unlimited
political bribery…
a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major
contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for
themselves after the election is over.”

Rest
assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the
basic forms of government will remain: Fascism will appear to be
friendly. The
legislators will be in session. 

There will be elections, and the news
media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia.
Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual
control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling
the government behind the scenes.

Sound
familiar?

Clearly,
we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate
interests.

We
have moved into “corporatism” (favored
by Benito Mussolini),
which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.

Corporatism
is where the few moneyed interests—not elected by the
citizenry—rule over the many. In this way, it is not a democracy or
a republican form of government, which is what the American
government was established to be. It is a top-down form of government
and one which has a terrifying history typified by the developments
that occurred in totalitarian regimes of the past: police states
where everyone is watched and spied on, rounded up for minor
infractions by government agents, placed under police control, and
placed in detention (a.k.a. concentration) camps.

For
the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial
ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s
not only expedient but necessary.

But
why would a people agree to such an oppressive regime?

The
answer is the same in every age: fear.

Fear
makes people stupid.

Fear
is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of
government. And, as most social commentators recognize, an atmosphere
of fear permeates modern America: fear of terrorism, fear of the
police, fear of our neighbors and so on.

The
propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want
to gain control, and it is working on the American populace.

Despite
the fact that we are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart
disease than from a terrorist attack; 11,000 times more likely to die
from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an
airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a
terrorist attack, and 8
times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a
terrorist ,
we have handed over control of our lives to government officials who
treat us as a means to an end—the source of money and power.

As
the Bearded Man in They
Live warns, “They
are dismantling the sleeping middle class. 

More and more people are
becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”

In
this regard, we’re not so different from the oppressed citizens
in They
Live.

From
the moment we are born until we die, we are indoctrinated into
believing that those who rule us do it for our own good. The truth is
far different.

Despite
the truth staring us in the face, we have allowed ourselves to become
fearful, controlled, pacified zombies.

We
live in a perpetual state of denial, insulated from the painful
reality of the American police state by wall-to-wall entertainment
news and screen devices.

Most
everyone keeps their heads down these days while staring zombie-like
into an electronic screen, even when they’re crossing the street.
Families sit in restaurants with their heads down, separated by their
screen devices and unaware of what’s going on around them. Young
people especially seem dominated by the devices they hold in their
hands, oblivious to the fact that they can simply push a button, turn
the thing off and walk away.

Indeed,
there is no larger group activity than that connected with those who
watch screens—that is, television, lap tops, personal computers,
cell phones and so on. In fact, a Nielsen study reports that American
screen viewing is at an all-time high. For example, the average
American watches approximately 151 hours of television per month.

The
question, of course, is what effect does such screen consumption have
on one’s mind?

Psychologically
it is similar
to drug addiction.
Researchers found that “almost immediately after turning on the
TV, subjects
reported feeling more relaxed,
and because this occurs so quickly and the tension returns so rapidly
after the TV is turned off, people are conditioned to associate TV
viewing with a lack of tension.” Research also shows that
regardless of the programming, viewers’ brain waves slow down, thus
transforming them into a more passive, nonresistant state.

Historically,
television has been used by those in authority to quiet discontent
and pacify disruptive people. “Faced with severe overcrowding and
limited budgets for rehabilitation and counseling, more
and more prison officials are using TV to keep inmates quiet,”
according to Newsweek.

Given
that the majority of what Americans watch on television is provided
through channels
controlled by six mega corporations,
what we watch is now controlled by a corporate elite and, if that
elite needs to foster a particular viewpoint or pacify its viewers,
it can do so on a large scale.

If
we’re watching, we’re not doing.

The
powers-that-be understand this. As television journalist Edward R.
Murrow warned in a 1958 speech:

We
are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent.
We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing
information. Our mass media reflect this. But
unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television
in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate
us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it,
and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too
late.

This
brings me back to They
Live,
in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the shots but
the populace who are content to remain controlled.

When
all is said and done, the world of They
Live is
not so different from our own. As one of the characters points out,
“The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human
rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society and we
are their unwitting accomplices. 

Their intention to rule rests with
the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance.
They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused
only on our own gain.”

We,
too, are focused only on our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our
poor and underclasses are also growing. Racial injustice is growing.
Human rights is nearly nonexistent. We too have been lulled into a
trance, indifferent to others.

Oblivious
to what lies ahead, we’ve been manipulated into believing that if
we continue to consume, obey, and have faith, things will work out.
But that’s never been true of emerging regimes. And by the time we
feel the hammer coming down upon us, it will be too late.

So
where does that leave us?

The
characters who populate Carpenter’s films provide some insight.

Underneath
their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal
opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the
law and the establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters.

When,
for example, John Nada destroys the alien hyno-transmitter in They
Live,
he restores hope by delivering America a wake-up call for freedom.

That’s
the key right there: we
need to wake up.

Stop
allowing yourselves to be easily distracted by pointless political
spectacles and pay attention to what’s really going on in the
country.

The
real battle for control of this nation is not being waged between
Republicans and Democrats in the ballot box.

As
I make clear in my book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People, the
real battle for control of this nation is taking place on roadsides,
in police cars, on witness stands, over phone lines, in government
offices, in corporate offices, in public school hallways and
classrooms, in parks and city council meetings, and in towns and
cities across this country.

The
real battle between freedom and tyranny is taking place right in
front of our eyes, if we would only open them.

All
the trappings of the American police state are now in plain sight.

Wake
up, America.

If
they live (the tyrants, the oppressors, the invaders, the overlords),
it is only because “we the people” sleep.

Tag:
Politics

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* Uitspraak van en met dank aan Dave de Borst.