As people have come to rely more and more on the media to think for them and don’t use their own brains to remember things because they can “just Google it,” many have continued to dull their own ability to think, reason, and remember. As 19th century Swiss writer Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz noted, “It would not be very difficult to show that the further man advances in the conquest of what we must call his secondary powers, which are of a mechanical nature, the more he regresses in the possession of his primary powers, which are of an intuitive nature, and thus he is constantly being weakened.”878
The shift from print journalism to websites and Facebook pages doesn’t just pose a danger to the distribution and verification of news, but it also puts our historical records at risk as well. Headlines and articles can now be changed without notice and information can vanish down a memory hole with little to no trace of its existence. With digital forgeries getting more sophisticated, how will we be able to verify that a document is actually authentic, especially if there are no physical documents anymore? Most people don’t backup their own files locally anymore on external hard drives, and instead rely on cloud services. Many people don’t even own software anymore, and instead pay monthly subscription fees for applications like Photoshop, Microsoft Office, and others.
Paperback books and magazines have become less and less popular since the creation of e-books and tablets, opening the door to dangers of remote deletion, alteration, or even device failure if an iPad or Kindle is dropped and breaks. Someone even gave a Ted Talk claiming that paper dictionaries aren’t needed anymore since they’re too old fashioned, which is a dangerous road to go down.879 Society is on strange course, making us more vulnerable to fake news, not less, and many question whether there is even a solution at all.
Microsoft’s social media researcher Danah Boyd said, “No amount of ‘fixing’ Facebook or Google will address the underlying factors shaping the culture and information wars in which America is currently enmeshed.”880 She continued, “The short version of it all is that we have a cultural problem, one that is shaped by disconnects in values, relationships, and social fabric. Our media, our tools, and our politics are being leveraged to help breed polarization by countless actors who can leverage these systems for personal, economic, and ideological gain.”881
The stress of daily life, mixed with the constant bombardment of bad news about the latest death tolls from local crime and national tragedies, makes it appealing for many to completely check out of current events and the political process and get lost in a world of entertainment. Wasting countless hours clicking through social media threads or arguing about pop culture with complete strangers online is way too easy and should be avoided in exchange for meaningful discussions with friends and family and personal study.
We should stay away from the dangers of only getting news from following certain Twitter accounts or Facebook pages because we like what they post. The risk of being stuck in an echo chamber where only news and commentaries that reflect your own opinions, attitudes and interests, could keep you completely in the dark about important events you should be aware of, and can often present only one side of an issue.
When I was a kid, my friends and I had to ride our bikes to the local video store to rent a VHS tape for $3 or $4 dollars which had to be returned by 5pm the next day. Today we can all watch Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or any number of other streaming services for just a few dollars a month and have access to endless movies and TV shows with the push of a button. So I thank you for taking the time and effort to tune out the millions of distractions clamoring for your attention and ignoring the endless alerts, notifications, likes, comments, and posts on social media for a while to focus on the information I’ve assembled and analyzed in this book.
I hope you’ll write a brief review and rate it on Amazon or whatever e-book store you downloaded it from if that’s how you’re reading it, and I encourage you to check out some of my other books as well, as this is not the only one I have written. I will conclude with a final quote from one of the best films about mass media which brilliantly conveyed the dangerous power wielded by the corporations which control it. In Network (1976), news anchor Howard Beale ‘sees the light’ about the sinister nature of the very business he’s been a part of for decades and decides to blow the lid off it, live on the air. His epic rant, even though over forty years old now, is timeless, and perhaps even more powerful today than when he first made it in 1976 when the film was released.
The character, played by Peter Finch◦— who won the Academy Award for best actor for the role◦— begins by telling the audience, “Television is not the truth. Television’s a god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We’re in the boredom-killing business. So if you want the Truth, go to God! Go to your gurus. Go to yourselves! Because that’s the only place you’re ever gonna find any real truth. But, man, you’re never gonna get any truth from us.”
He continues, getting more passionate with every sentence, “We deal in illusions, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness. You maniacs! In God’s name, you people are the real thing! We are the illusion! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I am speaking to you now! Turn them off!”
Further Reading
The infamous Illuminati secret society represents the pinnacle of power in politics, banking, and the news media; but what about the entertainment industry? Do Hollywood’s elite studios, producers, and celebrities have a secret agenda? Are they part of a covert conspiracy?
Media analyst Mark Dice will show you exactly how Hollywood uses celebrities and entertainment as a powerful propaganda tool to shape our culture, attitudes, behaviors, and to promote corrupt government policies and programs.
You will see how the CIA and the Pentagon work hand in hand with Hollywood to produce blockbuster movies and popular television shows crafted to paint positive portraits of war, Orwellian government surveillance, unconstitutional agendas, and more.
You’ll also learn the strange and secret spiritual beliefs of the stars that fuel their egos and appetites for fame and wealth, making them perfect puppets for the corporate controllers behind the scenes. And you will also discover the rare instances of anti-Illuminati celebrities who have dared to bite the hand that feeds them.
Character Howard Beale once warned in the 1976 classic film Network, “This tube is the most awesome God-damned force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls in to the hands of the wrong people,” and unfortunately that is exactly what has happened.
Secret societies have both fascinated and frightened people for hundreds of years. Often the infamous Illuminati is mentioned as the core of conspiracies which span the globe. The Illuminati is actually a historical secret society which had goals of revolutions and world domination dating back to the 1770s.