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Come Out Of Her My People
                                                        Revelation 18:4

The Doors of Perception - Why Americans Will Believe Most
Anything...


> Dear Members and Friends -
> This excellent commentary is authored by Tim O'Shea, the chiropractor who
> wrote the book, The Sanctity of Human Blood: Vaccination I$ Not Immunization.

> ============================================
> The Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
> By Tim O'Shea
> <http://www.thedoctorwithin.com>www.thedoctorwithin.com
>
> Aldous Huxley's inspired 1956 essay detailed the vivid, mind-expanding,
> multisensory insights of his mescaline adventures. By altering his brain
> chemistry with natural psychotropics, Huxley tapped into a rich and fluid
> world of shimmering, indescribable beauty and power. With his neurosensory
> input thus triggered, Huxley was able to enter that parallel universe
> described by every mystic and space captain in recorded history. Whether by
> hallucination or epiphany, Huxley sought to remove all controls, all
> filters, all cultural conditioning from his perceptions and to confront
> Nature or the World or Reality first-hand - in its unpasteurized, unedited,
> unretouched, infinite rawness.
>
> Those bonds are much harder to break today, half a century later. We are the
> most conditioned, programmed beings the world has ever known. Not only are
> our thoughts and attitudes continually being shaped and molded; our very
> awareness of the whole design seems like it is being subtly and inexorably
> erased. The doors of our perception are carefully and precisely regulated.
> Who cares, right?
>
> It is an exhausting and endless task to keep explaining to people how most
> issues of conventional wisdom are scientifically implanted in the public
> consciousness by a thousand media clips per day. In an effort to save time,
> I would like to provide just a little
> background on the handling of information in this country. Once the basic
> principles are illustrated about how our current system of media control
> arose historically, the reader might be more apt to question any given
> popular opinion.
>
> If everybody believes something, it's probably wrong. We call that
> Conventional Wisdom.
>
> In America, conventional wisdom that has mass acceptance is usually
> contrived: somebody paid for it.
>
>
> Examples:
> * Pharmaceuticals restore health
> * Vaccination brings immunity
> * The cure for cancer is just around the corner
> * Menopause is a disease condition
> * When a child is sick, he needs immediate antibiotics
> * When a child has a fever he needs Tylenol
> * Hospitals are safe and clean.
> * America has the best health care in the world.
> * Americans have the best health in the world.
> * Milk is a good source of calcium.
> * You never outgrow your need for milk.
> * Vitamin C is ascorbic acid.
> * Aspirin prevents heart attacks.
> * Heart drugs improve the heart.
> * Back and neck pain are the only reasons for spinal adjustment.
> * No child can get into school without being vaccinated.
> * The FDA thoroughly tests all drugs before they go on the market.
> * Pregnancy is a serious medical condition
> * Chemotherapy and radiation are effective cures for cancer
> * When your child is diagnosed with an ear infection, antibiotics should be
> given immediately 'just in case'
> * Ear tubes are for the good of the child.
> * Estrogen drugs prevent osteoporosis after menopause.
> * Pediatricians are the most highly trained of al medical specialists.
> * The purpose of the health care industry is health.
> * HIV is the cause of AIDS.
> * AZT is the cure for AIDS.
> * Without vaccines, infectious diseases will return
> * Fluoride in the city water protects your teeth
> * Flu shots prevent the flu.
> * Vaccines are thoroughly tested before being placed on the Mandated
> Schedule.
> * Doctors are certain that the benefits of vaccines far outweigh any
> possible risks.
> * There is a power shortage in California.
> * There is a meningitis epidemic in California.
> * The NASDAQ is a natural market controlled only by supply and demand.
> * Chronic pain is a natural consequence of aging.
> * Soy is your healthiest source of protein.
> * Insulin shots cure diabetes.
> * After we take out your gall bladder you can eat anything you want
> * Allergy medicine will cure allergies.
>
> This is a list of illusions, that have cost billions and billions to conjure
> up. Did you ever wonder why you never see the President speaking publicly
> unless he is reading? Or why most people in this country think generally the
> same about most of the above issues?
>
> HOW THIS WHOLE SET-UP GOT STARTED
>
> In "Trust Us; We're Experts," Stauber and Rampton pull together some
> compelling data describing the science of creating public opinion in
> America. They trace modern public influence back to the early part of the
> last century, highlighting the work of guys like Edward L. Bernays,
> the Father of Spin. From his own amazing chronicle Propaganda, we learn
> how Edward L. Bernays took the ideas of his famous uncle Sigmund Freud
> himself and applied them to the emerging science of mass persuasion.
> The only difference was that instead of using these principles to uncover
> hidden
> themes in the human unconscious, the way Freudian psychology does, Bernays
> used these same ideas to mask agendas and to create illusions that deceive
> and misrepresent, for marketing purposes.
>
> THE FATHER OF SPIN
>
> Bernays dominated the PR industry until the 1940s, and was a significant
> force for another 40 years after that. (Tye) During all that time, Bernays
> took on hundreds of diverse assignments to create a public perception about
> some idea or product. A few examples: As a neophyte with the Committee
> on Public Information, one of Bernays' first assignments was to help sell
> the
> First World War to the American public with the idea to "Make the World
> Safe for Democracy." (Ewen)
>
> A few years later, Bernays set up a stunt to popularize the notion of women
> smoking cigarettes. In organizing the 1929 Easter Parade in New York City,
> Bernays showed himself as a force to be reckoned with. He organized the
> Torches of Liberty Brigade in which suffragettes marched in the parade
> smoking cigarettes as a mark of women's liberation. Such publicity, followed
> from that one event, that from then on, women have felt secure about
> destroying
> their own lungs in public, the same way that men have always done.
>
> Bernays popularized the idea of bacon for breakfast. Not one to turn down a
> challenge, he set up the advertising format along with the AMA that lasted
> for nearly 50 years proving that cigarettes are beneficial to health. Just
> look at ads in issues of Life or Time from the 40s and 50s.
>
> During the next several decades Bernays and his colleagues evolved the
> principles by which masses of people could be generally swayed through
> messages repeated over and over hundreds of times. Once the value of media
> became apparent, other countries of the world tried to follow our lead. But
> Bernays really was the gold standard. Josef Goebbels, who was Hitler's
> minister of propaganda, studied the principles of Edward Bernays when
> Goebbels was developing the popular rationale he would use to convince the
> Germans that they had to purify their race. (Stauber)
>
> SMOKE AND MIRRORS
>
> Bernay's job was to reframe an issue; to create a desired image that would
> put a particular product or concept in a desirable light. Bernays described
> the public as a 'herd that needed to be led.' And this herdlike thinking
> makes people "susceptible to leadership." Bernays never deviated from his
> fundamental axiom to "control the masses without their knowing it." The
> best PR happens when people are unaware that they are being manipulated.
>
> Stauber describes Bernays' rationale like this: "the scientific manipulation
> of public opinion was necessary to overcome chaos and conflict in a
> democratic society." Trust Us p.42
>
> These early mass persuaders postured themselves as performing a moral
> service for humanity in general - democracy was too good for people; they
> needed to be told what to think, because they were incapable of rational
> thought by themselves. Here's a paragraph from Bernays' Propaganda:
> "Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an
> invisible
> government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are
> governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely
> by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which
> our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must
> cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly
> functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere
> of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we
> are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the
> mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the
> wires that control the public mind."
>
> A tad different from Thomas Jefferson's view on the subject:
> "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the
> people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise
> that control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not take it from
> them, but to inform their discretion."
>
> Inform their discretion. Bernays believed that only a few possessed the
> necessary insight into the Big Picture to be entrusted with this sacred
> task. And luckily, he saw himself as one of that few.
>
>
> HERE COMES THE MONEY
> Once the possibilities of applying Freudian psychology to mass media were
> glimpsed, Bernays soon had more corporate clients than he could handle.
> Global corporations fell all over themselves courting the new Image Makers.
> There were dozens of goods and
> services and ideas to be sold to a susceptible public. Over the years, these
> players have had the money to make their images happen.
>
> A few examples:
>
> Philip Morris Pfizer Union Carbide Allstate Monsanto
> Eli Lilly
> tobacco industry
>
> Ciba Geigy
>
> lead industry
>
> Coors
> DuPont
> Chlorox
> Shell Oil
>
> Standard Oil
>
> Procter & Gamble
>
> Boeing
> General Motors
> Dow Chemical
>
> General Mills
>
> Goodyear
>
>
> THE PLAYERS
> Dozens of PR firms have emerged to answer that demand. Among them:
>
> Burson-Marsteller Edelman
>
> Hill & Knowlton
> Kamer-Singer
> Ketchum Mongovin
>
> Biscoe
>
> Duchin BSMG Buder-Finn
>
> Though world-famous within the PR industry, these are names we don't know,
> and for good reason. The best PR goes unnoticed. For decades they have
> created the opinions that most of us were raised with, on virtually any
> issue which has the remotest commercial value, including:
>
> pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines, medicine as a profession, alternative
> medicine, fluoridation of city water, chlorine, household cleaning products,
> tobacco, dioxin, global warming, leaded gasoline, cancer research and
> treatment, pollution of the oceans, forests and lumber, images of
> celebrities, including damage control crisis and disaster management,
> genetically modified foods, aspartame, food additives, processed foods,
> dental amalgams, etc.
>
>
>
> LESSON #1
> Bernays learned early on that the most effective way to create credibility
> for a product or an image was by "independent third-party" endorsement. For
> example, if General Motors were to come out and say that global warming is a
> hoax thought up by some liberal tree-huggers, people would suspect GM's
> motives, since GM's fortune is made by selling automobiles. If, however,
> some independent research institute with a very credible sounding name like the
> Global Climate Coalition comes out with a scientific report that says global
> warming is really a fiction, people begin to get confused and to have doubts
> about the original issue.
>
> So that's exactly what Bernays did. With a policy inspired by genius, he set
> up "more institutes and foundations than Rockefeller and Carnegie combined."
> (Stauber p 45)
> Quietly financed by the industries whose products were being evaluated,
> these "independent" research agencies would churn out "scientific" studies
> and press materials that could create any image their handlers wanted. Such
> front groups are given high-sounding names like:
>
> Temperature Research Foundation
> International Food Information
> Council Consumer Alert
> The Advancement of Sound Science
> Coalition Air Hygiene Foundation
> Industrial Health Federation
> International Food Information Council
> Manhattan Institute Center for Produce Quality
> Tobacco Institute Research Council
> Institute American Council on Science and Health
> Global Climate Coalition
> Alliance for Better Foods
>
>
> Sound pretty legit, don't they?
>
>
> CANNED NEWS RELEASES
> As Stauber explains, these organizations and hundreds of others like them
> are front groups whose sole mission is to advance the image of the global
> corporations who fund them, like those listed on page 2 above. This is
> accomplished in part by an endless
> stream of 'press releases' announcing "breakthrough" research to every radio
> station and newspaper in the country. (Robbins) Many of these canned reports
> read like straight news, and indeed are purposely molded in the news format.
> This saves journalists the
> trouble of researching the subjects on their own, especially on topics about
> which they know very little. Entire sections of the release or in the case
> of video news releases, the
> whole thing can be just lifted intact, with no editing, given the byline of
> the reporter
> or newspaper or TV station - and voilá! Instant news - copy and paste.
> Written by corporate PR firms.
>
>
> Does this really happen? Every single day, since the 1920s when the idea of
> the News Release was first invented by Ivy Lee. (Stauber, p 22) Sometimes as
> many as half the stories appearing in an issue of the Wall St. Journal are
> based solely on such PR press releases.. (22) These types of stories are
> mixe d right in with legitimately researched stories. Unless you have done
> the research yourself, you won't be able to tell the
> difference.
>
>
> THE LANGUAGE OF SPIN
> As 1920s spin pioneers like Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays gained more
> experience, they began to formulate rules and guidelines for creating public
> opinion. They learned quickly that mob psychology must focus on emotion, not
> facts. Since the mob is incapable of
> rational thought, motivation must be based not on logic but on presentation.
> Here are some of the axioms of the new science of PR:
>
> * technology is a religion unto itself
>
> * if people are incapable of rational thought, real democracy is dangerous
>
> *important decisions should be left to experts
>
> * when reframing issues, stay away from substance; create images
>
> * never state a clearly demonstrable lie
>
>
>
>
> Words are very carefully chosen for their emotional impact. Here's an
> example. A front group called the International Food Information Council
> handles the public's natural aversion to genetically modified foods.
> Trigger words are repeated all through the text.
> Now in the case of GM foods, the public is instinctively afraid of these
> experimental new creations which have suddenly popped up on our grocery
> shelves which are said to have DNA alterations.
>
>
> The IFIC wants to reassure the public of the safety of GM foods, so it
> avoids words like:
> Frankenfoods Hitler biotech chemical DNA experiments manipulate money
> safety scientists radiation roulette gene-splicing gene gun random
>
> Instead, good PR for GM foods contains words like:
> hybrids natural order beauty choice bounty cross-breeding diversity earth
> farmer organic wholesome.
>
> It's basic Freudian/Tony Robbins word association. The fact that GM foods
> are not hybrids that have been subjected to the slow and careful scientific
> methods of real cross-breeding doesn't really matter. This is pseudoscience,
> not science. Form is everything and
> substance just a passing myth. (Trevanian)
>
>
> Who do you think funds the International Food Information Council? Take a
> wild guess. Right - Monsanto, DuPont, Frito-Lay, Coca Cola, Nutrasweet -
> those in a position to make fortunes from GM foods. (Stauber p 20)
>
>
>
> CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD PROPAGANDA
> As the science of mass control evolved, PR firms developed further
> guidelines for effective copy. Here are some of the gems:
>
> - dehumanize the attacked party by labeling and name calling
> - speak in glittering generalities using emotionally positive words
> - when covering something up, don't use plain English; stall for time;
>   distract
> - get endorsements from celebrities, churches, sports figures, street
>   people...anyone who has no expertise in the subject at hand
> - the 'plain folks' ruse: us billionaires are just like you
> - when minimizing outrage, don't say anything memorable
> - when minimizing outrage, point out the benefits of what just happened
> - when minimizing outrage, avoid moral issues
>
>
> Keep this list. Start watching for these techniques. Not hard to find Look
> at today's paper or tonight's TV news. See what they're doing; these guys
> are good!
>
>
> SCIENCE FOR HIRE
> PR firms have become very sophisticated in the preparation of news releases.
> They have learned how to attach the names of famous scientists to research
> that those scientists have not even looked at. (Stauber, p 201) This is a
> common occurrence. In this way the editors of newspapers and TV news shows
> are often not even aware that an individual release is a total PR
> fabrication. Or at least they have "deniability," right?
>
>
> Stauber tells the amazing story of how leaded gas came into the picture. In
> 1922, General Motors discovered that adding lead to gasoline gave cars more
> horsepower. When there was some concern about safety, GM paid the Bureau of
> Mines to do some fake "testing" and publish spurious research that 'proved'
> that inhalation of lead was harmless. Enter Charles Kettering. Founder of
> the world famous Sloan-Kettering Memorial Institute for
> medical research, Charles Kettering also happened to be an executive with
> General Motors.
>
>
>
> By some strange coincidence, we soon have the Sloan Kettering institute
> issuing reports stating that lead occurs naturally in the body and that the
> body has a way of
> eliminating low level exposure. Through its association with The Industrial
> Hygiene Foundation and PR giant Hill & Knowlton, Sloane Kettering opposed
> all anti-lead research for years. (Stauber p 92). Without organized
> scientific opposition, for the next
> 60 years more and more gasoline became leaded, until by the 1970s, 90% or
> our gasoline was leaded.
>
>
> Finally it became too obvious to hide that lead was a major carcinogen, and
> leaded gas was phased out in the late 1980s. But during those 60 years, it
> is estimated that some 30
> million tons of lead were released in vapor form onto American streets and
> highways. 30 million tons.
>
>
> That is PR, my friends.
>
> JUNK SCIENCE
>
> In 1993 a guy named Peter Huber wrote a new book and coined a new term. The
> book was Galileo's Revenge and the term was junk science. Huber's shallow
> thesis was that real science supports technology, industry, and progress.
> Anything else was suddenly
> junk science. Not surprisingly, Stauber explains how Huber's book was
> supported by the industry-backed Manhattan Institute.
>
> Huber's book was generally dismissed not only because it was so poorly
> written, but because it failed to realize one fact: true scientific research
> begins with no conclusions. Real scientists are seeking the truth because
> they do not yet know what the truth is.
>
> True scientific method goes like this:
>
> 1. form a hypothesis
> 2. make predictions for that hypothesis
> 3. test the predictions
> 4. reject or revise the hypothesis based on the research findings
>
> Boston University scientist Dr. David Ozonoff explains that ideas in science
> are themselves like "living organisms, that must be nourished, supported,
> and cultivated with resources for making them grow and flourish." (Stauber pg
> 205) Great ideas that don't get
> this financial support because the commercial angles are not immediately
> obvious - these ideas wither and die.
>
>
> Another way you can often distinguish real science from phony is that real
> science points out flaws in its own research. Phony science pretends there
> were no flaws.
>
>
>
> THE REAL JUNK SCIENCE
> Contrast this with modern PR and its constant pretensions to sound science.
> Corporate sponsored research, whether it's in the area of drugs, GM foods,
> or chemistry begins with
> predetermined conclusions. It is the job of the scientists then to prove
> that these conclusions are true, because of the economic upside that proof
> will bring to the industries paying for that research. This invidious
> approach to science has shifted the entire focus of research in America
> during the past 50 years, as any true scientist is likely to admit.
>
>
> Stauber documents the increasing amount of corporate sponsorship of
> university research. (206) This has nothing to do with the pursuit of
> knowledge. Scientists lament that research has become just another
> commodity, something bought and sold. (Crossen)
>
>
> THE TWO MAIN TARGETS OF "SOUND SCIENCE"
> It is shocking when Stauber shows how the vast majority of corporate PR
> today opposes any research that seeks to protect: Public Health and The
> Environment
>
> It's a funny thing that most of the time when we see the phrase "junk
> science," it is in a context of defending something that may threaten either
> the environment or our health. This makes sense when one realizes that money
> changes hands only by selling the
> illusion of health and the illusion of environmental protection. True public
> health and real preservation of the earth's environment have very low market
> value.
>
> Stauber thinks it ironic that industry's self-proclaimed debunkers of junk
> science are usually non-scientists themselves. (255) Here again they can do
> this because the issue is not science, but the creation of images.
>
>
> THE LANGUAGE OF ATTACK
> When PR firms attack legitimate environmental groups and alternative
> medicine people, they again use special words which will carry an emotional
> punch: outraged sound science junk science sensible scaremongering
> responsible phobia hoax alarmist hysteria
>
> The next time you are reading a newspaper article about an environmental or
> health issue, note how the author shows bias by using the above terms. This
> is the result of very
> specialized training.
>
> Another standard PR tactic is to use the rhetoric of the environmentalists
> themselves to defend a dangerous and untested product that poses an actual
> threat to the environment. This we see constantly in the PR smokescreen that
> surrounds genetically modified foods. They talk about how GM foods are
> necessary to grow more food and to end world hunger, when the reality is
> that GM foods actually have lower yields per acre than natural crops.
> (Stauber p 173) The grand design sort of comes into focus once
> you realize that almost all GM foods have been created by the sellers of
> herbicides and pesticides so that those plants can withstand greater amounts
> of herbicides and pesticides. (The Magic Bean)
>
>
> THE MIRAGE OF PEER REVIEW
>
> Publish or perish is the classic dilemma of every research scientist. That
> means whoever expects funding for the next research project had better get
> the current research paper published in the best scientific journals. And we
> all know that the best scientific journals,
> like JAMA, New England Journal, British Medical Journal, etc. are
> peer-reviewed. Peer review means that any articles which actually get
> published, between all those full color drug ads and pharmaceutical
> centerfolds, have been reviewed and accepted by some really smart guys with
> a lot of credentials. The assumption is, if the article made it past peer
> review, the data and the conclusions of the research study have been
> thoroughly checked out and bear some resemblance to physical reality.
>
> But there are a few problems with this hot little set up. First off, money.
> Even though prestigious venerable medical journals pretend to be so
> objective and scientific and incorruptible, the reality is that they face
> the same type of being called to account
> that all glossy magazines must confront: don't antagonize your advertisers.
> Those full-page drug ads in the best journals cost millions, Jack. How long
> will a pharmaceutical company pay for ad space in a magazine that prints
> some very sound scientific
> research paper that attacks the safety of the drug in the centerfold? Think
> about it. The editors aren't that stupid.
>
> Another problem is the conflict of interest thing. There's a formal
> requirement for all medical journals that any financial ties between an
> author and a product manufacturer be disclosed in the article. In practice,
> it never happens. A study done in 1997 of 142 medical journals did not find
> even one such disclosure. (Wall St. Journal, 2 Feb 99)
>
> A 1998 study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that 96% of peer
> reviewed articles had financial ties to the drug they were studying.
> (Stelfox, 1998) Big shock, huh? Any disclosures? Yeah, right. This study
> should be pointed out whenever somebody starts getting too pompous about       > the objectivity of peer review, like they often do.
>
> Then there's the outright purchase of space. A drug company may simply pay
> $100,000 to a journal to have a favorable article printed. (Stauber, pg 204)
> Fraud in peer review journals is nothing new. In 1987, the New England
> Journal ran an article that followed the research of R. Slutsky MD over a
> seven year period. During that time, Dr. Slutsky
> had published 137 articles in a number of peer-reviewed journals. NEJM found
> that in at least 60 of these 137, there was evidence of major scientific
> fraud and misrepresentation,
> including:
> * reporting data for experiments that were never done
> * reporting measurements that were never made
>
> * reporting statistical analyses that were never done (Engler)
>
> Dean Black PhD, describes what he the calls the "Babel Effect" that results
> when this very common and frequently undetected scientific fraudulent data
> in peer-reviewed journals are quoted by other researchers, who are in turn
> re-quoted by still others, and so
> on.
>
>
> Want to see something that sort of re-frames this whole discussion? Check
> out the McDonald's ads which often appear in the Journal of the American
> Medical Association. Then keep in mind that this is the same publication
> that for almost 50 years ran
> cigarette ads proclaiming the health benefits of tobacco. (Robbins)
>
> Very scientific, oh yes.
>
>
> KILL YOUR TV?
> Hope this chapter has given you a hint to start reading newspaper and
> magazine articles a little differently, and perhaps start watching TV news
> shows with a slightly different
> attitude than you had before. Always ask, what are they selling here, and
> who's
> selling it? And if you actually follow up on Stauber & Rampton's book and
> check out some of the other resources below, you might even glimpse the
> possibility of advancing your life one quantum simply by ceasing to subject
> your brain to mass media. That's right
> - no more newspapers, no more TV news, no more Time magazine or Newsweek.
> You could actually do that. Just think what you could do with the extra time
> alone.
>
> Really feel like you need to "relax" or find out "what's going on in the
> world" for a few hours every day? Think about the news of the past couple of
> years for a minute. Do you really suppose the major stories that have
> dominated headlines and TV news have been
> "what is going on in the world?" Do you actually think there's been nothing
> going on besides the contrived tech slump, the contrived power shortages,
> the re-filtered accou