August 15, 2011

Visual Rituals: Television As The Greatest Myth-Making Force in Human History

Saman Mohammadi
August 15, 2011

"It may be that the present system, with no modifications and no experiments, can survive. Perhaps the money-making machine has some kind of built-in perpetual motion, but I do not think so. To a very considerable extent the media of mass communications in a given country reflect the political, economic and social climate in which they flourish. That is the reason ours differ from the British and French, or the Russian and Chinese. 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." - Edward R. Murrow, October 15, 1958, Chicago, RTNDA Convention speech.

"Television is a great entertainment industry. That's what it is. I think we do entertainment on television better than any place in the world. I mean that's what television is for. You're bored, you want to enjoy yourself, you want to be amused, you turn it on and you have a good time. But, unfortunately, it has a power that transcends anything in the world today. It is a power that deals with the fact that 95% of this country is television saturated. That means 95% of our people get their information from television and television only." - Paddy Chayefsky, screenwriter of Network (1976). The quote is from an interview that Chayefsky gave on television in the 1970s.
When the September 11 attacks happened, everyone was glued to a television screen as video of the twin towers collapsing were replayed throughout the day. Only a few insiders knew that a mythological narrative of the attacks was being constructed and presented for public consumption by high-placed government officials and professional teleprompter readers.

The cunning State creators of the 9/11 myth had a wild imagination and they used every possible means to get people to believe their lies. They used the canvas of human blood - the blood of three thousand innocent human beings who were sacrificed on 9/11 - to create a historical fiction out of a real-life tragedy.

Their essential crime is that they stole the fire of storytelling to implement an evil agenda for world war and world domination. They are thieves of the light. And they used the power of television to tell their vision and spellbind an entire world.

The modern use of television to tell a fictitious story based on a real event through symbolic imagery and visual information, while portraying it to the public as real history, is the most improper and criminal use of human technology.

Television holds within it the power of the ancient tribal fire around which the people gathered to be indoctrinated into the culture to which they belonged.

In the elect's hands, the fire of indoctrination can be used to burn independent thought and turn individuals into mindless followers and obedient slaves. The rulers of the tribe were happy to oblige their fantasies and tell them scary stories. As they do in the current age.

In today's Western totalitarian societies the people huddle around the television to get their daily dosage of mythic storytelling and state propaganda. A cult of the State is what individuals who love freedom are up against.

In a totalitarian society where the State is worshipped and its lies are believed to be real, the cemetery of truth is not in the State or in the Press but in the individual's own mind. The brainwashed and manipulated individual cannot even conceive of a narrative of history that is different from the one that is created for him and subsidized daily by officialdom.

But there is a way to fight back against totalitarian propaganda and televised insanity, and it is with the spoken word as well as with the written word. Television has the power to manipulate reality, simplify for simpletons, and use repetition to control the reptilian part of our brains.

But the Word has the power to enlighten and expand human consciousness, and get people to think for themselves. Reading a book and or listening to the radio exercises the brain, but watching television numbs and destroys it.

The Internet has done what the inhumane television news industry and corporate mass media was unable to do, which is help America and all of mankind embark upon what legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow called an "exciting adventure--exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the nation," in his speech at the Radio-Television News Directors Association Convention on October 15, 1958.

The mass media has been used for a century to tame the human imagination and destroy the human spirit, but the wild and free Internet has let loose this spirit, and with it, new ideas and new voices.

Ownership of the mass media, newspapers, cinema, radio, and television by a small class of corrupt oligarchs has made possible the censorship of the truth behind the private Federal Reserve Banking System for a century.

Under the modern media system a few in power are able to create a false, dream world and control people's thoughts about the most important events in modern history, with the 9/11 attacks being the best example.

The power of the media and public airwaves is an almighty power. And it is being used to control the world. Ancient priests and kings had a similar power because the people they ruled over were illiterate and stupid. The modern mass media and the power of television has taken humanity back to this level of psychological submission, when the few controlled the many.

People living in this age are illiterate in a different way. They are economically illiterate, and mythically illiterate. The mass media has reversed the intellectual advances made during the Renaissance and the mass printing of the bible and books. But the change is not permanent.

We are living in a second Renaissance Age thanks to the Internet. This is a time of mass education and mass awakening. It is through the use of the Internet that we are able to learn the basic facts of our era.

We know that America's enemies and the enemies of Western Civilization do not reside in the shadows of caves in the Middle East but inside the shadows of government and banking in Washington, Tel Aviv and London.

Millions of people know that mainstream reality is a black op because of the black box. They know something has to be done to restore the truths of modern history, and restore the mental integrity of the individual.

But the false narratives pushed by banks, governments and corporations will remain our dominant reality if we don't completely separate the Media and the State.

In previous centuries the West succeeded in separating the Church and the State. America was built upon this European victory for human enlightenment and human freedom.

In this century we must continue what was started in the Renaissance, and demand the separation between mass media and government; journalists and secret intelligence agencies.

We see the symptoms of the collusion between the corporate media and government everywhere. One of the disturbing facts that we learned from News Corp's phone hacking scandal in Britain was that British government ministers met regularly with employees of Rupert Murdoch. The same thing goes on between the Republican establishment and Fox News in the United States.

So-called left-wing publications and media channels are also in bed with the Obama administration and CIA. This is not a right-wing problem. It is a government and media problem that all Western societies must face and fix.

We don't need government-funded media, foundation-funded media or the corporate media to educate ourselves and learn about the world around us. The Internet has made most media organizations totally irrelevant.

I think NPR, PBS, CBC, and BBC should all be defunded for misusing public funds to spread government propaganda and keep the people in the dark about the September 11 attacks. The government has no business in controlling what people hear, see and read, just as it has no business in controlling what people believe about religion, God and the afterlife.

The popularity of alternative news websites on the Internet and radio shows like the Alex Jones show is proof that the American people and people around the world are hungry for the truth.

And the truth sells. Showing reality to people and enlightening them about 9/11 and the war on terror is commercially profitable. But media empires are not primarily after profit. They are after political power and world domination.

Put the truth on television in America, and the country's economic and political problems will be solved. Put Alex Jones on television. Give Dylan Ratigan a prime time spot. Let Noam Chomsky speak in a nationally televised press conference.

Allow William Rodriguez, a recognized 9/11 hero and an eyewitness to the truth, to tell his story to the American people and the world. Invite Sibel Edmonds and other U.S. government whistleblowers on television, and America will find a way out of its current political crisis.

Also, make space in the public airwaves for architect Richard Gage, founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, as well as other professionals who have raised 9/11 truth to global public awareness such as physicist Steven E. Jones, chemist Niels Harrit, and firefighter Erik Lawyer, founder of Firefighters for 9-11 Truth.

America is dying because the truth is being denied to the American people by the government and mass media. Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff of Project Censored called it a "truth emergency" in their article, "Truth Emergency: Inside The Military Industrial Media Empire."

If television is not utilized to inform the people about the truth behind the 9/11 myth then public anger in America and across the West will grow so large that journalists and media talking heads will come under fire. This is the ugly and painful nightmare that must be avoided. Journalists must dig deep within their souls and take a stand for 9/11 truth. They should listen to what Murrow said in 1958:
"To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful."
If journalists and television talking heads continue to fail the public and betray the public trust then they will face what they are most afraid of: media accountability.