So I just have to ask, why are any self identified conservatives, Christians, Constitutionalists, those possessing critical thinking skills, or any other lifeforms claiming intelligence or demonstrating a lick of common sense, still supporting the “Establishment Media”? For a long time, conservative types have decried the so called “liberal news media”, but they keep on watching the 6 o’clock news and buying newspapers and thereby propping up and perpetuating the very establishment that they so rightly declare is doing more harm than good.

Back in the early 1990s, when I started becoming politically aware, I sensed the ‘liberal slant’ in most news stories and soon after stopped taking the newspaper, at least in part due to the sense that my beliefs were being subliminally attacked and ridiculed in almost every article. However, the television news held my attention a bit longer, probably because it has sight, sound and live action going for it that has a much greater ability to captivate the senses and entertain. Nevertheless, a few years later I began to sour on it as well. I was tuning in to get news, but realized that all I was getting was current events based entertainment that dumbs down and brain washes.

Yes, I said the “B” word, “Brainwash.” No, that’s not just an Orwellian, conspiratorial word or something that only happened in the former Soviet bloc, it’s a real word, it’s in the dictionary. Look it up; it has a meaning and it’s happening all around you every day. Brainwashing and/or dumbing down is what happens every time we are presented with a half truth, yet made to think we now have the whole story. It’s anything that changes our view of the world around us in a way that brings us to a false conclusion. It happens, for example, every night when the television news presents us with the nightly shooting story, and you know there will be one every night, even if they have to travel out of state to get it. But they will never ever do a story about someone who protected themselves using a gun, even though in the U.S. people use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times a year. Instead, over the course of a year, you will see 365 examples of crimes being committed with a gun, but not one story of a crime being prevented by the use of a gun. The result? You will soon view guns as something used only to commit crimes, not to stop them, at that point – – “you’ve been brainwashed.”

In real terms, WHAT IS NEWS? In my book, news is “Actionable intelligence about the key affairs of the world around me that will most directly or dramatically affect me or the world that I live in.” Either consciously or unconsciously, I expect this is what most of us think that news is. So what actionable intelligence are you getting from a story about a school bus crash on the other side of the country, or from the forest fire in California (which isn’t even news, it’s just a sign that it’s summer in California), or the latest juicy gossip about which Hollywood star is in rehab, or my personal favorite – – that cute kitty-cat story that leaves you with a warm and fuzzy felling at the end of the news. The fact is that almost none of what we see on the television news is news, it’s sights and sounds designed to captivate our senses, titillate our baser instincts and entertain us for 30 minutes so someone can sell us laundry detergent. And it’s all done with the newscaster’s most sober expression that’s designed to make us think, “this is serious,” and that we must be getting much smarter by watching it.

When Half the Truth Becomes a Whole Lie – – – And that brings me to today’s story. I recently received a communication from a gubernatorial campaign in California. The message announced the media blackout that is being imposed on that campaign due to the candidate’s not being the anointed nominee of one of the two establishment approved parties. The candidate in question is perfectly credible – an actress and a political activist well known for her efforts to stem the tide of illegal immigration in her state. The campaign has had it confirmed to them that “the LA Times has a policy of blacking out the Nightingale for Governor Campaign, that reporters and employees are not to speak of her, that they are not to report on her.” One television news reporter at least tried to do a story on this candidate’s 200 mile walk to the state capitol in an effort to bring attention to the hardships being endured by Californians. However, the story was shot down by the producer 15 minutes before airtime when it was decided that a story about a basketball player beating up his girlfriend was much more important.

A similar confirmation was made to a third party Presidential campaign in 2008. The campaign had hired a media professional who makes a living by getting people booked on news and talk shows. The person had never in their career had such a hard time getting a booking; they couldn’t understand what was happening. Eventually, someone informed this person that the word was out and that no one from the major networks would be giving this candidate an interview.

So what is my point? The point is that getting our information from a source that we know is only telling us the part of the story they want us to hear, or is only telling us about the political candidates that they want us to know about, not only leaves us misinformed, but will inevitably lead to the developing of a skewed perspective of the world we live in. I’m not suggesting that we live in abject ignorance (there are alternative sources of news and information, mostly on the internet), but even ignorance would be preferable to brainwashing and living in a state of deception – deceived into thinking we know the truth when we only know the half of the truth that they want us to know so that we can easily be convinced to believe a whole lie.

As for me, I quit the paper and haven’t watched the television news more than a dozen times in the last ten years.

Now here’s the thing, don’t we understand that every time we buy that paper or turn on the television news, we perpetuate the brainwashing? Not just the brainwashing of ourselves, but of our whole society. The newspaper only exists because people are paying to buy it. The television news is only on the air because advertisers are supporting it and they only support it to the degree that it has good ratings because people are watching it. Blame the so called liberal media all you want, but it only exists to the degree that we support it through buying their newspapers or to the degree we help them keep their ratings up by watching their broadcasts.

So I’ll ask it one more time: Why are any self identified conservatives, Christians, Constitutionalists, those possessing critical thinking skills, or any other lifeforms claiming intelligence or demonstrating a lick of common sense, still supporting the “Establishment Media” by buying their papers or watching their broadcasts?