Individual "reality" is defined by what people believe to be true more than what actually exists. A firmly held opinion can create such a vast cognitive dissonance that many people can actually witness something that challenges their belief and still deny that they could be incorrect.
This sounds like the biggest conspiracy theory ever, but if you are here reading this, you probably at least suspect that there are manipulations at play in nearly everything we view or read. There are just a few hundred people who control the media, entertainment, and the internet, and unless we are completely unplugged, we are lambasted with their versions of reality relentlessly every day.
Let's talk about how opinions are really formed and who has the influence to sway the people of America. No matter how well-informed a person tries to be, the truth can be hard to come by when bias is presented from so many primary sources.
The Places People Get Their News and Information
According to the Pew Research Group, people get their information from the following sources:
This means that those with the power to influence are the people who pull the strings of network news, those in entertainment, those who make the rules of major social media platforms, and those with the biggest websites. Radio and print newspapers have little influence these days, and for that reason, most major print newspapers also have online outlets.
Notice also how people of varying age groups rely more strongly on different sources for their information.
Network News
Who remembers sitting at the table or just after dinner, being bored to tears as a little kid while your parents were glued to the evening news? I remember my dad wanted to watch the news from three sources because he wanted more than one opinion. I get it now, but at the time, it felt like "the news" would never be over. I usually ended up playing with my Barbies or reading a book.
It seems that times haven't changed much, if the Pew survey cited above is to be believed, and it appears that the older people are, the more likely they are to watch the news on TV.
But here's the catch.
Although there are thousands of news stations across the country, nearly all of them are owned by six corporations. In the 80s, the stations were dispersed through about 50 different companies - not a lot but a far more diverse sampling than you have now that your news is filtered through the lenses of billionaire corporations.
So, basically, everything we hear on the news is controlled by these six companies:
- Time Warner
- Walt Disney
- News Corp.
- Viacom
- CBS Corporation
- NBC Universal
But it goes even deeper than just news because these corporations also control the entertainment industry. And what better way to control the masses than through propagandized drama in which the abnormal is normalized, and agendas are insidiously promoted without the knowledge of an unaware watcher?
Here is a glimpse at the networks owned by these corporations.
As you can see, nearly anything you watch on any channel is influenced by a handful of people - those who run these major corporations. If they want to push an agenda, you can rest assured that agenda will be present on each of their outlets in some form.
The Rulers of the Internet
People under 50 get more of their news and information from the web than any other source these days.
One hundred websites get the majority of the traffic on the internet, and that traffic is massive. The people behind these websites are major influences in the reality perceived by Americans.
Think about this:
Google gets 28 billion visits per month. That means when you look something up on Google, you are provided with the answer Google wants you to have, which may or may not be the actual answer.
YouTube follows quickly behind with 20.5 billion visits. (source) I'm sure by now you have heard that YouTube has taken advertising privileges away from a lot of videographers whose points of view are contrary to the agenda they wish to promote. They're saying that the content is not "advertiser friendly" - and obviously, this discourages people who dedicate their days to advancing the truth from doing so. They too must make a living, and video editing is a time-consuming process. One well-done 10-minute video can take 8 hours to produce.
These are the 100 websites that provide the "reality" for the majority of the people who rely on the internet for their news, as per Alexa.com's traffic reporting system.
Social Media
You may have noticed in the infographic above that a massive amount of traffic goes to social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.
Both of those networks are notorious for censoring points of view that are not part of a liberal outlook. Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably heard about Twitter permanently banning a bunch of popular Alt-Right people, most infamously, Milo Yiannopolis for his perspective.
Now, personally, I'm not a fan of the Alt-Right viewpoint. It seems like they're presenting meanness as "truth" when they could just as easily state true things without being jerks about it. But that is beside the point. If these people are going to be banned for their unsavory ways of communicating, why does Twitter allow things like #RapeMelania to trend? Why does Twitter allow actual threats against the President? If you're going to start banning offensiveness, shouldn't it be across the board?
Then there's Facebook, who has actually been busted running social experiments on its users by attempting to alter people's moods with what they show in their timelines. But it doesn't stop there. Nearly every blogger I know who works in the alternative news genre has been in Facebook jail at least once for presenting an unpopular opinion. I personally got warnings when I posted this article on my page - the article was taken down dozens of times and reported as "hate speech" when the "hate" it reported on was certainly not MY hatred.
Of course, when you sign up to use any of these social media networks, you agree to their terms and conditions. They're businesses and are under no obligation to be truthful or have integrity. Go ahead and use them - I do because they are helpful to my business - but do so fully aware that what you see presented there reflects the opinions of the management and not actual reality.
So how do we get the truth?
There really aren't any unbiased sources out there. Having worked as an alternative journalist, I can tell you honestly that no matter how hard you try to be unbiased, your personal feelings sneak in, at least a little bit. Maybe it's with the background information you provide to support your story because you can see the direction what you are reporting on is going. Maybe it is with a little bit of snarky commentary or a pithy headline.
Because of this, many people pick the reality in which they want to live. Maybe they select ultra-conservative websites that reflect their religious beliefs. Perhaps they opt for anti-establishment outlets that gleefully point out in a non-partisan fashion that all of the politicians are sell-outs. For others, they want "news" that supports their warm, fuzzy liberal view of the world.
It's pretty easy to get manipulated through the subliminal messages and the predictive programming, but some folks seem to be immune. You really want to be one of those people, and if you aren't, you can get there.
I wrote about this previously:
What if you don't want to live in an alternate reality created by the media?What if some people are genetically more susceptible than others? What if some of us are immune to this constant bombardment of images, words, and ideas that most people seem to buy into without question?
Could this be the difference between the vast majority of the people and those of us are that are awake and aware? Are we just mutants? Is this why I can explain this stuff until I lose my voice and just get a blank stare from people who think I am the crazy one?
The vast majority of people in the United States are completely accepting of the official message:Most people like us (those who are aware, the self-sufficient minority) watch less TV than the masses. Some of us watch no TV at all. I watch a few shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime, but we don't have cable TV with its commercials and *cough* news. We have other things to do, things that will help us when there are soldiers on the streets "for our own protection." Things that will help our kids survive when the store shelves are empty and the majority relies on government rations to live (if they behave well enough to get one that is, and behave they will because hunger is a massive motivator to do as you're told.)
- They believe that the government will be there to save them in all circumstances.
- They don't question or inquire. They simply accept what they are told.
- They don't share our fears that something big is on the horizon.
- They exist in a bubble and don't look at the bigger picture.
- They refuse to prepare for bad things because they honestly don't believe it's possible that those things will happen.
Even if you have a tendency to be mind-controlled, it's possible to snap out of it. I wasn't always the tinfoil-clad blogger you see before you today. When I was in my early 20s, I truly did believe that the government agencies like the EPA and the FDA were looking out for our best interests, that food or medicine wouldn't be sold if it was harmful, and that schools truly were in the business of educating children. Most of us have to shake off our early training at the hands of the education system and the television.
And sort of like in the movie, The Matrix, if you can get someone to swallow the red pill, they become a lot less willing to believe whatever they're fed.
Subliminal messaging can change people's views, can change the way they think, can change what they want to eat, what car they want to buy, maybe even how they vote. All you need is the cash to get your message out there and buy a few split seconds of screen time.
It can sow the seeds that make acceptance of abnormal and dangerous situations easier. It can teach people not to question and to be good little sheep.
Sitting for hours in front of the television mindlessly watching the drivel produced by companies who call it "entertainment" is brainwashing people and turning them into idiots, making the best current day example of predictive programming the movie Idiocracy.
All you have to do is look around and you'll see that it's here.
First of all, this doesn't even touch on other influences like the ridiculous fear culture perpetuated in our schools or the Marxist indoctrination in our colleges and universities, where they teach you that gender isn't a real thing and you get to pick whenever you want. There are many more players in the alternate reality game than just the media, but you have to start somewhere.
My advice for those who don't want to live in an alternate reality:
- Turn off the TV.
- Vet your sources.
- Try to get several points of view - even the ones you don't like.
- Look out for talking points that are used ad infinitum like "deep state" or "with an abundance of caution" or "the Russians." The things you hear repeated over and over are repeated for a reason - to brainwash you.
I didn't say within you because if you identify with an idea of yourself that is out of true with who you are - then truth is usurped by such thinking when you accept as your own and act from the belief.
The idea that truth is out there is a combination of projecting unwanted or denied truths away from self and of masking of hiding from unwanted and feared outcomes.
When truth is honoured and given faith within - the world must reflect that.
When masked agenda is given faith, the world reflects that.
The reality experience of existence that is your current appreciation is the result of the focus of thought in definition and belief that you accept true of you. Some of this is easy to notice but much is running under subconscious routines and unconscious negative conditioning.
The idea of controlling life, consciousness or others is a vibrational frequency that coalesces its own wavelengths of correspondence. The attempt TO control is the fear and hatred OF subjection. These two are one.
The law of mind is 'as you sow, so shall you reap' or what you give out is what you get back. By deceit, we may seem to break this and get away with it - but this is a self-delusion of freedom by which a private 'reality' operates as separated minds in autonomous bodies amidst a material external universe. This is what truth is sacrificed to protect.
The reinforcement of identity and 'consensual' realities is a highly complex defence against knowing - in the form of knowing something 'else'. As I began - the need to NOT know can arise from experience of overwhelming conflict or psychic emotional pain. And the nature of the pain in the human condition is such as to operate a deep and dense undercurrent need for UN-consciousness.
The study of coercive and manipulative deceits and power has to include that an environment of fear and guilt attracts and holds them - along with the recognition that the sense of 'power' in such control role play generates and maintains fear and guilt automatically.
The recognition and release of 'out-of-true' self definition in relation to anyone or anything enables the witnessing of a reality not under them - in all you are - because it is no longer asserted or lived as true of you - and something else is - that you recognize and accept and feel to be true. This is a real relationship and not a mental imposition of meanings that generate incoherent reality and struggle to prevail.
Basically the patterns of fear and guilt 'control' or frame and direct your reality over which a narrative identity seeks some degree of unity and continuity. We are all entangled - in a quantum sense - with each other as a fractured or split mind - which is a way of perceiving Existence in negative and oppositionally exclusive terms. The purpose of 'forgetting' or self-evasion, runs as default until it runs out of capacity to evade or hide from its own act.
Self-awareness is un-teachable except by demonstration - to the readiness and willingness of its acceptance. But noticing the thought by which one misidentifies - is OF a quality of awareness that is not controlled or coercive upon all that it embraces.
It is current now to meet the phrase "you create your (own) reality. Correctly understood this can awaken responsibility for the core beliefs and definitions that generate our reality experience. But as with above - the YOU that creates is not anything you would think and accept yourself to be. But if you notice the power of fear to create negative reality outcomes of pain, struggle and loss - and see it is not weak but strong - then you don't need more strength or power so much as clearer or healed perception - and to realign persistently and consistently in the true of you - just because - and not as part of some bargaining leverage to get more or lose less.
In your natural being, you resonate with and balance within your relational experience automatically - because nothing in you is conflicting or blocking your sense of being. But within the false realities of imposed meanings and association - this awareness has been lost - and a 'second nature' learned - as adaptation to a fearful and hostile sense of existence. Indeed the ability to challenge this belief is impossible from within its operation.