If media spreads fear then it spreads increased use of the primitive brain areas at the very time we most need the functions of the more highly evolved prefrontal cortex - it's tough to practice social medicine when they keep pouring out the poison.
In this pandemic, dear media, "Think before you ink," because fear lowers immune responses and thus raises medical complications at the population level.
What was the point of the Dakota story? Because you have to know how easy it is to manipulate the truth, or make bad decisions made on partial evidence. Again, similar to Kitty, with Dakota there is a life vs money issue; but there is more than that going on. Every day when you watch the news you see only a partial story, like the first three envelopes. And in real life you never get the second three, the truth of the matter. So unless you train yourself in critical thought you will be a puppet of the media and advertisers, it's all designed with a knowledge of psychology, you have to know get your free will back.
I don’t care what country you live in, your news is propaganda. Fear and misdirection. They’ll tell you who to hate, who should live and die - show you how the enemy is barbarous and the powers that control your life are heroes. Those enemies are all “Dakota,” they were children once too, perhaps they still are children. Maybe they have names you can’t pronounce and no-one to speak for them. Maybe they call their God by a different name than you do. Maybe they pray differently, eat differently, have a different family structure. Do any of those things mean they should die? Be expendable in “war”? Does it mean they should be allowed to starve to death? Are they so good at dehumanizing the “enemy” in your mind so you will turn a blind eye or even support war? Chances are strong that if you met these "enemies" in real life you’d be firm friends very quickly. I know I've fallen into a rant again, but I need to finish or my brain will boil over.
Love is the answer, not hate; let's have grace over intolerance; critical thinking and genuine research over ignorance and impulsiveness. If you were back in the Nazi Germany, how would you avoid being swept away with anti-semitism? How can you avoid hating people you don’t know now, likely people from another culture and religion? Are any of them expendable? For less than we spend on war we could save everyone.
Found in Are you awake yet? - first draft, authored by .
It wasn't until 2020, when it was too late, that anyone suspected the news media and the advertisers were in on it together. I don't know why, looking back it was kinda obvious. The news ramped up our fear, our tension, ending with some stupid nonsense story about a dog being best friends with a budgie, then the adverts hit telling us how to make ourselves feel "happy." We could eat our way to happiness, or buy fancy clothes; we could feel great in a new car or secure in an executive home. They knew we'd never buy all their products, bankrupting ourselves, unless we felt miserable and worthless inside. So the obesity epidemic grew and everyone was too busy being scared to notice what was happening right in front of their faces.
We were the sheep and the media was their well trained dog. The teeth were bared and we ran to the malls, to the supermarket, to the fast food joints. Then we felt bad for getting fat, living in "luxury" while most of the world starved and worked in conditions we wouldn't subject a dog to. And how did we afford these products that humans have somehow done without for millennia? We did soulless jobs we hated, we farmed our children into daycare and ended up divorcing the loves of our lives. We lived in misery and forgot what really made us happy and felt confused about what Love really was.
Their products destroyed our society and our Earth, polluting and endlessly filling the emotional void where Love should have been. So while we sucked back five dollar coffee in fancy cafes children died of starvation and lack of basic sanitation abroad. In our fear we could no longer feel Love, our noble and courageous natures were suppressed, keeping us in a primal state of survival that did not belong in our millennia. Everyone I knew back then was good, everyone; but to hear the media tell it we were surrounded by savages, disease and danger. I know that our creator is Love, and so they didn't just steal our humanity, they stole Him from us too.
The kid moved like her knees were just hinges, wobbling too and fro before falling on her padded bottom. Then she clapped like it was all part of the plan and rolled to her stomach to get up again. She was asian looking and cute as hell. She was dressed in a primrose pinafore dress and those soft first shoes kids wear, the ones they can still feel the ground through. The from behind the over-sized rhododendron came her mother with a smile to light up the whole town. The girl giggled, waving her arms for the pick-up she knew was coming, but before she was hoisted high she was on her bottom again.
I think it's scenes like that that keep me going back to the park for lunch. I need these little reminders that people are inherently good and loving; otherwise I the tide of doomsday press will sweep me away into some fearful and narrow-minded thought pattern. I never wanted to be like that and I still don't...
Greg shut the television off. He had no way to tell if the media reports were even true, or perhaps true in part but so bias in their presentation or omissions that he was being lead by the nose to think whatever someone else wanted him to think. All he knew was that Jesus had told him to love his neighbours, to turn the other cheek. When he thought with his higher brain he could go that. He could pour out love to everyone and anyone. But once the fear took hold of the primitive part of his brain it was the boss, locking him down into survival mode: "them or us," "kill or be killed." They weren't just robbing him of his better self, they stole his ability to live his life for the Lord, to let God flow through his thoughts and deeds.
The ideals of every aspect of public life were being bent, warped to the dominant obsession of the times - how to make the most money. The media was no more than pretty wrapping for the advertisers, one that was honed to get the "consumers" in the right mood to purchase and "take in" the advertisers messages. It had once been the shining star of an age of journalism, one that rooted out corruption. Perhaps it was obvious that the media is where the corruption would go next - turning society's watchdog into the guard dog of the powerful.
The media wasn't journalism anymore, it was a puppet show. The stations gobbled up the worst of the worst, the more violent the better, anything for the ratings. Ratings meant money, lots of it. Perhaps it really was just a matter of time before they were funding the barbarism for the consumption of the people. They had no "off-switch," only the most immoral were the victors in the industry and so it went on. Morality was for losers, winners were the ones who "pushed the envelope."
The journalists of days gone by were heroes, but the mob didn't need to play by the rules. Step on the wrong toes and it wasn't a matter of bribery or negotiation, just a two cent bullet in dark alley. The new media were "barbie dolls" of both genders with just as much substance between the ears. They'd keep one person on staff who could ask "tough" questions to make a decent show of pretending to be after the truth, but in reality they gave up on that long long ago.
Ruling in the twenty-first century meant doing so from behind closed doors. Let the "little people" have their elections and media, but control it with simple violence and intimidation techniques. People were simple to control with fear and greed, and that was true right up to the top. Anyone who disagreed met with an "accident" or an assassination if they wanted to make a statement. The rulers were the bankers with media moguls as their favourite tool of control. Want to take control of a country? Build them up as a domestic threat, create a civil war, send in the army. Easy as one, two, three. So long as they never stepped out of the shadows who was going to come looking for them?
Saffy frowned and rolled her eyes skyward; "Look, Alex, if the media is your preacher, you need to leave the choir. We need more cats, less sheep. When people stare, you got their attention - that's a good thing. Use that heart of yours like it's a gun, use that mouth of yours like it's a megaphone. We're not penguins building the biggest rock piles to attract a mate, we're God damn human beings; we're smarter than that. Politics is irrelevant; it's a dog and pony show humanity just can't afford."