Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Dark Art of Mundane Propaganda

When CBS needed an authority to declare the Jerusalem UFO videos a hoax, the network turned to Benjamin Radford, Research Fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
If you were one of the first people in the world to capture some of the most amazing video footage of a UFO taken in the past decade, why would you post it anonymously on YouTube instead of either submitting it to professional analysis, or making money by selling it to CNN or MSNBC?
Radford's analysis is a stunning piece of work; one which must be read in its entirety to  appreciate the degree to which self-serving foolishness and mind-numbing illogic comprises The Scientific Mind.  It is so bloody awful, parsing it out to break it down would be redundant. 

Interesting, too, how CBS does not identify Radford as a Research Fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.  Instead, at the beginning of the story, following Radford's byline, CBS informs its curious readers: This story originally appeared on LiveScience.com.  Neither CBS nor Radford make any mention of his debunker street cred.  He describes himself only as "a veteran investigator of many UFO photos and videos."  Well, who the hell isn't.

Bear in mind that CBS and other networks possess the resources to conduct an independent investigation of the event.  That this never occurs is neither an oversight nor a reflection of the governing elite's casual disregard of UFO phenomena.

Obfuscations such as these are the very essence of propaganda.  Usually, it's slightly more polished than this, but lying by omission is the modus operandi of the billion-dollar corporations producing news & entertainment.  Brian Williams or Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson won't be telling viewers the high profile "experts" networks often use to "shape public opinion" (when enemies of the United States do this, it's called "brainwashing") also happen to be millionaires funded by billionaires who are anything but objective, dispassionate observers committed to public service, much less social justice - the latter two words having long ago been expunged from public discourse.

Corporate monoliths like CBS and its ostensible competitors exist for the singular purpose of keeping dollars flowing in one direction: up. If anyone reading this actually believes in the myth of The Fourth Estate - and, frankly, most people do believe this - it is because the ugly truth of mass media is simply too horrible to contemplate.  Indoctrination into authoritarianism begins at an early age - typically, the day The Baby comes home from the hospital - and disengaging from it is, to put it lightly, exceptionally challenging.  A life's work.  The Media doesn't work for the people it claims to represent.  People are the product, not the customer.  Barely anyone understands this, and it isn't difficult to see why.  This is not a pleasant part of awakening

I wasn't in Jerusalem in the early morning hours of January 28th, nor do I possess the technical expertise to render a judgment as to the validity of the videos.  Those are the two primary reasons why I remain open, however slightly, to the possibility the Jerusalem videos may represent a hoax.  I know all too well how predisposed human beings are to seeing only what we choose to see.   This has been a prominent theme in my contact experiences. 

Benjamin Radford's arguments for a hoax are a glaring example of how fear and prejudice are systematically exploited and rewarded by those who gain the most from keeping an easily manipulated public in a state of perpetual ignorance.

Rest assured, my friends, we haven't heard the last of this story.  Well, you haven't, anyway.  Because I'm not finished writing about it.  Hell, I'm just getting warmed up.

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