Ben Franklin
5) Through word manipulation and hypnotic speech
How you every noticed that many of those who promote being "open minded" are only interested in having you be open minded to their ideas, while they feel perfectly justified in maneuvering for a monopoly of opinion? One of the ways they do this is through word manipulation. The idea is to immediately label your opponent with an unsavory term, thereby letting people's already negative feeling ties to that term do the work for you. Those who aren't interested in fairness and the pursuit of truth use this tactic to slant an argument in their favor by ensuring that the opposing side is never even considered. Many of those who recognize the unfairness of stereotyping don't realize that they are engaging in the exact tactic they profess to hate when they simplify an opponents opinions to unsavory sound bites and discounting terminology. This tactic is hypnotic in that it drops people into feeling states immediately and bypasses an individual's conscious reasoning abilities. If an idea is right it will stand on its own; only questionable ideas need the support of inflammatory speech patterns.
6) Through the use of the "sandwich smear"
This is also known as the "propaganda of the lump". This is the technique of lumping legitimate groups with good ideas together with violent, racist, or radical groups that have already been discounted. The legitimate group suffers from the created association when no actual association exists. This is a common tactic used by today's media. By mentioning a good group in the same breath as a despicable one--or better yet, "sandwiched" in speech or print between two despicable groups--the manipulators bamboozles the target audience into associating the negative feeling it has for the bad group with the group that is now being unfairly persecuted.
7) Through slant and omission.
These go hand in hand with creating a false prominence of being. Think of it this way: if a baseball player strikes out 9 out of 10 times but I only highlight and mention the time he got a hit, I will give the impression that he is a better baseball player than he really is. People are manipulated constantly with this technique and are often kept from more correct views of reality because they have only been shown events and news stories that aren't typical of what is generally happening.
"Not yet, O Freedom! Close thy lids in slumber, for thine enemy never sleeps" --Bryant
How are you being manipulated?
8) By being sold a belief in a false political spectrum
Seeing Hitler and the Nazis and today's Neo-Nazi movements as extreme right wing and communists as extreme left wing, when in fact both are ideological soul mates. Both stem from the teaching of the Germany philoshopher Hegel. Marx got many of his ideas from Hegel. When you believe in a false political spectrum, your entire view of history is skewed, and you are more easily manipulated by those that exploit your lack of understanding. Study the proper political spectrum below:
LEFT-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------RIGHT
Nazism----------------------Democracy---------------Constitutional Republic (U.S.A)---------------Anarchy
Communism
Caesarism
(Roman Empire)
Why do the manipulators want to teach you a false political spectrum? So they can represent patriotic Americans as criminals, akin to Nazis, and easily discount great traditions based on individual rights and ideals. In spite of the spectrum they push, true American ideals are in total opposition to the beliefs of both the Nazism and Communism and have nothing in common with these evil systems.
MORE ON THE "LEFT" AND "RIGHT" FALLACY
9) Through an ignorance of the lessons on history
Those who control the creation and distribution of information, if not highly moral, will skew that information to further personal objectives. Many of the "truths" they teach are in fact lies. Lies meant to kept the average man uninformed and subservient to the ideals of the creating class. Unless you are in the routine habit of getting your information from a number of different sources, chances are your opinions and understandings are based on false teaching meant to keep you in the dark. How do you know that what they taught you in school is true? How do you know it is to be believed? Only through study and open mindedness can you know the entire truth and be free from the hand of the manipulators.
10) Through a criminalization of dissent
Criminalizing those who refuse to accept the government's or media's accepted line on a given subject as "right-wing extremists" or "isolationists" or "conspiracy wackos" is often times just a method of discounting oposition. Of course there are dangerous and evil groups and mentalities, but when criminalization is used to silence good people with good ideas and understandings, the entire country suffers.
"Truth will ultimately prevail when there are pains taken to bring it to light"--George Washington
Cont ...