Re: The American Road to Self-destruction

["Dr. Bruce R. McFarling" <Bruce.McFarling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 9 Jan 2003 15:08:34 -0500 (EST),
Roger Koppl <koppl@xxxxxxx> wrote:

>I'm also a little confused by comments about brain washing and
>the state press.  Are any of the major US newspapers owned by
>the government?  And which foreign papers are US citizens
>prohibited from reading? I hadn't heard that prisoners were
>being brainwashed in the US.  Could someone point me to some
>sources?  I had thought that even mental patients were not
>subject to the sort of deprivations and stresses that
>brainwashing requires.

>Hoping for clarification . . .

Brainwashing only requires deprivation and stress when it
involves reversing deeply held convictions of individuals.
If you can gain sufficient leverage over the sources of
information that people receive, some forms of disinformation
are far simpler.

For example, name this Middle Eastern country:

- Only a minority of the population is represented at
the top levels of government

- Its military regularly commits war crimes in suppressing
minority groups in its population

- It is widely acknowledged to actively engage in research
and development for Weapons of Mass Destruction

- It engages in religous discrimination, with Christian
missionary activity in particular being against the law

- During the cold war, it received massive military and
economy support from one of the superpowers

But if you live in the United States, you would for the
most part be blithely unaware of all of this.

Regarding the point that the government does not own
the media, if those that own the media also own the
government, it amounts to much the same thing.  In
this case, the institutions of democracy are a vital
pressure relief valve in terms of avoiding the perils
of effective mass democracy.