They closed my eyes

[Hrvatski Noahid]

https://hesedyahu.wordpress.com/2019/08/18/they-closed-my-eyes/

Although I had walked away from mainstream news as a main source of information quite some time ago, I still have glimpses of it every now and again. And I also watch alternative news sources every now and again as well.

But more and more I realise that the news is not necessarily there to inform and empower me, but rather to skew my mind-view, my outlook, and make me feel powerless. The programme is meant to program me.

There are plenty of things that happen in the world, so so much. All of it could never fit a 30-minute news broadcast, nor could it all be encapsulated in a 24-hour news channel. Things are happening all the time. Yet any news source has to firstly select where it sends its info-collecters and thus where it does not send such researchers. Then it must select from the information which one it will deliver to its audience, and thus also that which it rejects. Then there is choice how to craft it for the audience, since there is always commentary and description with a news piece, not just silent photographs and unedited videos.

In every step of this process, there is a focus, a bias, a slant. Can it ever be avoided or eradicated? I don’t know. But, when it comes to TV programmes, it’s hard to ignore the power of agenda and population worldview-crafting.

Why am I told about events that have nothing to do with me? Why am I “informed” about things I cannot change? Why is there such emphasis on politics or celebrities? Why are some tragedies reported and repeated whilst others are totally ignored? Why did I hear of shootings in one place but not in another?

And it’s not limited to the news. Google and Youtube. It’s no longer about searching and finding what you want (unless it’s meaningless stuff, like movies, mainstream music and video games). It’s about directing you to what they want. Look for a “controversial” subject and be prepared to find the supposed “rebuttals” first, or the popular/mainstream narrative.

And then there are movies and fiction that push agendas, which seems to be most of the popular ones. I foolishly glimpse Netflix to see how the movies available in the UK are different to the ones in the UK. What am I treated to? A series that is supposed to be about martial arts is advertised with a clip of an Asian berating a white American, “educating” her on how long it took for Asians to be considered citizens of the US, a country foreign to them at that time, and how he is just as American as she is. More of the focus or at least the incorrect focus on race or nationalism. Another reason to stay far away from that company, Netflix that is.

But again, movies, the glorification of pretenders and pretending, the use of such glorification and celebrity to either push the current desired narrative or a narrative that is used to mould the minds of the watchers, those who open their eyes and minds to the pretence, getting lost in the illusion, letting the medium deposit things in the mind. It’s … wow, media is amazing, amazingly dangerous and amazingly controlling.

But it’s symptomatic of media on a whole.

I’m not telling anyone to reject it on a whole. I’m not even showing something new. It’s just … it’s just more and more of a revelation to me.