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Prisons Without Walls: We’re All Inmates in the American Police State
By John W. Whitehead
To those of us who see the prison thats being erected around us, its a bit easier to realize whats coming up ahead, and its not pretty. However, and this must be emphasized, what most Americans perceive as life in the United States of America is a far cry from reality. Real agendas and real power are always hidden.
As Author Frantz Fanon notes, Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesnt fit in with the core belief.
This state of denial and rejection of reality is the essential plot of John Carpenters 1988 film They Live, where a group of down-and-out homeless men discover that people have been, in effect, so hypnotized by media distractions that they do not see their prison environment and the real nature of those who control themthat is, an oligarchic elite.
Caught up in subliminal messages such as obey and conform, among others, beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards, and the like, people are unaware of the elite controlling their lives. As such, they exist, as media analyst Marshall McLuhan once wrote, in prisons without walls. And of course, any resistance is met with police aggression.
As Author Frantz Fanon notes, Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesnt fit in with the core belief.
This state of denial and rejection of reality is the essential plot of John Carpenters 1988 film They Live, where a group of down-and-out homeless men discover that people have been, in effect, so hypnotized by media distractions that they do not see their prison environment and the real nature of those who control themthat is, an oligarchic elite.
Caught up in subliminal messages such as obey and conform, among others, beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards, and the like, people are unaware of the elite controlling their lives. As such, they exist, as media analyst Marshall McLuhan once wrote, in prisons without walls. And of course, any resistance is met with police aggression.
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/prisons_without_walls_were_all_inmates_in_the_american_police_state
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Prisons Without Walls: We’re All Inmates in the American Police State (Original Post)
Mr_Jefferson_24
Jun 2015
OP
cprise
(8,445 posts)1. 'Two Broke Girls' subliminal message...
Cha-ching! = Conform
LOL
But that show along with others really don't use subliminal messaging so much as subtext as their instrument of suggestion. We're supposed to watch the updates to the girls' nearly always-positive bank balance with baited breath.
There are so many examples of post-2008 hamfisted oligarch-posing-as-capitalist propaganda.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)2. And as we see so often in the news - some are prisoners more than others.