{"id":9629,"date":"2015-09-24T09:48:21","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T13:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=9629"},"modified":"2015-09-24T09:48:21","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T13:48:21","slug":"the-crisis-of-the-now-distracted-and-diverted-from-the-ever-encroaching-police-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/the-crisis-of-the-now-distracted-and-diverted-from-the-ever-encroaching-police-state\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crisis of the Now: Distracted and Diverted from the Ever-Encroaching Police State"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk<\/a>: culture-death is a clear possibility.\u201d\u2014Author Neil Postman<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Caught up in the spectacle of the forthcoming 2016 presidential elections, Americans (never very good when it comes to long-term memory) have not only largely forgotten last year\u2019s hullabaloo over militarized police<\/a>, police shootings of unarmed citizens, asset forfeiture schemes, and government surveillance<\/a> but are also generally foggy about everything that has happened since.<\/p>\n

Then again, so much is happening on a daily basis that it\u2019s understandable if the average American has a hard time keeping up with and remembering all of the \u201cevents,\u201d manufactured or otherwise, which occur like clockwork and keep us distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from reality while the government continues to amass more power and authority over the citizenry.<\/p>\n

In fact, when we\u2019re being bombarded with wall-to-wall news coverage and news cycles that change every few days, it\u2019s difficult to stay focused on one thing\u2014namely, holding the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law\u2014and the powers-that-be understand this. As investigative journalist Mike Adams points out:<\/p>\n

This psychological bombardment is waged primarily via the mainstream media which assaults the viewer by the hour with images of violence, war, emotions and conflict. Because the human nervous system is hard wired to focus on immediate threats accompanied by depictions of violence, mainstream media viewers have their attention and mental resources funneled into the never-ending \u2018crisis of the NOW<\/a>\u2019 from which they can never have the mental breathing room to apply logic, reason or historical context.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Consider if you will the regularly scheduled trivia and\/or distractions in the past year alone that have kept us tuned into the various breaking news headlines and entertainment spectacles and tuned out to the government\u2019s steady encroachments on our freedoms:<\/p>\n

Americans were riveted when the Republican presidential contenders went head-to-head<\/a> for the second time in a three-hour debate that put Carly Fiorina in a favored position behind Donald Trump; Hillary Clinton presented the softer side of her campaign image during an appearance<\/a> on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon<\/em>; scientists announced the discovery of what they believed to be a new pre-human species<\/a>, Homo naledi<\/em>, that existed 2.8 million years ago; an 8.3 magnitude earthquake<\/a> hit Chile; massive wildfires burned through 73,000 acres in California<\/a>; a district court judge reversed NFL player Tom Brady\u2019s four-game suspension<\/a>; tennis superstar Serena Williams<\/a> lost her chance at a calendar grand slam; and President Obama and Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg tweeted their support<\/a> for a Texas student arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school.<\/p>\n

That was preceded by the first round of the Republican presidential debates<\/a>; an immigration crisis<\/a> in Europe; the relaxing of Cuba-U.S. relations<\/a>; the first two women soldiers<\/a> graduating from Army Ranger course; and three Americans being hailed as heroes for thwarting a train attack<\/a> in France. Before that, there was the removal of the Confederate flag<\/a> from the South Carolina statehouse; shootings at a military recruiting center<\/a> in Tennessee and a movie theater<\/a> in Louisiana; the Boy Scouts\u2019 decision to end its ban on gay adult leaders<\/a>; the first images sent by the New Horizons spacecraft<\/a> of Pluto; and the victory over Japan<\/a> of the U.S. in the Women\u2019s World Cup soccer finals.<\/p>\n

No less traumatic and distracting were the preceding months\u2019 newsworthy events, which included a shooting<\/a> at a Charleston, S.C., church; the trial and sentencing<\/a> of Boston Marathon bomber suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s affirmation<\/a> of same-sex marriage, Obamacare, lethal injection drugs and government censorship of Confederate flag license plates; and an Amtrak train crash<\/a> in Philadelphia that left more than 200 injured and eight dead.<\/p>\n

Also included in the mix of distressing news coverage was the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray<\/a> while in police custody and the subsequent riots in Baltimore and city-wide lockdown; the damning report<\/a> by the Dept. of Justice into discriminatory and abusive practices by the Ferguson police department; the ongoing saga of Hillary Clinton\u2019s use of a private email account<\/a> while serving as secretary of state; the apparently deliberate crash by a copilot of a German jetliner in the French Alps<\/a>, killing all 150 passengers and crew; the New England Patriots\u2019 fourth Super Bowl win<\/a>; a measles outbreak<\/a> in Disneyland; the escalating tensions between New York police and Mayor Bill de Blasio<\/a> over his seeming support for anti-police protesters; and a terror attack<\/a> at the Paris office of satire magazine Charlie Hebdo.<\/p>\n

Rounding out the year\u2019s worth of headline-worthy new stories were protests over grand jury refusals<\/a> to charge police for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown; the disappearance of an AirAsia flight<\/a> over the Java Sea; an Ebola outbreak<\/a> that results in several victims being transported to the U.S. for treatment; reports of domestic violence among NFL<\/a> players; a security breach at the White House<\/a> in which a man managed to jump the fence, cross the lawn and enter the main residence; and the reported beheading<\/a> of American journalist Steven Sotloff by ISIS.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t even begin to touch on the spate of entertainment news that tends to win the battle for Americans\u2019 attention: Bruce Jenner\u2019s transgender transformation<\/a> to Caitlyn Jenner; the death of Whitney Houston\u2019s daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown<\/a>; Kim Kardashian\u2019s \u201cbreak the internet\u201d<\/a> nude derriere photo; sexual assault allegations<\/a> against Bill Cosby; the suicide of Robin Williams<\/a>; the cancellation of the comedy The Interview<\/em><\/a> in movie theaters after alleged terror hack threats; the wedding of George Clooney<\/a> to Amal Alamuddin; the wedding<\/a> of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt; the ALS ice bucket challenge<\/a>; and the birth of a baby girl<\/a> to Prince William and Kate.<\/p>\n

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> these sleight-of-hand distractions, diversions and news spectacles are how the corporate elite controls a population by entrapping them in the \u201ccrisis of the NOW,\u201d either inadvertently or intentionally, advancing their agenda without much opposition from the citizenry.<\/p>\n

Professor Jacques Ellul studied this phenomenon of overwhelming news, short memories and the use of propaganda to advance hidden agendas. \u201cOne thought drives away another; old facts are chased by new ones,\u201d wrote<\/a> Ellul.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder these conditions there can be no thought. And, in fact, modern man does not think about current problems; he feels them. He reacts, but he does not understand them any more than he takes responsibility for them. He is even less capable of spotting any inconsistency between successive facts; man\u2019s capacity to forget is unlimited. This is one of the most important and useful points for the propagandists, who can always be sure that a particular propaganda theme, statement, or event will be forgotten within a few weeks.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But what exactly has the government (aided and abetted by the mainstream media) been doing while we\u2019ve been so cooperatively fixated on whatever current sensation happens to be monopolizing the so-called \u201cnews\u201d shows?<\/p>\n

If properly disclosed, consistently reported on and properly digested by the citizenry, the sheer volume of the government\u2019s activities, which undermine the Constitution and in many instances are outright illegal, would inevitably give rise to a sea change in how business is conducted in our seats of power.<\/p>\n

Surely Americans would be concerned about the Obama administration\u2019s plans to use behavioral science tactics to \u201cnudge\u201d citizens to comply<\/a> with the government\u2019s public policy and program initiatives? There would be no end to the uproar if Americans understood the ramifications of the government\u2019s plan to train non-medical personnel\u2014teachers, counselors and other lay people\u2014in \u201cmental first aid\u201d in order to train them to screen, identify and report individuals suspected of suffering from mental illness<\/a>. The problem, of course, arises when these very same mental health screeners misdiagnose opinions or behavior involving lawful First Amendment activities as a mental illness, resulting in involuntary detentions in psychiatric wards for the unfortunate victims.<\/p>\n

Parents would be livid if they had any inkling about the school-to-prison pipeline, namely, how the public schools are being transformed from institutions of learning to prison-like factories, complete with armed police and surveillance cameras, aimed at churning out compliant test-takers<\/a> rather than independent-minded citizens. And once those same young people reach college, they will be indoctrinated into believing that they have a \u201cright\u201d to be free from acts and expressions of intolerance<\/a> with which they might disagree.<\/p>\n

Concerned citizens should be up in arms over the government\u2019s end-run tactics to avoid abiding by the rule of law, whether by outsourcing illegal surveillance activities<\/a> to defense contractors, outsourcing<\/a> inhumane torture to foreign countries, causing American citizens to disappear<\/a> into secret interrogation facilities, or establishing policies that would allow the military to indefinitely detain any citizen<\/a>\u2014including journalists\u2014considered a belligerent or enemy.<\/p>\n

And one would hope American citizens would be incensed about being treated like prisoners in an electronic concentration camp, their every movement monitored, tracked and recorded by a growing government surveillance network<\/a> that runs the gamut from traffic cameras and police body cameras to facial recognition software. Or outraged that we will be forced to fund a $93 billion drone industry<\/a> that will be used to spy on our movements and activities, not to mention the fact that private prisons are getting rich (on our taxpayer dollars) by locking up infants, toddlers, children and pregnant women<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, while 71% of American voters are \u201cdissatisfied\u201d<\/a> with the way things are going in the United States, that discontent has yet to bring about any significant changes in the government, nor has it caused the citizenry to get any more involved in their government beyond the ritualistic election day vote.<\/p>\n

Professor Morris Berman suggests that the problems plaguing us as a nation\u2014particularly as they relate to the government\u2014have less to do with our inattention to corruption than our sanctioning, tacit or not, of such activities. \u201cIt seems to me,\u201d writes Berman<\/a>, \u201cthat the people do<\/em> get the government they deserve, and even beyond that, the government who they are, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, if we end up with a militarized police state, it will largely be because we welcomed it with open arms. In fact, according to a recent poll, almost a third of Americans would support a military coup<\/a> \u201cto take control from a civilian government which is beginning to violate the constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

So where does that leave us?<\/p>\n

As legendary television journalist Edward R. Murrow warned<\/a>, \u201cUnless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

WC: 1819<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk: culture-death is a clear possibility.\u201d\u2014Author […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,214,226,212],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9629"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9630,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9629\/revisions\/9630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}