the United States... are we under a spell?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I was conceived and born. I breathe, I eat, I drink and I wear clothes. The things I consume, I try to regulate, in fear of our current ignorance of chemistry. I feel that too many don’t doubt or knowledge of how safe things are to consume. I think this crap is being fed to us intentionally, making us lethargic and hindering our ability to construe thoughts, making us more susceptable to influences via television, radios, newspaper, internet, etc. In these advertisements and programs, many hidden symbols get absorbed by our minds and we disect them later, to someone else’s benefit. These advertisements also direct us right back to the food we’re already consuming, making me think even more that it is a plot to control. The transportation and the variety of fuels required to get to the food is also advertised. So here it is folks, you drive your Hummer to the gas station, fill it up, drive to the McDonalds, fill up your stomache, drive home, turn on the TV just in time for your body to divert all of its energy to digest and eliminate that terrible substance you just ingested, your body goes weak, your mind goes weak. All the information they produce gets absorbed right into your mind, like a baby.

In the News, we hear about celebrities and their highschool-esque happenings, all displayed in an immature manner. We barely hear about Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, where things are bad in the world and people are dying that don’t need or deserve death. If all these countries hate us, aren’t we doing something wrong?

Is it not plausible that our government, Halliburton, Viacomm, Pepsi, Coca Cola, Wendys, McDonalds, Burger King, (etc) are working hand in hand to sway the common folk?

(i dont mean to offend anyone, or make myself appear arrogant, these are just my feelings and I want to share them with other people regardless of my inability to spell or use proper grammar… keep that in mind before you respond)

2

the Wordvirus is a spell in the united states,it started from verbal communnication and has since then evolved onto hardware.
for furthur information:
cubicao.tk/humanity/wordvirus.html

3

I like that theory. Synchronicity is interesting… because I’ already invisioned that webpage you sent to me, not exactly, but the pictures are very similar to something that resides in my mind, hidden under grey matter.

4

It used to be, that to be a good citizen, it meant
participation in civic affairs and voting. Today, a good
citizen means to buy American goods. That change
is all you need to know about the state of affairs in
America. For corporations, it best not to have
political aware citizens. For corporations, its best that
people get caught up in keeping up with the Jones.
The media participates in this charade, because the media
is a corporation, with a business mentality. Profit and losses
is what drives the media, and participation in civic affairs
does not a aid in getting profits and in fact might be a detriment
to profits.

Kropotkin

5

I believe, that the media and the power they have in our information society turns to get negative. For many years, the media played a good role to democratize societies, but they start to control our minds and to influence us with filtered, politized, picturized, superficial (unprofound), commercial, not very deeply investigated and more and more regional influenced information, that confuses more and more people and makes it impossible to see the truth and the information we need to make our own decisions. It is very difficult to stay well informed with an own opinion, because the media and the most people build up a stable meaning mainstream, that makes me hopeless. I do not know, how this is in the US, but in Europe the only way is to watch the public TV stations (not the commercial ones) and to read books and some well trusted magazines and newspapers. Some recent developements convince me more and more, how important philosophers like Peter Sloterdijk are, which make us aware of this phenomena! Old Europe

6

Why would the media do something so terrible, MeJYouNotJ?

7

because the media has power my friend,the media has power.

8

they are materialists… not to say I’m not, but I don’t live my life hoping to get myself a 10 mile yacht, with room for my 29 four-story Hummers to park on it when I go hunting countries for game.

That’s how it goes though, these people want and want and want and want, so they devise means to take and take and take and take.

“It’s all about ignorance,
and greed, and miracles for the blind
the media parading, disjointed politics
founded on petrochemical plunder
and we’re its hostages.” -Greg Graffin

9

It’s all still a choice. No one makes you do any of those things. McDonalds has more money to advertise then Farmer Jack, or your local mom and pop, but no way is it stopping you from going there and making your own meals at home.

I agree that big corporations are all about the money and they hide little messages and what not, but I don’t see them making us into zombies needing thier product. I feel if your strong enough and believe enough in your life style, no 30 seccond commercial is going to do anything about it. With the internet, you can almost read any newspaper or article in the world. I think we, Americans, are so lazy and worried about our own lifes that the rest of the world hates us. We try to be the big humanitarians but it doesn’t show in our everyday life. Supply and Demand, we control everything. If someone proved that McDonalds caused cancer then no one would eat it, no matter what commerical they showed.

I agree with your topic but don’t think they are to blame. They do what makes them money. We are at fault, me, u and every other american.

If enough people stand up against it, it will fall.

10

Last time I checked, America was a capitalist country with one of the highest average per capita productivities in the world. Civilian organizations cannot “take and take and take”, without going to jail for theft. The worst they can do is “trade and trade and trade”, after they have worked to produce the wealth they are trading.

Why is it the rest of the world’s buisness that we worry about our own lives? Everyone worries about their own lives (weird fanatical cult members aside). That’s called a survival instinct. Is it not more selfish of them to demand that we worry about their lives and sensibilities first?

I think anyone who whines about “standing up to the corporations” needs to get a more serious cause. Nothing whatsoever is stopping people from “standing up to the corporations.” The Corporations (hate-trigger word, apparently, with zero intellectual content), sell us stuff. (You know, there are still organizations in the world that mass murder and enslave people, and you get upset over someone wanting to sell you something. It’s not like the cashier has a gun and guards the exits of Meijers to force you to buy things :laughing: ). We make the decision to buy it. The reason people are not, generally, standing up to the corporations is because they don’t want to, because their products and services are convenient.

11

Civilian organizations are currently stealing. Halliburton is taking all of our tax dollars to “rebuild” Iraq. Tell me, how do you get money to rebuild a country before we invade it? Is that legal? Did they steal it? Are they in jail? No.

I think you missed the point, the point was that America is full of people who want commodities and even crave them more as a result of the television. It’s the craving that causes us to become more laid back to the fact that we’re in war everywhere. We strive to become lazy, we eat terrible food and drink chemically treated water, so we dumb ourselves down. If we ate properly we’d be able to think clearly, we wouldnt be diverting all of our body’s energy to digesting terrible food.

12

You elected Bush… and from current polls it seems over half of you still think he’s doing a good job… A spell?? Sounds more like good drugs to me. Get off the crack pipe U.S.A

13

Yeah it’s called FOX NEWS

14

Rounder:You elected Bush… and from current polls it seems over half of you still think he’s doing a good job… A spell?? Sounds more like good drugs to me. Get off the crack pipe U.S.A"

K: actually polls for bush nationally put his approval
ratings at 40%. and 56% think the country is
going the wrong way. That is not “thinking he is doing
a good job” He has some of the worst ratings of a second
term president in the history of the U.S. only nixon
right before watergate had worse second term ratings and
he was giving a 29% rating.
Gogogle taegen or political wire and they have
the poll ratings there.

Kropotkin

15

Expressed in the most simple possible terms:

  • a stupid, superficial population is advantageous to most producers and marketers because it makes it easy to produce stuff that people will buy, it is advantageous to media organs because it makes it easier to write ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘controversial’ stories

  • an intelligent, informed population is advantageous only to bored intellectuals who want more friends

Who is the more powerful? The former, combined together. Therefore what result is to be expected?

:cry:

16

definately didn’t elect bush.
We were given two options, other people chose. I didn’t, and I won’t. The government is unconstitutional, and anti-preamble.
I don’t have a say in what goes on, I have a say in a person… they don’t represent me. This isn’t a democracy, it’s an autocracy.

17

yes, see plato’s allegory of the cave. you’ve seen the symptoms, the shadows of the spell…

18

I’ve come up with conspiracy theories so elaborate they’d make your head spin, but then I came to a final conclusion.

“America” and its “leaders” are so stupid they couldn’t even get a conspiracy right.

Have faith in stupidity, my friends, it just might be our saving grace.

19

i thiught we would be better off with the other dude,and yes our people need to stop smoking so much,it deludes them and kills them from the inside slowly incenerating their inners.
it’s so cruel how people choose to treat themselves anymore,yet blame it anyone but themselves,i’m not proud to be american,i have people to look up to but no one to depend on.

20

canabalism?