THE BILL OF RIGHTS

AMENDMENT 1

         Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

.

         Hupokrites (hoop-ok-ree-tace’) Greek. (1) One who answers, an interpreter, (2) An actor, stage player, (3) A dissembler, pretender, hypocrite. [1]

.

         And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’ Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.” [Mark 7:6-8] [2]

.

         It’s a ruse. It’s all a ruse.

         The outward visage of politics has become mere theater. Someone originally had the big idea about 35 years ago to pit a liberal pundit against a conservative pundit on television and let them go at it. Up to that time political news shows had been relatively restrained and dour, and about as entertaining as watching grass grow.

         The people ensconced on these mind-numbing, wearisome programs, thinking they must bring the proper decorum and intellectual window dressing, considered ramping up the rhetoric a somewhat appalling negative, as such an allowance could lower their shows into an emotion-driven semi-slugfest and away from the proper high-minded intellectual discussion sessions that defined their medium.

         In other words, unknown to the public, they knew their product was nothing but political theater.

         They knew their shows were mere agenda-driven stage productions to allow for influencing the public toward whatever agenda the government was pushing at any given time.

         They knew if they collected enough “respectable” talking heads with ultra credentials they could pass off their drivel as actual programs of free thought and fool the public, which had been the entire point of that medium once it had been corralled in the beginning.

         Therefore, their productions must always have the aura of respectability. The actors must be seen as sincere, wise, and fatherly in order to gain the orbiting electrons (you and me) needed to sway public opinion. Getting gruff and blue-collar would merely equate them with those they identified as the great unwashed ignorant public.

CROSSFIRE

         Then, in 1982, the seminal television program Crossfire came along. It had been on the radio incubator for four years and despite the network owner’s initial opposition, it made the jump to TV. This was in the early days of the new CNN, when a great broadcast explosion began due to cable television. In a quick leap, caution was thrown to the wind for the simple fact that the thing which mattered most was ratings at any cost.

         It was the beginning of an entirely new form of political theater. A decision was made to take opposite ideologies and pit them together like a dog fight. Suddenly, a political wrestling match ensued. It certainly raised the rhetoric, and one saw for the first time on television a semblance of what goes on behind the scenes in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms.

         The paid shills (actors) and stiff directors on the major networks were aghast and no doubt called it a mere ratings gimmick and the lowering of upstanding ivy league political discussion and classic Aristotelian argument form into nothing more than gladiatorial combat. It was seen as a circus sideshow.

         But then something happened. People began watching. The predicted rise in the ratings began, exactly as foretold by those who had originally convinced management of the idea. Suddenly, instead of boring productions like “Faze the Nation,” the format became both entertaining and educational.

         It educated the public because ramping up the rhetoric made it more interesting and grabbed one’s attention. The heightened verbiage and decibel level allowed the so-called great unwashed masses to identify with the subject matter. An entirely new medium was created.

MUTATION OF THE MUTERS

         But then, something else began to emerge… I noticed it way back then.

         One must remember that the 1960s had taken place only a decade-plus before that time. The 1960s was the time of the great political statement when people marched in the streets and let their voices be heard to an unprecedented level. Much of that free political speech was overshadowed by the excesses of the time, but there is no doubt America’s voice was heard.

         The older generation that came of age in the 1920s and 1930s was largely silent and stoic during that era, however, having been conditioned over the prior decades to surrender their voices for Uncle Sam, and be used, abused, and dictated to or face the possibility of severe life-altering penalties.

         The spirit of 1776 had long been dead until the sixties. It has been rising in fits and starts ever since.

         Yet, regarding what began to emerge in the 1980s, and how bewitching it was in comparison to the organic free speech of the 1960s, one must conclude that it had somehow all been planned. Someone was smart enough to notice, having swayed public opinion for so long, that the swaying must be ramped up to reach everyone with a television set.

         Television must be entertaining. Everyone knew this. And judging by all the garbage being broadcast daily, it did not have to be great entertainment, but simply attention-grabbing.

         The ratings meisters figured out way back in the 1950s what would make people sit prostate in front of a little box and observe it intently, endlessly, and watch without necessarily knowing why, or that they had been duped.

         Television has since brainwashed America.

         There is no doubt about this. The cat has long since left the bag. Pandora’s Box was opened and has produced an exponential curve reaching far into the heavens with no end in sight, sucking people along like a gravitational comet tail. People have become addicted.

         The PTB figured out then, after seeing what happened with Crossfire, to introduce the concept on a wider scale. Soon, many television “news” shows began popping up all over the landscape. Then, an entire ratings-grabbing network was created. They just as soon developed more caped wrestling stars and what were essentially pugilistic pundits, or talking heads fighting with their mouths. Heated exchanges became commonplace. The watching public chose sides. Emotion was ramped up. And ratings went through the roof.

         Yet, again, referring to what I saw emerging from the early days of the format three decades ago, instead of millions of Americans being engaged in the public engagement of ideas in open forums all across the country and often in the streets, they had become engaged only in their homes or workplaces in front of a TV.

         The political and media actors were doing all the speaking—ALL OF IT—and doing it for them. And it was all spin. America, having become brainwashed by television in general, was now becoming brainwashed by political and government talking heads in general.

         Through the process of engaging in the entertainment such news and opinion shows offered, America gave up its voice, men surrendered their political testosterone, and the emotion-driven were driven into silence. Effective open discussion ceased, and watching television—zombie like—ensued.

         Of course, the television crafters always stayed several steps ahead of the public which went on its blissfully ignorant way, completely deceived by the entire process, having become chimps in a cage conditioned by outward stimuli to change their behavior.

         The greatest loss has been the real voice of America.

PONTIFICATING PINHEADS

         It has been replaced by lying well-paid actors in the guise of honest data-bearers emoting forth the agenda of the Big Boys, whose intention is to control political speech and thus control the country, sway it 100% to their evil desires, and remove it completely from the American people, the real boss of this country.

         At present, the only people talking in the streets that get actual camera time are members of more agenda-based groups fighting for their political side but never the country. They are the mere minor equivalent of K-Street lobbyists who have grabbed the entire political establishment by the nads and forced it to do its bidding.

         Sadly, every time one thinks they have found a rare good guy in Washington, he or she turns out to be merely one more bought and sold puppet under strict control.

         America has known there is a huge problem for many years now, and has engaged with much fervor in many good intentioned and hoped-for direction-changing, political reforming, and take-back-the-country groups and formats, only to fail every single time.

         The success of these endeavors remains yet to be.

         The direction is never changed.

         Nothing is ever reformed.

         The country remains in the hands of duplicitous mammon-worshipers.

         And the one thing—the only thing—that can right the course sits passively at home completely dumb-struck and conditioned to stay there, engaging merely in pure political theater as part of a vast audience of two hundred million nobodies silently worshipping the words of a few television somebodies.

         The dumbing-down of America has gone hand-in-hand with the dumbing of America.

         Americans in general keep all discussion and thoughts squirreled away under lock and key exactly as did the shocked and emotionally battered citizens of Communist regimes who learned the hard way that speaking out against any segment of a politically correct enforced agenda will get them rounded up, imprisoned, and possibly killed.

         This exact spell-binding fear is now ever-present in this country. One’s social standing, social media status, and job, most of which are now soldered in to a shanghaied PC nomenclature, have become eternally more important than liberty and free speech.

         Sadly, under all the onslaught against second amendment rights and the false call to remove all guns from society, most Americans have never noticed that the greatest weapon toward the furtherance of truth and freedom has already long since been removed:

         YOUR VOICE.

         © 2015 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.

---

[1] Strong’s Concordance

[2] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.