With respect to the sudden thousand-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on May 6, 2010, I would like to explain how networks like CNBC employ psychological warfare against their audience. The basic idea is that if the market is up and you are actually making money, watching CNBC is very entertaining. They are making you feel as though you are an insider, the women are cute (this alone has a calming effect on men), they throw around some legitimate investing terms or they play word games.
Now, on the other hand, when the market is down is when their propaganda strategy gets more interesting. When you are losing money, they substitute a metaphor for losing money, so that hopefully you’ll be thinking about something else than losing money. An example is the Wall Street slang term haircut. It is a euphemism for losing money, but hopefully you’ll be thinking about barbershops. See, it’s not so bad. You didn’t lose thousands of dollars because of market manipulation, you got a haircut, it will grow back.
The host of CNBC’s Mad Money, Jim Cramer will tell you that “the market favors the big boys” and how Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, hedge funds, pensions, etc. and even he himself can have undue influence in the stock market. Just watch the ticker tape on the screen when he mentions a company. It’s a hilarious show, he’ll dress up in a silly outfit, throw chairs around, hit the sound effect board. The point is he wants to make you feel good, even if you are losing a boatload of money. He’ll console you and tell you about how one afternoon he lost $17 million and destroyed nearly every electronic device in his office. See? Losing 10% of your retirement money isn’t so bad.
Are you beginning to see how this works?
They can use words that rhyme to throw you off- “flash crash” (for the 1000 point Dow drop), “car czar”, etc.
It’s called pacifying people, and it is a psychological warfare technique. They do everything for a reason. People end up becoming sheeple. We Americans today are so passive that if gasoline went up to $10, the greatest opposition from most people would be to say “It’s crazy”, sympathize, say “What can you do?” and pay it. Some people would love the endorphin rush of buying $100 worth of gas with a $100 bill. How high would gas have to go before people woke up?
People behave like this because their minds are under constant assault from corporate propaganda and trivia news that is intended to DISTRACT you from the incremental erosion of your civil rights. It is all about emotionally manipulating you so that you do not challenge the sociopolitical/business/government establishment, thereby assuring insecure paranoid sociopathic megalomaniacs remain in a superior caste.
Very clever. Now everyone can go back to sleep. Foreigners are not trying to steal our nest eggs. Smile. Be Happy. You’re Rich. Go Shopping.
Bernie Wheater
Valerie Goodhew
Allen Russell
Sharon Harmon
Great post Al, and right on the money. It is not only CNBC that is programing us with calming garbage. It is ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Disney, Discovery, History, and every other channel on TV.
It is not only the news that is programing us. It is their programs that are programing us, notice they tell you what they are doing in the title for their shows (programs). Programing you to think torture is OK with shows like “24″. Programing you to think you no longer have God given rights with shows like “Cops”, “Law and Order” (one of the worse), Any of the “CSI” Programs and any other police, CIA, FBI programs.
To me the most dangerous is the programing you that all roads lead to heaven programs like “Ghost Whisper”, “Touched By An Angel”, “Medium” and others.
The programing doesn’t stop with the TV programing box. It’s on billboard ads, Newspapers, And probably the most powerful programing tool they have, straight out of Satan’s number one church in the United States and the world “Holywood” that is the silver screen. Oh did I leave out one of the “L”s out of Satan’s Church, I wonder what made me do that.
As I said Al great post. The sad part is that what you wrote in this post added to what I wrote in this commit doesn’t even come close to touching the tip of the iceberg of their programing tools.
Is it any wonder that most Americans gave up on being people, because they have been programed to love being sheeple. Baa Baa Sleep Sheep, when you wake it will be too late, all your wool will be gone. And you will be genetically modified not to be able to grow it back.
Oh I could go on. Another example is introducing a subject by asking a question. You essentially get your answer, that is the way the government mouthpiece media lets you know that a decision has been made. We are living in a soft dictatorship that satisfies all ten planks of Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto.”
They can try to evoke sympathy for someone you might not otherwise be sympathetic to, i.e. casting the IRS as the victim.
The split screen format, people trying to talk over each other, which helps you FORGET what they just said.
CNBC likes to describe the market as Bulls vs. Bears, so wealth transfer is now akin to a football game. Your team lost, better luck next game.
Using gambling terms like “taking some chips off the table”, “all in”, etc. You feel like you are in a casino so you probably expect to lose money. The hot waitress is asking you if you want a free drink. No clocks, just bells. Somebody hit the jackpot and it ain’t you.
I could decipher ALL the programming techniques if I watched enough TV.