When we hear an old saying like “Opposites attract.”, there’s usually another ancient adage that contradicts it, like “Birds of a feather gather together.”
We should remember that when we are presented with “News”. The most important “news” rarely makes “news”. The English people see that their nation is being destroyed by an invasion. Their “news” never mentions it. Americans see that they are paying excessively for electricity. Our “news” never mentions that a few new nuclear reactors would reduce their electricity prices with a surfeit of clean, inexpensive power. Educators make sure that the “news” tells us how hard they are working. We hear little about the vast illiteracy intentionally being produced by failed programs.
Qui bono?
When we see a subject covered by the “news”, we should not fall into the trap that enmeshes the fearful people who “just want to get along” in its coils: “If the media only understood, they would see that they are wrong.” Those who express such sentiments are afraid to face the fact that those in charge of deciding what’s going to be on “the news” know truth and understand that their jobs usually depend on hiding it.
As we grow in understanding of that basic societal fact, we learn one important thing: When we see a “news” item, we should always assume that it is appearing before us because someone profits from having it publicized. Then, we ask the ancient question that comes to us from the Romans’ classic inquiry, “Qui bono?” “Who benefits?” should become our automatic response to any widely purported problem.
As that question becomes an automatic part of our intellectual life, we see that the paid media is there to benefit those who pay their salaries. By continually asking “Who benefits?”, we move ahead of the large masses of people who never ask, or seek an answer to, “Qui bono?”
When enough people ask “Qui bono?” and get sick of the answers, lies are exposed, taxes reduced, and prosperity follows.
The “News” Helps Keep Us Thinking the Way News-buyers want. They’re so Good at What They do That We Prove to Each Other That We’re Well-adjusted By Repeating “News” Items.
Few people will actually see very much wrong with the “News”. We don’t consciously realize how thoroughly ingrained in us is the feeling that believing and repeating what’s on the “News” is a sign of being well-adjusted.
Second-hand smoke was made into a big Imaginary Problem a few years ago. There was absolutely no medical evidence proving that second-hand smoke is harmful. But, if you say “Second-hand smoke is harmless.”, you will be viewed almost as an alien being. Similar reactions occur when one denies Global Freezing, Global Warming, Rising Sea Levels, Coming Famine, The Ozone Hole, or any other issue that has had enough money spent on it to look respectable.
More than anything, the “News” is a means of social control. It isolates dissidents, rewards sycophants, and keeps most of us thinking in line with what those who run things in this world want us to believe.
