Greetings to all people who seek the truth!
It's called reading comprehension
Learning how to read in America is a topic near and dear to me. Most people can read printed words, but do they know how to interpret those words? Are they careful and thorough readers, or do they just skim the headlines and form the uninformed opinions that the 1% and their corporate media want them to form? As a former museum director, I constantly saw articles written on how to properly set up museum displays for the public. Every one of those articles stressed the importance of keeping the description cards next to the display as short as possible because visitors will usually only read the first sentence or two on the card and then look at the display without even having a full grasp of what it is they are seeing.
Most people don't read all the text
The worst part about this is that the data applies to the people that actually bother to go to museums, not to the masses that would rather watch “reality” television. We live in an age where visual stimulation is king and real information is unwanted and lost.
Actors and actresses don’t have to act. They play supporting roles to computer generated graphics.
Mainstream media (the propaganda machine of the 1%) understands this perfectly well, and they tailor their articles to misinform, mislead, and stretch the truth. Often, the truth IS in the article, but most people do not read beyond the headline to form their opinions.
Case in point?
From ABC News
Poll: Americans Better Off Than Their Parents
“Gallup poll shows 69% of Americans think they are better off financially than their parents whey they were the same age”
“A majority of Americans say they are better off financially than their parents were at the same age, though seniors are more positive about their wealth than younger people, according to the Gallup Poll.”
See, sheep? Money does buy happiness!
“Of 1,012 adults surveyed, 69 percent said they’re better off financially than their parents, down from the 74 percent who said so in 1998, the last time Gallup asked this question.”
“Gallup asked adults age 18 and older: “Think of your parents when they were your age.
Would you say you are better off financially than they were, or not?”
Calico Blackie says:
Here is where critical reading and thinking comes into play. Ask the questions: Where did this Gallup poll take place? A majority of Americans? What was the financial make up of their 1012-person sample? How was the poll conducted?
The only stupid questions are the ones that don't get asked
The article continues with……
“Most Americans still think they are doing better financially than their parents did when they were the same age,” Elizabeth Mendes, deputy managing editor at Gallup, wrote in a blog post. “This is positive news, given the difficult state of the U.S. economy over the past several years — with millions of Americans seeing their home values deteriorate and jobs evaporate.”
Calico Blackie says:
See what they did there? They used a small sample of Americans, from who knows where, to make the statement: “Most Americans think they are doing better.” Read this statement without using critical thinking and it seems to say that everything is fine. That the 1 out of every 2 Americans that are close to, or at the poverty level must be mistaken. That the 91% of Americans that say Congress is doing a terrible job must be just a bunch of complainers. The bad news in that statement was reserved for the end, where most people won’t bother to read that far into the paragraph.
ASK QUESTIONS - DEMAND ANSWERS
By now, most people have stopped reading the article and will take away the information that most Americans think they’re doing great and that the protesters are crybabies.
HERE IS THE LAST PARAGRAPH IN THE ARTICLE THAT NO-ONE BOTHERED TO READ:
While the overall median response of the 1,012 adults was an income of $150,000, younger respondents age 18 to 49 had a median amount of $160,000.
Those 50 and older said they would feel rich with $100,000.
Calico Blackie says:
A median income of $150,000.00?
Hell yes, they’re doing ok.
So, it’s plain to see that Gallup polled a very skewed sample of Americans to arrive at the conclusion that everything is rosy and tell us we’re doing much better than our parents. ABC, at the orders of their Wall Street masters, prints the article, and suddenly “We’re doing better” becomes the new truth for us to believe. They just hope that most of us aren’t smart enough to read the entire article and ask questions. They hope that we have no reading comprehension skills and that their article, and our questions will fall upon deaf and uninformed ears.
You see, the article didn’t fall upon deaf ears; they fell upon informed ears. Ears attached to brains that know for a fact that the current corporate media (a) has helped to protect bankers and financiers from prosecution and (b) spread falsehoods about the economy and the occupy movement that result in the continuing complacency of a whole nation of sheep, and (c) condoned and enabled the creation of laws in our country that will have people imprisoned for being informed and speaking out, and other people imprisoned for not outing their 99% “domestic terrorist” friends.
TRUTH
So, forgive us if we appear to have deaf ears when the financiers and politicians that are doing those things to us try to teach us *anything* about being happy.
The fact that this particular article was really about how well off people that make $150,000/yr think they are, coming from a media that is owned by the 1% is just icing on the cake to an informed reader.
The people who are content to “sit back and take it” and think we all should be happy getting the shaft sound like battered wives when they do that.
Hey! Donald Trump quit the GOP and will probably run for President as an independent candidate.
What’s left of the middle class still hasn’t figured out yet how screwed they are.
Not every clown wears make-up
They’ve still got a roof over their heads, food on the table and a big screen TV in the living room.
Nobody’s paying attention to the walls moving in a little bit more each year.
They put up with ‘sobriety checkpoints’ and drug tests because hey – it’s the law right?
They still think all this stuff is ‘for their protection’.
They haven’t figured out that they can’t take their rights back.
They haven’t figured out yet that the country made a deal with the devil and the bill is coming due.
Any possible serious attempt at uprising in this country will find itself ridiculously outgunned and at a severe tactical disadvantage.
Of course, that’s the idea.
The only tactical advantage the people have to coordinate their efforts is the internet.
Berkeley, 1969. A serious uprising to end the Vietnam War
Why do you think they’re trying to pass laws to block “rogue” domains?
Why do you think they’re trying to make it so that sites like this and others are to be held legally responsible for the content that their users post?
I’m of the opinion at this point that the authoritarians in our government are circling the wagons, and there are authoritarians in both the Republican and Democratic parties just about equally, and our Executive branch is also compliant with the authoritarians as well.
It’s getting me really unnerved, I’ll tell you that much.
But hey!
At least the police arent busting down the “wrong” doors and shooting the family dog right in front of the kids.
Oh wait….they are.
Still think you’re free? ASK QUESTIONS. DEMAND ANSWERS. Most people are afraid to ask questions because they don’t want to appear ignorant to others. By not asking questions, we remain ignorant, and that’s exactly where the 1% and their wholly owned subsidiary in Washington DC wants us.
On that note….
For anyone that still cares……The cop with the pepper spray at UC Davis is Lt. John Pike of University of California Police. 530-752-3989. But, nothing will happen to him. He’s got our “Justice” System on HIS side. A system of oppression and greed. All we have is the knowledge that what we are doing is morally right and justified.
OCCUPY WALL STREET
ASK QUESTIONS. DEMAND ANSWERS.
PROTEST!
We are the 99%
Calico Blackie
