Citizens United, Undue Influence, The BITE Model

This has been a surprisingly difficult post to write. I attribute this partially to what I am doing at work, which consists of speed learning. Not that I’m complaining (as long as my contract keeps getting renewed) but my mind has been busy retraining some circuitry and that means some other stuff has to join the queue.

The other reason it has been difficult is because I can’t believe no one has covered this territory before. If could be that others’ have but I don’t have the time right now to put in a lot of research as to how much it has been fleshed out. I know that some Twitter people have been busily picking up on the language and words used to describe the candidates. It’s good to see they’re being proactive but it’s probably not enough. So, I’ve had a difficult time figuring out how to jump into this topic.

And then there is the left blogosphere that seems to be dragging itself into the Hillary Clinton camp somewhat reluctantly. Sometimes, I see the briefest flashes of “snapping” out of their eight year self-imposed trance but I can’t tell if this is due to genuine insight or whether there are marching orders from party leadership or a little bit of both. Having read David Brock’s book Blinded by the Right, it’s my guess that the Media Matters people and affiliated blogs are more aware, to one degree or another, of the concept of undue influence, regardless of how much smoke got in their eyes in 2008. I can read between the lines in some blog posts. There is groupthink to some degree but there is also an underlying independence of thought that I think needs to be encouraged. In any case, there are some signs that the snapping might be real because connections have been made.

So, why am I grouping “Citizens United”, “Undue Influence” and “The BITE Model”? Let me tell you a little story about a conversation I recently had with a relative. I really like this person. He’s a senior but he’s interesting, smart and a little bit weird. But I can also tell where he gets his news. So, we were talking about health care and I mentioned that I don’t really have insurance. Oh, I have something that barely meets the requirements of the ACA but it’s not really insurance. And he says indignantly, “Why don’t we have insurance like they have in England where everyone is covered?!! That would be so much better than Obamacare.”

This was interesting to me because that sentiment should set off alarm bells in the right wing media empire. That is definitely NOT what they want their voter base to be thinking about. Because, what would happen if there was a politician who would somehow figure out a way to show these voters that getting what they want is not an impossibility after all?

I pointed out to my relative that in the US, we have several kinds of alternate health care models to choose from that match what he wants. Medicare and Tricare popped immediately to mind. He thought it would be great if we could all have Medicare but politically, it could never get passed. (BTW, I’m not advocating any particular model without cost controls on hospitals and providers. That’s probably the real impediment.) So, I pointed out to him that we would probably not get a real affordable health care system as long as Republicans were in charge.

His immediate response was: “All politicians are alike. It doesn’t matter what party they belong to.”

That, my friends, is a thought stopping idea and it was planted there by someone who has undue influence on a whole bunch of voters. The reason why I know this is that it was so quick. He may have a point in that Democrats hide behind Republicans in order to not offend their donors but I don’t think his thought process on the political reality was that well developed. I suspect he’s been trained to respond to the trigger about Republicans. Because you can bring up any subject and the minute you say “Republicans don’t like the idea you like”, the “All politicians and parties are the same” sentence flies out of their mouths without thinking. Republicans are going to be able to use that trigger in the upcoming election cycle. Anybody else is going to have to think of a way to get around it. And that’s going to be a problem because Citizens United has made it much easier for people with money to buy the means to apply undue influence.

“Duh”, you say, “Tell me something I didn’t know”. Ok, here’s where the connections are not being made: that money is being very effectively used to buy undue influence in a way you might not have considered before.

You may be wondering what I mean by undue influence. Undue influence originates from the law and since I am not a lawyer, I’m not going to discuss what that means exactly. The easiest way to understand it is to think about how elderly, possibly infirm people might be manipulated by their caretakers to sign over their estates. But the term is now being applied to mind control and can refer to any person or group, religion, political party that has the ability to influence others. Check out this video on Undue Influence 101 from Steve Hassan’s site Freedom of Mind to get a better understanding of what undue influence is.

What the Citizens United ruling did was allow a flood of money to infiltrate media and PACs. If you have the money, you now control the microphone. And if you control the microphone, your information is going to be able to influence the thoughts and emotions of your target audience. And once you are able to control their thoughts and emotions, you can control their behavior. There are many methods of carrying information. The obvious ones are TV, radio and newspapers. These are the primary sources of information for seniors. But more of them are now using Facebook (God knows why, I hate that thing). The more ways that money can control the means of disseminating information, the more thoughts and emotions can be influenced, the more behavior can be controlled. And now, the right wing controls almost all of the relevant information resources.

This is what is involved in the BITE model shown below:

Again, you may be saying to yourself that this is not new information. You already saw the correlation years ago or you’re starting to really get annoyed by it now because you’re finally starting to see what the New York Times has been up to with regard to covering presidential candidates.

But you would be missing the big picture. The big picture is that this is the way cults indoctrinate their devotees. These people do not know that they’ve been indoctrinated. They don’t know that they’ve had thought stopping ideas implanted in them. They don’t know that their fears of death, hell, abandonment, shame or ostracism have been tinkered with. They don’t know that the outrage over the so-called “War on Christmas” serves a very useful purpose. They don’t know that David Brooks is a master at writing posts that enforce “learned helplessness”. They are totally oblivious to it. They’re walking around like a bunch of Moonies spewing crap about “parasites” and “slackers” and “government is bad” when deep down inside, there is a conscience that objects to injustice but keeps getting strangled by thought stoppers.

This is what our Supreme Court majority allowed when they ruled on Citizens United. These are five smart men (interesting how they are all men). It is incomprehensible to me that they didn’t know what they were doing when they made this ruling. I’m sure they knew EXACTLY what was going on, especially John Roberts. What they did was allow the cult-like indoctrination of an entire country by people who have a lot of money and can buy more and more microphones, infiltrating every bit of information that comes though every media source and the “friends” you accept on Facebook .

That’s my first attempt at showing why we can’t have nice things. I’m not letting Democrats off the hook on this. What happened in 2008 was unconscionable. I’m delighted to see some bloggers in consternation about how they are supposed to defend Hillary Clinton when they’re up against this incredible media resistance and how irritating it is that all these young Ivy League graduates are jumping to the head of the line in major media publications to plant nasty trigger words about Hillary in the minds of their readers. Ha! Just wait until those same reporters start writing about how all those bloggers have tired interfaces or are catering to their older, elite demographic or something to that effect. Suddenly, their pretty little posts will lose their freshness and relevance. It’s going to happen. You heard it here first. It won’t matter how intelligent or pithy you are.

The question is, what are you going to do about it?

There’s a tsunami of money headed your way.

B.I.T.E. Me

Yesterday, I said I was going to talk about BITE and undue influence. Long time readers know that I have been interested in the subject of social psychology and how unsuspecting people have their thoughts reshaped by others. Most people associate this kind of thought reform to the actions of religious cults. I’m of the opinion that elements within the Democratic party used social and psychological manipulation during the 2008 primary season. But what’s even more troubling, and has been for years, is the influence that the right wing political establishment has choked the life out of the media and, as a result, has a chokehold on anyone who watches cable news.

I’m going to post a few more things on “undue influence” soon but I thought I would start simply with the BITE model developed by mind control expert Steve Hassan. Check out his website Freedom of Mind. Here’s a video from a former Mormon, explaining how it works. Unsurprisingly, to me at least, he found the clearest explanation of how mind control works from former Jehovah’s Witnesses. A warning to Jehovah’s Witnesses out there, you’re not going to like this:

Insufferable candidate doesn’t get that we AREN’T voting for him

To further prove that Obama’s campaign is really in trouble, the Oborg collective purchased 1/2 hr. spots on NBC , CBS , Fox, Univision, BET , MSNBC and TV One.

HARRISONBURG, Va. — Barack Obama will focus on the economy and how his tax plans would help the middle class in a half-hour political infomercial Wednesday night.

The program, scheduled to run on television networks on the 79th anniversary of the stock-market crash of 1929, “will share the specifics of Obama’s plans to turn the economy around and get the country back on track,” campaign spokesman Bill Burton said Tuesday.

“We want to make sure every voter heading into the voting booth knows exactly what Barack Obama would do to bring about fundamental change as president,” he said.

Campaign aides declined Tuesday to answer questions about what images viewers will see when they tune in, whether the format will be live or taped and whether it will feature Obama alone or include additional voices such as business leaders or economic experts.

The program will air at 8 p.m. EDT on NBC , CBS , Fox, Univision, BET , MSNBC and TV One, and at various times in other time zones. Obama is scheduled to be speaking during that time at a rally in Florida .

Message to Bill Burton:  WE ALREADY KNOW EVERYTHING we need to know about Obama, and we’re not interested.

This is an act of desperation folks.  Not only does Obama have a Dish TV channel, now he’s going to be on major network and cable channels too, AT THE SAME TIME.  Maybe if the Obama campaign didn’t launch an attack against working class people like Joe the Plumber, maybe “undecided voters” would find his economy message more believable.  Maybe if the Chicago Machine Run DNC didn’t steal votes to win and won his candidacy fair & square, maybe more Democrats would be voting for Obama.  Maybe had Obama denounced the “war on women” his supporters and surrogates wage incessantly, maybe more of us would be willing to listen to what he has to say on Wednesday.

Yet despite the media HAKA, had Obama put this election in the bag as the “polls” say, they wouldn’t be going through all this trouble.    Personally, this scares the living heck out of me.  I plan to not watch it of course, it’s too “Big Brother” for my taste, but what will you do?  Will you watch for comedic purposes, wait till it comes out on Youtube or boycott the Oborg completely?

Here’s a message I’d like to blast out to the Oborg collective:

Leave us PUMAs alone & ¡que viva los PUMAs!