B.W.E Columnist Betty Chambers Exposes The Sinister Motives Behind The Media’s Obsession w/ Sex and The Single Black Woman Propaganda via [#bettychambers, #wsj, #bwe, #irdating, #ralphrichardbanks]

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The Betty Chambers Has Spoken Response  

Black women have to be happy on their own terms.  I’d respect the mainstream media if there

were more articles pertaining to black women, without the insincere hand-wringing, making their own decision to

integrate intimately with non-black men: by working with, making friends with, dating and marrying them. And solely for

their own benefit. -SOURCE

An Interracial Fix for Black Marriage

Black women could find more partners across the race line—and it might just spur more black couples to wed

By RALPH RICHARD BANKS | WSJ

MUST SEE:The Betty Chambers Has Spoken Response

“At this point in my life,” says Audrey, age 39, “I thought I’d be married with children.” A native of southeast Washington, D.C., and the child of parents who are approaching their 50th wedding anniversary, Audrey seems like the proverbial “good catch”—smart, funny, well-educated, attractive.

The Betty Chambers Has Spoken Response  

GoldenAh:

That article does have an air of “What can we do about these black women no one wants?”, right?

As far back as the 1990s, perhaps even earlier, the NY Times periodically ran articles about the large number of college

educated unmarried black women without children along with the high rate of out-of-wedlock births of single black

women.

The angle changes somewhat, but it still has the familiar reek of: Black women’s relationships are a problem for society.

Although I suspect they really mean, Black women’s existence is a problem for society.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. -SOURCE

Audrey earns a good living, too, with an income from management consulting that far surpasses what her parents ever made. Her social life is busy as well, filled with family, friends and church.

MasterfileOnly about one in 20 black women is interracially married; they are much less likely than black men to cross the race line.

What Audrey lacks is a husband. As she told me, sitting at a restaurant in the fashionable Dupont Circle neighborhood of the nation’s capital, “I’m trying to get to a point where I accept that marriage may never happen for me.”

Audrey belongs to the most unmarried group of people in the U.S.: black women. Nearly 70% of black women are unmarried, and the racial gap in marriage spans the socioeconomic spectrum, from the urban poor to well-off suburban professionals. Three in 10 college-educated black women haven’t married by age 40; their white peers are less than half as likely to have remained unwed.

The Betty Chambers Has Spoken Response  

I liked this comment by Daphne so much, I made it a separate post. Check out the following.

Regarding the WSJ* article making the rounds:

I found it bizarre that this was in the The Wall Street Journal*, just like I thought it was bizarre there was a similar article about black women in The Economist** several months (maybe a year?) ago. To me, it reeks of “let us observe these strange creatures known as black women,” similar to zoo animals.

Plus, the author’s subtext is disturbing: more black women should marry out, to potentially improve the rates of black marriage. To me, marriage is a non-sequitur in this context, particularly given that some serious cultural issues aren’t magically repaired by marriage (i.e. ability and desire to provide, being an effective father, knowing HOW to maintain a relationship). I mean, I’d hate for a black woman to have her black man propose primarily because he’s afraid of her being taken off the market rather than….wait for it, actually wanting to be married and prepared for that stage. Not to mention how unfair it is for a non-black man to be a consolation prize because a black man isn’t available or willing to marry. But hey….as long as they’re married, I guess.

I get the supply/demand, economics side of it: more black women date out, fewer are available to black men, black men step up their game. Which is fine, for future generations, I suppose. But for the women NOW who want the best partner for them, it’s entirely possible that even willing black men aren’t the best partners because of the aforementioned cultural issues.

I also give the side-eye to any author who misuses statistics, which the WSJ author did in a major way. That 70% of unmarried black women? Includes widows and the divorced. It is also includes age 15 and up. You would think a law professor would either dig a little deeper with the stats or be more more precise in using them.

Now, I’m not denying cultural differences between whites and blacks with the marriage rate. But it’s certainly convenient for these article to throw out that 70%, as if nobody wants da po’ black woman. Not to mention using the quotes of THREE black women as representative of the majority. And when you correct for college education, the marriage disparity between black and white women is significantly smaller.

Thank you for the contribution and sparking this post, Daphne.   -SOURCE

What explains this marriage gap? As a black man, my interest in the issue is more than academic. I’ve looked at all the studies—the history, the social science, the government data—and I’ve spent a year traveling the country interviewing scores of professional black women. In exchange for my promise to conceal their identities (in part by using pseudonyms, as I’ve done here), they shared with me their most personal experiences and desires in relation to marriage and family.

I came away convinced of two facts: Black women confront the worst relationship market of any group because of economic and cultural forces that are not of their own making; and they have needlessly worsened their situation by limiting themselves to black men. I also arrived at a startling conclusion: Black women can best promote black marriage by opening themselves to relationships with men of other races.

Audrey and other black women confront a social scene in which desirable black men are scarce.

Part of the problem is incarceration. More than two million men are now imprisoned in the U.S., and roughly 40% of them are African-American. At any given time, more than 10% of black men in their 20s or 30s—prime marrying ages—are in jail or prison.

Educationally, black men also lag. There are roughly 1.4 million black women now in college, compared to just 900,000 black men. By graduation, black women outnumber men 2-to-1. Among graduate-school students, in 2008 there were 125,000 African-American women but only 58,000 African-American men. That same year, black women received more than three out of every five law or medical degrees awarded to African-Americans.

These problems translate into dimmer economic prospects for black men, and the less a man earns, the less likely he is to marry. That’s how the relationship market operates. Marriage is a matter of love and commitment, but it is also an exchange. A black man without a job or the likelihood of landing one cannot offer a woman enough to make that exchange worthwhile.

But poor black men are not the only ones who don’t marry. At every income level, black men are less likely to marry than are their white counterparts. And the marriage gap is wider among men who earn more than $100,000 a year than among men who earn, say, $50,000 or $60,000 a year.

The dynamics of the relationship market offer one explanation for this pattern. Because black men are in short supply, their options are better than those of black women. A desirable black man who ends a relationship with one woman will find many others waiting; that’s not so for black women.

The Betty Chambers Has Spoken Response  

As you’ve noted, Daphne, the actual  purpose is: How do we eventually get black men to do X, Y, and Z? Because it always has to be

about them, beginning, middle and ending. People need to let that go and forget about closing the barn door.  The horse that ran out is

now a great-great-grand mare to her offspring. Black men cannot be cajoled, conned or bribed into marrying black women, especially

when they have no desire or interest to do so.. -SOURCE

If many black women remain unmarried because they think they have too few options, some black men stay single because they think they have so many. The same numbers imbalance that makes life difficult for black women may be a source of power for black men. Why cash in, they reason, when it is so easy to continue to play?

Black women who do marry often end up with black men who are less accomplished than they are. They are more likely than any other group of women to earn more than their husbands. More than half of college-educated black wives are better educated than their husbands.

The prevalence of relationships between professional black women and blue-collar black men may help to explain another aspect of the racial gap in marriage: Even as divorce rates have declined for most groups during the past few decades, more than half of black marriages dissolve.

Cecelia, a corporate lawyer who graduated from Columbia Law School, married a construction worker. When he relocated from Denver to her brownstone in Harlem, it took him the better part of a year to find work. “It was a huge strain on the relationship,” Cecelia told me. She didn’t mind his being out of work, but he did. “He was uncomfortable living off me,” Cecelia said. The marriage didn’t last.

So why don’t more black women, especially the most accomplished of them, marry men of other races? Why do they marry down so much and out so little?

Getty ImagesBlack women are the most unmarried group in America.

Black women lead by far the most segregated intimate lives of any minority group in the U.S. They are less than half as likely as black men to wed across racial lines. Only about 1 in 20 black women are interracially married.

Part of the reason, again, is the market. Numerous studies of Internet dating confirm that black women are the partners least desired by non-black men.

The Betty Chambers Has Spoken Response  

However, making black women attractive, approachable

and normal was not the intention of the article.. -SOURCE

But that’s not the whole story. Even if a majority of white men are uninterested in dating black women, that still leaves more than enough eligible white men for every single black woman in America. Moreover, many major urban areas have large numbers of Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern and Latino men, some of whom, according to at least one study of Internet dating, are more responsive to black women than are black men.

The Betty Chambers Has Spoken Response  

Breaking It Down

You did a terrific job of nailing what’s wrong with the WSJ article. It’s not doing us any favors,

but it wasn’t meant to anyway. This article insults a number of people, but the main recipients are black women and white

men.

Imagine if there was a shortage of marriageable partners for white men, and black women were offered up as the last

choice, second rate hope for them, because it would improve their group’s prospects with other, or the same race of,

women? Even though they purportedly have a white woman shortage. -SOURCE

To understand the intimate segregation of black women, we must go beyond the question of whether black women are wanted and look instead at what they want. For some black women, the personal choice of an intimate partner is political. They want to help black men, not abandon them. As one woman told me, “If you know your history, how can you not support black men?”

Others prefer black men because they don’t think a relationship with a non-black man would work. They worry about rejection by a would-be spouse’s family or the awkwardness of having to explain oneself to a non-black partner.

As one 31-year-old schoolteacher in D.C. told me, “It’s easy to date a black man because he knows about my hair. He knows I don’t wash it every day. He knows I’m going to put the scarf on [to keep it in place at night].” Discussions about hair may seem trivial, but for many black women, just the thought of having the “hair talk” makes them tired. It’s emblematic of so much else they’d have to teach.

Some black women resist interracial marriage for a more primal reason. Long before Cecelia began her ill-fated relationship with her now ex-husband, she dated a white law-school classmate. They broke up because she couldn’t imagine having children with him. “I wanted chocolate babies,” she explained to me.

Given her milk-chocolate complexion, green eyes and curly hair, Cecelia worried that a biracial baby might come out looking white. Cecelia wanted chocolate babies not just so they would stay connected to black culture, but for another reason as well: So that no one would ever question whether they were hers. With biracial children, she feared that she might be mistaken for the nanny. Many black women share her anxiety about having a biracial child.

What would happen if more black women opened themselves to the possibility of marrying non-black men?

The Betty Chambers Has Spoken Response  

The key ingredient missing from the entire WSJ article is, What makes a black woman

happy? What would make her feel good? What are the ways to approach her if she appears socially

remote? Examples of their femininity, their normalcy, or exotic allure, would be enticing to the non-black  men reading

the WSJ to look at black women positively. It would peel away at least one thin layer of separation between black women

and non-black men. -SOURCE

To start, they might find themselves in better relationships. Some professional black women would no doubt discover that they are more compatible with a white, Asian or Latino coworker or college classmate than with the black guy they grew up with, who now works at the auto shop.

By opening themselves to relationships with men of other races, black women would also lessen the power disparity that depresses the African-American marriage rate. As more black women expanded their options, black women as a group would have more leverage with black men. Even black women who remained unwilling to love across the color line would benefit from other black women’s willingness to do so.

It’s hard to resist the paradoxical possibility that, if more black women married non-black men, then more black men and women might, in time, marry each other.

The Betty Chambers Has Spoken Response  

Say, what kind of logic is that?

1. Logic that reinforces a negative image of black women. So, no surprise a black man wrote that article for a major newspaper that reaches around the world. Anything for a couple of dollars to denigrate black women is not a hard task for some black men. Regardless of how well meaning he thinks is.
2. The logic is to continue presenting black women as racially, socially and bizarrely backward thinking: we’re worried about our HAIR, the complexions of our children, and our inability to be comfortable with non-black men. Oh, what superficial, silly, non-normal, non-female creatures we are. We are still “othering” ourselves. Those selected black women presents an image of people living in a self-imposed prison who lack any sense to free themselves of it.
3. The logic used is a sneaky backhanded method of blaming black women for the lower rate of black marriage compared to other racial groups. The author cannot directly say that black women must do the asking, since to a mainstream audience it would be outside the norm and viewed as ridiculous. Instead, he indirectly makes the case for marrying non-black men, again like we could make them marry us somehow, to prompt black men into asking. -SOURCE

—Mr. Banks is the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. Adapted from “Is Marriage for White People?: How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone” by Ralph Richard Banks, to be published by Dutton on Sept. 1. Copyright © 2011 by Ralph Richard Banks.

Tags: #BettyChambers, #GoldenAh, #B.W.E., #IRDating, #Propaganda, #WSJ, #SomethingNew, #Economist, #DBR, #IRMarriage, #InternetDating, #BlackFamilyDecline, #ArrestedDevelopment, #ralphrichardbanks, #exposed, #mindcontrol, #subliminalpersuasion, #brainwashing, #waronblackwomen, #bwwm,

SOPHISTICATED HIPSTER’s DIGEST™ Fashion Trend Alert: The All-In-1 Color Blocking Style Guide [#fashiontrends, #colorblocking, #elle, #neoprep, #interiordesign, #nails]

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TREND ALERT!!! – COLOR BLOCKING

The 411 on Color Blocking

By Danielle | Bitchie Life

FOLLOW ~Danielle
@StyleNBeautyDoc on Twitter

Though it’s been done already for years and years, color-blocking is back in a BIG way this season. But what is it and how do you pull it off exactly?

I was hoping you’d ask that!

If you love color and have many bright hues in your wardrobe, color-blocking is a way of getting more bang for your buck by combining colors you may not immediately pair together. Though the shades aren’t what you would think of pairing together first, there is a rhyme and reason toward choosing them. First, grab a color wheel and then follow these steps:

1. Colors directly next to each other (i.e. yellow and yellow-orange; yellow and yellow-green; violet and blue-violet, etc.)
2. Colors that form right (90 degree) angles with each other (i.e. yellow and red-orange; blue and violet-red; green and orange, etc.)
3. Colors directly across from each other (i.e. yellow and violet; blue and orange; red and green, etc.)
4. Colors that form a T (i.e. blue, orange, and violet-red; yellow, violet, and red-orange; yellow, blue-green, and red-orange, etc.)
5. Colors that form an X (i.e. blue, orange, violet-red, and yellow, violet, blue-green, and red-orange, etc.)

Since brown is a neutral, it will go with virtually any color on the color wheel. I love to pair a chocolate brown with cobalt blue or fuchsia or bright red—such a fun and bold combo. Of course white, black, and the hues of blue found in denim are also neutrals that go with just about anything.

Colors that are a part of a “color family” also apply. So for instance, you can substitute pink with red and still be able to pull off the combos based on the color wheel (i.e. we see that blue and red form a right angle with each other–then in Elise Neal’s outfit she wore fuchsia and cobalt blue).

You can also use the color wheel when coming up with color combinations for your makeup. It can help you decide which makeup color to wear so that you don’t match your eyeshadow with your outfit. Check out how Rihanna paired gorgeous purple eyeshadow with her red frock:

And that’s how it’s done. Will you be rocking the color blocking trend this season?

~Danielle
@StyleNBeautyDoc on Twitter

Find a dress with blocking built in: This season we’ve found quite a few dresses with the color blocking mixed in. It can’t get easier than that! Check out this Diane von Furstenberg Reara Two-Tone Dress: [VyneWorld]

MOXY_Licious

Steven Meisel / Courtesy of Prada

The Fast Life of Dominque Francon

TREND ALERT!!! – COLOR BLOCKING

Redhead Beauty a la Steven Meisel

 via Fashion Style Buzz

Aaaaah the colors, the grass, the readheads!! A fabulous and very Alice in Wonderland editorial photographed by Steven Meisel as originally published in VOGUE Italia 2004.
Courtesy of FGR

TREND ALERT!!! – COLOR BLOCKING

Color Block Tool, Rectangular Crops, My Home changes, oh my!

Dear Polyvore Community,
We have some exciting new updates for you today!

Introducing the Color Block Tool by Polyvore featuring a multicolor necklace

Color Block Tool
There’s a new tool in the editor that lets you spice up your sets with colored blocks! Just click the “Colors” option to see popular palettes, like grays, earth tones, and brights. Drag a color block to the canvas, resize it, rotate it, and use it to build cool backgrounds, frames, and fillers. As you add items to your set, we’ll automatically suggest additional colors that complement your set. You can also search for keywords like “water” and “love”, which will return popular colors from ColourLovers that are associated with those themes. We hope this will be helpful for those of you who have already been clipping images of colored rectangles to use as backgrounds. Unlike clipped images, you can resize these blocks in all directions to create rectangular shapes without using the custom background tool.

TREND ALERT!!! – COLOR BLOCKING

Color Block Fashion: Trend Alert

by Naina | Indian MakeUp & Beauty 

in Fashion

Something that has really caught my attention this season is colour blocking trend. It is not a new trend as such but is definitely back with a big bang. Here I try to decode the trend and give my two cents on it. Since it’s the first of it kinds article from my side, I hope it makes a fun read.

Time for some gyaan, please bear .

What is the colour blocking / Color Block?

Colour block fashion is one of the hottest new trends for the season. It combines the use of two or more blocks of colour in an ensemble. This could be for a top, bottom, tunic, a dress and even a handbag or shoes. Simply it means – creating an outfit by putting areas or blocks of solid color next to each other. It can include monotone, bright colours, muted colors, contrasting and complimentary colors. Clothes, shoes, handbags and accessories can all feature color block designs or can make up different blocks of color to be put together for a color block outfit.

The famous Lady Dior bag also follows the trend and a Marc Jacobs color blocked bag –

Color Blocked Jewellery –

And of course color blocked makeup –

The Nail Color Blocking Trend 2011-2012 via Trend Bloger

How do you bring to this new trend on your nails?

I started working with the polish ‘Rock Baroque’ Yves Saint Laurent. I must admit that it takes some concentration and practice but the following tips will certainly succeed!

What you need:
- Nail file
- File to the surface of your nail polish
- Basecoat (usually with a French manicure colorless)
- A colored nail polish on the line
- A pink nail polish
- Swab
- Nail Polish Remover

How do you go:
1. File your nails into a square shape
2. Apply a basecoat to
3. Bring the pink nail polish
4. Draw a line of about 4 mm with a different color nail polish
5. Remove the excess polish off with a cotton swab
6. Apply a top coat

And to test your guts, color blocked hair –

Coming back -

Why do you need to be careful while following the color block trend?
Since they often involve the use of bright colours or many different colours together, it is easy to go wrong with it. The best way to pair colour block trends whether it’s for shoes, a tunic or a top is with other basic colours such as black, white, brown and gray. This way your colour block will pop out more and look more polished.

Why should you do the trend?
If you have been lapping up fashion news regularly, you will know how horribly ‘in’ it is. And if you still need another convincing reason to wear the trend. Here’s it – Use it to hide flaws of your body. I have your full attention now, don’t I? Women after all.
So what I was saying is, use it to hide flaws, as we all know dark colours have a slimming effect, so colour-block the winter paunch or those baby fatty arms with dark shades and keep the rest of your outfit light coloured. It really works.

Basically this is how it will work for your body –
A darker column of color down the torso will have a slimming effect and can easily be created by wearing a colored cardigan, jacket or blouse worn open. Generally a color blocked outfit will work best if you stick to the usual rules for your body shape. If you are pear shaped, opt for darker colors on the bottom half. If you are apple shaped avoid horizontal blocks of color around the stomach area but highlight legs with color blocks created by brightly colored tights. If you are hourglass, a color block around the waist is a great way of highlighting it and drawing attention to you womanly figure.

Just keep in mind the following points while wearing color blocks-

• Don’t be shy to experiment. Any color combination is fantastic if you can pull it off properly. Blue, green and orange sounds mad but will look oh-so-pretty.
• Do not combine more than three to four colors. It’s not that it doesn’t look nice, but it looks very ‘ramp’ish. Moreover more colors will keep cutting your body shape here and there making it a not so beautiful sight.
• Choose what you want to color block and keep the rest of your look simple. For example, if you opt for a colorblocked bag, go easy on the clothes and shoes. You don’t want to look like a Rubik cube, do you??
• Never ever ever combine two color blocked items. This is the worst thing to do to this trend. No actually you can, its just that you will end up looking like the latest catalogue of Asian paints. :evilgrin:

In my opinion it is really fun trend to sport this summer. Firstly it gives us the opportunity to pair colors which we won’t dare to combine together otherwise. Secondly what are summers without cheerful bright colors?? Gone is the season of muted warm shades. Its time to paint the town in all colors possible.

So, go on and have fun blocking colors. Do let us know how you plan to wear it.
Stay stylish. :*

Image Source 1, 2

TREND ALERT!!! – COLOR BLOCKING

Summer 2011 Trends: Color Blocking

by Claire | FashionBombDaily

As seen at: Gucci, Jil Sander, Proenza Schouler, Prabal Gurung, Rachel Roy, Z Spoke, Prada, and Diane von Furstenberg.

Left to Right: Jil Sander, Diane von Furstenberg, Rachel Roy Spring/Summer 2011

Left to Right: Z Spoke, Gucci, Prada Spring/Summer 2011

How You Wear it:
Whip out that color wheel and get to coordinating! You can cop the trend by mixing solid colors or patterned prints. Have fun! Pair fuchsia with turquoise, blue with yellow, and plum with tangerine.

More Marc by Marc Jacobs…

Take out some of the guesswork by purchasing pieces that already incorporate the trend:

More Marc by Marc Jacobs…

TREND ALERT!!! – COLOR BLOCKING

Stylish Trend: Color Blocking

by Stylista Confessions

The hottest trend right now in my opinion is color blocking. While this may not be a new trend, it is definitely coming back in a big way! From clothing to accessories to even beauty, color blocking seems to be everywhere and I definitely am loving it more and more! You can create an entire outfit mixing and matching different colors and look like you just stepped out of a fashion magazine, which is definitely a stylish plus! I thought I would share some of my favorite color block looks from all different aspects including fashion, beauty, and home decor! Happy Friday!

from left to right: Kristina of Pretty Shiny Sparkly, Elle Magazine Spread, ALDO necklace, ASOS Leather Tote, Jessica Simpson heels

from left to right: Martha Stewart colored frames, nails via It’s Because I Think Too Much, color blocking bookshelves, nails

Have a stylish weekend!

So until next time… Live Stylishly

TREND ALERT!!! – COLOR BLOCKING

Color Block Trend | Spring 2011

Posted by Melanie | OSoChic

When you think of the color block trend, the 80s and early 90s come to mind. My mom had a black, lime green & fuchsia colorblock dress and it was pretty fab. Fast forward a few decades and colorblock is back in style. As evidenced by the Spring 2011 runways, bright, color blocked pieces are one of the top trends for spring/summer 2011.

Spring 2011: Marc Jacobs, Etro, Gucci, Diane von Furstenberg, Aquilano.Rimondi

To get the color block effect, you can buy pieces that are already colorblocked or you can improvise. For the DIY color-block effect, go through your closets or buy solid color pieces that can be mixed and matched. If a color block outfit isn’t your cup of tea, experiment with color blocking in your accessories. A color blocked bag or pair of shoes will add a je ne sais quoi to your look.

While brights are the most popular color blocking option, color block is not limited to bright hues. This season, there is a large selection of color blocked clothes and accessories in neutral, muted tones.

Dabble in the color block trend with these clothes, shoes and bags!

(clockwise from left) Marc by Marc Jacobs Color-Block Silk Crepe Dress, $598 (Nordstrom); Cooperative Tie-Back Top, $49 (Urban Outfitters); Colorblock Bodycon Dress, $15.80 (Forever 21); Marc by Marc Jacobs Splashed Colorblock Jersey Tank, $128 (Shopbop); Belted Paperbag Waist Skirt, $70 (Topshop); Cooperative Colorblock Short, $54 (Urban Outfitters); Morgan Low-Rise Skinny Jeans, $9.99 (Delias); Colorblock Stripe Skirt, $7.80 (Forever 21)

(clockwise from center) Jessica Simpson “Bendie” Platform Sandals, $98 (FlyJane); Sam Edelman “Westbrook” Wedge, $209 (Boutiquetoyou); Jessica Simpson “Vadio” Platform Pumps, $98 (Amazon); KG by Jurt Geiger “Carrington” Patent Platforms, $197.23 (ASOS); Iveans Wedge Sandals, $90 (ALDO);

Boxy Flat Lock Clutch, $35.86 (ASOS); Modern Cargo Checkbook Clutch, $55 (Fossil); Rebecca Minkoff Colorblock “Bombe Mac” Clutch, $330 (Bloomingdales); Peter Jensen Red Front “Angela” Bag, $374.74 (ASOS)

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TREND ALERT!!! – COLOR BLOCKING

How to Embrace the Color Blocking Trend

by

I believe glamour isn’t about your looks or the size of your bank account, but it’s a way of life and I’m constantly looking for ways to make my life more fun, exciting and glamorous! I hope you enjoy what you read and see here and if you do that you’ll tell your friends!

1. Jill Sander Spring 2011 RTW, 2. Louis Vuitton Spring 2011 RTW, 3. Gucci Spring 2011 RTW

Photos from www.style.com

Color blocking is a big trend for spring and summer as seen all over the Spring 2011 Ready to Wear runways! I suspect it will carry on right through the fall and winter months too! I’m not at all surprised, since many of us have been doing very basic color blocking ever since tights replaced panty hose as the main staple of winter fashion! Every time you throw on a blue shift with black tights, you’re color blocking on a minor scale and you may have never known it!

Classic old school color blocking is coming back and it’s bigger and brighter than ever! This trend is so simple, when aware of a few simple rules and it can be embraced on any budget, no matter how small! If you regularly have solid color separates in your wardrobe, it may not be necessary for you to spend any money at all to rock this trend!

Here are a few small rules to help make this trend oh so easy:

1. Keep textures to a minimum when color blocking. Too many colors alongside big ruffles, sequins or other textures might be just too much going on. If you must wear something textural, wear it on top.

2. For my taste, gold jewelry and accents are key to this trend. Color blocking just looks better with gold than it does with silver, though fashion is all about taking risks so it’s your choice.

3. If you’re not adventurous, or swear you look bad in color, try doing this trend with black & white, black & camel or camel & white.

4. If you’re worried about a color flushing you out, wear that color on the bottom with shoes or pants and choose a more flattering color, black or white for the top.

5. Unless the combo is fairly simple (i.e. only 2 colors) keep jewelry and accessories simple. However, with the right look, this is a good chance to wear the funky jewelry you’ve been splurging on all year! Big turquoise jewelry or any other bold color will look especially fabulous with black & white or white & camel combos.

6. When wearing colored shoes as part of the ensemble, find shoes that are as rich in color as possible. This often has to do with the material they are made of. I find that suede and patent leather tend to be more vibrant than other materials and work best for this trend.

Let’s start with the basics, shall we? If you’re unsure of this trend, go simple. Invest in one of the many pieces available in stores right now that are already color blocked and pair with basics and simple jewelry. You don’t have to be outlandish to wear this trend. The look below pairs a color blocked red & black top with all black and gold basics and a pair of red sunnies. Simple, right?

Leggings by Rick Owens
Flats by Dorothy Perkins

If you’re a little more adventurous, but still unsure go for a 3 color look using black, white and a bright color. Still not too bold or difficult, but a little more fun! I think this is super chic and always appropriate! The ensemble below pairs classic black, white and yellow! Mix it up even further by wearing bright shoes and carrying a white clutch.

Clutches by Fiorelli
Sunglasses by Illesteva

For those who feel even more adventurous, the next look is super easy to put together. I have paired 3 colors using a bright turquoise pair of shorts with a white top and accessorizing with all yellow.

Shorts by Adam
Heels by Carvela

Nude shoes are HUGE for spring and summer and they work so well with a lot of color blocking looks! This next look is super easy as well. Go for 2 colors, using one bold color like red and one lighter color like a pale yellow. Accessorize with nude shoes and gold jewelry, but don’t be afraid of bright colored shades or a fun bag!

Wide Leg Trousers by Dorothy Perkins
Heels by Kurt Geiger

Bold on bold is not for the faint of heart! I think it can be difficult to pull off without looking like you’re wearing a costume from Punky Brewster or Breakin II: Electric Boogaloo. However, this look can be super cute and fun for spring or summer. Pick 2 bold colors that compliment each other or are in the same family and mix it up. I would suggest green/orange, blue/red, yellow/blue or tuquoise/orange. The following works well too, using fuschia and purple and it’s toned down a little by using different shades of the 2 colors. Notice the pants and scarf are a little lighter than the earrings or the shoes. Another way to break up the brightness would be to take a cue from Gucci Spring 2011 RTW and use gold as a separator with shoes, wide belts and jewelry.

T-Shirts by Peacocks
Heels by Karen Millen

For the extreme fashion forward, go all out! I recommend sticking to colors that are either true jewel tones or pastels, but not mixing the two when using this many shades. It’s important that all the colors look like they came from the same section of the crayon box. When going this drastic with color blocking, it is definitely wise to keep your jewelry very small and basic. It’s also important that the pieces you use are basic separates! The colors have enough going on, so having ruffles, embroidery or too much detailing of any kind would be extremely distracting and over the top.

Shortsleeve Tops by Wallis
Heels by Carvela

I am super obsessed with this look! I’ve already invested in a bright orange bag and a pair of coral ballet flats for the spring! I’m on the look out for some bright trousers, shorts and skirts as well and I’m dying for heels in bright blue and some bright yellow espadrilles!

What do you think? Will you be color blocking this spring?

TREND ALERT!!! – COLOR BLOCKING

Color Blocking: Trend for Spring/Summer 2011

By HelloBella| MyHelloBella

I have incorporated a few photos to express how color blocking should look:

Polyvore : Color Blocking

By HelloBella| MyHelloBella

color blocking: louboutins by bellezayuuup featuring tahitian pearl earrings

Top
sklep.topsecret.pl

Christian Louboutin platform high heels
$995 - net-a-porter.com

Cacharel flower clutch
175 GBP - glassworks-studios.com

DAY Birger et Mikkelsen beaded necklace
$180 - 25park.com

Mimco tahitian pearl earring
35 GBP - houseoffraser.co.uk

stila cosmetics – long wear liquid lip color
stilacosmetics.com

Perfect for a club appearance or even an event.

Color Blocking Made Simple

By HelloBella | MyHelloBella

color blocking made simple by bellezayuuup featuring skinny leg jeans

IRO suede top
$137 - theoutnet.com

Rag & Bone skinny leg jeans
$155 - net-a-porter.com

Jeffrey Campbell summer boot
298 EUR - jades24.com

Straw hat
$70 - reissonline.com

Ray Ban folding wayfarer sunglass
ray-ban.com

My name is Christelle Blanche and I am an aspiring celebrity wardobe stylist/PR. I am attending Miami Int’l Univ of Art & Design in Downtown Miami, FL and studying Fashion Merchandising. I will be graduating in 2012. I have very strong networking and social skills which will get me very far in the industry. I am currently interning as a creative stylist for thewebstermami.com, for more inquiries email me at: cblanche809@gmail.com

Color Blocking by Ciao Vogue featuring christian louboutin heels

Splendid racerback tank top
$25 - net-a-porter.com

Steven Alan silk blazer
$229 - stevenalan.com

Cacharel cotton shorts
84 - matchesfashion.com

Gold bracelet
$45 - fantasyjewelrybox.com

MNG by Mango oval ring
$20 - jcpenney.com

Kendra Scott hook earrings
$52 - zappos.com

Wrap necklace
$14 - topshop.com

Madewell vintage glass shades
$154 - madewell.com

Rag Bone leather wrap belt
$105 - lagarconne.com

20 apsolutno fantastičnih beauty trikova
svevesti.com

FLOR Toy Poodle tin tin teal tile – Tin Tin Teal Tile
$14 - cb2.com

Fatboy Original Fatboy
$239 - designpublic.com

Color Blocking like YEAH! by Chellibeans featuring a color block dress

Dress
ly.st

Diane von Furstenberg colorblock dress
229 - matchesfashion.com

Color block dress
$70 - goddiva.co.uk

Cross back dress
rarefashion.co.uk

Color block dress
$30 - 2cute2trendy.com

Bailey 44 color block dress
$190 - stylebop.com

Reiss bodycon dress
179 - johnlewis.com

Wedge high heels
$1,095 - giuseppezanottidesign.com

Butter shoes
$319 - endless.com

Dorothy Perkins nude shoes
38 - dorothyperkins.com

Miu Miu high heel sandals
$472 - bergdorfgoodman.com

Dsquared suede sandals
$365 - endless.com

Zara peep toe shoes
$100 - zara.com

Enzo Angiolini platform stiletto heels
$100 - heels.com

Lanvin leather shoulder handbag
$2,185 - net-a-porter.com

Leather clutch
$36 - senseofashion.com

Marc Jacobs leather clutch handbag
$598 - ssense.com

MICHAEL Michael Kors leather clutch
$178 - michaelkors.com

Heidi Mottram clutch handbag
$254 - boutique1.com

Mar Y Sol raffia handbag
75 - fashion-conscience.com

Magid clutch bag
$52 - endless.com

Tags: #fashiontrends, #colorblocking, #elle, #neoprep, #interiordesign, #nails, #bitchielife, #pinkjulep,#osochic, #vyneworld, #fashionbombdaily, #polyvore, #myhellobella,

Beware of The Dumbing Down of Society. Know How to Inform and Protect Yourself; While Reversing It’s Effects on You via [#VigilantCitizen, #DumbingDownofSociety ]

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Dumbing Down Society Part I: Foods, Beverages and Meds

By VC | for Vigilant Citizen | June 28th, 2010 | Category: Vigilant Reports | 653 comments

Is there a deliberate effort by the government to dumb down the masses? The statement is hard to prove but there exists a great amount of data proving that the ruling elite not only tolerates, but effectively introduces policies that have a detrimental effect on the physical and mental health of the population. This series of articles looks at the many ways the modern man is being dumbed down. Part I looks at the poisons found in everyday foods, beverages and medications.

Image by deesillustration.com

The theme of dumbing-down and dehumanizing the masses are often discussed in articles on The Vigilant Citizen. The presence of those concepts in popular culture are, however, only the outward and symbolic expression of the profound transformation happening in our society. Scientific data has been proving for years that governments around the world are tolerating the selling of many products which have a direct and negative effect on cognitive and physical health. As we will see in this article many everyday products cause brain damage, impaired judgment and even a lower IQ.

Is a dumber population something that is desired by the elite? Hitler once said “How fortunate for the leaders that men do not think.” An educated population knows its rights, understands the issues and takes action when it does not approve of what is going on. Judging by the incredible amount of data available on the subject, it seems that the elite want the exact opposite: an unhealthy, frightened, confused and sedated population. We will look at the effects of medication, pesticides, fluoride and aspartame on the human body and how those products are being pushed by people from inside the power structure.

Prescription Drug Abuse

America has witnessed during the last decades a staggering rise of drugs being prescribed  to treat all kinds of problems. Children are particularly affected by this phenomenon. Since the 1990′s, an ever-rising proportion of American children are being diagnosed with “illnesses” such as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and are prescribed mind-altering drugs, such as Ritalin.

The DEA has become alarmed by the tremendous increase in the prescribing of these drugs in recent years. Since 1990, prescriptions for methylphenidate have increased by 500 percent, while prescriptions for amphetamine for the same purpose have increased 400 percent. Now we see a situation in which from seven to ten percent of the nation’s boys are on these drugs at some point as well as a rising percentage of girls.
- Source

Today, children who show too much energy, character or strength are being willfully sedated with powerful drugs which directly affect the way their brains function. Are we going in the right direction here?

Even if ADD is not a clearly defined and documented disorder – it causes NO observable biological effects whatsoever – children are still being diagnosed with the illness in great numbers. This raises important ethical questions.

“Pediatricians as well as ethicists have also voiced their concerns in usage of these stimulants. In an article published in the New York Times, they have questioned the appropriateness of medicating children without a clear diagnosis in hopes that they do better in school. They also asked whether the drugs should be given to adults failing in their careers or are procrastinators. They question the worthy of this method.

This concern have also been voiced out in the January 2005 issue of Pediatrics in which the large discrepancies between pediatricians’ practice patterns and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines for the assessment and treatment of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was bought forth. The article also stated that because the medical community didn’t come to a consensus on how to diagnose ADD/ADHD, they should not be making extensive decisions as to how to treat individuals who have been diagnosed with the disorder.”

The usage of Ritalin at a young age breaks the psychological threshold people maintain towards the usage of prescription pills, which makes those children more likely to consume psychotropic drugs later in their lives. We should not be surprised to witness a dramatic increase of consumption of antidepressants in the years to come. The trend is already beginning:

“In its study, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at 2.4 billion drugs prescribed in visits to doctors and hospitals in 2005. Of those, 118 million were for antidepressants.

The use of antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs — those that affect brain chemistry — has skyrocketed over the last decade. Adult use of antidepressants almost tripled between the periods 1988-1994 and 1999-2000. Between 1995 and 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the use of these drugs rose 48 percent, the CDC reported.”
- Elizabeth Cohen, CNN

The use of prescription pills might be of a great help for specific and properly diagnosed cases. The pharmaceutical industry however, which has many “friends” in the highest levels of government, is pushing for the widespread use of psychiatric drugs within the public. Since 2002, a great number of pills claiming to fix all kinds of mental conditions have been marketed to the public, but many of those pills were approved for sale without proper research for side effects. Even worse: the side effects might have been known but hidden to the public. Below is a list of warnings issued on commonly sold psychiatric drugs. Some of those side effects are actually frightening as a pill should not be able to have that much power over the human brain. Think about it: Some drugs are subject to warnings because they can cause you to … commit suicide?

2004

March 22: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned that Prozac-like antidepressants (called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors or SSRIs) could cause “anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia [severe restlessness], hypomania [abnormal excitement] and mania [psychosis characterized by exalted feelings, delusions of grandeur].”

June: The Therapeutic Goods Administration, the Australian equivalent of the FDA, reported that the latest antipsychotic drugs could increase the risk of diabetes.

June: The FDA ordered that the packaging for the stimulant Adderall include a warning about sudden cardiovascular deaths, especially in children with underlying heart disease.

October 15: The FDA ordered its strongest “black box” label for antidepressants warning they could cause suicidal thoughts and actions in under those under 18 years old.

October 21: The New Zealand Medicines Adverse Reactions Committee recommended that older and newer antidepressants not be administered to patients less than 18 years of age because of the risk of suicide.

December 17: The FDA required packaging for the “ADHD” drug, Strattera, to advise that “Severe liver damage may progress to liver failure resulting in death or the need for a liver transplant in a small percentage of patients.”

2005

February 9: Health Canada, the Canadian counterpart of the FDA, suspended marketing of Adderall XR (Extended Release, given once a day) due to reports of 20 sudden unexplained deaths (14 in children) and 12 strokes (2 in children).

April 11: The FDA warned that antipsychotic drug use in elderly patients could increase the risk of death.

June 28: The FDA announced its intention to make labeling changes to Concerta and other Ritalin products to include the side effects: “visual hallucinations, suicidal ideation [ideas], psychotic behavior, as well as aggression or violent behavior.”

June 30: The FDA warned that the antidepressant Cymbalta could increase suicidal thinking or behavior in pediatric patients taking it.  It also warned about the potential increased risk of suicidal behavior in adults taking antidepressants.

August: The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration found a relationship between antidepressants and suicidality, akathisia (severe restlessness), agitation, nervousness and anxiety in adults.  Similar symptoms could occur during withdrawal from the drugs, it determined.

August 19: The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products warned against child antidepressant use, stating that the drugs caused suicide attempts and thoughts, aggression, hostility, aggression, oppositional behavior and anger.

September 26: The Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco (Italian Drug Agency, equivalent to the FDA) warned against use of older (tricyclic) antidepressants in people under 18 years old.  It also determined the drugs were associated with heart attacks in people of any age.

September 29: The FDA ordered that labeling for the “ADHD” drug Strattera include a boxed warning about the increased risk of suicidal thinking in children and adolescents taking it.

October 17: The FDA warned that the antidepressant Cymbalta could cause liver damage.

October 24: The FDA withdrew the stimulant Cylert from the market because of the risk of liver toxicity and failure.

November: The FDA warned that the antidepressant Effexor could cause homicidal thoughts.

2006

February 9: The FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee urged that the strongest “black box” warning be issued for stimulants, because they may cause heart attacks, strokes and sudden death.

February 20: British authorities warned that Strattera was associated with seizures and potentially lengthening period of the time between heartbeats.

March 22: An FDA advisory panel heard evidence of almost 1,000 reports of kids experiencing psychosis or mania while taking stimulants.

May 3: FDA adverse drug reaction reports linked antipsychotic drugs to 45 child deaths and 1,300 serious adverse reactions, such as convulsions and low white blood cell count.

May 12: The manufacturer of Paxil warned that the antidepressant increases the risk of suicide in adults.

May 26: Health Canada issued new warnings of rare heart risks for all drugs prescribed for “ADHD,” including the risk of sudden death.

June 2: An FDA study determined that the antipsychotic drug, Risperdal, might cause pituitary tumors. The pituitary gland, at the base of the brain, secretes hormones that promote growth, and regulates body functions.  Antipsychotics may increase prolactin, a hormone in the pituitary gland, and this increase has been linked to cancer.  Risperdal was found to increase prolactin levels more frequently than in other antipsychotics.

July 19: The FDA said antidepressant packaging should carry warnings that they may cause a fatal lung condition in newborns whose mothers took SSRI antidepressants during pregnancy.  Migraine sufferers also need to be warned that combining migraine drugs with SSRIs could result in a life-threatening condition called serotonin syndrome.

Food Poisoning

The modern man ingests in his lifetime an incredible amount of chemicals, artificial flavors and additives. Although there is growing awareness regarding healthy eating, there is also a lot of misinformation and disinformation.

At the present time, a single company – Monsanto – produces roughly 95% of all soybeans and 80% of all corn in the US. Considering this, the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beefstew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto’s patented genes. There are numerous documents and films exposing Monsanto’s strong-arming of the agricultural industry, so I won’t expand on that issue. It is however important to note that a virtual monopoly currently exists in the food industry and there’s a unhealthy link between Monsanto and the American government: Many people who have passed laws in the fields of food, drugs and agriculture were also, at some point on the payroll of Monsanto. In other words, the elite decides which foods are sold to you.

Public officials formerly employed by Monsanto:

• Justice Clarence Thomas worked as an attorney for Monsanto in the 1970s. Thomas wrote the majority opinion in the 2001 Supreme Court decision J. E. M. Ag Supply, Inc. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.|J. E. M. AG SUPPLY, INC. V. PIONEER HI-BREDINTERNATIONAL, INC. which found that “newly developed plant breeds are patentable under the general utility patent laws of the United States.” This case benefited all companies which profit from genetically modified crops, of which Monsanto is one of the largest.

• Michael R. Taylor was an assistant to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner before he left to work for a law firm on gaining FDA approval of Monsanto’s artificial growth hormone in the 1980s. Taylor then became deputy commissioner of the FDA from 1991 to 1994.Taylor was later re-appointed to the FDA in August 2009 by President Barack Obama.

• Dr. Michael A. Friedman was a deputy commissioner of the FDA before he was hired as a senior vice president of Monsanto.

• Linda J. Fisher was an assistant administrator at the United States Environmental Protection Agency‎ (EPA) before she was a vice president at Monsanto from 1995 – 2000. In 2001, Fisher became the deputy administrator of the EPA.
• Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was chairman and chief executive officer of G. D. Searle & Co., which Monsanto purchased in 1985. Rumsfeld personally made at least $12 million USD from the transaction.

Many laws (approved by ex-Monsanto employees) have facilitated the introduction and the consumption of genetically engineered foods by the public.

“According to current statistics, 45% of corn and 85% of soybeans in the United States is genetically engineered (GE). Estimates of 70-75% of processed foods found at our local supermarkets are believed to contain GE ingredients.

Other GE foods are canola, papayas, radicchio, potatoes, rice, squash or zucchini, cantaloupe, sugar beets, flax, tomatoes, and oilseed rape. One non-food crop that is commonly GE is cotton. The GE hormone recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH or Prosilac) was one of the first GE products allowed to enter the nation’s food supply. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Monsanto’s rBGH in 1993.”
- Anna M. Salanti, Genetically Engineered Foods

Although it is yet impossible to determine the long-term effects of genetically engineered foods on the human body, some facts have already been established. GE foods contain less nutrients and, most importantly, they are “chemical-friendly”.

“One of the features of GE foods is their ability to withstand unlimited application of chemicals, including pesticides. Bromoxynil and glyphosate have been associated with developmental disorders in fetuses, tumors, carcinomas, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Studies indicate that Monsanto’s recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) causes treated cows to produce milk with an increased second hormone, IGF-1. This hormone is associated with human cancers. Recommendations by the Congressional watchdog agency, Government Accounting Office (GAO), recommended that rBGH not be approved. The European Union, Canada, and others have banned it. The UN has also refused to certify that using rBGH is safe.”
– Ibid

Genetic modifications engineered by Monsanto makes their products bigger and more aesthetically pleasing. Another, less discussed “improvement” is the plants’ ability to withstand nearly unlimited amounts of Roundup brand pesticides. This encourages farmers to use that brand of pesticides which is produced by … Monsanto.

Studies on Roundup link the powerful pesticide and herbicide to many health problems such as:

• Increased risks of the cancer non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
• Miscarriages
• Attention Deficit Disorder (the real one)

Fluoride

Another source of harmful chemicals is found in the modern man’s water supplies and soft drinks.  As of 2002, the CDC statistics show that almost 60% of the U.S. population receives fluoridated water through the taps in their homes. The official reason for the presence of fluoride in our tap water? It prevents tooth decay. Ok … really? Is this mildly important benefit worth the consuming of great amounts of this substance by the population? Some studies even denied the dental benefits of fluorided water.

“Scientists now believe that the main protective action from fluoride does not come from ingesting the chemical, with the teeth absorbing it from inside the body, but from direct absorption through topical application to teeth. This means swallowing water is a far less effective way to fight cavities than brushing with fluoridated toothpaste.”
- Source

So why is fluoride still found in tap water? Here are some quick facts about fluoridation chemicals:

• they were once used as pesticides
• they are registered as “poisonous” under the 1972 Poisons Act, in the same group of toxins as arsenic, mercury and paraquat
• fluoride is scientifically classed as more toxic than lead, but there is about 20 times more fluoride than lead in tap water

Many studies have been conducted on the effects of fluoride on the human body and some notable adverse effects have been noted: it changes bone structure and strength, impairs the immune system and it was linked to some cancers. Another alarming consequence of fluoridation is its effects on brain functions:

“In 1995, neurotoxicologist and former Director of toxicology at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, Dr. Phyllis Mullenix published research showing that fluoride built up in the brains of animals when exposed to moderate levels. Damage to the brain occured and the behavior patterns of the animals was adversely effected. Offspring of pregnant animals receiving relatively low doses of fluoride showed permanent effects to the brain which were seen as hyperactivity (ADD-like symptoms). Young animals and adult animals given fluoride experienced the opposite effect — hypoactivity or sluggishness. The toxic effects of fluoride on the central nervous system was subsequently confirmed by previously-classified government research. Two new epidemiological studies which tend to confirm fluoride’s neurotoxic effects on the brain have shown that children exposed to higher levels of fluoride had lower IQs.”
- Source

A lesser known, but extremely important side effect of fluoride is the calcification of the pineal gland.

Up until the 1990s, no research had ever been conducted to determine the impact of fluoride on the pineal gland – a small gland located between the two hemispheres of the brain that regulates the production of the hormone melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that helps regulate the onset of puberty and helps protect the body from cell damage caused by free radicals.

It is now known – thanks to the meticulous research of Dr. Jennifer Luke from the University of Surrey in England – that the pineal gland is the primary target of fluoride accumulation within the body.

The soft tissue of the adult pineal gland contains more fluoride than any other soft tissue in the body – a level of fluoride (~300 ppm) capable of inhibiting enzymes.

The pineal gland also contains hard tissue (hyroxyapatite crystals), and this hard tissue accumulates more fluoride (up to 21,000 ppm) than any other hard tissue in the body (e.g. teeth and bone).

- Source

Other than regulating vital hormones, the pineal gland is known to serve an esoteric function. It is known by mystic groups as the “third eye” and has been considered by many cultures to be part of the brain responsible for spiritual enlightenment and the “link to the divine”. Is enlightenment out of bounds for the modern man?

“In the human brain there is a tiny gland called the pineal body, which is the sacred eye of the ancients, and corresponds to the third eye of the Cyclops. Little is known concerning the function of the pineal body, which Descartes suggested (more wisely than he knew) might be the abode of the spirit of man.”
– Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

Aspartame

Aspartame is an artificial sweetner used in “sugar-free” products such as diet sodas and chewing gum. Since its discovery in 1965, Aspartame caused great controversy regarding its health risks – primarily causing brain tumors – and was denied its application to be sold to the public by the FDA. Searle, the company attempting to market Aspartame then appointed Donald Rumsfeld as CEO in 1977 … and things changed drastically. In a short period of time, Aspartame could be found in over 5,000 products.

“Donald Rumsfeld was on President Reagan’s transition team and the day after he took office he appointed an FDA Commissioner who would approve aspartame. The FDA set up a Board of Inquiry of the best scientists they had to offer who said aspartame is not safe and causes brain tumors, and the petition for approval is hereby revoked. The new FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes, over-ruled that Board of Inquiry and then went to work for the PR Agency of the manufacturer, Burson-Marstellar, rumored at $1000.00 a day, and has refused to talk to the press ever since.”
- Source

Years after its approval by the FDA, leading scientists still urge the organization to ban this product.

“Dr. John Olney, who founded the field of neuoscience called excitotoxicity, attempted to stop the approval of aspartame with Attorney James Turner back in 1996. The FDA’s own toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross told Congress that without a shadow of a doubt, aspartame can cause brain tumors and brain cancer and violated the Delaney Amendment which forbids putting anything in food that is known to cause Cancer. Detailed information on this can be found in the Bressler Report (FDA report on Searle).”
- Ibid

In 1995, the FDA was forced to release, under the Freedom of Information act, a list of ninety-two symptoms caused by aspartame reported by thousands of victims:

Those symptoms are however only the tip of the iceberg. Aspartame has been linked to severe illnesses and long term health issues.

“According to the top doctors and researchers on this issue, aspartame causes headache, memory loss, seizures, vision loss, coma and cancer. It worsens or mimics the symptoms of such diseases and conditions as fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, ADD, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, chronic fatigue and depression. Further dangers highlighted is that aspartame liberates free methyl alcohol. The resulting chronic methanol poisoning affects the dopamine system of the brain causing addiction. Methanol, or wood alcohol, constitutes one third of the aspartame molecule and is classified as a severe metabolic poison and narcotic.”
- Ibid

In Conclusion

If the main message of this website has been to this point “watch what enters your mind”, the main message of this article is “watch what enters your body.” The consumption of the products stated above will probably not cause an immediate and noticeable effect. But, after many years of ingesting those substances, one’s thoughts become increasingly clouded and foggy, the ability to concentrate becomes hindered and judgment becomes impaired. In other words, the once sharp mind becomes dull. What happens when a population is heavily sedated and poisoned on a daily basis? It becomes numb, zombie-like and docile. Instead of asking important questions and seeking a higher truth, the dumbed-down mass simply accomplishes its daily tasks and absorbs whatever the media tells them.  Is this what the elite is looking to create?

There is, however, a silver lining here. Many of the negative effects of the substances described above are reversible. And YOU are the one who decides what enters your body. This article provides a brief overview of dangers lurking for the unaware consumer, but tons of information is available on which to base enlightened decisions. Your body is a temple. Will you allow it to be desecrated?

Dumbing Down Society Part 2: Mercury in Foods and Vaccines

By VC | for Vigilant Citizen |July 9th, 2010 | Category: Vigilant Reports | 552 comments

Even though mercury is known to degenerate brain neurons and disrupt the central nervous system, it is still found in processed foods and mandatory vaccines. In this second part of the series examining the intentional dumbing-down of society, this article will discuss the presence of mercury in common foods and vaccines.

The first article in this series – Dumbing Down Society Pt 1: Foods, Beverages and Meds – looked at the effects of aspartame, fluoride and prescription pills on the human brain. These substances all cause a decrease of cognitive power which, on a large scale, leads to a dumbing down of the population that is ingesting them. This second article focuses on another toxic product found in everyday foods and mandatory vaccines: mercury.

Mercury is a heavy metal naturally found in the environment. However, it is not suitable for human consumption, as it is extremely harmful to the human body, especially the brain. While some people say that anything can be consumed in moderation, many experts agree that no amount of mercury is safe for the human body. Despite this and the many studies concerning the negative effects of  mercury, the heavy metal is continually added to mandatory vaccines and processed foods.

Mercury is known to cause brain neuron degeneration and to disturb the central nervous system. Direct exposure to the metal causes immediate and violent effects:

“Exposure to high levels of metallic, inorganic, or organic mercury can permanently damage the brain, kidneys, and developing fetus. Effects on brain functioning may result in irritability, shyness, tremors, changes in vision or hearing, and memory problems.”
- Source

Most people do not come in direct contact with mercury, but are exposed to small doses at a time, resulting in a slow but steady poisoning of the brain. As the years go by, the effects of the substance impairs judgment and rational thinking, decreases memory and disrupts emotional stability. In other words: It makes you dumber.

Mercury has also the unfortunate ability to transfer from pregnant woman to their unborn babies. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, mercury passed on to the fetus during pregnancy may have lasting consequences, including memory impairment, diminished language skills and other cognitive complications.

It has been highly publicized that mercury is found in dangerous quantities in seafood, such as tuna, swordfish and tilefish. This creates a rather ironic situation: Instead of making you smarter because of all the Omega-3 they contain,  the fish produce exactly the opposite effect on the brain due to mercury poisonning.

Unfortunately, mercury is also found in other products: vaccines and high-fructose corn syrup.

Vaccines

“I think it’s absolutely criminal to give mercury to an infant.”
– Boyd Haley, Ph.D., Chemistry Department Chair, University of Kentucky

Mercury is found in great quantities in mandatory vaccines. Before we get into the details of it, here are some facts about vaccines in America as noted by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny:

• The U.S. government is the largest purchaser of vaccines in the country. In fact, nearly 30 percent of the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) annual budget is composed of purchasing vaccines and ensuring vaccination is completed for every child in the country.

• Private insurance companies, which do the best liability studies, have completely abandoned coverage for damage to life and property due to: Acts of God, nuclear war, nuclear power plant accidents and … vaccination.

• Laws have been passed to protect vaccine manufactures from liability, while at the same time, state laws require parents to inject their children with up to 100 vaccination antigens prior to entering school. If a vaccine injury–or death–occurs after a vaccine, parents cannot sue the doctor, the drug company or the government; they are required to petition the Vaccine Court for damages, a process that can take years and often ends with a dismissal of the case.

• Each state has school vaccination laws that require children of appropriate age to be vaccinated for several communicable diseases. State vaccination laws mandate that children be vaccinated prior to being allowed to attend public or private schools. Failure to vaccinate children can not only result in children being prohibited from attending school, but their parents or guardians can receive civil fines and criminal penalties. Schools don’t usually tell parents is that in every state, an exemption exists allowing parents to legally refuse vaccines while still allowing their children to attend school.

• The medical industry advocates vaccines, often demanding that parents vaccinate their children in order to remain under their doctor’s care. A sizable portion of a pediatrician’s income is derived from insurance reimbursement for vaccinations. The ever-expanding vaccination schedule that includes increasingly more expensive vaccines has been a source of increased revenues for vaccinating doctors.

Thimerosal

A child receives approximately 21 vaccines before the age of six and 6 more before the age of 18, for a  total of 27 shots during childhood. Many of these injections contain Thimerosal, a preservative added to the shots, made of 49% mercury. The unprecedented use of mercury on children has created a generation of cognitively impaired children.

“The symptoms experienced by children exposed to mercury are real and can be directly linked to the vaccines they were given as infants. It’s ironic that the vaccines given to these young people are meant to protect them, when in fact they are adversely affecting their neurological development.”
- Source

On top of causing an entire generation of babies to have their brains damaged, the use of Thimerosal in vaccines has been linked by many scientists to the staggering rise of autism in the past two decades. Did  the dumbing-down campaign go too far?

“In children who are fully vaccinated, by the sixth month of life they have received more mercury from vaccines than recommended by the EPA. There are many similarities in symptoms between mercury toxicity and autism, including social deficits, language deficits, repetitive behaviors, sensory abnormalities, cognition deficits, movement disorders, and behavioral problems. There are also similarities in physical symptoms, including biochemical, gastrointestinal, muscle tone, eurochemistry, neurophysiology, EEG measurements, and immune system/autoimmunity.”
- Source

Due to the suspected link between vaccines and autism, more than 5,000 U.S. families have filed claims in a federal vaccine court against the companies producing the vaccines. In most cases, the plaintiffs received no compensation and all correlation between the illness and vaccines was denied by the defendants. A public relations war has been going on for years, as studies and counter-studies have appeared, proving or denying the links between vaccines and autism, depending where they originate from. The studies claiming that vaccines are safe have often been funded by the very companies that produce them.

Despite the denials, Thimerosal is slowly–and silently–being phased out of vaccines for babies. Not too long after the phasing out began, cases of autism have sharply dropped in the country.

“Published in the March 10 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, the data show since mercury was removed from childhood vaccines, the reported rates of autism and other neurological disorders in children not only stopped increasing but actually dropped sharply – by as much as 35 percent. Using the government’s own databases, independent researchers analyzed reports of childhood neurological disorders, including autism, before and after removal of mercury-based preservatives.

According to a statement from the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, or AAPS, the numbers from California show that reported autism rates hit a high of 800 in May 2003. If that trend had continued, the reports would have risen to more than 1,000 by the beginning of 2006. But the number actually went down to 620, a real decrease of 22 percent, and a decrease from the projection of 35 percent.
- Source

The phasing out of Thimerosal from vaccines intended for children is all well and good, but the preservative is still found in many vaccines intended for adults. Did someone realize that mercury in vaccines is too strong for children, making them sick and ultimately unproductive, but perfect to dumb-down fully developed adults?  The ruling class is not looking to create a generation of autistic people who would need constant care, but a mass of “useful idiots” that can accomplish repetitive and mind-numbing tasks, while accepting without questioning what they are being told.

As of today, Thimerosal is still found in Influenza vaccines, commonly known as the flu shot. Those shots are seasonal, meaning that patients are encouraged to come back every winter to get their yearly vaccine/dose of mercury.

Makers of the Influenza vaccine say it boasts a “solid health record,” meaning the shot does not seem cause observable illnesses. What is NEVER discussed, however, is the slow and gradual brain neuron degeneration most individuals go through, year after year, due constant mercury poisoning. This process of slowing down brain functions is not easily observable nor quantifiable but it is still happening on a world-wide scale. If mercury can completely disrupt the fragile minds of children enough to possibly cause autism, it will, at the very least, impair fully developed minds.

Almost as if created to generate demands for vaccines, new diseases appear periodically around the world that, with the help of mass media scare campaigns, cause people to beg their officials for the miracle shot that they are told will cure everybody.

H1N1, also known as the Swine Flu, was the latest of those scary diseases that terrified millions of people for several months. When the shot became available, heavily promoted and massive vaccination campaigns sprung around the world. One fact that was not promoted: Swine flu was often easily curable, and not very different than the “regular” flu. Another fact that was not promoted: Most  of the flu shots contained Thimerosal.

Depopulation?

Other than simply dumbing down the population, vaccines might be aiding in depopulation efforts. In a speech in April 2010, Bill Gates mentioned the use of vaccines in the effort to reduce world population.

“Gates made his remarks to the invitation-only Long Beach, California TED2010 Conference, in a speech titled, “Innovating to Zero!.” Along with the scientifically absurd proposition of reducing manmade CO2 emissions worldwide to zero by 2050, approximately four and a half minutes into the talk, Gates declares, “First we got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.

In plain English, one of the most powerful men in the world states clearly that he expects vaccines to be used to reduce population growth. When Bill Gates speaks about vaccines, he speaks with authority. In January 2010 at the elite Davos World Economic Forum, Gates announced his foundation would give $10 billion (circa ¤7.5 billion) over the next decade to develop and deliver new vaccines to children in the developing world.”
- Source

High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

A poison is a “substance that causes injury, illness, or death, especially by chemical means.” Going by this definition, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is truly a poison. HFCS is a highly processed sweetner made from corn that has been used since 1970. It continues to replace white sugar and sucrose in processed foods and is currently found in the majority of processed foods found in supermarkets. Studies have determined that Americans consume an average of 12 teaspoons a day of the sweetner. Here’s a graph depicting the rise of HFCS in our diets:

Due to its sweetening propreties, HFCS is obviously found in sugary products like  jams, soft drinks and pre-packaged baked goods. However, many people do not realize that it is also found in numerous other products, including soups, breads, pasta sauces, cereals, frozen entrees, meat products, salad dressings and condiments. HFCS is also found in so-called health products, including protein-bars, “low-fat” foods and energy drinks.

How can something that taste so good be so bad? Here are some facts about HFCS:

• Research links HFCS to increasing rates of obesity and diabetes in North America, especially among children. Fructose converts to fat more than any other sugar. And being a liquid, it passes much more quickly into the blood stream.

• Beverages containing HFCS have higher levels of reactive compounds (carbonyls), which are linked with cell and tissue damage leading to diabetes.

• There is some evidence that corn fructose is processed differently in the body than cane sugar, leading to reduced feelings of satiation and a greater potential for over-consumption.

• Studies by researchers at UC Davis and the University of Michigan have shown that consuming fructose, which is more readily converted to fat by the liver, increases the levels of fat in the bloodstream in the form of triglycerides.

• Unlike other types of carbohydrate made up of glucose, fructose does not stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. Peter Havel, a nutrition researcher at UC Davis who studies the metabolic effects of fructose, has also shown that fructose fails to increase the production of leptin, a hormone produced by the body’s fat cells. Both insulin and leptin act as signals to the brain to turn down the appetite and control body weight. Havel’s research also shows that fructose does not appear to suppress the production of ghrelin, a hormone that increases hunger and appetite.

• Because the body processes the fructose in HFCS differently than it does cane or beet sugar,  it alters the way metabolic-regulating hormones function. It also forces the liver to kick more fat out into the bloodstream. The end result is that our bodies are essentially tricked into wanting to eat more, while at the same time, storing more fat.

• A study in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggested that women whose diet was high in total carbohydrate and fructose intake had an increased risk of colorectal cancer.

• HFCS interferes with the heart’s use of key minerals like magnesium, copper and chromium.

• HFCS has been found to deplete the immune system by inhibiting the action of white blood cells. The body is then unable to defend against harmful foreign invaders.

• Research suggests that fructose actually promotes disease more readily than glucose. Glucose is metabolized in every cell in the body, but all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of test animals fed large amounts of fructose develop fatty deposits and cirrhosis, similar to problems that develop in the livers of alcoholics.

• HFCS is highly refined–even more so than white sugar.

• The corn from which HFCS is derived is almost always genetically modified, as are the enzymes used in the refining process.

• There are increasing concerns about the politics surrounding the economics of corn production (subsidies, tariffs, and regulations), as well as the effects of intensive corn agriculture on the environment.

Many studies have observed a strong correlation between the rise HFCS in the past years and the rise of obesity during the same period of time.

Obesity, on top of being unhealthy for the body, directly affects brain functions. Some researchers have even questionned the role of obesity in brain degeneration.

Research scientists have long suspected that a relationship existed between obesity and a decline in brain power. New studies now confirm the contention that being overweight is detrimental to the brain. Researchers at the University of California in an article published in the Archives of Neurology demonstrated a strong correlation between central obesity (that is, being fat around the middle) and shrinkage of a part of the brain ( the hippocampus) fundamental for memory (as measured on MRI scans).
- Source

This does not mean that obese people are dumb. It does however mean that their brain is probably not processing as effectively as it could be.

But even if HFCS does not make you fat, it will still affect your brain. Recent studies have shown that the sweetener contains … you’ve guessed it … mercury!

“One study – published in the journal, Environmental Health – shows mercury in nine out of 20 samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup.

The second study – by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) – finds nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods contained mercury, especially dairy products, dressings and condiments. The brands included big names like Quaker, Hershey’s, Kraft and Smucker’s.”
- Source

Here is the table found in the IATP’s study called Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup detailing the amount of mercury found in everyday products found in supermarkets.

Of course, companies who produce HFCS deny the results of those studies, claiming the sweetner is “natural”. But this is coming from those who, y’know, SELL the stuff. Corn refiners have even produced some strange PR ads to encourage people to keep ingesting their toxic product.

In Conclusion

Despite the existence of many studies describing the negative effects of mercury on the human brain, governments still push for the increased vaccination of the population with shots containing Thimerosal. Furthermore, governing bodies have protected the pharmaceutical companies who produce the vaccines and foods containing HFCS against any type of lawsuits. The fact that many high executives of these companies also hold key positions within the government, might provide an explanation. There are indeed a restricted amount of persons holding positions of high power in both the private and public sector. These people, in what are clear cases of conflict of interest, collide at the top to form what this site refers to as “the elite” or “the ruling class.” Most of these people have never been elected to governmental positions, yet they create public policies that further their agenda, regardless of the political party in power. Look at the membership of the Bilderberg Group, the Committee of 300 or the Council of Foreign Relations and you will find the CEOs of companies producing your food and medication … and the same people who pass laws governing your food and medication.

Since no public official is likely to betray his peers and fund-raisers to become a whistleblower, it is up to each one of us to learn about what we consume. The cliché saying “read the labels” is quite true, but if you have no idea what “monosodium glutamate” means, reading the label will not help you. This series of articles aims to raise basic awareness of the most harmful substances found in everyday products. I personally cannot claim to have a perfect diet … I grew up in the 80s and love the taste of processed foods like candy, sodas … even Hamburger Helper. But as you find more information and as you begin to realize that every step in the right direction really does make you feel better, each subsequent step becomes easier. No one can do it for you: It’s up to you to take that next step … whether it is toward your detoxification or to Burger King.

Dumbing-Down Society Part 3: How to Reverse its Effects

By VC |  for Vigilant Citizen | July 24th, 2010 | Category: Vigilant Reports | 434 comments

The first two parts of this series describes the negative effects that some commonly consumed chemicals have on the body and brain. This third and final part looks at some natural ways to keep the brain healthy and provides tips to rid the body of dangerous substances. In other words, how to fight back against the dumbing down of society!

Parts I and II of this series of articles identified some toxic substances found in common foods and medicines and described some of their effects on the human brain. The main culprits discussed were aspartame, mercury, fluoride and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Whether these substances disturb the nervous system, decrease cognitive function, impair judgment, or affect the memory, the net result is the general dumbing down of society.

All is not doom and gloom, however. Nature, with its wonderful tendency to restore equilibrium, provides us humans the cure to almost any affliction we might develop. Ancient healers even believed that nature helped humans discover the cure to their illnesses in subtle and mysterious ways:

“The plant might also be considered worthy of veneration because from its crushed leaves, petals, stalks, or roots could be extracted healing unctions, essences, or drugs affecting the nature and intelligence of human beings – such as the poppy and the ancient herbs of prophecy. The plant might also be regarded as efficacious in the cure of many diseases because its fruit, leaves, petals, or roots bore a resemblance in shape or color to parts or organs of the human body. For example, the distilled juices of certain species of ferns, also the hairy moss growing upon oaks, and the thistledown were said to have the power of growing hair; the dentaria, which resembles a tooth in shape, was said to cure the toothache; and the palma Christi plant, because of its shape, cured all afflictions of the hands.”
- Manly P. Hall, Secret Teachings of All Ages

So, after dwelling in the awful world of poisonous chemicals and corrupted officials, the only fitting way to conclude this series of articles is to explore the all-natural ways to restore health.

Stop the Toxification

Warning: This article provides tips to naturally detoxify the body. If you are in need of a serious detox program, please consult a professional.

The first step in ridding your body from poisons is, quite logically, to stop ingesting poisons. It sounds simple enough, but this step is probably the most difficult, as many toxins are found in everyday foods and even tap water. An increased vigilance is necessary in everyday life and, sometimes, some annoying actions must be taken to keep the toxins out of your body. Nevertheless, once you actually feel your body and mind healing, you’ll be proud of your efforts.

Before we look at the ways to avoid specific toxins, here are some general guidelines any health-conscious person should apply at all times: Avoid processed foods and artificial drinks. Instead, look for organic and locally grown produce or, even better, grow your own fruits, vegetables and herbs. By doing so, you automatically avoid many harmful substances, including MSG, HFCS, pesticides, sodium fluoride and mercury. You also save money, which is always nice. When buying groceries, always read the labels and, as they say, if you can’t read it, don’t eat it.

Here are specific ways to avoid particular toxins:

Avoiding Fluoride

There are two types of fluoride: calcium fluoride and sodium fluoride. Calcium fluoride is naturally found in water sources, while sodium fluoride is a synthetic waste product of the nuclear, aluminum, and phosphate fertilizer industries. Guess which  type is found in our water? Right, the nasty one. Regular water filters such as Brita do a good job in reducing the taste of metals and chemicals in the water but they do not filter out the fluoride. Purifying the water through reverse osmosis is the most effective way to remove sodium fluoride from water.

Standard reverse osmosis system

Some processed foods also contain high concentrations of sodium fluoride, including instant tea, grape juice products, and soy milk for babies, so once again, avoid processed foods. Also, switch to a fluoride-free toothpaste (or at least try not to swallow the $0.93 Colgate you bought at Walmart).

Consuming foods rich in calcium and magnesium help prevent fluoride intoxication, as they prevent the poison from attaching to the body.

“Magnesium is a very important mineral that many are lacking. Besides being so important in the metabolism and synthesis of nutrients within your cells, it also inhibits the absorption of fluoride into your cells! Along with magnesium, calcium seems to help attract the fluorides away from your bones and teeth, allowing your body to eliminate those toxins. So during any detox efforts with fluoride, it is essential that you include a healthy supplemental dose of absorbable calcium/magnesium as part of the protocol.”
- Paul Fassa, How to Detox Fluoride from Your Body

Avoiding Mercury

First, if you or your children are being vaccinated, always request a Thimerosal-free shot. Second, avoid fish and seafood with high mercury levels; fish with the highest levels of mercury are marlin, orange roughy, shark, swordfish, tilefish and tuna (ahi, albacore and Yellowfin). Some seafood has low mercury levels, making them safer to consume, including anchovies, catfish, clam, crab, shrimp, flounder, salmon, sardine, tilapia and trout. As rule of thumb, bigger fish contain more mercury since they eat smaller fish and absorb all their mercury, and live longer, allowing mercury to build up.

As seen in Part II of this series, some foods containing HFCS are also contaminated with mercury. Here’s the chart produced by the EPA:

Avoiding Aspartame

Always read labels and avoid “sugar-free” products. Aspartame is found in soft drinks, over-the-counter drugs & prescription drugs (very common, listed under “inactive ingredients”), vitamin & herb supplements, yogurt, candy, breath mints, cereals, sugar-free chewing gum, cocoa mixes, coffee beverages, instant breakfasts, gelatin desserts, frozen desserts, juice beverages, laxatives, milk drinks, shake mixes, tabletop sweeteners, tea beverages, instant teas and coffees, topping mixes and wine coolers.

Avoiding HFCS

Read the labels and if you find high fructose corn syrup at the top the list of ingredients, tell the product “oh no you didn’t!”, snap your fingers with attitude and put it back on the shelf. Ignore the confused looks of other shoppers.

We will now look at some all-natural ways to detox the body from harmful substances.

Cilantro

The standard procedure for removing heavy metals from the body is called “chelation.” It is accomplished by administering a chelating agent  – usually dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) – that binds to the heavy metals in the body and cause them to be naturally flushed out. This type of treatment is quite strenuous, has many side-effects and should be undertaken only with medical supervision.

If, however, you believe that ridding the body of a harsh substance with another harsh substance might be self-defeating, I tend to agree with you. Fortunately there are herbs and spices that naturally act as chelating agents: Cilantro does a great job at it.

The most widely used and loved herbs and spices worldwide are derived from the same plant, Coriandrum sativum. The leaves of this plant are frequently referred to as cilantro, while the seeds are most commonly called coriander. Other than making any dish spectacular, the herb has the unique power of neutralizing mercury.

“This kitchen herb is capable of mobilizing mercury, cadmium, lead and aluminum in both bones and the central nervous system. It is probably the only effective agent in mobilizing mercury stored in the intracellular space (attached to mitochondria, tubulin, liposomes etc) and in the nucleus of the cell (reversing DNA damage of mercury).”
- Dietrich Klinghardt, MD, PhD,  Chelation: How to remove Mercury, Lead, & other Metals

Studies have however suggested that cilantro only moves the problem to other parts of the body and thus must be used with another agent to complete the detoxification process.

Chlorella: Cilantro’s Side-Kick

In addition to repairing and activating the body’s detoxification functions, chlorella is known to bind to all known toxic metals and environmental toxins and facilitate their evacuation. This makes chlorella cilantro’s perfect sidekick.

“Because cilantro mobilizes more toxins then it can carry out of the body, it may flood the connective tissue (where the nerves reside) with metals, that were previously stored in safer hiding places.

This process is called re-toxification. It can easily be avoided by simultaneously giving an intestinal toxin-absorbing agent. Our definite choice is the algal organism chlorella. A recent animal study demonstrated rapid removal of aluminum from the skeleton superior to any known other detox agent.

Cilantro causes the gallbladder to dump bile — containing the excreted neurotoxins — into the small intestine. The bile-release occurs naturally as we are eating and is much enhanced by cilantro. If no chlorella is taken, most neurotoxins are reabsorbed on the way down the small intestine by the abundant nerve endings of the enteric nervous system”
- Ibid

Garlic

We may not be sure if garlic actually repels vampires, but we can be certain it repels toxins from the body.

“Garlic contains numerous sulphur components, including the most valuable sulph-hydryl groups, which oxidize mercury, cadmium and lead and make these metals water-soluble. (…) Garlic also contains the most important mineral, which protects from mercury toxicity, bioactive selenium.”
- Ibid

So, garlic zaps mercury and  lead and helps the body evacuate the metals from the body. Perhaps bad breath is the way to good health.

Turmeric (Curcuma)

This plant from the ginger family is widely used in Southeast Asia as a spice and its cleaning powers have been renowned for centuries. Turmeric is enshrined in Ayurvedic medicine as the king of spices. The bitter spice helps cleanse the liver, purify the blood, and promotes good digestion and elimination. It possesses powerful anti-inflammatory properties, but none of the unpleasant side effects of anti-inflammatory drugs. It has been used for skin cleansing, color enhancement and food preservation.

Turmeric steps up the production of three enzymes–aryl-hydrocarbon-hydroxylase, glutathione-S-transferase, and UDP-glucuronyl-transferase. These are chemical “knives” that break down potentially harmful substances in the liver. Turmeric offers similar protection for people who are taking medications such as methotrexate and other forms of chemotherapy, which are metabolized by, or shuttled through, the liver.
- James A. Dukes, Ph D., Dr. Duke’s Essential Herbs

Scientific studies have recently discovered that mixing black pepper with tumeric exponentially increases its healing properties on the body. No wonder traditional South Asian recipes often combine the two spices. So don’t hold back … grind some black pepper into that tumeric!

Omega-3

It is not a secret that consuming the fatty acids found in fish brings many healthy benefits. The acids do wonders for our brains. In fact, Omega-3 is literally our brain’s fuel, helping to maintain its core functions. Our most important organ heavily relies on Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), two long-chain Omega-3 fatty acids that our bodies cannot create. The only way to obtain those acids is through diet.

“Most health professionals believe that DHA is the fatty acid that is most important for healthy structure and development of the brain and for vision so it is vital that there is enough DHA in the diet during pregnancy and in the first few years of a child’s life. EPA on the other hand, is essential for healthy functioning of the brain on a day to day basis, which means that throughout your life you need a constant supply of EPA.”
- David McEnvoy, Why Fish Oil is Brain Fuel

Here are some facts about Omega-3 that are of particular interest in the context of those articles:

• Research by the University of Western Australia found that women who took fish oil supplements during the latter part of their pregnancy had babies with better hand-to-eye coordination, were better speakers and could understand more at the age of two and a half than babies whose mothers who were given olive oil instead.
• A study by Aberdeen University, led by professor Lawrence Whalley, found that fish oil helps the brain to work faster, increases IQ scores and slows down the aging process.
• The Durham trials led by Dr. Madeleine Portwood have consistently found that fish oil improves behaviour, concentration and learning in the classroom.
• Researcher Natalie Sinn in Australia found fish oil to be more effective than Ritalin for ADHD.
• Hibbeln et al. looked at diet in 22 countries and found an significant association between low fish consumption and post-natal depression.
• Dr. Malcolm Peet found that ethyl-EPA, a highly concentrated form of Omega 3, dramatically reduces depression.

Fish oil also plays an important role in ridding the brain of unwanted substances:

“The fatty acid complexes EPA and DHA in fish oil make the red and white blood cells more flexible thus improving the microcirculation of the brain, heart and other tissues. All detoxification functions depend on optimal oxygen delivery and blood flow. EPA and DHA protect the brain from viral infections and are needed for the development of intelligence and eyesight. The most vital cell organelle for detoxification is the peroxisome. These small structures are also responsible for the specific job each cell has.

In the pineal gland the melatonin is produced in the peroxisome, in the neurons dopamine and norepinephrine, etc. It is here, where mercury and other toxic metal attach and disable the cell from doing its work.”
- Dietrich Klinghardt, MD, PhD,  Chelation: How to remove Mercury, Lead, & other Metals

That is all well and good, but what are the best sources of fish oil? Consuming large quantities of fish would be the logical choice, but knowing that many species contain high levels of mercury, doing so might actually cause further damage to the brain. For this reason, Omega-3 supplements are probably the best way to keep the body well-stocked with EPA and DHA.

When selecting an Omega-3 supplement, you need to make sure it is molecularly distilled and is high in both DHA and EPA, especially DHA. Molecular distillation is a special process that removes all the toxins from the oil (including mercury), ensuring it is safe for human consumption. Avoid low-grade products. They often contain low levels of fatty acids and are filled with other oils and preservatives.

Final Advice: Sleep, Sweat and Stimulate

• Sufficient sleep is vital to keeping the body and the brain in good condition. Conversely, sleep deprivation impairs one’s ability to think handle stress, maintain a healthy immune system and moderate one’s emotions.

• Regular exercise is critically important for detoxification. It allows the evacuation of toxins through skin while improving the entire metabolism.
• Stimulate your brain: read, think, meditate and challenge it constantly.

In Conclusion

This article examines the ways to avoid harmful substances in everyday products and looks at a handful of all-natural ways to free the body from their poisonous grasp. In addition to providing us the necessary nutrients used by the body to evacuate toxins, the natural substances described in this article also help maintain general heath. Regularly consuming cilantro, garlic, turmeric and Omega-3 boosts the immune system, improves rational thinking and increases memory. The amazing properties of those simple ingredients are only now being (slowly) documented by science, but they have been used by cultures worldwide for centuries.

We are conditioned to treat ailments caused by artificial products with other artificial products, that, in turn, can cause other ailments. It is only by breaking this vicious circle that we can reclaim ownership of our brains and reach our fullest potential. So, today’s a new day: Put down the cheeseburger-flavored Doritos … and change your life.

Tags: #VigilantCitizen, #DumbingDownofSociety, #biowarfare, #vaccines, #highfructosecornsyrup, #brainwashing, #programmong,

Analyzing The Same Tired 3-Card Monte Mind Control Games Played by Mass Media via [#vigilantcitizen, #vc,#massmedia, #propaganda, #disinformation, #sheeple, #mindcontrol,#brainwashing, #nwo]

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Mind Control Theories and Techniques used by Mass Media

By VC | for Vigilant Citizen on April 28th, 2010 | Category: Vigilant Reports | 673 comments

Mass media is the most powerful tool used by the ruling class to manipulate the masses. It shapes and molds opinions and attitudes and defines what is normal and acceptable. This article looks at the workings of mass media through the theories of its major thinkers, its power structure and the techniques it uses, in order to understand its true role in society.

Image source deesillustration.com

Most of the articles on this site discuss occult symbolism found in objects of popular culture. From these articles arise many legitimate questions relating to the purpose of those symbols and the motivations of those who place them there, but it is impossible for me to provide satisfactory answers to these questions without mentioning many other concepts and facts. I’ve therefore decided to write this article to supply the theoretical and methodological background of the analyzes presented on this site as well as introducing the main scholars of the field of mass communications. Some people read my articles and think I’m saying “Lady Gaga wants to control our minds”. That is not the case. She is simply a small part of the huge system that is the mass media.

Programming Through Mass Media

Mass media are media forms designed to reach the largest audience possible. They include television, movies, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, records, video games and the internet. Many studies have been conducted in the past century to measure the effects of mass media on the population in order to discover the best techniques to influence it. From those studies emerged the science of Communications, which is used in marketing, public relations and politics. Mass communication is a necessary tool the insure the functionality of a large democracy; it is also a necessary tool for a dictatorship. It all depends on its usage.

In the 1958 preface for A Brave New World, Aldous Huxley paints a rather grim portrait of society. He believes it is controlled by an “impersonal force”, a ruling elite, which manipulates the population using various methods.

“Impersonal forces over which we have almost no control seem to be pushing us all in the direction of the Brave New Worldian nightmare; and this impersonal pushing is being consciously accelerated by representatives of commercial and political organizations who have developed a number of new techniques for manipulating, in the interest of some minority, the thoughts and feelings of the masses.”

- Aldous Huxley, Preface to A Brave New World

His bleak outlook is not a simple hypothesis or a paranoid delusion. It is a documented fact, present in the world’s most important studies on mass media. Here are some of them:

Elite Thinkers

Walter Lippmann

Walter Lippmann, an American intellectual, writer and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner brought forth one of the first works concerning the usage of mass media in America. In Public Opinion (1922), Lippmann compared the masses to a “great beast” and a “bewildered herd” that needed to be guided by a governing class. He described the ruling elite as “a specialized class whose interests reach beyond the locality.” This class is composed of experts, specialists and bureaucrats. According to Lippmann, the experts, who often are referred to as “elites,” are to be a machinery of knowledge that circumvents the primary defect of democracy, the impossible ideal of the “omnicompetent citizen.” The trampling and roaring “bewildered herd” has its function: to be “the interested spectators of action,” i.e. not participants. Participation is the duty of “the responsible man”, which is not the regular citizen.

Mass media and propaganda are therefore tools that must be used by the elite to rule the public without physical coercion. One important concept presented by Lippmann is the “manufacture of consent”, which is, in short, the manipulation of public opinion to accept the elite’s agenda. It is Lippmann’s opinion that the general public is not qualified to reason and to decide on important issues. It is therefore important for the elite to decide ”for its own good” and then sell those decisions to the masses.

“That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. . . . Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.”

–Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion

It might be interesting to note that Lippmann is one of the founding fathers of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most influential foreign policy think tank in the world. This fact should give you a small hint of the mind state of the elite concerning the usage of media.

“Political and economic power in the United States is concentrated in the hands of a “ruling elite” that controls most of U.S.-based multinational corporations, major communication media, the most influential foundations, major private universities and most public utilities. Founded in 1921, the Council of Foreign Relations is the key link between the large corporations and the federal government. It has been called a “school for statesmen” and “comes close to being an organ of what C. Wright Mills has called the Power Elite – a group of men, similar in interest and outlook shaping events from invulnerable positions behind the scenes. The creation of the United Nations was a Council project, as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”

- Steve Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States

Some current members of the CFR include David Rockefeller, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, mega-church pastor Rick Warren and the CEOs of major corporations such as CBS, Nike, Coca-Cola and Visa.

Carl Jung

Carl Jung is the founder of analytical psychology (also known an Jungian psychology), which emphasizes understanding the psyche by exploring dreams, art, mythology, religion, symbols and philosophy. The Swiss therapist is at the origin of many psychological concepts used today such as the Archetype, the Complex, the Persona, the Introvert/Extrovert and Synchronicity. He was highly influenced by the occult background of his family. Carl Gustav, his grandfather, was an avid Freemason (he was Grand Master) and Jung himself discovered that some of his ancestors were Rosicrucians. This might explain his great interest in Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology and symbolism. One of  his most important (and misunderstood) concept was the Collective Unconscious.

“My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”

- Carl Jung, The Concept of the Collective Unconscious

The collective unconscious transpires through the existence of similar symbols and mythological figures in different civilizations. Archetypal symbols seem to be embedded in our collective subconscious, and, when exposed to them, we demonstrate natural attraction and fascination. Occult symbols can therefore exert a great impact on people, even if many individuals were never personally introduced to the symbol’s esoteric meaning. Mass media thinkers, such as Edward D. Bernays, found in this concept a great way to manipulate the public’s personal and collective unconscious.

1955 Time Magazine cover featuring Carl Jung. Looks a little like Avatar, doesn’t it?

Edward  Bernays

Edward Bernays is considered to be the “father of public relations” and used concepts discovered by his uncle Sigmund Freud to manipulate the public using the subconscious. He shared Walter Lippmann’s view of the general population by considering it irrational and subject to the “herd instinct”. In his opinion, the masses need to be manipulated by an invisible government to insure the survival of democracy.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.”

- Edward Bernays, Propaganda

Bernay’s trailblazing marketing campaigns profoundly changed the functioning of American society. He basically created “consumerism” by creating a culture wherein Americans bought for pleasure instead of buying for survival. For this reason, he was considered by Life Magazine to be in the Top 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century.

Harold Lasswell

In 1939-1940, the University of Chicago was the host of a series of secret seminars on communications. These think tanks were funded by the Rockefeller foundation and involved the most prominent researchers in the fields of communications and sociological studies. One of these scholars was Harold Lasswell, a leading American political scientist and communications theorist, specializing in the analysis of propaganda. He was also of the opinion that a democracy, a government ruled by the people, could not sustain itself without a specialized elite shaping and molding public opinion through propaganda.

In his Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Lasswell explained that when elites lack the requisite force to compel obedience, social managers must turn to “a whole new technique of control, largely through propaganda.” He added the conventional justification: we must recognize the “ignorance and stupidity [of] … the masses and not succumb to democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests.”

Lasswell extensively studied the field of content analysis in order to understand the effectiveness of different types of propaganda.  In his essay Contents of Communication, Lasswell explained that, in order to understand the meaning of a message (i.e. a movie, a speech, a book, etc.), one should take into account the frequency with which certain symbols appear in the message, the direction in which the symbols try to persuade the audience’s opinion, and the intensity of the symbols used.

Lasswell was famous for his media analysis model based on:

Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect

By this model, Lasswell indicates that in order to properly analyze a media product, one must look at who produced the product (the people who ordered its creation),  who was it aimed at (the target audience) and what were the desired effects of this product (to inform, to convince, to sell, etc.) on the audience.

Using a Rihanna video as an example, the analysis would be as follows: WHO PRODUCED: Vivendi Universal; WHAT: pop artist Rihanna; TO WHOM: consumers between the ages of 9 and 25; WHAT CHANNEL: music video; and WHAT EFFECT: selling the artist, her song, her image and her message.

The analyzes of videos and movies on The Vigilant Citizen place a great importance on the “who is behind” the messages communicated to the public. The term “Illuminati” is often used to describe this small elite group covertly ruling the masses. Although the term sounds quite caricatured and conspiratorial, it aptly describes the elite’s affinities with secret societies and occult knowledge. However, I personally detest using the term “conspiracy theory” to describe what is happening in the mass media. If all the facts concerning the elitist nature of the industry are readily available to the public, can it still be considered a  “conspiracy theory”?

There used to be a variety of viewpoints, ideas and opinions in popular culture. The consolidation of media corporations has, however, produced a standardization of the cultural industry. Ever wondered why all recent music sounds the same and all recent movies look the same? The following is part of the answer:

Media Ownership

As depicted in the graph above, the number of corporations owning the majority of U.S. media outlets went from 50 to 5 in less than 20 years. Here are the top corporations evolving around the world and the assets they own.

“A list of the properties controlled by AOL Time Warner takes ten typed pages listing 292 separate companies and subsidiaries. Of these, twenty-two are joint ventures with other major corporations involved in varying degrees with media operations. These partners include 3Com, eBay, Hewlett-Packard, Citigroup, Ticketmaster, American Express, Homestore, Sony, Viva, Bertelsmann, Polygram, and Amazon.com. Some of the more familiar fully owned properties of Time Warner include Book-of-the-Month Club; Little, Brown publishers; HBO, with its seven channels; CNN; seven specialized and foreign-language channels; Road Runner; Warner Brothers Studios; Weight Watchers; Popular Science; and fifty-two different record labels.”

- Ben Bagdikan, The New Media Monopoly

AOL Time Warner owns:

• 64 magazines, including Time, Life, People, MAD Magazine and DC Comics
• Warner Bros, New Line and Fine Line Features in cinema
• More than 40 music labels including Warner Bros, Atlantic and Elektra
• Many television networks such as WB Networks, HBO, Cinemax, TNT, Cartoon Network and CNN
• Madonna, Sean Paul, The White Stripes

Viacom owns:

• CBS, MTV, MTV2, UPN, VH1, Showtime, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TNN, CMT and BET
• Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies, MTV Films
• Blockbuster Videos
• 1800 screens in theaters through Famous Players

“Disney ownership of a hockey team called The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim does not begin to describe the vastness of the kingdom. Hollywood is still its symbolic heart, with eight movie production studios and distributors: Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Miramax, Buena Vista Home Video, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Buena Vista International, Hollywood Pictures, and Caravan Pictures.

The Walt Disney Company controls eight book house imprints under Walt Disney Company Book Publishing and ABC Publishing Group; seventeen magazines; the ABC Television Network, with ten owned and operated stations of its own including in the five top markets; thirty radio stations, including all the major markets; eleven cable channels, including Disney, ESPN (jointly), A&E, and the History Channel; thirteen international broadcast channels stretching from Australia to Brazil; seven production and sports units around the world; and seventeen Internet sites, including the ABC group, ESPN.sportszone, NFL.com, NBAZ.com, and NASCAR.com. Its five music groups include the Buena Vista, Lyric Street, and Walt Disney labels, and live theater productions growing out of the movies The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and King David.”

- Ibid

The Walt Disney Company owns:

• ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, A&E, History Channel
• Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Film Corp., Dimension and Buena Vista International
• Miley Cyrus/ Hannah Montana, Selena Gomez, Jonas Brothers

Vivendi Universal owns:

• 27% of US music sales, labels include: Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Island, Def Jam, MCA, Mercury, Motown and Universal
• Universal Studios, Studio Canal, Polygram Films, Canal +
• Numerous internet and cell phone companies
• Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, Lil Wayne, Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Jay-Z

Sony owns:

• Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics
• 15% of US Music sales, labels include Columbia, Epic, Sony, Arista, Jive and RCA Records
• Beyonce, Shakira, Michael Jackson, Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera

A limited number of actors in the cultural industry means a limited amount of viewpoints and ideas making their way to the general public. It also means that a single message can easily saturate all forms of media to generate consent (i.e. “there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq”).

The Standardization of Human Thought

The merger of media companies in the last decades generated a small oligarchy of media conglomerates. The TV shows we follow, the music we listen to, the movies we watch and the newspapers we read are all produced by FIVE corporations. The owners of those conglomerates have close ties with the world’s elite and, in many ways, they ARE the elite. By owning all of the possible outlets having the potential to reach the masses, these conglomerates have the power to create in the minds of the people a single and cohesive world view, engendering a “standardization of human thought”.

Even movements or styles that are considered marginal are, in fact, extensions of mainstream thinking. Mass medias produce their own rebels who definitely look the part but are still part of the establishment and do not question any of it. Artists, creations and ideas that do not fit the mainstream way of thinking are mercilessly rejected and forgotten by the conglomerates, which in turn makes them virtually disappear from society itself. However, ideas that are deemed to be valid and desirable to be accepted by society are skillfully marketed to the masses in order to make them become self-evident norm.

In 1928, Edward Bernays already saw the immense potential of motion pictures to standardize thought:

“The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world today. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions. The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation. Because pictures are made to meet market demands, they reflect, emphasize and even exaggerate broad popular tendencies, rather than stimulate new ideas and opinions. The motion picture avails itself only of ideas and facts which are in vogue. As the newspaper seeks to purvey news, it seeks to purvey entertainment.”

– Edward Bernays, Propaganda

These facts were flagged as dangers to human freedom in the 1930′s by thinkers of the school of Frankfurt such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. They identified three main problems with the cultural industry. The industry can:

1. reduce human beings to the state of mass by hindering the development of emancipated individuals, who are capable of making rational decisions;
2. replace the legitimate drive for autonomy and self-awareness by the safe laziness of conformism and passivity; and
3. validate the idea that men actually seek to escape the absurd and cruel world in which they live by losing themselves in a hypnotic state self-satisfaction.

The notion of escapism is even more relevant today with advent of online video games, 3D movies and home theaters. The masses, constantly seeking state-of-the-art entertainment, will resort to high-budget products that can only be produced by the biggest media corporations of the world. These products contain carefully calculated messages and symbols which are nothing more and nothing less than entertaining propaganda. The public have been trained to LOVE its propaganda to the extent that it spends its hard-earned money to be exposed to it. Propaganda (used in both political, cultural and commercial sense) is no longer the coercive or authoritative communication form found in dictatorships: it has become the synonym of entertainment and pleasure.

“In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or it might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies — the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”– Aldous Huxley, Preface to A Brave New World

A single piece of media often does not have a lasting effect on the human psyche. Mass media, however, by its omnipresent nature, creates a living environment we evolve in on a daily basis. It defines the norm and excludes the undesirable. The same way carriage horses wear blinders so they can only see what is right in front of them, the masses can only see where they are supposed to go.

“It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale. The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment. Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society.”

– Jacques Ellul

One of the reasons mass media successfully influences society is due to the extensive amount of research on cognitive sciences and human nature that has been applied to it.

Manipulation Techniques

“Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public’s perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people (for example, politicians and performing artists), goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.”

The drive to sell products and ideas to the masses has lead to an unprecedented amount of research on human behavior and on the human psyche. Cognitive sciences, psychology, sociology, semiotics, linguistics and other related fields were and still are extensively researched through well-funded studies.

“No group of sociologists can approximate the ad teams in the gathering and processing of exploitable social data. The ad teams have billions to spend annually on research and testing of reactions, and their products are magnificent accumulations of material about the shared experience and feelings of the entire community.”

- Marshal McLuhan, The Extensions of Man

The results of those studies are applied to advertisements, movies, music videos and other media in order to make them as influential as possible. The art of marketing is highly calculated and scientific because it must reach both the individual and the collective consciousness. In high-budget cultural products, a video is never “just a video,” Images, symbols and meanings are strategically placed in order to generate a desired effect.

“It is with knowledge of the human being, his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic mechanisms, his automatisms as well as knowledge of social psychology and analytical psychology that propaganda refines its techniques.”– Propagandes, Jacques Ellul (free translation)

Today’s propaganda almost never uses rational or logical arguments. It directly taps into a human’s most primal needs and instincts in order to generate an emotional and irrational response. If we always thought rationally, we probably wouldn’t buy 50% of what we own. Babies and children are constantly found in advertisements targeting women for a specific reason: studies have shown that images of children trigger in women an instinctual need to nurture, to care and to protect, ultimately leading to a sympathetic bias towards the advertisement.

.

Strange old 7up ad using the cuteness of babies

Sex is ubiquitous in mass media, as it draws and keeps the viewer’s attention. It directly connects to our animal need to breed and to reproduce, and, when triggered, this instinct can instantly overshadow any other rational thoughts in our brain.

Subliminal Perception

What if the messages described above were able to reach directly the viewers’ subconscious mind, without the viewers even realizing what is happening? That is the goal of subliminal perception. The phrase subliminal advertising was coined in 1957 by the US market researcher James Vicary, who said he could get moviegoers to “drink Coca-Cola” and “eat popcorn” by flashing those messages onscreen for such a short time that viewers were unaware.

“Subliminal perception is a deliberate process created by communications technicians, by which you receive and respond to information and instructions without being consciously aware of the instructions”– Steve Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States

This technique is often used in marketing and we all know that sex sells.

Although some sources claim that subliminal advertising is ineffective or even an urban myth, the documented usage of this technique in mass media proves that creators believe in its powers. Recent studies have also proven its effectiveness, especially when the message is negative.

” A team from University College London, funded by the Wellcome Trust, found that it [subliminal perception] was particularly good at instilling negative thoughts. There has been much speculation about whether people can process emotional information unconsciously, for example pictures, faces and words,” said Professor Nilli Lavie, who led the research. We have shown that people can perceive the emotional value of subliminal messages and have demonstrated conclusively that people are much more attuned to negative words.”

- Source

A famous example of subliminal messaging in political communications is in George Bush’s advertisement against Al Gore in 2000.

Right after the name of Gore is mentioned, the ending of the word “bureaucrats” – “rats” – flashes on the screen for a split second.

The discovery of this trickery caused quite a stir and, even if there are no laws against subliminal messaging in the U.S., the advertisement was taken off the air.

As seen in many articles on The Vigilant Citizen, subliminal and semi-subliminal messages are often used in movies and music videos to communicate messages and ideas to the viewers.

Desensitization

In the past, when changes were imposed on populations, they would take to the streets, protest and even riot. The main reason for this clash was due to the fact that the change was clearly announced by the rulers and understood by the population. It was sudden and its effects could clearly be analyzed and evaluated. Today, when the elite needs a part of its agenda to be accepted by the public, it is done through desensitization. The agenda, which might go against the public best interests,  is slowly, gradually and repetitively introduced to the world through movies (by involving it within the plot), music videos (who make it cool and sexy) or the news (who present it as a solution to today’s problems). After several years of exposing the masses to a particular agenda, the elite openly presents the concept the world and, due to mental programming, it is greeted with general indifference and is passively accepted. This technique originates from psychotherapy.

“The techniques of psychotherapy, widely practiced and accepted as a means of curing psychological disorders, are also methods of controlling people. They can be used systematically to influence attitudes and behavior. Systematic desensitization is a method used to dissolve anxiety so the the patient (public) is no longer troubled by a specific fear, a fear of violence for example. [...] People adapt to frightening situations if they are exposed to them enough”.– Steven Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States

Predictive programming is often found in the science fiction genre. It presents a specific image of the future – the one that is desired by the elite – and ultimately becomes in the minds of men an inevitability. A decade ago, the public was being desensitized to war against the Arab world. Today, the population is gradually being exposed to the existence of mind control, of transhumanism and of an Illuminati elite. Emerging from the shadows, those concepts are now everywhere in popular culture. This is what Alice Bailey describes as the “externalization of the hierarchy”: the hidden rulers slowly revealing themselves.

Occult Symbolism in Pop Culture

Metropolis – a movie by the elite, for the elite?

Contrarily to the information presented above, documentation on occult symbolism is rather hard to find. This should not come as a surprise as the term “occult”, literally means “hidden”. It also means “reserved to those in the know” as it is only communicated to those who are deemed worthy of the knowledge. It is not taught in schools nor is it discussed in the media. It is thus considered marginal or even ridiculous by the general population.

Occult knowledge is NOT, however, considered ridiculous in occult circles. It is considered timeless and sacred. There is a long tradition of hermetic and occult knowledge being  taught through secret societies originating from ancient Egyptians, to Eastern Mystics, to the Knights Templar to modern day Freemasons. Even if the nature and the depth of this knowledge was most probably modified and altered throughout the centuries, mystery schools kept their main features, which are highly symbolic, ritualistic and metaphysical. Those characteristics, which were an intricate part of ancient civilizations, have totally been evacuated from modern society to be replaced by pragmatic materialism. For this reason, there lies an important gap of understanding between the pragmatic average person and the ritualistic establishment.

“If this inner doctrine were always concealed from the masses, for whom a simpler code had been devised, is it not highly probable that the exponents of every aspect of modern civilization – philosophic, ethical, religious, and scientific-are ignorant of the true meaning of the very theories and tenets on which their beliefs are founded? Do the arts and sciences that the race has inherited from older nations conceal beneath their fair exterior a mystery so great that only the most illumined intellect can grasp its import? Such is undoubtedly the case.”

- Manly P. Hall, Secret Teachings of All Ages

The “simpler code” devised for the masses used to be organized religions. It is now becoming the Temple of the Mass Media and it preaches on a daily basis extreme materialism, spiritual vacuosity and a self-centered, individualistic existence. This is exactly the opposite of the attributes required to become a truly free individual, as taught by all great philosophical schools of thought. Is a dumbed-down population easier to deceive and to manipulate?

“These blind slaves are told they are “free” and “highly educated” even as they march behind signs that would cause any medieval peasant to run screaming away from them in panic-stricken terror. The symbols that modern man embraces with the naive trust of an infant would be tantamount to billboards reading, ‘This way to your death and enslavement,’ to the understanding of the traditional peasant of antiquity”

- Michael A. Hoffman II, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare

In Conclusion

This article examined the major thinkers in the field of mass media, the media power structure and the techniques used to manipulate the masses. I believe this information is vital to the understanding of  the “why” in the topics discussed on The Vigilant Citizen.  The  “mass population” versus “ruling class” dichotomy described in many articles is not a “conspiracy theory” (again, I hate that term), but a reality that has been clearly stated in the works of some of the 20th century’s most influential men.

Lippmann, Bernays and Lasswell have all declared that the public are not fit to decide their own fate, which is the inherent goal of democracy. Instead, they called for a cryptocracy, a hidden government, a ruling class in charge of the “bewildered herd.” As their ideas continue to be applied to society, it is increasingly apparent that an ignorant population is not an obstacle that the rulers must deal with: It is something that is DESIRABLE and, indeed, necessary, to insure total leadership. An ignorant population does not know its rights, does not seek a greater understanding of issues and does not question authorities. It simply follows trends. Popular culture caters to and nurtures ignorance by continually serving up brain-numbing entertainment and spotlighting degenerate celebrities to be idolized. Many people ask me: “Is there a way to stop this?” Yes, there is. STOP BUYING THEIR CRAP AND READ A BOOK.

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.”

- Thomas Jefferson

The 25 Rules of Disinformation

By VC | for Vigilant Citizen  May 24th, 2011 | Category: Latest News | 104 comments

From Twenty-Five Ways To Suppress Truth: The Rules of Disinformation (Includes The 8 Traits of A Disinformationalist) by H. Michael Sweeney. These 25 rules are everywhere in media, from political debates, to television shows, to comments on a blog.

1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don’t discuss it — especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.

2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the “How dare you!” gambit.

3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such “arguable rumors”. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a “wild rumor” which can have no basis in fact.

4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent’s argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.

5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary attack the messenger ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “right-wing”, “liberal”, “left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “sexual deviates”, and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.

6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism reasoning — simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent’s viewpoint.

7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could so taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.

8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough “jargon” and “minutiae” to illustrate you are “one who knows”, and simply say it isn’t so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.

9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues with denial they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.

10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with. Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually them be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues — so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.

11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the “high road” and “confess” with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made — but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, “just isn’t so.” Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later. Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for “coming clean” and “owning up” to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.

12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to loose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.

13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards with an apparent deductive logic in a way that forbears any actual material fact.

14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best for items qualifying for rule 10.

15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.

16. Vanishing evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won’t have to address the issue.

17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can “argue” with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.

18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can’t do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how “sensitive they are to criticism”.

19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the “play dumb” rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon). In order to completely avoid discussing issues may require you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.

20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.

21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed an unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict (usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim) is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed.

22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.

23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.

24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by proper intimidation with blackmail or other threats.

25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.

Tags:#vigilantcitizen, #vc,#massmedia, #propaganda, #disinformation, #sheeple, #mindcontrol,#brainwashing, #nwo

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Now That Gas Prices Hit $4/Gallon, What to Expect in 2011

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Ed

If you guys haven’t noticed the ongoing trend, the price of gasoline jumps dramatically every year before the presidential elections kick into gear. Because the presidential elections are in 2012, you should expect gas prices to start acting a fool in 2011 and adjust your lifestyle accordingly. The fact we are in March of [...]

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How the Hood Can Learn From Portland, Oregon

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Ed

Revitalizing the hood and transforming our community into a center of economic growth and entrepreneurship requires knowing what works, what don’t work, but why. During the housing boom during the early 2000s Portland, Oregon was the model of urban development efforts of creating light rail to move people around to economic centers, revitalize downtown areas [...]

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The Dream and Hustle Review of the Warren Ballentine Truth Fighter Investment Club

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Ed

Hey, give Warren Ballentine some credit because at least he is trying to do the economic empowerment thing. Even though his economic empowerment approach is completely ass-backward and reeks of a cat looking to get their cut or operate the movement in an “I lead, you follow” fashion, at least he is way better than [...]

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Reclaiming My Quiet Time to Reinvent My Life

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Ed

Many of you guys know that I’m going through a divorce and currently getting ready for the next phase of my life. To be honest, I’m extremely happy and excited for my next phase and the first thing I appreciated that I have not had in a long time is the quiet time. For the [...]

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The Biggest Black History Lesson – Hurricane Katrina

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Ed

The problem with Black History Month and why I don’t celebrate it anymore is because Black media tend to trivialized the importance of how to celebrate Black history. The most relevant Black History in 2011 is not stuff that happened in 1911 or even 1991 but in the past 10 years. Most Black History [...]

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The Elements of Economic Empowerment Practiced in a Small Town

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Ed

I found this video segment on NBC News to be very informative because it shows all of the common elements to build a strong economic cluster that is local-based and concentrated. This is the type of economic development strategy we need to approach revitalizing the hood. Check out the video below and let’s look at [...]

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Celebrating Our 1000th Post on Dream and Hustle!

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Ed

Today, I wanted to celebrate a major milestone of putting out our 1000th posting on the Dream and Hustle blog. It takes a lot to put out a blog and keep it running and to make it up to 1000 postings says a lot about how long this blog been around and my dedication to [...]

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Establishing a Hood-Based Customer Service Framework to Jumpstart Entrepreneurship and Job-Growth Creation

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Ed

In 2011, we should no longer talk about Black people supporting Black business because it is extremely disrespectful to tell hard working folks how to spend their hard-earned money. Instead, it is the responsibility of the entrepreneur and commercial sector to compete for the consumer business like every other business operation does. If [...]

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The Blue Print for the Black Youth Revolution in 2011

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Ed

These are indeed strange days for the African-American people, particularly the generation of brothas and sistas between the ages of 18-37. Instead of seeing progress of our people, what we are witnessing among this Black generation is misguided beliefs about being successful, seeking acceptance and validation of others who don’t care about us, formation of [...]

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The Chicago West Side / South Side Guide to Understanding Tax Increment Financing or TIF and Why It Won’t Work in Our Hood

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Ed

Tomorrow, Chicagoans are going to run out and vote for Mayor and their local alderman and one of the biggest issues I keep hearing, especially on the West Side is something called TIFs. One of my projects that I was going to start off last month was coverage of the Chicago election, particularly the [...]

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