The Media's impact on truth is phenomenal. Who has a better understanding of this than the men who represent the media. Very few people understand that few articles are based on serious investigative reporting. Yet, the influence of the mass media is authoritative, imposing, and pervasive.

The Media's input upon that which is called "History" in hindsight is more
real than the actual happenings. We who rely on the media to report to us events as they happen, can never be sure if what we read or hear are the
facts and represent the truth.

One great contemporary and journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge, who has
been a marvelously gifted communicator throughout his life, gave a
lecture in 1976. His topic was the media.

This is a review and commentary on Muggeridge's "Christ and the Media":

Malcolm who was a journalist and associated with the media for the largest
part of his life, called his vocation "a fraudulent occupation" which he, on
the whole, enjoyed! In this occupation he writes "there is a built-in element
of farce which keeps it teetering on the brink of absurdity." He also states
that he has never been able to take it quite seriously.

According to Malcolm "what we still call Western civilization is fast disintegrating, and the media are playing a major role in the process...
Future historians will surely see us as having created in the media a Frankenstein monster which no one knows how to control or direct,
and marvel that we should have so meekly subjected ourselves to its
destructive and often malign influence."

Traditional moral values are being replaced in the media with a confusion
of supposed "rights and wrongs", and sadly it seems that the mindless
masses subject themselves indeed to this destructive lead. This brings
to mind the words of Jesus Christ "If the blind lead the blind they will
both fall into the ditch."

So often in fact is hallowed truth being turned around to signify its
opposite that the Gospel of the Media seems to have its own eternal life.
The problem is that, "although the media have created , and belong to a
world of fantasy, it is the more dangerous because it purports to be,
and is largely taken as being, the real world."

The Bible may well be the best selling book, but the media sells better.
The priests of the media are their own gods of chaos, gods of bad news,
gods of aggravation and turmoil. Good is boring while evil is varied,
intriguing, and exciting. Evil sells better than good.

The camera, is it trustworthy? After all we see what we do see. Do we
not see reality with our own eyes? But according to Malcolm "not only
can the camera lie, it always lies." How is this? We don't see the whole
picture to start with, the picture might be doctored, staged, or be combined with the wrong wording. We only see the pictures which the media wants
us to see. Concerned with fantasy and images are they, but we who look
for truth and reality are left empty. And even though we know the score,
every once in a while even the most astute sceptics will discover that they permitted themselves to be fooled.

That pictures can and are being altered should be understood by the
reader. Malcolm Muggeridge mentions "one of the most famous shots
in the 1939-45 War, used many times subsequently for documentary
purposes, of Hitler doing a weird little dance of triumph on hearing the
news that France had fallen to the Wehrmacht. This turns out to have
been a fake, procured by the simple device of removing a few frames
from film of Hitler walking."

I had the good fortune to be able to hear Malcolm speak about the media
and was very impressed by what he had to say. He expressed, as he does
in "Christ and the Media", concern about the menace of the serious
offerings of the media, insofar as "they are liable to pass for being
objective and authentic, whereas actually they, too, belong to the realm
of fantasy. This applies especially to news and so-called documentaries,
both of which are regarded as factual, but which, in practice, are
processed along with everything else in the media's fantasy-machine."

Newspeak and Doublethink, half-truths and left out vital facts, heroes
and heroines of questionable character, crazy claims, mounting of
character assassinations, smear words and name calling as seems
fashionable, the making of victims out of the bad and the making of
culprits out of men of good will, we see it all. Opportunistically the
media will hide and reveal anything at will, just as it sees fit. So it turns
out that certain politicians "in favor" get away with "murder" and some
singular outspoken individuals somewhere in the USA are occasionally
being declared into "the most dangerous men on earth".

Dare such a person permits him- or herself to be interviewed by the
media. There are many authenticated cases of interviews which were
edited in such a way that it gives a completely false impression of what
was actually said. The sad thing is that the viewers usually do not care.

"Faking of the words and pictures to fit the theme has been particularly prevalent in compilation programmes which purport to reconstruct out
of stock footage, some historical scene or happening", according to
Malcolm who recalls the piecing of clips from movies into actual
historical footage. So visually speaking, the footage proves a certain
happening.

Our posterity cannot rely on the accumulated severely slanted film-records
as being authentic. They will know nothing about us.

The media have the power to turn victims into culprits and culprits into
victims. The masses buy into the media, virtually everything they know or believe comes from "media indoctrination". The secret "media adoration religion" has taken hold of Western society, we have given up our old fundamental values, and in fact have become "unreal" ourselves. We
breath and live lies, day-in and day-out.

The media's influence keeps sway over life and death. How right Malcolm
is when he says: "keep in mind that nowadays a good campaign on the
media for legalized abortion will facilitate the slaughter of millions on the highest humanitarian principles before they are even born." King Herod
has always had a bad press for slaughtering the innocents, yet these days
when they are being slain in the womb the media either applauds this
form of infanticide or is silent.

In closing I point toward Malcolm's observation of men playing gods with words, busily transmitting them around the world faster than sound. Whom shall we pay heed to, what can we believe. In the end all is vanity. Only
"the Word that became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth,
in the most literal sense, speaks for itself."

Today the Holy Spirit dwells in ardent seekers of truth, for blessed are
they who hunger and thirst for righteousness (truth), they shall be satisfied.
In order to achieve this blessed state I recommend the avoidance of the establishment media, the avoidance of their words, their angles and
staged perceptions. If you are serious about pursuing truth and inner
peace give it a try, it actually works!

In the words of Malcolm: "The media in themselves, with all their power
of persuasion and corruption, have no power, any more than nuclear
weapons have: both have power only to the extent that they can exploit
the weaknesses and the wretchedness of men."

Lies Break the Back of Justice

More often than not do lies create helpless victims of injustice. A good percentage of our modern
day society, poisoned by bad examples, now seeks to gain their own advantage via the making of victims. Aided by the contemporary industry of psychology, a never ending stream of pretenders points accusing fingers at people who have done them no harm, and in fact quite often actually
had, before the accusations started, given sympathy and help to these self-declared victims.

How easy it is for women to finger men and claim to have been sexually harassed. What seems
sexual harassment to one woman may be considered flattery by another. When the legal system
gets involved someone chances to extract a good sum of money, someone else may be deprived
of their livelihood, and the courts and lawyers, of course, manage to amass the biggest sums.
The so-called dark ages sure were rather sunny compared to this aeon of pitch-blackness!

While real victims deserve justice, we must be careful not to fall for the vices of victim
producers. Unfortunately though, in order to thrive, the legal system and the psychology
industry require an ever expanding number of victims.

This article was written in part because of a recent experience, where we discovered that in helping others we were repaid with injury, slander, and great expense.

Quotes:

"As our 15th-century forebears were obsessed with the creation of saints and our 19th- century ancestors with the creation of heroes, from Christopher Columbus to George Washington so
are we with .... the manufacture of victims....It's as though all human encounter were one big
sore spot ..."
Robert Huges The Culture of Complaint

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The darkest hour of any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.
Horace Greeley

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The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.... It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. St. James

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There used to be a time when goodness usually found its reward. But nowadays the good are often being forced to reward the evil.
U. Kulju

Recommended reading: Manufacturing Victims by Dr. Tana Dineen, 1996, Robert Davies Publishing, 311-4999 Saint Catherine Street, Westmount, Quebec, Canada, H3Z 1T3 (Internet Website: http://scholefieldhouse.com/mv/)
http://scholefieldhouse.com/mv/
 

If we want a better future we must care about the now!