Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

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Subliminal advertising has gone mainstream - fake news, mind control scripts, propaganda and stealth voicemail are in wide use by corporations, government bodies and industry groups.

By Martin Howard
HowTheyChangeYourMind.com

Some of the biggest advertisers are taking their advertising away from full page ads and television spots and spending up on hidden persuasion. You won't find these secret messages in ice-cubes or flickering film footage like they were in the sixties. Subliminal advertising has gone mainstream - fake news, mind control scripts, propaganda and stealth voicemail are in wide use by corporations, government bodies, and industry groups. Have you spotted any of these?

1. Point of Sale Mind Control Scripts
Clothing store staff and car salesmen use them to close the deal - carefully planned questions and subverbal cues to get you to sign. If you?ve ever walked out of a store, after spending twice as much as you wanted to, chances are you?ve fallen victim to one of these scripts. The GAPACT is used by Gap staff to upsell you. Other salesmen use word techniques to make you buy, even when you don?t have the money - because they make more by selling you 'easy' finance. When a car salesmen takes you on a test drive and asks you ?Is this the type of vehicle you would like to own??, he is using a subtle mental framing trick - it can create an embarrassing distraction while you drive. The technique is called disassociation - which is the ideal state for mental manipulation.

2. Doctor-Patient Drug Kick-backs
When a doctor recommends a certain heart medication or an antidepressant, chances are he has been paid a cash bonuses and perks by the manufacturer, making it difficult to give objective advice. Some pharmaceutical firms have gone so far as to invent and promote a new syndrome in order to create a market for a new drug! Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) was devised in 1998 and publicised by planting fifty press stories and quizzes such as: ?Do you have social anxiety disorder??. Soon after, Smithkline Beecham released Paxil - the 'cure' for SAD.

3. In-Store Sensory Manipulation
Scientifically tested visual displays, Muzak tapes, and even mind altering scents combine to maximize impulse spending. Specially designed music loops can keep shoppers in the supermarket for 18% longer. One study into use of airborne aromas, pumped into a Canadian mall, resulted in an increase of over $50 per customer that week. In supermarkets, scientifically generated Planograms create the ideal shelf arrangement for certain products, skewing the shopper's eyes towards high value items. Companies pay slotting allowances for favoured placement. Aisle layout are change regularly - which prevents systematic shopping - forcing extra trips past the impulse item displays.

4. Private Conversation Rental
Positive buzz can be triggered artificially for a price. Marketers now recruit secret 'buzz agents' to promote to their friends and family. One buzz agency claims to have an army of agents in every major US city. Their job is to mention or display certain products as they go about their day, using their relationships as marketing channels. Music labels, book sellers, entertainment venues, and fashion outlets are using this method to establish new brands. Today?s billion dollar 12-16 year olds are so immune to traditional advertising, mass media is no longer a reliable persuasive device - so the alternative is a 'synthetic grapevine.?

5. Neuromarketing
Corporations are going to enormous lengths to probe the minds of consumers - literally tapping into their brains. The Brighthouse Institute for Thought Sciences, in Atlanta, is one lab that is scanning people's brains with MRIs, in an effort to decode and record our subconscious thoughts and devise more seductive advertising. The process is being called neuromarketing. They are hoping to determine specific biological triggers that can be used by language engineers to stimulate purchases. This is the hi-tech fulfilment of pioneer psychologists Freud and Jung who established the connection between language and behaviour.

6. Chatbots and Stealth Voicemail
Personal phone messages from businesses or political campaigners can turn up in your morning voicemail, having been delivered late the previous night. Voicemail broadcasters like DialAmerica uses massive computer installations to deliver identical copies of spoken messages to millions of householder simultaneously. On the internet, chat room 'bots' masquerading as personal real buddies are actually distributed simultaneously by powerful computers 24 hours a day. Virtual word-of-mouth communication is replacing other promotional technologies because of its speed and price.

7. Real-time Bugging of Personal Data
Your browser is probably revealing more than you might want: your location, the software and hardware you are using, details of other links you clicked on and your browsing habits. Many third party dataminers use 'cookies' to track your path across the web. Extensive realtime information is processed to target you. Larger databases harvest your personal medical and financial records to be bought and sold by interested companies and government departments. Datamining is a fuzzy science that filters you personal information for links about your personal behaviour and finances. These details are used in turn to create elaborate marketing campaigns to sell you more stuff.

8. Sidewalk Stalkers
The public space of streets, neighborhoods and communities is being mapped and targeted by viral marketers and fake grassroots organizations. In some cases the campaigns are overt but, increasingly, street 'agents' are making unannounced social approaches. Fake tourists flash around the latest camera-phone to passing crowds. 'Product seeders' circulate at sports events to find influential young players to wear their gear. Others wander the street wearing colored corporate tattoos. Personal space is the last frontier for commerce. As citizens attempt to retreat from the deluge of media advertising they can now be stalked when they step out the door.

9. Planted News Stories
Industry front groups, public relations firms and government departments are planting news stories on TV, radio, newspapers and the web. Those 'miracle drug' stories or research reports are often Video News Release (VNRs). TV newsrooms love these prepackaged news items that are distributed across the networks. It saves them time and money but it is killing community news and genuine investigative reporting. Real news items are being replaced by slick corporate promotions and political messages. According to one Nielsen Media Research Survey, about 80 percent of U.S. news directors air VNRs several times a month, and all American television newsrooms now use VNRs in their newscasts.

10. Government Propaganda
When it's time to launch a war or promote an unpopular policy, the government needs special help to sell the idea through the media. Opinion engineers are paid to "manage" public perception of inconvenient facts, and turn them around for better. Using the universal tools fear, patriotism, and phrase repetition, these high flying spin doctors can easily sway the population. The most successful public relations campaigns aim to change public perception without our awareness of the campaign. They are typically launched by governments, institutions and countries who need to change their public image, restore their reputation or manipulate public opinion. There are PR firms today who advise dictatorships, dishonest politicians and corrupt industries to cover up environmental catastrophes and human rights violations.

Martin Howard is a media researcher and author of "We Know What You Want: How They Change Your Mind".

http://www.mindpowernews.com/SubliminalAds.htm

By John Gorenfeld   Fri Sep 29, 2006 at 12:39:43 AM EST

On the early Sunday morning of May 18, 2003, the high priests of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, owner of the Washington Times and Religious Right enigma, gathered over a grave near Jerusalem (left) to hold a funeral for the Christian cross. They had been touring the Middle East in the name of peace. They proposed Moon's teachings as the glue for Jews and Muslims, bewildering locals, and they held briefings on Mideast policy for the State Department, or so they claimed. They networked with politicians. And steam gathered for a big, big finale.

They buried the cross because it was Satan's icon, Moon said, cleaving Jew from gentile, Christian from Muslim. Moon demanded a new symbol that everyone could agree on: the Crown of Glory. In February and March, 2004, on Capitol Hill, U.S. politicians would attend two ceremonies celebrating this gospel, the last climaxing with the selfsame Crown Of Glory lowered onto the Times owner's head.

A surprising figure wrote a song especially for the campaign, according to the Reverend's flock. That's U.S. senator, Christian recording artist and longtime Moon friend Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

With Moon in the front row, Hatch introduces Mrs. Moon 13 years ago on Capitol Hill. Click for video.

Hatch's tune appears on an album issued in 2004 to commemorate the Reverend's roadshow and ensuing ceremony at the Dirksen Senate Office Building. He's listed as sharing songwriting duties with a Utah state politician and two other men. As advertised, a track on the album, "Jerusalem Peace Song," bears the following songwriting credits:

9) Jerusalem Peace Song (3:50)
(Orrin Hatch / Howard Stephenson / Dan Whitley / Stan Seale)

Was it an unwitting mistake -- writing a song for a group campaigning to dump the cross, a symbol of which many of Hatch's constituents are still rather fond? Perhaps. But Hatch and Moon, it turns out, go back years together. And their unlikely friendship offers a handy way to light a lantern along the convoluted corridors of the Reverend's maze of influence on Capitol Hill, touching a number of liberal Democrats but most enormous in its gifts to the conservative side of the aisle, including the $2 billion+ subsidy for the Times.

* * *

On February 4, 2004, over a month before the controversial "Crown of Peace" awards on Capitol Hill in which Moon named himself the Messiah, an earlier ritual was held at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building. I blogged about that here. The press has never reported on the earlier spectacle, in which Preston Moon, the likely heir to the church, drops by to pick up a crown on behalf of his father.

A Moon pastor exulted after the Preston Moon event:

One unique dimension was the debuting of a special song called the "Jerusalem Peace Song", inspired by our Middle East Peace Initiative and authored by US Senator Orrin Hatch, Utah Senator Howard Stephenson and others. The performers of the song were quite inspired to reflect the spirit of reconciliation among the children of Abraham.

Those are the words of Jim Flynn, said by Moon's group to be "giving very important briefings to key American decisionmakers in the state department, Capitol Hill and beyond. The briefings are going well." (The Middle East is not.)

Crowning the Washington Times owner King of Peace in 2004: An accident? wondered observers. Or did the pols know what they were doing?

Some yes -- some no.

And Orrin Hatch's songwriting cameo? As Beatles fans know, those Lennon/McCartney credits don't tell you everything.

But consider Hatch's previous antics in Moon's world of plausible (and implausible) deniability -- a seemingly endless parade of surreal award shows in which Hatch and Moon have exchanged trophies.

In 1992, Moon presented Hatch with an award.

In 1993, there occurred a ludicrous episode in which Hatch played a key role. The punchline of the story is this: the U.S. now celebrates a holiday invented by Moon's Unification Church, which successfully lobbied for "Parents Day."

Senior Republicans proposed, on the floor of Congress, a holiday that would seemingly celebrate American moms and dads of the mortal kind. But as the Washington City Paper later unearthed, it turned out to be the brainchild of Reverend Moon himself, who openly said he was putting one over on Americans by convincing Congress to enact a holiday secretly honoring him as a "True Parent." By the time Clinton signed it into law, the "True" had been stripped, and Moon front group the American Family Coalition was disguising its links to the Times owner.

Much of the sordid story is here. If you don't believe me, get a load of the Congressional Record of July 27, 1993, in which Lott actually utters the words:

"...I rise today to offer remarks on `True Parents Day,' which will be celebrated officially on July 28, 1993..."

And there, on our national calendar, the holiday still stands-- here's George W. Bush on the subject. Moon crowed: "Men and women in the American Congress didn't know what they were doing, but as you know Congress passed the resolution of Parents Day."

Hatch played a visible role in the Parent's Day campaign, addressing a number of Moon front groups, including the ones that arranged for George H.W. Bush to tour with the Reverend in the mid-1990s. The evening after Trent Lott's proposal, Hatch hosted a Moon delegation on Capitol Hill.

Click on the Google Video window to watch a longer version of what was posted above. Hatch introduces Moon's wife as "my friend," with Moon in the front row. She then takes the stage, declaring herself and the Reverend the "True Parents." She also tells the audience that the "Completed Testament Age" has begun. In other words, she believes Congress is helping the couple write a third book of the Bible.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/9/29/03943/6196

No Match for Steady Republican Policy
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services

Despite their dreams of recapturing one or both houses of Congress this November, the Democrats seem determined to reprise their poor showings in 2002 and 2004. Now, as then, they are dozing in the campaign's homestretch, like Aesop's hare, lulled by rosy predictions and the premature applause of Hollywood and the mainstream press. Soon, however, they may awake to discover that while they snoozed before the finish line, George W. Bush hunkered down in his tough shell, kept his slow legs moving, and inched them out.

The president has had a rough year since his reelection. But the furor is now subsiding, and once again, turtle-like, his poll numbers are creeping forward. The economy continues to grow. Interest rates, unemployment and inflation remain manageable. Gas may fall to $2 a gallon. It matters little whether the president is as responsible for the price decline as he was for its rise ? the public feels better all the same.

In hindsight, Hurricane Katrina is increasingly seen as the singular natural disaster it was ? made worse by lapses in government at all levels. And too much federal largess, rather than too little, is the new worry.

The line between the supposedly good "multilateral" war in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban and the bad "unilateral" one that ousted Saddam is blurring. Suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices are the terrorism of choice in both theaters. In some weeks, more are killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq. And al-Qaeda, unlike the American media, sees both as integrated jihadist struggles against the infidel.

When the smoke cleared in Lebanon, Israel had not lost to Hezbollah ? but gained even more support from the American people, according to most recent polls. Nor did the elected Lebanese government collapse. Indeed, rumor has it that Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are much less pleased with the result of the war than Western journalists had supposed. And Iran appears to be backing down somewhat from its nuclear agenda.

America has not been hit again since 9/11. And, perhaps preferring to err on the side of safety, most Americans continue to back interrogations and detentions at Guantanamo. For now, most still believe it is jihadists ? not their own president ? who pose the real threat to their way of life.

The Europeans are no longer smug in the belief that the Islamists are incited only by the cowboy George Bush. They are weary and increasingly angry over the Danish cartoon hysteria, Dutch murders, French riots, London and Madrid bombings, foiled plots in Britain and Germany, and the most recent threats to the pope. Terrorist communiqués allege anger over Iraq ? but also Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Gaza, Kashmir, Kosovo, Lebanon, the Philippines, the West Bank, and on and on.

Despite their troubles, the Republicans remain more unified and pragmatic than their opponents. The party establishment stood behind the often anti-Bush Sen. Lincoln Chafee in a tough but successful reelection fight in Rhode Island. In contrast, the Democratic establishment watched in horror as the party's activist wing drummed out their own moderate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, as a turncoat.

In the past, leftist shrillness ? whether it was Michael Moore calling Iraqi terrorists "Minutemen" or Cindy Sheehan pronouncing an American president "the world's greatest terrorist" ? hurt the Democrats, who came across as amused by the noise of these supportive public megaphones.

Once again such rhetorical craziness is turning off moderates. A film has just been released imagining the assassination of a sitting American president. On the Democratic side, only Sen. Hillary Clinton has denounced such creepiness; other Clintonites were far more worried only about looking bad in the recent docudrama "The Path to 9/11."

Democrats denounce the conduct of the war against terror. All well and good ?  but they also must explain how they would snatch Osama Bin Laden from his friendly tribes in Islamic and nuclear Pakistan. They rail against the Iraq war, but they cannot agree on when ? not to mention whether ? to depart. They lament appeasement of Iran, but they offer no military or political alternative to the ongoing multiparty negotiations.

The Democrats claim that Bush is not protecting us at home and is battling the wrong enemies abroad. But even of those sympathetic to such a message, how many believe that Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy are better suited to fight a war against terror? And where the president is vulnerable ? illegal immigration, continual energy dependence, spiraling debt and profligate federal spending ? the Democrats' solutions are even more at odds with public opinion.

The result is that Bush, tucked into his shell, keeps lumbering forward, grimfaced ? resisting withdrawal from Iraq and warning against Islamic fascism. And the more the Democratic hares yawn and snore, the more this unfazed turtle keeps moving toward the November elections.

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson092506.html

http://www.torrify.com/

By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 19, 2006; 8:59 PM

ST. LOUIS -- Teen drug users know better than to cross paths with police officers walking the beat or school principals roaming the hallways. Now there's a new enemy in the generational war on drugs: drug testing-parents.

The explosion of Internet commerce has been a boon for sellers of home drug-testing kits, who can send their products directly to concerned parents without fear of embarrassment or nosy neighbors.

At least one company, TestMyTeen.com of Fenton, is taking an even more direct approach by donating up to $5,000 worth of testing equipment directly to school districts in Missouri, which in turn are asked to spread the message to parents.

"There's a big gap between reality and what parents think is reality," said company owner Mason Duchatschek. "They all think drugs are a big issue, but not with their kids."

Duchatschek, 38, owns another company that provides drug-testing equipment to corporations such as Miller Brewing Co. and Purina Mills. Early last year, he created the Internet-based business, seeking out interested school districts at trade shows, school board conventions and cold calls.

School districts in Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin have embraced the program, which offers participating schools a percentage of sales income from parent purchases to be used for school drug-prevention efforts.

The schools, in turn, promote the home drug-test kits by hanging banners in gyms and auditoriums, making announcements during football games and school plays and circulating flyers with slogans such as "No thanks. Our parents test us."

"It's another (drug prevention) resource that's available," said Jim Heiden, superintendent of the Cudahy, Wis., school district in suburban Milwaukee.

The effectiveness of such measures, though, is subject to debate.

Drug prevention researchers warn about the prospect of false-positive tests and note the lack of evidence suggesting such measures lead to a decrease in drug use.

Other critics cite the invasive nature of the tests and the damage done to the parent-child bond.

"It's a sacrifice of human dignity," said Dan Viets, an attorney for the mid-Missouri chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

School participation in home drug testing by parents is an "end around" a Supreme Court ruling that limits random drug testing of students unless they are involved in extracurricular activities, he said.

"When the schools get involved they're going beyond what the Supreme Court allows," said Viets, a criminal defense attorney who often represents people accused of violating drug laws.

Heiden said he shares some of those privacy concerns and doesn't ask Duchatschek to provide statistics on the number of kits sold in his district as well as the results. He also decided to not participate in the company's "School Alliance" rebate program.

"I don't want to make money off other people," said Heiden.

For $15 per kit, parents can conduct a urinalysis that provides instant results to detect the presence of 10 types of drugs in their child's system: marijuana; cocaine; amphetamine; methamphetamine; barbiturates; opiates; oxycodone; MDMA, or Ecstasy; benzodiazepines; and proxyphene.

There are also saliva swabs, which Duchatschek notes can be easily stored in a car's glove compartment, as well as oral tests that detect alcohol and tobacco use.

"It makes parents the bad guy," he said. "That's a socially acceptable excuse that every kid can use without feeling like a chump."

For Mike Peterson, of St. Clair, home drug-testing kits "absolutely saved my son's life."

Peterson began administering the tests two years ago, when his 14-year-old son Benjamin grew surly and distant and brought home poor grades from school.

The first test came back positive for four categories: cocaine, barbiturates, marijuana and amphetamines.

When Benjamin Peterson denied using drugs, his father took the test himself: The results were clean.

Two years and one painful withdrawal later, Mike Peterson continues to randomly test his son, using a computer-derived testing schedule generated by TestMyTeen.com software and a reward/consequences contract also modeled after the company's sample material.

If Benjamin tests positive, he loses his driving privileges and cell phone use for one month. A second positive test and he loses both for good.

"I let him know he had a new best friend _ that drug test kit," Mike Peterson said.

Heiden, the Wisconsin superintendent, said students at the middle and high school in his school district "have been very accepting of the whole thing."

And Peterson, a computer business owner, said testing his child for drugs was a sign of caring, not betrayal.

"If you really love your kids, you're not going to be afraid to test them," he said. "If they're clean, they're not going to have a problem."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 454_3.html