| You're only as susceptible as you allow yourself to be. Advertising is in the business of shaping opinion. Governments have entire agencies tasked with controlling the information that's released to the public. Still, paranoia is an extreme and unnecessary reaction.
When I was in the Army and was first stationed at the NSA, we were given a "welcome" speech by the agency's director. During his speech he asked us why we thought documents were classified Top Secret and why the NSA was so compartmentalized. Most of us agreed it was to keep our secrets out of the hands of the Russians (this was in 1975). The director corrected us. He said the primary reason our documents were classified was to keep them from being released to the American public. He said that if the average citizen knew what we were doing to preserve and protect their liberty, they wouldn't appreciate or support it.
It took me a while to fully comprehend what he was saying and admit it made sense. There was no vast conspiracy to conquer the world. We weren't hiding documents that revealed who killed Kennedy. We were protecting information vital to assuring the security of our country that was collected in ways the citizens might not be comfortable knowing about. In brief, you cannot always protect democracy through democratic means.
So yes, I know the government, advertising and the media are in the business of shaping what we think we know. But if you're resourceful, if you keep an open mind and don't just follow the pack, if you think for yourself and learn as much as you can from a wide variety of sources, you'll at least be able to parse together a better idea of what's going on than what you are fed. |