You Are Being Lied To: This Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths edited by Russ Kick

This is one of those books that I heard about on NPR. It’s a collection of essays, articles and interviews with a bunch of counterculture types that pretty much purports to tell you that everything you think or hear about in the mainstream media is a load of crap. And of course, it pretty much is.

One of the most interesting things about the collection is that it was assembled in the pre-9/11 world, and so mention of the most colossal conspiracy theory in the history of mankind is nowhere to be found. And yet, reading this, you can see how such ideas begin and flourish. There’s a lot of people out there who evidently think Skulls and Bones controls the world, and that all institutions support some dark and sinister purpose, even those run by people who have no clue what they’re talking about, they still unconsciously serve the bidding of the master. The people in this book really don’t like the War on Drugs, and believe that the criminalization of opiates is nothing more than the State’s way on controlling and monitoring the society. The State wants the power to relieve pain to only reside with itself, so it can decide when to use it and, more importantly, when not to use it.

Every tyrant knows that a person in pain will also reliably respond to the ‘positive’ reinforcement of relief from pain. The ability to offer that—an escape from agony—is a power no amount of money can buy.

Guess we’re ruled by tyrants now. The logic they seem to use is as follows:

1. Here’s something that’s going on in our society.
2. Here’s one way of interpreting that something.
3. The way that we’ve interpreted it coincides with ways tyrants have oppressed people in the past.
4. Therefore, our society must be being oppressed by tyrants.

The stuff in this book reminds me a lot of Brother Hovind. Wouldn’t it be great if that many pieces of the puzzle actually fit together? Forgot what they fit together into and whether that’s good or bad, right or wrong. Just the fact that they fit together is enough. Fitting the pieces together is all any of us ever need.

In any event, here are some books from their suggested reading list that I wouldn’t mind checking out:

The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold by Acharya S
Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit by Garry Wills
Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl
The Myth of Human Races by Alain F. Corcos