Mainstream Manipulation

    The world we live in, in these modern times, is characterized by the immediateness of everything around us. Media outlets are able to cover developing issues around the world in a matter of minutes and with the internet privacy is really something only of the past. Truthfully we choose to ignore it, but reading The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein has opened my eyes allowing me to observe and understand more objectively everything that happens around the world. The truth is that nothing is what it appears to be. 

    Behind everything happening around the world there always seems to be some invisible actors, the puppeteers, who manipulate and control events to the benefit of a very few. Natural disasters are exploited for economic advantages, terrorists attacks are used as excuses for fascist reforms in the legal system, and one could even say some of these events are proxies created by the government to push forward initiatives that really can only exist when the shock value is present. But what is this shock value? It's the state in which we find ourselves completely disinhibited after something very unexpected and very intense occurs. Lost and in distress we are far more easy to manipulate and the reality is people take advantage of it. 

    In Colombia, as I've seen through my personal experience, people haven't really come to understand and investigate the manipulation we are subject to. Conspiracy theories are everywhere and they are, one could say, essential because it's very important to doubt what you see. In Colombia, though, it's hard for me to come across any of these. We're a country at war but we've never really tried to understand the manipulative power the government has over us. News outlets will never come close to contradict a government statement in regards with a terrorist attack or a specific event in the conflict. Is anyone confronting the powerful oligarchy controlling Colombia's economic front? Is anyone really questioning anything other than isolated corruption cases in the government? We are, in my eyes, a successful example of a one sided population that believes everything and anything that is fed to them. If you ever get to the point of asking whether or not the armed conflict has any other underlying conditions that don't include drug money profits you're going down the wrong path. We've stereotyped the way we should think, speak, and act to the point freedom is in a gray area so do we live under this shock doctrine? Are we alienated from corporate interests in Colombia, from political power, and from the truth of the armed conflict? I don't really know and maybe I am taking a step too further, but it maybe is time to start questioning. Wake Up.

Eulogy: (noun) High praise or commendation, especially of someone who has died.

Coercion: (noun) The practice of persuading someone to do something by means of force.