Wake up. People can’t be paranoid of the government. I’m not blind.

It’s obvious to see the way the government controls American culture today.

In some smoke-filled think tank the upper echelon of power hungry old men dictate how they want everything to seem, but I know they can’t stop the people. They want the people to behave in a certain manner. Like puppets on a string. Gullible and fickle to the garbage fed to them.

Through the press, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, television, recording industries, radio and literature they secretly dictate what information will be released to the public. This sets the agendas that we discuss among ourselves, watch for in the media, and write about in columns, but no matter how they try, the people can’t be controlled.

An example is the surge in popularity in 1991 for underground music. The government wouldn’t let the record companies release any until then because they knew it was what people wanted to hear, but then they figured it could do some good to create a new subculture among today’s youth. This began the creation of a so-called “Generation X.” Now we have all this young generation crap that we didn’t have before. There were young adults in the 1980s, but they weren’t called anything except for “punks.”

All this wasn’t allowed until the cold war was over. Back then they wanted everyone to be television babies. Creating a new subculture also helped define a new generation so the media and advertisers would have a new market since the baby boomers were growing old. This in turn helped the economy, not to mention the government’s ability to profit off the drug scene. Then the government murdered Kurt Cobain because he was singing about how corrupt it all was. So now we get all these toned down bands like Hootie, the Spin Doctors and Dave Matthews.

Notice how they do not allow younger writers to publish books since Jack Kerouac. His book On the Road was responsible for that whole 60s fiasco. The government didn’t want the hippie movement to happen, but it couldn’t be controlled. That was the time period when the government began to take control of our culture by exploiting things they wanted us to believe. It all began when they shot Kennedy. He wanted to get us out of Vietnam, which was a war invented as a market to keep the weapons manufacturers in business. The hippies didn’t like this so they protested. Well the hippies won that battle, but by the 70s the government had a strong foothold on dictating our culture so it won the war. Why do think disco was so popular?

In the 80s they fought the cold war on the backs of the American farmers. Labor unions were weakened. The hippies sold out to the government, and there wasn’t any good music except for unknown underground bands. The literature that was popular was horror novels. No wonder Dungeons & Dragons was such a big hit.

Now the government controls the media which has replaced religion as the opiate of the masses. It has won the cold war and so it controls the whole wide world with its economy. All the other governments are mostly puppet governments, including Saddam Hussein’s. The Persian Gulf War was merely a big military exercise to test our stuff and give George Bush better rating in the polls.

As a matter of fact our political elections and Capitol Hill debates are simply for our entertainment. They have no real control because it is the CIA that has ultimate control over all other branches of the government, and through that they control the world. The CIA couldn’t care less who wins the elections because their positions are secure either way. The CIA is working in the best interests of big business. Look at how the IRS, the FBI or the Postal Service can screw up a person’s entire life whenever the CIA or Exxon wants them to. Scary, isn’t it? The people won’t be fooled by this mass corruption at the top. Someday they’ll rise up and, and…, well, I’m not sure what. They can blow up federal buildings. Yeah! Well, I guess that’s not too cool because people get killed. How about sabotaging trains? Not good either. What can they do? They can spread the word. Write columns about paranoia!

If we get rid of our government things would be so much better. No more big fast food restaurants, cola wars, B movies, Michael Jackson media blitzes, MTV, horror novels, televised Ross Perot election campaigns, war sponsoring oil companies, dead rock stars, drug abusing subcultures, Carnie Wilson’s talk show, radio stations that don’t play the song I request, money hungry baseball players, mind numbing sitcoms, bad postal service, and, well, I guess.

I kind of like all the dumb things America has, including the Dave Matthews Band. Oh well, let the CIA run things. I like America this way. Maybe we shouldn’t burn the flag because of all the corrupt nations on earth, we’re the corruptest! And damn proud of it. Happy Thanksgiving.

You know, I once heard that if you go too far to the left, you end up on the right. Oops, I definitely do not want to be there.

Tim Frerking is a junior in journalism mass communication from Pomeroy.