The Long and Winding Road of History

Birds of a Feather...

 It's all about gaining total control over people and turning everyone into slaves. In the earlier centuries this was done by force of arms. People who wanted to be "free" as in "living under their own form of gov't" which often meant a dictatorship of some kind, usually a benevolent one or, as in the case of Rome, a dictatorship with a smidgeon of "republic" thrown in. Making Rome a very attractive government. The Roman empire grew to become the ruler of the world, not because of their armies or arms, but because people found the republican rule of law as a great improvement over what other regimes offered, so the empire grew by consent.

The British went them one better, they combined republican law rule with military might and added political trickery/treachery to the mix. Then came America and it created the worlds first "dream government", a rule of law that allow the people to decide what laws should be passed. The trouble with this form of government is, it requires "an informed public" to persevere. So, they set up schools and everyone was required to learn the fundamentals, (reading, writing and arithmetic, humorously called "the three R's").

Unfortunately, after the second world war, the military industrial complex was built and, with it came the need for it to perpetuate itself. To do this and ensure it could persist, it had to first dumb down education, leaving the population mentally disabled. This would make it easier to manipulate the public's mind set. Then weaponize all technology to keep government military spending high, the cold war did much to help further this leg of the enterprise by providing the necessary issues.

In the early days of television,  there wasn't much that could be done to manipulate the content the stations carried.  Thus came the phrase "As seen on TV",  because there was very little manipulation of presentations possible.  For a good long while, if you saw someone doing something on tv, they actually had to be able to do it.  With the advent of recording and play back devises that began to change.  Unfortunately public awareness did not keep up with these new technologies.  Thus, trust in tv actually grew when it should have been shrinking. The trickery started with programs like Leo G. Carrol in "Topper" (google for it) and escalated through to "I Dream of Jeannie"  By way of which,  the public should have learned that tv could no longer be trusted.  Even to this day,  people place more faith and trust in video recordings,  than even what they've seen with their own eyes (an MIT study has shown).

It's too bad that there are evil and greedy people in the world,  who would like to see everything done their way.  They are after the ultimate political power and that requires military might.  To get hold of absolute power they need to manipulate the body politic and the handy tools are, fear and hate.  These two emotions bring people to approve of wars,  and wars give the powerful the powers they need to reek mayhem as they see fit and make quite a bit of cash while doing so.  You do not want these kinds of people in either government or your military,  since no good can ever come of their designs.