I did a quick poll of my employees yesterday. The question I asked was:
"What caused the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11?"
Out of 11 people, 10 had terrorist in their answer. 1 answered Obama (this employee was left off the rest of the poll)
I followed up with, "What countries were the terrorists from who were responsible...."
Out of 10 people 9 answered Iraq, 1 answered Afghanistan.
No on answered Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt or Lebanon.
Then I asked, "What organization was responsible for the terrorist attacks...."
Out of 10 people, 6 answered Al Queada, 2 answered the taliban and 2 didn't know.
My next question was, "Which individual took credit for the 9/11 terrorist attacks?"
Out of 10 people, 8 answered Osama Bin Laden, but only 5 pronounced his name correctly. 1 answered Saddam Hussein, and 1 didn't know.
My last question, "In what year did these terrorist attacks happen?"
This is when I wanted to cry. Only 3 people knew it was 2001. The other seven didn't actually know and were guessing. I received answers ranging from 1999 - 2004. One thing I must add is that all 7 of those people felt really bad about not knowing for sure what year it was.
Yes these employees were all young, 23-28 years old, but I still can't believe it.
Now this is a perfect example of how history gets revised. Maybe 100 years from now the history books (if we still have history books) will have a different year entirely.
Yet, most of the time, the articles I've read in the media don't carry these facts. I rarely heard anyone say anything about the terrorists backgrounds, where they were from, who they were and why they were doing what they were doing.
I know more about Casey Anthony, who may or may not have killed her child, than I know about the terrorists who killed nearly 3000 Americans.
I can understand the historical corruption in our past, seeing that reading and writing was limited to only a select few people for most of our human history and they could write whatever they wanted to write and most people wouldn't know.
I would think it would be difficult for one person who couldn't read or write to refute what is in writing. Alternatively, it would be relatively easy for someone who can read and write to refute what is not in writing.
Now what's ironic is that even though people who can read and write are no longer in the minority, the amount of corruption in our writings is increasing, not decreasing.
What this says to me is that writings are not sacred and they probably never have been. People can lie in written text just as well as they can lie in spoken words.
Personally, it has taken me a long time to understand that people are capable and willing to write down a lie and proclaim it as truth.
Sometimes I feel like those aliens on Galaxy Quest who have just realized that there are people who can and do lie.
Someone somewhere learned a valuable history lesson here and took it one step further. If it's possible to corrupt history, is it possible to corrupt the future.
The ability to corrupt is simply a question of control. If you control something you can corrupt it.
Our wisdom and our ability to create and invent is based on the accumulated knowledge of centuries. One fact built upon another over years and years of experience. Facts that don't play out over time are usually discarded as false.
This accumulation of knowledge and experience has given humans the ability to predict future events.
We know that the oceans have two high tides each day and we can predict with extreme accuracy when they will occur.
We know that hurricanes follow warm ocean currents and we can predict where they will head and hit land with relative accuracy.
We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and we can predict that a significant increase in CO2 in our atmosphere will result in a warmer climate.
We know that sexual intercourse with ejaculation can lead to pregnancy and if a woman is ovulating, it doesn't matter if intercourse is consensual or not, we can still predict the outcome with relative accuracy.
We know that as we get older our health will deteriorate and we can predict that everyone who ages will eventually require health care of some kind.
We know that decreasing taxes on the wealthy, decreasing capital gains taxes, and luring millions of average Americans into buying the wealthy's second houses, which they can't afford, while spending 4 trillion dollars will cause a financial meltdown and a decade long recession. We can predict that following this same pattern will have the same effect.
We know that it is more difficult to teach 5 children than it is to teach 1 child. We know it is more difficult to teach 40 children than it is to teach 30. We know it is more difficult to teach children to read if their parents don't read. We know it is more difficult to educate the poor than it is to educate the wealthy. We know it is more difficult to educate a hungry child than it is to educate a child who is well fed. We can predict that teaching 40 poor, undernourished hungry 7 y/o children with uneducated parents will be more difficult than teaching 30 wealthy, well fed 7 y/o children with educated parents. We can predict that if these two groups take the same test at the end of the year, the first group will have learned much less.
We know that money influences outcomes. We know that advertising works. We know that people remain influenced by lies as much as the truth. We can predict that allowing unlimited funds into elections will have an influence on those elections.
Anyone who tries to credit these predictions are ostracized. People trying to explain these predictions are attacked. People who try to predict an outcome based on history and facts are either conspiracy theorists or sympathizers of some anti-American idea.
This is how the future is controlled.