Years ago I filmed a Sominex commercial.   It was a sleep aid, and the commercial aired regularly in prime spots.   When I got my first residual statement from my agent, it showed the commercial was airing only in the then-nightly news on ABC, CBS, and NBC.  (Believe it or not there was a time not so long ago when we were not deluged with the 24 hour news mania of cable news.   It used to be one half hour each night.)   I called my agent and mentioned to him that it was only airing on those news shows.   I have never forgotten his words:   “Lee, how naïve can you be?”   Stunned, I asked what he meant.   And his response has shaped my thoughts and actions ever since.  “The only products that advertise on the news are Sominex, Bayer Aspirin, and Pepto Bismol–because after you watch the news you have a head ache, an upset stomach, and can’t sleep!.”   True story.

The news is engineered to sow fear and chaos, because the creators know that we have a tendancy to be drawn to negative like a magnet.   The Media learned long ago that positive does not sell, but negative does.   And the more negative the better.

Fast forwarding to present day, each of those mild over-the-counter medications has been supplanted by psychiatrists and doctors and the pharmaceutical industry with heavy prescription meds–many of which are highly addictive, and many of which have the known side effects of suicide and even homicide.   If you doubt this, you can read my trilogy which exposed this attack line, OR–even better–you can turn on your news and see who is advertising on those shows.   And listen to the disclaimers on the drugs for sleeping, the drugs for pain, and the drugs for anxiety and depression.   Really listen.   You will see it.

Here’s the cycle:   You watch the news.  It angers you, frightens you, and fills you with doubt and anxiety.   Then you take a medication so that you feel less anxious, less afraid, and less restless.  Then you watch the news again, and the cycle repeats, over and over again.   Before long you are addicted to two dangerous “narcotics”–the narcotic of the negative news, drawing you to it like a moth to a flame, and the narcotic of the medication to calm you down so you can survive.

Many, however, do not survive.   They end up experiencing a side effect known as ideation of suicide, and they end up killing themselves.

I’d like to suggest that a better and much safer solution is to turn off the news, and disconnect from your Internet sources that are pummeling you the same way.   (If you experience difficulty doing this, just know that you are addicted.   Change.   And when you do, you will have released yourselves from the fear and chaos these merchants peddle.)

You may ask, but how will I know what is going on?   Trust me, you will hear of things.   And my best recommendation is that you watch the actual event–whether it be a hearing, a campaign rally, a full-length interview, or any other thing which interests you, and which you can replay in its entirety.  We are in the YouTube Age you know!   When you watch for yourself, you can experience the whole thing, and draw your own conclusions.   That is infinitely better than letting someone else “tell” you what you missed, what was important, their opinion  and emotion about it, and how you should FEEL about it.   You may be surprised to watch something, knowing full well you understood it, and gathered certain data from it, and then you turn on your favorite channel or news show only to realize that they may have completely falsified the data, or left out crucial data, or misevaluated what you heard with your own ears, and saw with your own eyes. Do not doubt your own reality on what you saw.   But be prepared to doubt someone else’s interpretation of what they saw.

I realize that common sense is almost a paranormal experience in America today, but YOU have it.   Do not doubt yourself.   Just get out of the clutches of the Merchants of Fear, and the Merchants of Chaos.