Do you realize you have Big Brother as a bed partner? The Big Brother from George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The name Big Brother makes most of us think of government surveillance. That is, government officials peeping into the nooks and crannies of our lives. Well, you know that government certainly does that today.

In the book, another activity of Big Brother was public mind control. Propaganda. To influence and try to control what people think. One weapon Big Bro used in this was deception. The government’s policy was to deceive.

Can you look at the Benghazi mess and tell me you don’t see government officials trying to deceive you? And can you tell me with a straight face that deception of this type is new?

Yes, we have long had deception from government. And propaganda from government is certainly not new. However, government keeps getting better at this.

I was chatting with the White House correspondent from one of the major news networks. You would know his name and face from the nightly news on tv. He has camped out at the White House for years.

He told me “The President has so few press conferences these days because he does not need us. He does not need the Press. Used to be the White House released information through the Press. Now it goes around us.

“The White House has its own network, virtually. Between blogs and tweets and email blasts and Facebook, they have no problem reaching the people directly with their messages.”

The good thing about this is that the messages are not filtered by the Press. They do go directly to the people. The bad thing about this is that the messages are not filtered by the Press.

In filtering, the press often gives your news a political slant. We see this constantly. However, in filtering, the Press often challenges. “Whoa! This doesn’t sound right,” the Press may say. “This is not accurate. This deserves further questions. This is just not true. This is obviously propaganda – an attempt at mind control.”