I came across this term in a new book by Dr.Bryant Welch titled THE STATE OF CONFUSION. He derived this expression from an old movie with this title that starred Charles Boyer,the matinee idol of his days and Ingrid Bergman, who is of course well known.
In the movie, Boyer portrays a man who wants to get his hands on the considerable fortune of Bergman who plays Boyer’s wife.He hits upon an ingenious and diabolical scheme to destabilze his wife mentally by using the ubiquitous gas lights of those days.He would intentionally turn down the brightness of those lights on some nights and when his wife complains about the dimness of the lights, he would claim they were perfectly OK and feign concern for her health.On other days, he would turn up the brightness far beyond what is needed and when she complains about the brightness, he would claim they are perfectly all right and only her poor health makes her say those ridiculous things.He also recruits his friends into this diabloical enterprise and they chime together in a chorus about how unhealthy she looks and how mentally tired she must be.
Dr.Welch who is a practising psychologist draws a parallel between the plight of that poor woman and America in the past eight years under Bush.He says that with Bush,Cheney and Rumsfeld in power we have all been subjected to a massive gaslighting by the unscrupulous power mongers.They have,in effect, implemented a massive nationwide gaslighting operation that makes us doubt our contact with reality with each and every event that has transpired.A short catalog of those events would suffice here.
During the run up to the election of 2000, a man of Al Gore’s erudition and accomplishments was pitted against a mental midget like Bush and the chorus of newspaper columnists and TV talking heads made Bush appear larger than life while diminishing Gore intentionally.Thus, Maureen Dowd pronounced him a bore wearing earth tones against a virile Bush that sent her into paroxysmal orgasms round the clock.While we were certain that Al Gore was the legally elected President, Scalia thought otherwise and the chorus of Republican thugs declared Bush the winner.We know fully well how many subsequent events have been assaults on our sense of reality orchestrated by Rumsfeld.
Because we are bombarded with lies all the time from all directions, we are not even aware that we are being gaslighted.Occassionally a truth teller like Dr.Steven Jones comes to our rescue and uses science to show that the WTC Towers were demolished on purpose using thermates putting the whole edifice of lies about hijacked planes at risk.Now, we also have Dr.Ivins’s story coming apart under scrutiny by the blogosphere.These are important steps in restoring our sanity.
When fully restored to health this country will come to know why it is that the Republican machine is bankrupt.It has no raison d’etre other than to seek and retain power at all costs and assault us in ways that we have not come to fully recognize yet.
Go read THE STATE OF CONFUSION. The mind you save may be your own.
