Obfuscation (awb-fyooz-CAY-shun), noun to obfuscate or pull wool over one s eyes, to confuse utterly, to baffle with bull compost.

A great obfuscation has been engineered in this country, starting with the secret societies of the 1800 s, all in the name of creating importance (mostly self-importance) and exclusivity. It has led to many spin-off careers of mystique and intrigue in the fields of data and number manipulations.

Economics: as I have written before, many people make good livings off the manipulation of numbers in an effort to paint the picture rosier than it really is especially when dealing with the question of How are we doing as a nation? These men and women create and keep track of myriads of numbers on myriads of activities in an effort to establish an acceptable answer to that question.

Law: again, many people make great livings off the manipulation of human behavior and punishment for certain ones deemed bad by judicial society.

What s worse, there are different individual codes of conduct for each territory and county in each state. What s even worse than that is the fact that these laws aren t written or voted on by the people to whom they ll apply they re written by a small minority hierarchy who seldom take into account the needs of the many.

Mathematics: many people are eking out livings in this field as professors and teachers, but the real money comes from mathematics as it is applied to other fields, such as astronomy and space, science, computer science, and engineering.

A very exclusive group of professionals manipulate numbers to try to answer questions that cannot be expressed in words (or so they want us to believe). High-level mathematics has become a second language to these professionals, and it really doesn t mean a thing to anyone outside that world of hypotheses and theories (how would we know if they re wrong?).

The needs of the many don t often go beyond basic algebra or geometry, yet we are expected to learn number manipulation that far exceeds our need.

Science: yes, even this seemingly-important field dares to cloak itself in mystery as it uses bizarre mathematical equations to explain forces beyond our comprehension, let alone our physical possession (think black holes). There aren t many who can challenge the equations, yet there are plenty who can collaborate and improve their findings.

Who knows if they re right or wrong? It s all hypothesis and theory anyway very darned little has actually been proven.

Advertising: great sums of money flow to successful architects of ad campaigns that lure the unsuspecting into traps of product deceit.

Through the use of psychology and science, these professionals have managed to reduce us to mere flies in the spider s web, and the lures get ever more intricate fine print, special rules and contest entry requirements, even gleaning addresses and phone numbers from other sources in hopes of pestering a new client out of the woodwork. The use of color, sound, product placement, gender, and familiarity have broken down more barriers to the human mind and buying decisions than a backhoe ever could as if we needed MORE goading to spend, but that s their job, and that s ALL it is!

Finance: not only do many people make great livings in this field, but they ve managed to erect a shrine to it called Wall Street the Las Vegas of finance.

Closely tied to mathematics and economics, it is the manipulation of money and money-making products to make certain people wealthy or wealthier than they were before. This field has more jargon than the military, and more concepts to befuddle us than the previous mentioned fields. On the face, it appears to be a wholly useless industry: corporate-sponsored gambling at it s finest.

Behind the curtain, it s a lot of back-stabbing and back-patting as gobs of money exchange gold-lined coffers.

Nutrition: the worst offender of all, because it is the easiest to manipulate. Researchers with their noses to the microscope for years say one thing, and other so-called nutrition representatives (AMA, AHA, NIH, etc.

) say something else. The end result is a gloriously manufactured chaos and confusion on a gargantuan scale just the thing to engineer a populace into believing anything they say, and believe it we do. As this is a food science, very little has actually been proven, but lots has been said and asserted (much of it incorrect).

In this field, we the people have been led WAY off the beaten path into slow self-destruction, through manipulation of nutrient content information and health benefit claims (most of it government-sponsored). Here is where statistical theory plays well the numbers say anything people want them to say and very little has been actually proven valuable. Just today, I found out the truth about fats and sodium level requirements, and I ll just say that all those health professionals don t have our best interests at heart when it comes to disseminating (or withholding) this kind of information.

In all of these fields, alchemic phrases are written, and Latin chants are spoken as the few who comprehend (and need to comprehend) mouth along in silence. Exclusivity is once again preserved as the consuming masses are lulled into a mindless sleep over things they choose not to understand, or are believed incapable of it.

Without the hoards of susceptible people out there, these professionals wouldn t even have a place in our society.

Like the bumper stickers say, He said it, I believe it, and that settles it, only the He is replaced by an obfuscator in disguise. Without knowledge and the ability to see through the layers of BS, society will go on getting wool in their eyes while these professionals go on creating more layers and more levels of self-importance and exclusivity.

There really IS an us and them, but it s not who you think.

The wealthy got wealthy by mastering one of the exclusively limited fields of knowledge, and making it work for them (over and over again). They saw through the layers of BS and foreign chants, and learned the success concepts of those fields, while we ordinary folk have not gotten so lucky or chosen to apply ourselves to it. They have managed to keep it simple, while we have managed to keep it away from us.

The them are the ones who perpetuate this great theatre in an effort to separate themselves from their fellow man by magnitudinal orders of knowledge and information the NEW segregation. Those without access to even a shred of the necessary information will suffer the fate of waters constantly muddied before them. You can t swim with the sharks if you can t see where you re going.

Advantage has been taken, and we need to take it back. We need to start caring about the things we don t now, or don t see a need to know. This has been going on a long time, and will continue to do so until we decide to catch up and become seat holders in the great card game of (pick your field).

From the days of the secret societies, where the so-called wise ones met, discussed, and formulated in back rooms away from the masses, to the present, where the societies still meet in the open, but use a different language to discuss and formulate, wool has been (and is still) getting pulled over our glazed eyes.

The vital few will outperform the trivial many time and time again, and our country is being engineered to expose those vital few more and more each day witness the labor picture, the technology picture, and the creativity/inventiveness picture in today s world.

Cubicle farm slaves willingly report to their masters each scheduled workday, and willingly report to the nearest mall or other shopping outlet on their time off.

Because of the crushing debt of children and loans, they cannot afford to lift their noses from the grindstone for even one minute, and it s too bad a brief look up might yield the light bulb moment of realization that this society has played a cruel joke on them, and might even spark the fire to do something about it.

Let s start a new American dream one that starts with eliminating traditional wants and desires (the house and kids), and replaces them with: information, knowledge, and the will to keep up with the sharks in certain tanks. They alone hold the keys to success and simplistic truth in the fields they have mastered, and this is the only way to remove the wool from your eyes once and for all.

The truth is out there, but questions remain: do you really want to know it, and are you prepared to do something with or about it? Start by asking Google a few things.