During my time at the University of Toronto, attending media classes with Marshall McLuhan, I would on occasion hear Dr. McLuhan refer to Time magazine as “Big Brother.” He would explore the subject further by saying that George Orwell’s book, 1984 was obsolete the day it was published and that Orwell was writing about the world of 1932 not 1984. and in fact, the American press empire (Time-Life-Fortune group) combined with the forces of Hollywood and some of the English press lords has far more control over and our lives than Orwell’s Big Brother was and is Time magazine.

It seems that Big Brother has yet to be deposed even this far into post-printed electric age (1984). Big Brother is watching (you!) again by way of the August 6 edition of Time.

The loud theme of this issue is announced by the cover headline “the Population Curse.”

Not a Time subscriber crowd

This headline is superimposed on a crushing image of a crowd of non-white (non-Time subscriber) faces, behind this a four-lane highway traffic jam, and, beyond that uninviting shadows of modern city flanked by the supposedly even more uninviting image of an urban (Mexican) slum. In between are pictured oil derricks and factory smokestacks emitting a heavy brown air pollution that fills the whole picture – nearly blotting out a huge, hot setting sun which is radiating a mirage of ancient Mayan temples of a cursed and pagan (read Godless and Timeless) people. There are no church steeples in this Time cover rendering by J. Chung.

Big Brother’s message is clear: population growth is pollution. Planned Parenthood and The Club of Rome no longer talk of “the population explosion” because it cannot be proved, they now tie population with pollution, poverty and disease to promote huge world wide “family planning services.” The cover stories in the August 6 issue of Time would seem to be a pamphlet made just for them.

Psycho – manipulation by association

This method of psychological manipulation is not new. The unspoken slogan of Planned Parenthood has long been “not through the uterus but through the mind.” In other words, if we can be convinced that population growth is damnable by associating it with pollution, poverty and other negative social and cultural realities we may be convinced consumers of the expedient reasons for birth control promoted by Planned Parenthood and similar organizations.

The lead article in this issue of Time is titled “Cover Stories: People, People, People.” The initial subhead is, “Despite some progress, global population is still growing at an alarming rate.”

The first “expert” to be quoted is Sci-fi writer Issac Asimov who says that population growth will create a “World without hope,” that will be “Worse than a jungle.” And why will this be so? He says because of modern weaponry. How this sci-fi writer arrives at this conclusion is left to the imagination of the reader, but it does tie the idea f population growth to the “fear of the bomb.”

The next “expert” Allen Rosenfield, director of Columbus University’s Centre for Population and Family Health is quoted as stating how “The third world” Can handle growth in cities when first world types cannot handle their cities is “beyond his comprehension.”

Much beyond Mr. Rosenfields comprehension

There is no follow-up list of the other things that are beyond Mr. Rosenfields comprehension such as the fact that by using his quote Time has now tied population growth to “violence in the streets” without even mentioning it.

The next “expert,” World Bank President Robert McNamara, is quoted as saying that it is a mistake to relax efforts to curb population growth even though there has been a “much heralded drop” in the world’s population growth rate during the 70s.

By this message, however, coming from the World Bank president, one is led to believe population growth is bad for business and even worse – a few paragraphs later – population growth is considered a threat to democracy by this same “expert.”

“..McNamara warns that rapid population growth may also lead to greater and more coercive state intrusions into private life, ranging from forced sterilization to restrictions on freedom of movement.”

There is no discussion of Robert Sassone, and his book Handbook on Population.

Population is like garbage, rats and cars…

The articles go onto align population growth with garbage (14,000 tones per day in Mexico City alone), rats, cars and diesel busses, factories, foul air and chemical poisons to mention only a few.

The city of Cairo is said to be so overpopulated that people live in cemeteries. Did you know there is “standing room only” in Shanghai or that the poor in Calcutta live and die on the streets?

The very fact that Time offers no solution or insight into the supposed problem of population growth is only proof, one might assume, that according to “Big Brother,” we are not ready to know that yet. However, these are ready to know (if ever) we should be ready to accept absolutely, any imposed solution.