Just how “Brainwashed” are we?

I honestly think that we will never know, because we are even being brainwashed into thinking that we are not.  Our lives are full of instances where “what we see is not what we get.”  Marketing has always been credited with being able to “sell ice to an Eskimo” and the “snake oil salesman” and of course “a sucker is born every minute.”  Much of what we long for in life and work very hard to achieve may well be no more than “smoke and mirrors.”  So how do we really act in our best interest?  It seems that “opting out” of the mainstream is a good starting point and also asking yourself some probing questions as to why you make the decisions that you do.  There is so much that we do that is based on little or inaccurate information, but once wrapped up in a pretty convincing package, we seldom ever question it.  I know for sure that the modern day value system has very little value for real value, and it is all premised on us providing what the controlling forces need.  What they have successfully convinced us, is that we need what is really in their best interest and not ours.  So begin to examine and question, and seek multiple sources of information.  It is such a paradox that in this information society,  we still are so misinformed.