Tag: propaganda

We Reap the Harvest of Lies

Public life has become disorienting. Most people, by and large, previously expected to hear the truth, or some semblance of it, in daily life. We would generally expect this from each other, but also from public media and authorities such as governments or international agencies set up ostensibly for our benefit. Society cannot function in a coherent and stable way without it, as so much in our lives requires us to place trust in others.

To navigate the complexity of existence, we generally look for guidance to certain trusted sources, freeing up time to sift through the more questionable ones. Some claim they always knew everything was fake, but they are wrong, as it wasn’t (and still isn’t). There were always liars, campaigns to mislead, and propaganda to drive us to love or to hate, but there was a core within society that had certain accepted norms and standards that should theoretically be followed. A sort of anchor. Truth is indestructible but the anchor cable connecting us to it, ensuring its influence, has been cut. Society is being set adrift.

This really broke in the past four or five years. We were already in trouble, but now public discourse is broken. Perhaps it broke when governments elected to represent the people openly employed behavioral psychology to lie to their constituencies on a scale we had not previously seen. They combined to make their peoples do things they rationally would not; accept bans of family funerals, cover faces in public, or accept police brutality and the isolation and abandonment of the elderly. The media, health professionals, politicians, and celebrities all participated in this lie and its intent. Virtually all our major institutions. And these lies are continuing, and expanding, and have become the norm.

We are now reaping the harvest of untruth. The media can openly deny what they said or printed just months earlier about a new candidate for presidency or the efficacy of a mandated vaccine. A whole political party can change its narrative almost overnight about the fundamental characteristics of its leader. People paid as “fact-checkers” twist reality to invent new facts and hide the truth, unflustered by the transparency of their deceit. Giant software companies curate information, filtering out truths that run contrary to the pronouncements of conflicted international organizations. Power has displaced integrity.

Internationally, we are pummeled by agencies such as the UN, World Bank, G20, and World Health Organization to give up our basic rights and hand their new masters our wealth on claims of threats that can unequivocally be shown to be false. Paid-off former leaders, grasping legitimacy through the legacy of greater minds, reinforce mass falsehoods for the benefit of their friends. Once aberrations that a free media might highlight, fallacies have become norms in which the same media is openly complicit.

The frightening part is not the lies, which are a normal aspect of humanity, but the broad disinterest in truth. Lies can stand for a time in the presence of a people and institutions that value truth, but they will eventually fail as they are exposed. When truth loses its value, when it is no longer even a vague guide for politics or journalism, then recovery may not occur. We are in an incredibly dangerous time, because lies are not just tolerated but are now the default approach, at the national and international level, and the fourth estate that was to shed light on them has embraced the darkness.

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The Deceived vs. the Indoctrinated

The American public has been subjected to massive propaganda efforts by both our government and our media for years. It’s important to understand the impact this has on the current presidential campaign.

That starts with understanding the difference between deception and indoctrination.

Those who have been merely deceived may be surprised when the deception is exposed. They may even be angry. But they will change their positions when confronted with facts that contradict them.

The indoctrinated will not.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “indoctrinated” as “accepting a set of beliefs without question, refusing to consider any others.” For the indoctrinated, those beliefs become part of their identity; they will not let go of them, even when faced with contrary evidence or explicit falsehoods.

Millions of Americans have been propagandized to believe that former President Donald Trump is “literally Hitler” and “a threat to our democracy”; that he will “destroy this country” or “start World War III.” You can provide all the proof to the contrary you want; it will not change their minds.

I’ve had conversations with friends and loved ones who profess to be terrified about the possible perils of another Trump presidency. In those, I point out just some of the actual conduct of the Biden administration:

— Imprisoning Americans and depriving them of their constitutional rights to due process

— Collaborating with Big Tech companies to censor truthful information about the 2020 elections, the origins of COVID-19, the United States’ role in funding gain-of-function research at the international virology laboratory in Wuhan, China, the efficacy of drugs like ivermectin in treating COVID-19, and the illness and deaths caused by the mRNA vaccines that were forced upon Americans

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That’s militainment! Big Hollywood succumbs to the Pentagon Borg

“The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized,” explained Elmer Davis, a renowned CBS broadcaster, who had just been named director of the Office of War Information (OWI), a Pentagon program created on June 13, 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor.

Later in 1953, as the Cold War was in full swing, President Dwight D. Eisenhower commented on the burgeoning partnership between Hollywood and the Pentagon by stating that, “the hand of government must be carefully concealed and […] wholly eliminated,” adding that the engagement should “be done through arrangements with all sorts of privately operated enterprises in the field of entertainment, dramatics, music and so on.”

Thus, the president who coined the term “military industrial complex,” was, in fact, one of the first major proponents of what would later be called the military entertainment complex or the militainment industry.

Today, this militainment industry is thriving. From Top Gun to the Marvel franchise and even shows like Extreme Makeover, the Pentagon has been able to shape the narratives of more than 2,500 movies and TV shows. No one knows this better than Roger Stahl, the University of Georgia’s Communications Studies Department Head, and author of Militainment Inc. With University of Bath lecturer and Workers Party Candidate Matthew Alford, investigative journalist Tom Secker, and others, Stahl created “Theaters of War,” a concise 87-minute documentary in which he methodically dissects our modern militainment industry, showing the behemoth it has become.

Responsible Statecraft talked to Stahl, Alford, and Secker about the ways our TV screens are weaponized through the Military Entertainment Complex’s oversight over and control of Hollywood scripts and production agreements.

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Does Weed Cause Strokes and Heart Attacks?

Thirty years ago, the sociologist Craig Reinarman observed that there’s something “woven into the very fabric of American culture” that makes us susceptible to believing that a “chemical boogeyman” is to blame for “society’s ills.” He added that every moral panic about drugs since the 19th century has been fueled by “media magnification” in which the danger of a particular substance is dramatized and distorted.

Now that recreational marijuana is legal in about half of U.S. states, and more Americans are consuming weed than ever before, the chemical bogeyman is back, and he’s armed with a new paper in the Journal of the American Heart Association by researchers from Harvard and the University of California, San Francisco.

This study, which was amplified in The New York Times and The Washington Post, commits so many egregious statistical errors that it’s a poster child for junk science. The paper would be comical if it didn’t offer bad medical advice. The researchers did almost everything wrong.

Which is not to say that the authors committed fraud or misconduct. In fact, they did exactly what Ph.D. students are taught to do, what journal editors look for, what referees approve, what universities reward, and what granting agencies fund. Because the paper uses conventional methods to arrive at false conclusions, it speaks to the profound crisis in academic research.

We’ve forgotten that the point of scientific studies isn’t seeking the approval of institutions. It’s the pursuit of truth.

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EXPOSED: Israeli Documents Reveal Concerted Effort By Government to Put Out Zionist Propaganda in the US Media

Amichai Chikli, a member of the Likud Party and a minister in the Israeli government, has been leading a campaign to spread pro-Israeli propaganda in the United State corporate media. 

According to a report by The Guardian, Chikli was brought before the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to inform elected officials on what could be done about the growing set of anti-war protests from young people all over universities across the US.  

Chikli and his team relaunched the “Concert”, a controversial program initially branded as Kela Shlomo in Hebrew. The program has the ostensive aim of carrying out what the Israeli regime has deemed as ““mass consciousness activities” primarily targeted largely at the US and Europe.” This specific iteration is part of a broader public relations drive to target US institutions of higher learning and change the definition of antisemitism according to US law. 

Concert is currently known as Voices of Israel. Previously, it teamed up with groups leading a campaign to enact so-called “anti-BDS” state laws that sanction Americans for participating in boycotts or other non-violent demonstrations against Israel.

The latest iteration of the program is a concerted effort, often run covertly, by the Jewish state to push back against university protests, human rights organizations and other dissenting voices. 

Voices’ most recent activities were carried out through non-profit organizations and other bodies that often do not reveal their donor information. From October up until May, Chikli has presided over at least $8.6m for a budget that’s allocated towards government advocacy to change the public debate.

One American pro-Zionist group that has been working with Chikli’s ministry, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, or ISGAP, was able to achieve a major victory in recent times. The ISCAP allegedly received the bulk of its funding in 2018 from the Israeli agency that was in charge of operating Concert. At an April 7 event at the Palm Beach Country Club, ISGAP boasted about a congressional public relations victory that it achieved. 

In this instance, they were referring to hearings led by Republicans such as New York Congressman Elise Stefanik designed to grill prominent university presidents such as then-Harvard President Claudine Gay and her counterparts in other elite universities. 

Gay ended up resigning earlier this year for engaging in alleged acts of plagiarism. 

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The climate fear-mongering enterprise behind the Planetary Boundaries to stabilise population growth

There is nothing new about fear-mongering propaganda being disseminated by politicians and corporate media, but they are now joined by “scientists.”

A fair amount of catastrophic climate change propaganda has made its way into the scientific method and perhaps in no venue more clearly than the Planetary Boundaries framework, Dr. Jessica Weinkle writes and explains where it comes from and what is driving the narrative.

Last month we published an article that brought attention to the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (“FAO’s”) roadmap to achieve its “global commitment to transform agrifood systems.”  The FAO is an agency of the United Nations.

To publicise this scheme, in January, FAO chief economist Maximo Torero Cullen said a roadmap is necessary because “we are violating six of the nine planetary boundaries.”

In September, 20 scientists funded by the European Research Council, the German government, the Carlsberg Foundation and the Volkswagen Foundation published a paper “establishing” 9 planetary boundaries. They determined that 6 of their 9 boundaries had been “crossed.”

As we read Dr. Weinkle’s article below about what is behind the Planetary Boundaries narrative, we should bear in mind that she also writes for The Breakthrough Institute, whose funders include some of the usual suspects driving the false climate change crisis narrative, such as Profiteer Bill Gates (see ‘About the Author’). Why is this relevant? For one thing, while people may feel free to expose nefarious actors, there is the possibility that this freedom might be limited to those who do not fund them.

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Israeli government spends $2 million on covert social media influence operation targeting U.S. lawmakers, American populace

The Israeli government has been implicated in a $2 million influence campaign targeting American lawmakers and the broader populace of the United States.

This operation employs fabricated social media profiles and deceptive websites featuring tailored pro-Israel content designed to resonate with various political beliefs.

Stoic, an Israeli political marketing agency, was contracted by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism following Hamas’ attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The firm was provided an estimated budget of $2 million and given the task of increasing U.S. support for Israeli military actions in Gaza.

The ongoing operation utilizes hundreds of bogus accounts across platforms like X, Facebook and Instagram, masquerading as American individuals and disseminating pro-Israel propaganda.

The Israeli disinformation watchdog, the FakeReporter, initially exposed this campaign in March. However, a report released by the organization on June 5 unveils the operation’s broader scope, extending beyond social media manipulation.

The report reveals an intricate web of fabricated social media profiles and fake websites promoting pro-Israeli, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian narratives. Each website caters to distinct political ideologies.

According to the report, one of these websites presents itself as anarchist and anti-establishment, targeting young progressives who align with the principles of leftism and anarchism. The website uses anarchist arguments to oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank in accordance with the two-state peace solution to the conflict. The website advocates for the rejection of all current state structures and the creation of new states.

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WHO director-general wants to intensify SMEAR CAMPAIGN against anti-vaccine movements

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for a more aggressive approach to counteract anti-vaccine movements.

Tedros made this remark during a WHO celebration honoring so-called achievements in the 50 years since the organization launched the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI). During the celebration in Geneva, Switzerland, Tedros declared that “vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history.”

“Thanks to vaccines, the smallpox has been eradicated, polio is on the brink and many one-sphere diseases can now be easily prevented, including measles, cervical cancer, yellow fever, pneumonia and diarrhea. With the recent development of vaccines against diseases like malaria, millions more lives can be saved,” said Tedros.

“In 1974 fewer than five percent of infants globally were vaccinated. Millions died of diseases such as measles, polio and diphtheria. That was the year WHO launched the expanded program on immunization, or EPI as we all know. Today, about 84 percent of the world’s children have received three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, and diseases which were once a death sentence: smallpox,” he continued.

“EPI supported countries to establish standardized vaccination programs [on] smallpox and six other diseases, diphtheria, measles, pertussis, polio, tetanus and tuberculosis. These programs do far more than ever imagined,” said Tedros. “Fifty years ago, the EPI program helped millions of children, adolescents and adults access vaccines against 30 diseases, [now,] a new study led by WHO estimates that the EPI has saved at least 154 million lives since 1974 an average of more than 8000 lives a day for the past 50 years. Thanks to immunization, a child born today is 40 percent more likely to see their first birthday than a child born 50 years ago.”

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Writers for SNL and Other Shows Now Working With a Pro-Biden PAC to Create Propaganda Aimed at Young Voters

Saturday Night Live used to be a comedy show for the whole country but like everything else in entertainment, has been taken over by the far left.

In recent years, the show has avoided making fun of Joe Biden because they’re terrified of doing anything that could be perceived as helping Trump.

They have acted like an arm of the Democrat party, but now they’re really becoming just that. Writers from the show, and other programs are working with a pro-Biden PAC to help create messaging (propaganda) aimed at young voters.

The Wrap reports:

‘SNL’ and ‘Parks and Recreation’ Writers Pitch Ads to Help Biden Reach Gen Z, Young Millennials

Hollywood creatives, including writers from “Saturday Night Live” and “Parks and Recreation,” have been meeting monthly for at least half a year to pitch ideas to Won’t PAC Down, a new super PAC that’s attempting to improve President Joe Biden’s relationship with young voters, Politico reported Sunday. The super PAC has brought on “millennial and Gen Z writers, directors and producers to help craft pro-Biden content that’s specifically engineered to sell an octogenarian candidate to typically disillusioned and hard-to-reach voters under 30.”

The first ads, all written for and by millennials and Gen Z, are expected to hit social media and the news media in July. Travis Helwig, a former head writer for Crooked Media, heads the writer room and emphasized to Politico that the organization does not intend to over-use celebrity endorsements as part of its strategy.

“There’s a big difference between putting a celebrity on camera and having them say, ‘if you liked me in ‘Madame Web,’ then you’re going to love voting,’ versus what we’re doing,” he explained. “We’re taking the best young writers and directors, who are the age and demographics of the people we’re targeting, using poll-tested messaging, and shaping it in a way that will resonate with young people and get them excited.”

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Look Who’s Spreading Disinformation On Ukraine

‘Black kettle’ Tony Blinken’ accused Russia of spreading propaganda to mislead the Americans and Europeans, while hiding US decision to escalate the confrontation in Ukraine

Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a set of whirlwind meetings in several European NATO countries, warned against Russian propaganda programs he accused of spreading “misinformation and disinformation” about US intentions to escalate the conflict by allowing Ukraine’s military to use longer-range US missiles to strike targets as much as 200 miles inside of Russia — something that the Biden administration had since the start of that war had not allowed, correctly fearing that it could lead to a larger and possibly nuclear war.

Blinken’s lie, though, was that at the time he was accusing Russia of dishonesty, he himself knew that the decision had already been made by President Biden to do exactly that: authorize Ukraine to strike Soviet air bases, missile launch sites, troop concentrations and staging areas well inside the Russia’s borders using missiles supplied by the US.

This inconvenient truth was exposed by Politico, which ran a story on May 30th disclosing the secret Biden decision, which followed intense lobbying of the president by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Sec. Blinken himself, as well as by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and various Ukrainian military leaders.

From the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over two years ago, Biden had made it clear that no US troops would be sent to fight for Ukraine, and no US weapons would be used against Russian territory. Nothing would be done that could risk turning the conflict into a head-to-head battle between US and Russian forces, because it was felt (correctly!) that such a situation could quickly lead to the use of nuclear weapons.

What changed to make Biden suddenly stop worrying about taking the first steps up what Pentagon strategists have, since the early days of the nuclear era in the late 1940s and early ‘50s, referred to as the “nuclear ladder” of tit-for-tat nuclear escalation?

Clearly it was the fact that Ukraine has begun losing the war. It’s out of ammunition, out of anti-aircraft missiles, short of troops, is facing a mass flight of draft-age men from the country’s recently expanded conscription efforts, and it is loosing ground around Kharkiv , Ukraine’s second-largest city of 1.5. million located near the Russian border in eastern Ukraine.

Additionally, it has become evident that the supposedly marvelous US weapons (as well as some widely banned ones like anti-personnel shells, rockets and bombs, and depleted uranium shells) have not turned the tide against Russian forces as optimistically predicted.

The reality is that this idea of attacking Russian targets — for the moment only in Russian territory relatively close to Kharkiv, but perhaps later much more deeply inside Russia — is nothing short of terrifying.

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