Tag: propaganda

A Tool of Control: How Health Officials Weaponize Language to Manage Public Perception of COVID Vaccines

Psychological and linguistic manipulation are, for those in power, proven tools for building, consolidating and maintaining dominance — a reality keenly depicted in George Orwell’s never-more-relevant novel, “1984.”

As phrased by master propagandist Edward Bernays, an approximate contemporary of Orwell’s, the mind of the people “is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion.”

Recent events surrounding COVID vaccines have shown that medicine and public health — with the help of a complicit media — are particularly skilled at “pull[ing] the wires which control the public mind.”

The clever bag of linguistic tricks deployed by the medical cartel includes seeding evocative terms such as “vaccine hesitancy” and “lockdowns” (which is prison terminology) into popular and scientific discourse, forging slippery new definitions of words with formerly fixed meanings (such as “pandemic,” “herd immunity” and “vaccine”), and circling failed products back around by giving them the positive spin of “boosters.”

Ominously, medicine’s and public health’s verbal assaults encourage shaming of, or violence against, those who ask questions, while upholding the disingenuous pretense that vaccine mandates are compatible with freedom.

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The Propaganda Multiplier

It is one of the most important aspects of our media system, and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.

The key role played by these agencies means Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.

A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles were based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews were in favor of a US and NATO intervention, while propaganda was attributed exclusively to the opposite side.

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Researchers spot deep fake profile photos linked to pro-China Twitter accounts

Researchers in the United Kingdom have discovered a coordinated network of “deep-fake” social media accounts pushing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s views in the guise of ordinary account-holders.

The Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) said it had discovered a network of social media accounts that “distort international perceptions on significant issues, elevate China’s reputation amongst its supporters, and discredit claims critical of the Chinese government.”

In a report published on its website, the CIR said pro-China accounts were part of a “coordinated influence operation” on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube that uses a mixture of artificial and repurposed accounts to post CCP propaganda.

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Why Do So Many Believe the Official COVID Narratives?

To understand how the intersecting propaganda operations associated with the “official” MSM covid narratives function, it is useful to examine both the larger historical context from which they emerge, as well as exploring specific individual psychological factors at play.  

Let’s begin by acknowledging the larger socio/cultural “context” that acts as the “backdrop” for the covid propaganda.   We exist globally within a framework of Neo-colonial Western oligarchic dominance that has essentially controlled most of the planet for over 500 years. It is a system that has morphed in important features over time, but it has never lost its ultimate power and control.  It has never been “overthrown.”

This Western dominated global system is responsible for fomenting two World Wars during the last century.  Those wars and the smaller in scale Neo-colonial blood baths that followed led to the deaths of an estimated 124,000,000 and 215,000,000 people during the past century.(1)

The oligarchic power structures that emerged from WWII engaged in a process of violent repression that continues to this day. Standard operating procedure in the West has been to destabilize and/or destroy literally every attempt by the citizens of “formerly colonized” nations to develop independent paths focused on the domestic needs of their populations rather than serving the needs of Western capital.

Both pre-and-post WWII history is comprised of an endless litany of American, British, French and other Western powers attempting to at all costs prevent the emergence of a more equitable post-colonial world.  The types of interventions have ranged from economic strangulation to death squads, torture, invasions, coups, election rigging and unwavering support for “reliable” “pro-Western” dictators.

This same unreformed, unrepentant, Western controlled, oligarchic-run global “system” further solidified power with the disintegration of the former Soviet Union.  It has, to varying degrees, integrated former “communist” enemies into the neoliberal economic order though often maintaining an apparently adversarial relationship with such nations. The Western dominated neoliberal neocolonial model continues to hold the entire world hostage to this day, covering its blood soaked behavior with blatant “propaganda” operations that utilize rubrics such as the West’s claimed “respect for human rights,” adherence to a “rules based order,” and “duty to protect.”

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New NPR Ethics Policy: It’s OK For Journalists To Demonstrate (Sometimes)

NPR rolled out a substantial update to its ethics policy earlier this month, expressly stating that journalists may participate in activities that advocate for “the freedom and dignity of human beings” on both social media and in real life.

The new policy eliminates the blanket prohibition from participating in “marches, rallies and public events,” as well as vague language that directed NPR journalists to avoid personally advocating for “controversial” or “polarizing” issues.

NPR’s current ethics policy was first drafted in the early 2000s, and then given an overhaul in 2010-2011.

The new NPR policy reads, “NPR editorial staff may express support for democratic, civic values that are core to NPR’s work, such as, but not limited to: the freedom and dignity of human beings, the rights of a free and independent press, the right to thrive in society without facing discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, disability, or religion.”

Is it OK to march in a demonstration and say, ‘Black lives matter’? What about a Pride parade? In theory, the answer today is, “Yes.” But in practice, NPR journalists will have to discuss specific decisions with their bosses, who in turn will have to ask a lot of questions.

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