Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): One of my favorite follows on Twitter right now is a smallish account run by an anti-imperialist activist who goes by “Left I on the News”, because he has a real knack for going through articles in the mainstream press and highlighting the mundane little manipulations we’re fed each day to shape our worldview in alignment with the US empire.
Some of the ways I deal with the propaganda mill: multi-source news and opinion, cross reference information, ask is the item creditable, establish trusted sources, know some history as it is still the greatest whistleblower. Above all be skeptical.
The little time I spend on the MSM these days is to see what lies they are telling.
One of the most effective forms of linguistic manipulation is called presuppositions. Things that are not stated directly but have to be true in order for you to understand the sentence. A classic, blatantly obvious example is "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Less obvious ones abound, like "The Assad regime has again delivered a chemical attack." (Some of the more juicy presuppositions: 1. The Syrian government is a one-man regime. 2. It has committed previous chemical attacks.) Or even: "The defense industry has started manufacturing blah-blah-blah." There is no such thing as a "defense industry". There are only specific companies making war machines.
It's really eye opening to look for the presuppositions in media and other forms of propaganda. Have fun.
People say I'm "cynical" or "skeptical" or acting "judgmental" because I question everything I'm told or read (no matter the source) and test it for the truth. I say I'm being a "realist" when I do this, but maybe it's more likely that I've acquired a very good "bull-shit detector" (propaganda detector). I don't care for people trying to manipulate my feelings either toward or against others. After reading that headline, the first thing that popped into my head was, "How dare they try to make light of what actually happened there and blame the victims!" Reading Caitlin Johnstone may very well be the anti-propaganda medicine we all need.
Propaganda is based in duplicity, and duplicity is the de' facto standard by which most people conduct their lives.
We see it in the Media, in Congress, from all of our elected and appointed officials, in Business, in our Healthcare, in our schools and in our homes. Most of us act in duplicitious ways each and every day.
If we want to stop seeing it, we need to stop being it. Be genuine and integral in our own little corner of the world, and practice it everywhere.
“I think we are living in a world of lies: lies that don't even know they are lies, because they are the children and grandchildren of lies. One of the hardest things to accept is that the reality of our world is buried under so many layers of official deception and well-cultivated public ignorance about our history and our political system. Even if you break through somehow, momentarily, and hold up a fragment of the truth, most people have no context for dealing with it. It's like a bolt from the blue, they can't process the information. And so the sea of lies closes over us again, and again, and again.
But I don't know what else we can do, except to keep on telling as much of the truth as we can find, to anyone who will listen: reclaiming reality, fragment by fragment, one person at a time. It's an endless task- maybe a hopeless task - but the alternative is a surrender to the worst elements in our society - and in ourselves."
Hollywood has become less subtle lately. The new "Jack Ryan" on Prime is an example. No matter how rogue or vile the CIA may act in any criminal scenario, everyone involved believed they were working for the greater good of America (and the free world) while the leadership of the CIA remains fully committed to rooting out the "one off" bad actors to ultimately save us from the global narco terrorists always waiting to attack an innocent USA. Did I get that right? Bottom line is we can trust our leaders as they always, always do what is best and win the day. Of course it's all Bullshit as the CIA and all other three letter federal agencies are far beyond redemption at this point but they sure have the Hollywood producers fully aligned with the narrative.
Thank you Caitlin🙏Lately I have often wondered if the whole ”success story of modern culture” is not one of those. The story that no matter how bad all seems now, it is still better than when people lived in earlier times. I’m not advocating some rosy image of past that was somehow virginally good either. I’m nowadays much more thinking that there is not any progress but more that each age is in a sense a ”whole” and it is not so much good things and bad things but things that are difficult and take effort and things that are easy and we can enjoy. And with each age we distribute these differently.
I think propaganda and its instruments should be taught to 3rd graders across the country. American culture is a propaganda minefield . Only in America is television a totally private enterprise. (For an excellent treatise on the subject by Jerry Mander: Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television).
Then there is the smartphone. This is not strictly American, but, again children should be taught the ramifications of their mobile phone. It is a tracking device that is worth way more to marketers than consumers pay for them. And when the cultural dependency on the smartphone is viewed in the context of the consumer culture, there’s a lot to unpack.
If we want our children to learn to think, we need to impress upon them from an early age that the consumer society is predicated on selling, and selling is often a euphemism for lying.
In 1985, an American academic (Neil Postman) wrote Amusing Ourselves To Death. This and the Mander book are operating instructions for living in the consumer culture.
Social Security is retirement money that workers are required to underwrite, and Medicare is single payer healthcare that workers are required to underwrite. They are retirement programs funded by their recipients, and so could be labeled “retirement programs,” and never be threatened to be cut or terminated, but the status of these programs are never free from politicization. The very label “entitlement” is pejorative and implies that it is subject to be cut for budgetary constraints.
No public service is safe in “the land of the free.”
The subtle propaganda works, but so does the blatant, in your face bullshit. That's because people are predisposed to believe the worst about people/countries against whom they are already prejudiced. Right now, Russia is the "evil empire," and any defamatory BS you can think up will be believed by many - no proof or even evidence is required.
One of the difficulties in detecting propaganda is that you have to have some idea or knowledge of what the actual underlying facts and truth are. But that real knowledge is hard to come by, because most "issues" have been subject to propaganda, so a person's mind - as Caitlin notes - is full of falsehoods, thus making detection of the propaganda difficult if not impossible.
The best propaganda is selective use of facts, weaved together in support of a rational story that is plausible, with omission of other facts that question or contradict the narrative.
Thus there is no "lie" or "falsehood". That's The NY Times way.
Those "subtleties" ARE the propaganda, and it is more blatant now than ever. I stopped trying to "counter" it because it is a Sisyphean task if there ever was one. For every article you deconstruct there are dozens (if not hundreds) more to drown you out, most likely long before you can even finish writing, much less publishing, your piece. You just learn to see through it, and then stop reading (or listening) to it altogether, unless you for some (masochistic?) reason want to be informed of the CIA take on things -- which these days we are surrounded by 24/7 everywhere and in all media except in certain places (like Caitlin's blog), if you know where to look. Since I am a linguist by training, I found it challenging and even interesting at first (years ago!) to unravel the language that conveys the lies, and it is not always easy and it takes time, so you feel afterwards that you have actually done a good piece of work and that it is helpful -- but as I say you lose the energy and motivation to do it when you realize what you're up against. It would take literally an ARMY of people to deconstruct the propaganda, because that is what they have to use against you (us). Lies Of Our Times was a short-lived mag that tried to do this (Times meaning the NYT), but it was and is a virtually impossible task. You are taking on not only the NYT and the Washington Post but every other "news"paper, not only in the US but in Europe and much of the rest of the world as well. My last -- and totally failed -- effort was two "pages" on Facebook called "Backtalk: the NYT" and "Backtalk: Washington Post," but I wrongly bet on the possibility that people would flock to those pages to collectively deconstruct the lies of at least those two "papers of record." It went nowhere, and I am pretty much resigned to the fact that I am not cut out for any sort of "organizing" work. Whatever I do will have to come from me and me alone. I wonder if Caitlin feels differently, with her thousands of readers. I hope so! Whoever said "the Revolution will not be televised" might have been right, but it looks more and more like it will have to be if it ever happens at all.
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies
Tell me lies
Tell me, tell me lies
"... westerners ingest through the news media from day to day." - it's not just media. It starts with kids education in schools.
There was another manipulation in the Times missile story, hiding in plain sight: "attacking a bridge to **occupied** Crimea."
Some of the ways I deal with the propaganda mill: multi-source news and opinion, cross reference information, ask is the item creditable, establish trusted sources, know some history as it is still the greatest whistleblower. Above all be skeptical.
The little time I spend on the MSM these days is to see what lies they are telling.
One of the most effective forms of linguistic manipulation is called presuppositions. Things that are not stated directly but have to be true in order for you to understand the sentence. A classic, blatantly obvious example is "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Less obvious ones abound, like "The Assad regime has again delivered a chemical attack." (Some of the more juicy presuppositions: 1. The Syrian government is a one-man regime. 2. It has committed previous chemical attacks.) Or even: "The defense industry has started manufacturing blah-blah-blah." There is no such thing as a "defense industry". There are only specific companies making war machines.
It's really eye opening to look for the presuppositions in media and other forms of propaganda. Have fun.
People say I'm "cynical" or "skeptical" or acting "judgmental" because I question everything I'm told or read (no matter the source) and test it for the truth. I say I'm being a "realist" when I do this, but maybe it's more likely that I've acquired a very good "bull-shit detector" (propaganda detector). I don't care for people trying to manipulate my feelings either toward or against others. After reading that headline, the first thing that popped into my head was, "How dare they try to make light of what actually happened there and blame the victims!" Reading Caitlin Johnstone may very well be the anti-propaganda medicine we all need.
Propaganda is based in duplicity, and duplicity is the de' facto standard by which most people conduct their lives.
We see it in the Media, in Congress, from all of our elected and appointed officials, in Business, in our Healthcare, in our schools and in our homes. Most of us act in duplicitious ways each and every day.
If we want to stop seeing it, we need to stop being it. Be genuine and integral in our own little corner of the world, and practice it everywhere.
Then we will begin to see our own reflection.
From Chris Floyd, many years ago:
“I think we are living in a world of lies: lies that don't even know they are lies, because they are the children and grandchildren of lies. One of the hardest things to accept is that the reality of our world is buried under so many layers of official deception and well-cultivated public ignorance about our history and our political system. Even if you break through somehow, momentarily, and hold up a fragment of the truth, most people have no context for dealing with it. It's like a bolt from the blue, they can't process the information. And so the sea of lies closes over us again, and again, and again.
But I don't know what else we can do, except to keep on telling as much of the truth as we can find, to anyone who will listen: reclaiming reality, fragment by fragment, one person at a time. It's an endless task- maybe a hopeless task - but the alternative is a surrender to the worst elements in our society - and in ourselves."
Hollywood has become less subtle lately. The new "Jack Ryan" on Prime is an example. No matter how rogue or vile the CIA may act in any criminal scenario, everyone involved believed they were working for the greater good of America (and the free world) while the leadership of the CIA remains fully committed to rooting out the "one off" bad actors to ultimately save us from the global narco terrorists always waiting to attack an innocent USA. Did I get that right? Bottom line is we can trust our leaders as they always, always do what is best and win the day. Of course it's all Bullshit as the CIA and all other three letter federal agencies are far beyond redemption at this point but they sure have the Hollywood producers fully aligned with the narrative.
Thank you Caitlin🙏Lately I have often wondered if the whole ”success story of modern culture” is not one of those. The story that no matter how bad all seems now, it is still better than when people lived in earlier times. I’m not advocating some rosy image of past that was somehow virginally good either. I’m nowadays much more thinking that there is not any progress but more that each age is in a sense a ”whole” and it is not so much good things and bad things but things that are difficult and take effort and things that are easy and we can enjoy. And with each age we distribute these differently.
I think propaganda and its instruments should be taught to 3rd graders across the country. American culture is a propaganda minefield . Only in America is television a totally private enterprise. (For an excellent treatise on the subject by Jerry Mander: Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television).
Then there is the smartphone. This is not strictly American, but, again children should be taught the ramifications of their mobile phone. It is a tracking device that is worth way more to marketers than consumers pay for them. And when the cultural dependency on the smartphone is viewed in the context of the consumer culture, there’s a lot to unpack.
If we want our children to learn to think, we need to impress upon them from an early age that the consumer society is predicated on selling, and selling is often a euphemism for lying.
In 1985, an American academic (Neil Postman) wrote Amusing Ourselves To Death. This and the Mander book are operating instructions for living in the consumer culture.
Social Security is retirement money that workers are required to underwrite, and Medicare is single payer healthcare that workers are required to underwrite. They are retirement programs funded by their recipients, and so could be labeled “retirement programs,” and never be threatened to be cut or terminated, but the status of these programs are never free from politicization. The very label “entitlement” is pejorative and implies that it is subject to be cut for budgetary constraints.
No public service is safe in “the land of the free.”
The subtle propaganda works, but so does the blatant, in your face bullshit. That's because people are predisposed to believe the worst about people/countries against whom they are already prejudiced. Right now, Russia is the "evil empire," and any defamatory BS you can think up will be believed by many - no proof or even evidence is required.
The pro-war forces comprise a perfect storm of boomer roosky haters, Jewish racial hatred, and Warbucks corporate profiteering.
One of the difficulties in detecting propaganda is that you have to have some idea or knowledge of what the actual underlying facts and truth are. But that real knowledge is hard to come by, because most "issues" have been subject to propaganda, so a person's mind - as Caitlin notes - is full of falsehoods, thus making detection of the propaganda difficult if not impossible.
The best propaganda is selective use of facts, weaved together in support of a rational story that is plausible, with omission of other facts that question or contradict the narrative.
Thus there is no "lie" or "falsehood". That's The NY Times way.
Those "subtleties" ARE the propaganda, and it is more blatant now than ever. I stopped trying to "counter" it because it is a Sisyphean task if there ever was one. For every article you deconstruct there are dozens (if not hundreds) more to drown you out, most likely long before you can even finish writing, much less publishing, your piece. You just learn to see through it, and then stop reading (or listening) to it altogether, unless you for some (masochistic?) reason want to be informed of the CIA take on things -- which these days we are surrounded by 24/7 everywhere and in all media except in certain places (like Caitlin's blog), if you know where to look. Since I am a linguist by training, I found it challenging and even interesting at first (years ago!) to unravel the language that conveys the lies, and it is not always easy and it takes time, so you feel afterwards that you have actually done a good piece of work and that it is helpful -- but as I say you lose the energy and motivation to do it when you realize what you're up against. It would take literally an ARMY of people to deconstruct the propaganda, because that is what they have to use against you (us). Lies Of Our Times was a short-lived mag that tried to do this (Times meaning the NYT), but it was and is a virtually impossible task. You are taking on not only the NYT and the Washington Post but every other "news"paper, not only in the US but in Europe and much of the rest of the world as well. My last -- and totally failed -- effort was two "pages" on Facebook called "Backtalk: the NYT" and "Backtalk: Washington Post," but I wrongly bet on the possibility that people would flock to those pages to collectively deconstruct the lies of at least those two "papers of record." It went nowhere, and I am pretty much resigned to the fact that I am not cut out for any sort of "organizing" work. Whatever I do will have to come from me and me alone. I wonder if Caitlin feels differently, with her thousands of readers. I hope so! Whoever said "the Revolution will not be televised" might have been right, but it looks more and more like it will have to be if it ever happens at all.