from Adolph Hitler's "Mein Kampf" chapter VI ...
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“Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...)

The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...)

The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.


Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favorable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side. (...)

The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. (...)

No matter what an amount of talent employed in the organization of propaganda, it will have no result if due account is not take of these fundamental principles. Propaganda must be limited to a few simple themes and these must be represented again and again."

Very timely piece.

Propaganda vs. free speech, and how resources affect freedom of thought.

TSCC, Fox, jump to mind. If I click on a Fox link so that I can know what propagandists are up to, do they get ad money from my having done so? If I watch or buy Fox? I've blocked all Fox.com on my work pc by using my hosts file, but I don't know that I can do that on my android.

I try to click on nothing that might drive revenue for any religion, as it's all propaganda to me.

Oh Please. Don't force me to have to defend Fox, but if you're going there please include the rest of the so called media because they are all equally as corrupt and full of their own biased propaganda.

yet another example of false equivalency.

Bullshit.

denial...

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
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> yet another example of false equivalency.


Heh. Hypocritical liberals’ favourite phrase.

How is he wrong, though?

Media itself calls it "media bias."

CNN, NBC, Fox are admittedly culpable of this. However for more objectivity will usually listen to CNN or NBC over Fox news except for Shep Smith and Chris Wallace - they are the only ones I consider trustworthy over @ Fox.

"Milk does a body good."

the very first 'pamphlets' that were printed were created to persuade the public to adopt a 'new' idea. Ordinary people have their own biases so it would be unreasonable to think that media organisations do not have their own biases, too. This is where 'spin', 'taglines' and 'buzzwords' have their origins. A good slogan/tagline is great for the transfer of ideas to gain momentum; they are also great 'thought blockers' since they stop the target from critically analysing the facts imparted - like the mormon church does.

The media peddling their owner/editorial opinions and biases is especially pernicious and dastardly because most people (in UK at least) trust certain establishments/organisations to provide unbiased reporting of facts, not propaganda and outright lies.

Everyone is aware (or should be) that propaganda is used during wartime but not everyone can make the leap to believe it is still being used during alleged 'peacetime'. Like orwell's big brother having always been at war with east asia, western society is perpetually 'at war' domestically (on illegal drugs and domestic violence to name two) and abroad (eg the war on terror, peacekeeping in mineral-rich countries) so even through we believe we are in a time of 'peace', we ARE actually at a time of many wars and so propaganda is obviously being used by some, if not all of the media establishments.

I can’t speak for the TV news, but the internet news outlets to me read just like tabloid journalism. They always choose the most unflattering pictures of people they’re doing a hit piece on, whether it’s Trump or Weinstien. It seems to be a standard formula. If I believed the news outlets, I’d think Trump is always frowning, yelling or sneering. Whoda thunk the leader of the “free world” was The Grinch?

From some news critics over @ Fox News on the Drumpf:

"“This isn’t a game. It isn’t just Trump being Trump. It is a new front in his endless attack on a central pillar of our liberties — a free press,” GOP strategist Rick Wilson, a longtime critic of the president, wrote recently in the Daily Beast.

Bernie Goldberg, a Fox News commentator, wrote this rebuke on his website:

“As with so many things, this president is just plain wrong. Journalists have biases; they make mistakes; sometimes they’re sloppy; and worst of all, sometimes they have a political agenda. But fabricating stories that they know are not true, inventing fake news sources: that is so rare as to be virtually nonexistent.”

Bret Baier, the Fox News anchor and my colleague, said last week that Trump’s criticism of the press is now “way over the top.”

Another colleague, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, said in a separate interview he dislikes media personalities who join Trump in “bashing the media, because oftentimes what they are bashing is stuff that we on the news side are doing.”...

Recall what President Jefferson wrote in his famous letter to Edward Carrington:

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

How far we’ve come from Jefferson’s wisdom to Trump’s ugly, ignorant threats.

Fake News, indeed."

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/10/31/juan-williams-trumps-war-on-media-is-truly-dangerous.html

This topic is an important one. Study the history of governmental and corporate use of propaganda. Edward Bernays contributed much to modern use of propaganda. Tavistock Institute of Human Relations has also played a big role. Propaganda's primary objective is to engineer "public consent".

Propaganda by its very nature is opportunistic, often deceptive and serves the goals and interests of the few who hold positions of power and influence. Citizens are largely unaware of how effectively it has shaped societies opinions and world view.

The intelligence communities, large corporate owned media and politicians are big purveyors of it. That is to say, they can't be trusted to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Government and corporate employees and politicians who hold positions of public interest are much more controlled than we think by a coalition of corrupt money interests.

The two biggest weapons in their arsenal are the control of information (propaganda) and the control of money.


The church has come by it naturally.

Felix, I don't think anybody (that includes me!) can or should be trusted to always tell the whole truth and nothing but.

If we can get people to NOT think that way (that "my" people always tell the whole truth), and to ALWAYS verify information, we might be onto something.

Trouble is...it's work. Lots of people don't want to bother to verify stuff. They want to be told, "trust" it, and be done. As long as that's the case, propaganda can work.

From Steven Wilson's current CD, To The Bone. This is the intro to the title track and it's oh so appropriate.

[Spoken Word]
Once we've made sense of our world, we wanna go f*ck up everybody else's because his or her truth doesn't match mine. But this is the problem. Truth is individual calculation. Which means because we all have different perspectives, there isn't one singular truth, is there?

No argument from me iichtk. I do try to be careful what I take as true or factual and I am sure I am wrong about some things.

I realize there are two kinds of bad information. One is info given with intent to deceive and the other is that which is thought to be good passed along erroneously. Both can have dramatic influence in changing outcomes and the course of history. The question is "who gets to decide what the future will be, those who deceive or free humanity."

Those who deceive justify doing so reasoning that humanity left to itself is incapable of governing their own affairs and the affairs of the planet.

How does one assess information to know whether it is good or bad? I use a few methods that I believe are helpful. One I rely on most is examining the motives and history of the source. I discovered this as I took a closer look at church history. It was usually the dissidents or apostates that exposed corruption and activities that powerful institutional leaders didn't want known. In the world of money power and politics it is the whistle-blowers that similarly expose corruption.

I realize that deceptive influences may even plant fake whistle-blowers to mislead the public. They are the masters of deceit and resort to it because it works. I find most whistle-blowers to be truth tellers as they often put career and life on the line to speak out.

Thanks for that.
Well said :)

It's little wonder that Trump is popular among Mormons and even more so among Evangelical voters - in spite of the fact that Trump generally represents the kind of lifestyle that is the antithesis of a so-called Godly life. Trump is a foul, ignorant, crooked, lying, sexual predator...just like Joseph Smith...just like a thousand other sleezy preachers.

At first glance, it would seem there is something illogical and paradoxical about people with self-professed "high moral standards" that support completely amoral con artists. But when you think about it, the same feeble mindedness that makes people susceptible to the lies of religion also make them susceptible to charlatans in the political, educational, and financial arenas as well. Why do you think that MLMs do so well in Utah? Why does damn near every Mormon man I know over the age of 60 watch hours and hours of FOX news programming?

It's almost as though there is something in their DNA makes them susceptible to propaganda.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/2017 11:24PM by Strength in the Loins.

As can be seen by the responses, this post quickly degenerated into a political war of words. I admit, as a "hypocritical liberal" I was tempted to jump in the fray. Instead, I will just point out that one thing to take note of from this post is that when a person, group, political party, or religion, intentionally studies and adopts the techniques of propaganda, as in the Hitler example, you can be sure that they are not interested in conveying true and correct information. Both political parties fall into this category, by admission!

I have my own opinions about which news organizations are guilty of overt, intentional deception. I think for the most part, they all think they are conveying "the truth," however slanted the presentation. However, when someone repeatedly calls true facts "fake news," it is a strong indication that for such a person, and his follows, the truth is just an afterthought of the agenda underlying the propaganda. Moreover, when the distinction between a political agenda merges with "news" we are all in big trouble.