How to immunize yourself against all propaganda, forever!
Bookmark this one. This is going to be a deep dive into understanding disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda. If you understand this, you will free your mind — forever.
Frankly, Russian propaganda is not that impressive compared to Western propaganda. The Brits are fairly good at it. American propaganda is the finest in the world. The reason? Because we Americans believe that because our media is technically “private,” that means it is more authentic. It’s not. In the old days, the government used to infiltrate the media, which made some effort to sort of be independent. Operation Mockingbird with the CIA is an example of this.
The media used to have some journalistic standards. Those are largely diluted now. In fact, the government and the media are so closely tethered that deciphering them is difficult. And the concentration of media in terms of ownership and control is more focused. For example, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, owns The Washington Post. It is considered one of the foremost authoritative sources of mainstream news in the United States, second only to the New York Times.
Identifying propaganda and counter-propaganda, and counter-counter propaganda:
This is an interesting video that claims to cover Putin propaganda. You must watch this first:
The essence of it is to create doubt in your mind, so you are unsure what to believe. This breaks down the narrative. For example, some people were going to be engaged in protests. Propaganda was used to seed doubts about the protests and their value. Doubt and mistrust is the goal.
Counter-Propaganda to the counter-propaganda
However, what if the above video is actually counter-propaganda? What if it is made to poison the well against Putin? I think it may be. Analyze the video for yourself. I want you to do it.
The guy in the video uses many of the same techniques he warns against. The player getting played, right? Yup.
Either way, it opens your eyes to all propaganda. And that is the benefit you can gain here.
https://euromaidanpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/seven-strategies-1.jpg
Above claims to be a propaganda poster. Who created it? Euromaidan Press. Who’s that? Ukraine based. Getting my drift? Anti-Russian propaganda designed to prime you to not accept “propaganda” created by The Big Bad Putin™. This is big boy and big girl propaganda.
4 dimensional chess
Cutting through the bullshit:
Major techniques are used to control your mind.
Pay attention because this is life changing information right here:
- Priming. This is the use of preparing you via social media and regular media for a message they will implant in your mind. It is foreshadowing. For example, a non-serious media figure will mention the possibility of something very bad. “Putin will do a chemical attack,” or “Putin will rebuild the Soviet Union.” Few details will be offered. Just mentioned. But it will be stated at least twice. Expect this to go on for a few days to a week before the real information comes.
- Testing. Often, hairbrained ideas will be “tested” for public opinion by someone known to be kind of whacky. If the public freaks out in a bad way, it is nixed. You won’t hear about it again. But if it doesn’t make waives, you’ll see it again. Sean Penn and Hannity, for example. What kind of twisted shit are they floating here?[1]
- Rerun. First, some propaganda message will be printed in a lesser known market, not the NYT. More recently, we had the “dead Ukrainian kids” story. Initially, the focus was on dead adults of fighting age. That is more believable. In Bucha, for example, we probably had a hybrid of deaths. The bodies were obviously in varying stages of decomposition, consistent with different dates and methods of death. We know the Azov Battalion swept through and went looking for “collaborators.” Usually this means killing people for minor things like selling a few eggs to Russian troops who occupied the town. We also had shelling, which tends to kill people. Further, it is highly probable the Russian troops did kill some people. For example, there is a video where a guy was walking his bicycle, out of sight of a line of tanks. He rounds a corner, and after becoming visible to the tanks, two of the tanks appear to bring him down. Bad, right? Did the tanks shoot him while he was walking down a long street? No. They shoot as he turns the corner and gets into their vision. Mind you, this is an adult male, who could have been carrying a rocket launcher. Civilians were subject to civilian defense requirements, and the Russians have lost a number of soldiers and tanks. So they were going to be edgy. We have no proof of the other killings. This evidence was produced by satellite images provided by Maxar Satellites, which are used by the CIA and other government institutions. There is no way to independently verify the dates of the satellite images “showing” bodies on the ground for several weeks. We have to take their word for it, although apparently the AFP also replicated the results. But we don’t know if they “replicated” them in a fair and transparent manner. This isn’t like Google Earth, where you can check for yourself. No idea why Google didn’t assist or say anything here.
- Repetition. The news cycle will run these messages over, and over, and over. The mere exposure effect kicks in. The message “feels” right to you. Your brain “owns it.” You will even defend the message to others, because it causes cognitive dissonance if you don’t. It seems unnatural to listen to any counter narratives.
- Poisoning the well. This is the primary mind control technique used in the world today. This primes you to shut off your own mind from any new facts. You self-censor. There is no need for modern day censorship if you censor your own mind. You become a self-controlled mental automaton. A willing slave.
So anything Putin or the Russians says is tainted. Anything. Putin could say “2+2=4” and it would be lies. Pure Putin propaganda, right? No. Truth exists irrespective of who states it. That is basic logic. It is mathematically true. And math cannot be propaganda — unless you are a fucking moron.
6. “Insider secret” This is one that is used by some top Quoran propagandists. It is the equivalent of telling people that they are getting the “inside scoop.” It primes them, but it also appeals to their egos. It provides a feeling of closeness. And people want that. Nobody listens to each other anymore. But this person does. Right? Wrong. This is a crack in your defenses to implant the illogical notion that a person is ALL bad. Pure fucking evil. No nuance. Is that the way life is? The only person who is pure evil I can think of is Hillary Clinton. She is the exception to the rule. Most people fall on a spectrum of good vs evil. In reality, life has shades of gray. It is nuanced. But propaganda takes that away. If you can be convinced someone like Putin or whomever is depraved beyond all redemption, then you cannot rationally understand that person. This means you cannot strategize. The power is taken from you and given to someone else.
7. Supervillain
This is it. I am old. I remember when they did this to Saddam Hussein. He is “literally Hitler,” they said. Really? Hitler used industrial scale killing techniques. cattle cars, and killed 11+ million people, and then cremated them and/or buried them in mass graves. Did Saddam Hussein do that? No. He was brutal. He gassed the Kurds. He was a motherfucker. But he was an amateur compared to Hitler. In fact, when you are arguing with someone online and they call you Hitler, that means the conversation has totally broken down. It is called “Godwin’s Law.”
Now we have Putin as “literally Hitler.” And we have been prepared for this for months and years. That is why the Bucha deaths and the “genocide” claims work with the public. The reality is that Putin is non-ideological. He has been around for over two decades. If he was Hitler, we would have known about it now. In fact, by Russian standards, he is fairly moderate. But even as I say this, people will say I am being a bot. Good.
8. I am telling you right now. Do not fucking trust me. What if Alexander Finnegan is a real Putin propagandist? What then? Does that make me wrong? Would it change anything I have just told you? Would the methods not work if I were literally a Putin bot? №2+2=4 is the same. If my doctor lights a cigarette and tells me smoking is bad for my health, is he wrong? What if he was also a cigarette vender as his gig job? Still doesn’t matter. What if my doctor was Dr. Evil? Still doesn’t matter. If I am entirely wrong about my opinions regarding what happened in Bucha, I am okay with that. I am open to it. Because you know what? I have no fucking clue. None. I am just speculating.
My goal is to provide you the ability to inoculate yourself against propaganda. Because if everyone is less indoctrinated and brainwashed, we would have a better world. And maybe even less war, because we would listen to each other. And then maybe my kids could grow up without dying in a nuclear holocaust.
Footnotes