As a media professional for the past fifty years I’m particularly sensitive to the way media, propaganda, censorship and mobile technology conspire to influence and shape the global brain.

As with watching the sleight of hand of a stage magician, if you know the trick, you see the trick. If not, you see the illusion the trick is designed to induce. Media is the stage. Every performance, every piece of information, every image, every juxtaposition, every word, every tone of voice and dramatic sound effect are part of the trick, part of the staged presentation to create a desired impression in the human brain.

As a follow-up to our last post: Propaganda, I encourage you to view the report and video in Mercola’s article: The AMA Directs Doctors to Lie (by relabeling) COVID Deaths, that illustrates how medical authorities, the neighborhood and family doctors we are supposed to trust as authorities, have been scripted, like paid performers reading scripted stories that look like ‘news.’ And how these ‘authorities’ are being watched for compliance. Propaganda. (note: the article link will only be available for 48 hours.)

Journalism:

By definition, journalism is objective, carefully crafted to provide people with verified information they can use to make better decisions, and its practices, the most important of which is a systematic process – a discipline of verification – that journalists use to find not just the facts, but also the “truth about the facts.”

Propaganda:

Is any conscious and open attempt to influence the beliefs of an individual or group guided by a predetermined end, often characterized by the systematic use of irrational and often unethical techniques of persuasion; including talk, entertainment, opinion, assertion, advertising, fraudulent claims, intentional relabeling designed to mislead, for example, “tobacco science” where data is filtered to produce a predetermined outcome, and a number of know logical fallacies where deceptive, or false arguments are used that can be proven wrong with reasoning.

It is critical to be able to identify those who are using ethical standards to tell you true things, in order to promote positive change, versus groups whom tell you things using unethical, hyperbolic strategies for their own agenda.

Logical Fallacies

• Using personal attacks rather than logic, mudslinging and character assassination.
• Changing the subject by attacking a different subject rather than the topic being discussed.
• An appeal to ignorance by shifting the for proof away from the person making a claim.
• Intentionally manipulating to polarize the audience, promoting one side and demonizing another.
• Taking a benign premise and suggesting it will lead to unlikely or ridiculous outcomes with no supporting evidence.
• Repeating an argument based on what they already assumed without arriving at a new conclusion, and using that to support the claim.
• Using confusion or distraction to shift attention away from a topic and toward a false conclusion.
• The use of hypocrisy to neutralize criticism and distract from the issue.
• Incorrectly concluding that a cause is related to an effect.
• The misuse of an authority's opinion to support an argument.
• The use of words, phrases, or sentences to deliberately confuse, deceive, or mislead. In other words, saying one thing but meaning another.
• Provoking emotions to win an argument rather than factual evidence.
• Assuming something is true (or right or good) because others agree with it.

As described in The AMA Directs Doctors to Lie (by relabeling) COVID Deaths, Propaganda also includes the individuals, agencies, social, political, and professional organizations use to support the staged credibility of “the propaganda message.”

One of the best academic overviews of propaganda is Mark Crispin Miller. Miller has been a tenured Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, specializing in propaganda. Mark was censored by the university for inviting students in his propaganda class to evaluate COVID media in terms of its objectivity or as propaganda. I found his recent interview with Whitney Webb riveting. Please listen.

Propaganda in the Covid Era with Mark Crispin Miller

https://rokfin.com/post/52304/Propaganda-in-the-Covid-Era-with-Mark-Crispin-Miller-(link is external)

I followed with Mark’s interview with John Kirby.

Mark Crispin Miller Interview by John Kirby
2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece | Perspectives on the Pandemic XVII

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUOQyclX9yY(link is external)

Catherine Austin Fitts Interviews Mark Crispin Miller
https://thoughtcrimeradio.net/2021/08/catherine-austin-fitts-interviews-mark-crispin-miller/(link is external)

Mark Crispin Miller with Joseph Mercola

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDAQdIEcjdM(link is external)