Classic propaganda examples

Blog: https://mathewaldred.substack.com/p/engineered-viruses-and-vaccine-damage

Example:

According to new research about one in 10 Canadians believe Neil Armstrong's famous step down was actually a giant leap in deception. Add to that the more recent belief that COVID was developed as a bioweapon and its sister falsehood that government are covering up dangers about the vaccine. About a third of Canadians appear to believe in both of those things.

Translated: If you believe that the COVID virus might be engineered in a lab (which would technically be called “dual-use technology” and therefore technically a “bioweapon”) or you believe that your government wanted you to believe that the COVID vaccines were completely “safe and effective” and did not properly inform the people about all the damage that they could do, including heart attacks and death, then you must be one of those people who don’t believe Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.

Example:

Since the advent of COVID, we saw a tremendous leap in the belief in conspiracy theories. Steve Mossop's Leger poll turned up staggering levels of belief in things that either aren't supported by evidence or are just plain wrong. Take the assassination of President Kennedy, the classic rock of conspiracy theories, Leger found 36% of Canadians believe it was a coverup. Similar to the death of Princess Diana, 34% told Leger they had it on good authority that Diana's death was not accidental.

Translated: If you think the CIA might be involved in the death of JFK or its cover-up in some way (you know, like even the CIA now acknowledges) then you must be one of those people who believe Diana’s death was not accidental, which somehow makes you “crazy”? (Not wanting to get distracted here, but if it was so cut and dry, why were millions spent on investigations into Diana’s death, which were described by the government-appointed investigators as “complex”; also, I’m not sure why it was ever described as “accidental”, since being chased in a car at high speed by the paparazzi…but that is another story. See how this works? Distraction, deflection…raise an issue but don’t even begin to address the arguments/evidence).

Example:

'You are fake news sir, go ahead.'

Translated: If you don’t like Trump, then you probably shouldn’t question the jabs, the virus, or anything else we tell you to stop thinking about.

In this case, the “guilt by association” ruse doesn’t work for several reasons: 1) Half the people out there actually like Trump 2) Even my Liberal friends will admit that much of “the news” is indeed “fake” 3) Trump thinks the jabs are good! He did in 2020, and he does today.

Example:

And since you're watching this on the news, you ought to know that a whopping 55% of Canadians now believe the mainstream media manipulates the information it puts out.

And that’s where this representative of the legacy media made his tactical error: he just informed his audience that the majority of people in Canada believe the stories he is telling them are “manipulated” i.e. lies. Put another way, we are winning. Thanks, Global News. There are people out there who might have felt isolated in their belief that the legacy media was full of lies. Now they know that the majority of their fellow Canadians agree with them. Perfect.

Example:

With COVID and with President Trump calling fake news, there's been this erosion of trust, the perception of media not only in our country but in the USA as well.

Translated: “It’s Trump’s fault”. Orange Man Bad. This demonization backfires terribly.

Example:

So what's driving the tendency to believe in Chemtrails or a flat Earth, especially in an age when it's never been easier to get information?

And there we have it: “Think you know about engineered viruses and jab damage? You must be one of those Flat Earthers”.

Example:

Mossop suspects the single biggest driver is the way social media algorithms work to reinforce what you know or what you think you know. Every time you turn on your phone and look at something for fun, it's reinforcing what you currently believe and takes you even further.

“Social media algorithms”, or simply that you found out more evidence that something is true? Like typical power elites, this reporter is clearly showing contempt for his audience, most of whom use social media: “It’s got nothing to do with evidence or truth, it’s just the social media algorithms that have fooled you, stupid plebs”.

Explanation:

In propaganda and rhetoric, the association fallacy occurs when two unrelated or only superficially related ideas are presented as being linked, to influence the audience's perception. By associating a reasonably debatable claim with an absurd or easily dismissible one, the speaker aims to tarnish the credibility of the more legitimate claim, without directly addressing its merits or evidence.

The effectiveness of such propaganda lies in its ability to exploit cognitive biases and emotional reactions. People are often more likely to reject ideas that are grouped with beliefs they already consider ridiculous or false, without necessarily engaging with the actual evidence or arguments supporting those ideas.

For example, this Global News “reporter” associates widely documented facts about the virus and the vaccines (which are now being used in the US Congress and court cases) with the belief that the Earth is not roughly spherical but is flat in some way. Presumably, he is relying on the fact that most of his viewers will think Flat Earth Theory is just incorrect, without knowing why exactly; apparently, only 2% of people believe the theory (incidentally, whilst still being wrong, there are Flat Earthers who could produce “data” which would completely baffle this reporter and are not so easily dismissed by non-scientists without appealing to authority - but that is another story and distraction…again, see how this works?). So, by associating an idea that 2% of the people believe (well, probably less since some of those are trolls) with the idea of lab-leaked viruses and harmful vaccines, the reporter believes he can just dismiss legitimate evidence. Of course, this is not a good tactic, since he is showing contempt for 55% of the people, according to his own statistics. The hubris of the power elites. They still don’t get it.

All of this is done to implicitly suggest that all these beliefs are equally irrational or outside the realm of reasonable discourse. It's a form of argument that can be effective in persuading an ill-informed audience to dismiss certain ideas without critically examining them. But how many viewers of Global News will fall for this juvenile propaganda these days? By his stats, most people are for the first time in their lives waking up, asking good questions, and demanding real evidence.

Critical thinking and scepticism are key in evaluating news media aka propaganda. It involves looking beyond the superficial associations created and examining each claim on its own merits, based on available evidence and logical reasoning. And that’s why our information war is an educational movement as much as anything else. Without the proper mindware, too many of our fellow plebs may succumb to these mind games. Fortunately, the Global News power elites are making tactical errors:

They are showing contempt for the people
They are informing people that they are not alone in their distrust of the power elites.
They are informing people that they are not alone in asking questions and wanting real evidence.
They are relying on simplistic propaganda techniques that we can easily expose. The people already sense that something is wrong (particularly those grounded in reality i.e. work for a living with their hands, in nature or the real world, away from the screens, lecture halls, and government offices). We just need to clearly explain why they are sensing that something is wrong. By moving it from the emotional/instinctual to the cognitive we empower the people so that they too can enter the information war.