Digesting Propaganda

“At the bottom of their hearts the great masses of people are more likely to be poisoned than to be consciously and deliberately bad. In the primitive simplicity of their minds they are more easily victimized by a large lie than by a small lie.” Adolf Hitler.

Biden, in his inaugural address, promised that he will fight against the lies and stand by the truth while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others are moving to initiate a “truth commission” to monitor the massive lies in the media. However, what we really need to fight against is propaganda—the most dangerous tool of any government. Its latest form is the labelling of anything the current administration disagrees with as “disinformation” or the result of conspiracy theories.

Truth is the mind’s conformity with reality. It appears to be more and more the case that the American people cannot get to the bottom of all-important issues impacting the future of our nation because opinions are held to be facts.  Blanket statements are made and we are instructed to take them as gospel truth. When those false blanket statements are made in a systematic, consistent, and overwhelming manner they morph into propaganda.

Propaganda flushes out the truth with a message crafted by the few and directed toward the masses as a recipe to control them.  Propaganda literally means, “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” If there is one thing human beings can easily become, it is biased. When our bias influences our dialogue among a small group of friends or family, not much is harmed. However, when bias becomes misleading and takes on the nature of the system of the media and press, we have the groundwork for propaganda.

Where do we receive our truth from? How do we gain access to fair and balanced investigative reporting?

For most Americans, they turn on the television or swipe open their phone to enter the social media sphere. When all is said and done, we hear, read, and view one of two options – that conservatives will save the country’s character, heritage, and destiny while liberals will further destroy it, allowing rioting and defunding to become commonplace, or – that liberals will set America free, extinguish every line of social and racial inequality along with instituting true compassion in political rhetoric while conservatives will further racism, sexism, callousness, unscientific analysis, and continue to beat down the poor and helpless because they are bigoted and irrational.

Whichever message we hear more often and is more prevalent on our screens is our method of digesting propaganda.  The only way to fight propaganda is to recognize it, name it, and call it out for what it is while vowing to not succumb to the tempting nature of its terror and fear. 

Propaganda disintegrates when we hold on to the truth; when we plant our feet in facts and sink our heels into the firm ground of justice, honesty, and integrity.

May the words of Hitler and the reality of unspoken propaganda challenge all journalists to be led to report on the facts in an unbiased fashion and serve as a wake-up call to all viewers of the press. The words we read and the reports we hear influence who we are, and who we are as a nation is on the line. So, get to the truth and never allow propaganda to win.

Source:  Truth Commission: Lessons in Propaganda by Thomas Griffin, Crisis Magazine

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