Wake Up

"Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government….."

-Edward Bernays, Propaganda 

Propaganda Def B: Information or ideas that are spread by an organized group of government to influence people’s opinions, especially by not giving all of the facts or by secretly emphasizing one way of looking at those facts.  

Considering that history is rife with examples of one-sided control of information which has led nations into ruin, it seems inconceivable that so few today believe that we are going down a similar path. And yet, the vast majority of citizens of democratic countries still believe that the government, business, and other icons that they worship have got their back. It is time to breathe in the coffee and wake up.  

Over the past 20 years, the internet and social media have offered those who might want to mold our opinions an unbelievable opportunity to do just that. Some background numbers from Datareportal which illustrate how fully we have embraced the funneling of BS into our daily lives;

- approximately 4.5 BB people use social media regularly 

- 99 % access these websites or apps through mobile devices

- the average time these users spend on social media is 2 hours 24 minutes a day

The advent of covid powered a huge 40% boost to these numbers, assisting those same parties who own the social media networks and the governments who release “official” information to them. The motivations of these groups are clear, respectively, one wants profits and the other control.   

Social media feeds on engagement.  By far the largest volume on the internet is handled by search engines, whose algorithms know what engagement we are seeking based on our personal preferences and opinions. Sites’ engines alter our behavioral path by presenting us with suggestions, leading to confirmation bias and ultimately to the conclusion they are selling.   

This propaganda machine affects the world in real time, by influencing our political choices and desires for social change just as much as it does our consumer and dating habits.  Recently this pariah activity has become more sinister, as media platforms more actively monitor and censor online speech. Twitter, Facebook and others give themselves the power to turn off one line of speech in favor of another, in the name of “preventing abuse and illegal activity”. And, as the “Twitter files” and Zuckerberg’s testimony have revealed, government officials sometimes influence these decisions. Defensible or not, the machine is getting stronger and likely more manipulative in its function.  In the interests of “staying in touch”, we have actively approved the means by which the state can control us whenever the need may arise.

Meanwhile governments have become much more adept at using every crisis that humanity faces as an opportunity to expand their own powers and breadth in the name of solving said crises -war on terror, 2008 financial crisis, January 6th, COVID-19, etc . Like a gigantic hammer looking for nails, the government apparatus will stop at nothing to force a group of unqualified and inexperienced individuals, elected or appointed, into the management of our lives and businesses. We have finally arrived at that future foretold by George Orwell in 1984 and Aynn rand in Atlas Shrugged in which governments, populated by the weakest citizens, euphorically embrace new social programs marketed to the masses by acronyms like TARP, QE, CERB, EI,CARES act, CCPF, etc. 

The golden example of this is the response to the covid pandemic, which perhaps ranks as the greatest overreaction in the history of government.  While a massive healthcare response was clearly required, and exposed decades of under-investment on that front, the un-truths, lockdowns, emergency powers, free money-grab, mandatory vaccinations, and invention of thousands of new local ordinances was batshit crazy.  And yet, we ate it up.  Even now, those questioning the origins of the virus , the effectiveness and safety of vaccines or the legal rights of citizens are censored or “canceled”.    

That demonstrates what is ever more dangerous - the degree to which the general public, the polity has embraced, imbibed and trusted these predators, to the point of making them a leading factor in the evolution of our race. This has both furthered the government agenda of power-expansion and decreased the quality of our actions. Think for a moment about what values we now flock to, follow and admire online: politicians who lie, celebrities with no discernible talent, royalty shamelessly selling their victim status, athletes who cheat, news anchors delivering biased agendas, business leaders who are fraudsters.  Perhaps the truth never attracted hits, but boy is truth ever a long way in the rear view mirror of what we digest every day.  

This article proposes no immediate solution to the issues it raises. Rather the author suggests that what we really need is an intervention, followed by a step process for addressing the woeful inadequacy of the information we consume and then act on. Hopefully this forum will prove itself helpful in that regard.