Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ If you use Twitter and engage with the subject of the war in Ukraine, you've probably noticed a verified account called The Kyiv Independent pop up while you're scrolling through your feed which puts out highly biased content in favor of the Zelensky regime and the western powers which support it.
In the 1980s I was an activist promoting New Zealands nuclear free status. I became aware of the clever psychological warfare tactics that were being used against us then. I have tried for40 years to awaken those around me but to no avail. I now feel emotionally spent as we drift towards the nuclear holocaust and ecological global collapse we tried so hard to avoid. For a brief period in the 1990s I thought sanity might prevail. The propaganda is just too strong, the Western leadership is utterly evil
"There are other functions, however, some of them more legitimate than others. One is to run secret wars... Another thing is to disseminate propaganda to influence people's minds. And this is a major function of the CIA."
Reality is what slaps you in the face after months and months of narrative. Reality is millions of vaccine injuries and hundreds of thousands of deaths. It's going to be really hard to cover up the steep rise in all cause mortality among the young and middle aged.
Great stuff. I thought the Tweet by Justin Podur about creating stories was right on the money.
Storytelling can definitely be used for either good or bad, whether poets, prophets, writers, or the oligarchy. They all understand how mythos can shape the imagination, which then colors how people think about countless other things. It in many ways determines how people think and view reality at a much deeper level than any kind of didacticism or lecture. I find that a good deal of Hollywood and the streaming services also function in tandem with the msm as one great "priming" machine.
All this stuff also makes Plato's question about banning the poets from the Republic more interesting and nuanced for me. The average academic tends to treat Plato's questions are purely literal, as if Plato is some kind of Kim Jon Un saying poets must be panned with no nuance, no irony, nothing? It doesn't sound like the Plato I know, and yet this is the popular take.
I would argue that Plato understood in his own way the kind of thing we are now faced with. He was trying to make a more subtle point about the power of narratives, imagery, story-telling, which in their day was largely in the hands of the poets and raphsodists who spread the stories among the people. For, if one wanted to change opinion and direct people in a different way, they would seek to introduce the kinds of stories that would support that, or discourage the kind of things they sought to suppress. Plato seems to have had a deep understanding of the power of narratives, and so was introducing a polemic to get people to think more seriously about how our reality is constructed and influenced on these more subtle and deeper levels.
After reading a few books by Richard Bandler on hypnosis and trance (a very sketchy guy, co-creator of Neuro Linguistic Programming, and also considered one of the world's leading hypnotists), I've recently come to a better understanding of how some of the more subtle "priming," "predictive programming" and other hypnotic techniques are applied to modern propaganda.
These techniques in their most modern form are powerful because they are subtle and people don't realize they're being given suggestions. In many ways, the increase in the effectiveness in propaganda is largely a result of its becoming more artfully subtle, but also using hypnotic techniques, including the "illusion of choice," hypnotic "binds," "sequences," the power of suggestion, and a conscious understanding of how "altered states." In the case of "sequences," imagine me starting my speech by first talking about images of children being killed, crying mothers, and THEN talking about the possibility of no fly-zones and other alternatives. Even just these same two points in the reverse order doesn't have the same effect, because the first set of images are to induce the altered state, getting someone to becoming emotionally more involved, with their sensitivity heightened, and THEN introducing the other idea. Sequence is very importance in hypnosis.
However, Bandler points out that hypnosis is also a natural part of life. We experience altered states everyday in our lives, from walking (no one has to think about each step they take, automatic i.e. unconscious processes do that for us), to driving, to thinking about and imagining images from the past or future. By knowing exactly how to word things and using the proper sequences and "frames," it becomes easier to consciously guide altered states, especially when one knows how to give "cues" and "prime" people with different images and linguistic formulations. "Experts say," "most experts agree," "there is a consensus," "the benefits outweigh the risks" - each of these phrases makes use of subtle behavioral insights. "Experts say" is what social engineers and behavioral scientists would refer to as the "leveraging of authority" - the idea being that when we are faced with something where we don't consider ourselves "experts," for example going to see a doctor, the mind is prone to taking mental "shortcuts" as a risk-benefit decision i.e. you're likely better off taking the doctor's opinion than just doing your own thing based on your own personal theory. "Most experts agree" and "there is a consensus" is a pretty overt appeal to group-think, but in behavioral science terms, it's a form of "social proof" i.e. most people believe this and it seems reliable, thinking otherwise is more uncertain, presents more uncertainty, which the mind automatically seeks to avoid.
Stories and narratives are framed in a way that most efficiently and quickly leverages these various elements, from altered states to social proof to the preference for avoiding potentially large losses (whether real or imagined) over potentially minor gains.
The question remains how to get folks who are steeped in a propaganda souffle to realize it? I find an inability to think and a satisfaction with the status quo -- along with an unhealthy dose of partisanship -- is what so often roots them there in the first place. Unfortunately being spoon fed is just so damn convenient while crawling out requires a lot damn work, on purpose.
This Ukrainian-turned-Nazi thing is going to be dealt with and I doubt there will be a country "Ukraine" anymore. The Lenin's creation is going down and the de-Communization will be complete.
The problem is how the West's going to turn it into their victory. They cannot continue pushing infinitely unless they're ready for WWIII.
Wasn't this the same amalgam of MI6, CIA, Atlantic Council & CFR oligarch thug funding sources silencing Bezos' Prop'RNot, Brock's CTR & get Assange RussiaRussiaRussia BS scams, libruls were told, they all HAD to buy-into, or Tinkerbell would DIE? Cui bono?
To add to Caitlin's cite of Michael Parenti's observation that what is not reported and reiterated endlessly in the media - does not exist, is, as she observes, the fact that what much of what is reported is also excluded from day to day reality, as though it never happened. We select or base our cognition of reality, as the ace propaganda expert, Freuds's nephew Edward Bernays discovered, on what the authorities say it is. The US can kill a million people in Iraq, almost without notice and certainly without any great and lasting uproar in the halls of power, when they present no existential risk whatever except in the minds of the extreme paranoid. But the same power brokers are ready to see atrocity in the actions of Russia even as it faces a real existential threat in a US, NATO dominated West and affiliated shaping of the domestic and foreign policy of Ukraine, a country it borders. It is a magic curtain over the mind of the West, a magician's act with tricks and magic wands to cancel adversaries by the application of ridiculous numbers of sanctions, prohibitions and denunciations. But, as economics have noted, these fools seem to have forgotten that the world these days is almost totally integrated in neoliberal, globalist policy. The manufacture of almost all complex items is a team effort- many countries are intimately involved. If too many economies are crippled, the whole edifice could come to a standstill. That is the kind of effect no amount of propaganda, semantic maneuver, or sleight of mind can adequately cover-over or misrepresent.
In the 1980s I was an activist promoting New Zealands nuclear free status. I became aware of the clever psychological warfare tactics that were being used against us then. I have tried for40 years to awaken those around me but to no avail. I now feel emotionally spent as we drift towards the nuclear holocaust and ecological global collapse we tried so hard to avoid. For a brief period in the 1990s I thought sanity might prevail. The propaganda is just too strong, the Western leadership is utterly evil
This John Stockwell video about CIA workings is illuminating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1tfkESPVY
"There are other functions, however, some of them more legitimate than others. One is to run secret wars... Another thing is to disseminate propaganda to influence people's minds. And this is a major function of the CIA."
Reality is what slaps you in the face after months and months of narrative. Reality is millions of vaccine injuries and hundreds of thousands of deaths. It's going to be really hard to cover up the steep rise in all cause mortality among the young and middle aged.
Reality is when there is no more Azov battalion.
Great stuff. I thought the Tweet by Justin Podur about creating stories was right on the money.
Storytelling can definitely be used for either good or bad, whether poets, prophets, writers, or the oligarchy. They all understand how mythos can shape the imagination, which then colors how people think about countless other things. It in many ways determines how people think and view reality at a much deeper level than any kind of didacticism or lecture. I find that a good deal of Hollywood and the streaming services also function in tandem with the msm as one great "priming" machine.
All this stuff also makes Plato's question about banning the poets from the Republic more interesting and nuanced for me. The average academic tends to treat Plato's questions are purely literal, as if Plato is some kind of Kim Jon Un saying poets must be panned with no nuance, no irony, nothing? It doesn't sound like the Plato I know, and yet this is the popular take.
I would argue that Plato understood in his own way the kind of thing we are now faced with. He was trying to make a more subtle point about the power of narratives, imagery, story-telling, which in their day was largely in the hands of the poets and raphsodists who spread the stories among the people. For, if one wanted to change opinion and direct people in a different way, they would seek to introduce the kinds of stories that would support that, or discourage the kind of things they sought to suppress. Plato seems to have had a deep understanding of the power of narratives, and so was introducing a polemic to get people to think more seriously about how our reality is constructed and influenced on these more subtle and deeper levels.
After reading a few books by Richard Bandler on hypnosis and trance (a very sketchy guy, co-creator of Neuro Linguistic Programming, and also considered one of the world's leading hypnotists), I've recently come to a better understanding of how some of the more subtle "priming," "predictive programming" and other hypnotic techniques are applied to modern propaganda.
These techniques in their most modern form are powerful because they are subtle and people don't realize they're being given suggestions. In many ways, the increase in the effectiveness in propaganda is largely a result of its becoming more artfully subtle, but also using hypnotic techniques, including the "illusion of choice," hypnotic "binds," "sequences," the power of suggestion, and a conscious understanding of how "altered states." In the case of "sequences," imagine me starting my speech by first talking about images of children being killed, crying mothers, and THEN talking about the possibility of no fly-zones and other alternatives. Even just these same two points in the reverse order doesn't have the same effect, because the first set of images are to induce the altered state, getting someone to becoming emotionally more involved, with their sensitivity heightened, and THEN introducing the other idea. Sequence is very importance in hypnosis.
However, Bandler points out that hypnosis is also a natural part of life. We experience altered states everyday in our lives, from walking (no one has to think about each step they take, automatic i.e. unconscious processes do that for us), to driving, to thinking about and imagining images from the past or future. By knowing exactly how to word things and using the proper sequences and "frames," it becomes easier to consciously guide altered states, especially when one knows how to give "cues" and "prime" people with different images and linguistic formulations. "Experts say," "most experts agree," "there is a consensus," "the benefits outweigh the risks" - each of these phrases makes use of subtle behavioral insights. "Experts say" is what social engineers and behavioral scientists would refer to as the "leveraging of authority" - the idea being that when we are faced with something where we don't consider ourselves "experts," for example going to see a doctor, the mind is prone to taking mental "shortcuts" as a risk-benefit decision i.e. you're likely better off taking the doctor's opinion than just doing your own thing based on your own personal theory. "Most experts agree" and "there is a consensus" is a pretty overt appeal to group-think, but in behavioral science terms, it's a form of "social proof" i.e. most people believe this and it seems reliable, thinking otherwise is more uncertain, presents more uncertainty, which the mind automatically seeks to avoid.
Stories and narratives are framed in a way that most efficiently and quickly leverages these various elements, from altered states to social proof to the preference for avoiding potentially large losses (whether real or imagined) over potentially minor gains.
Keep the flags in the closet and trust very little of what you see and hear. Hugs.
Twitter is a cess pit. Nobody with a functioning brain uses it any more.
Censorship, cancel culture, 77th Brigade and MSM propaganda has destroyed Twitter.
In words of Patrick Lawrence, Russia's special operation in Ukraine is "Regrettable but necessary."
https://thescrum.substack.com/p/the-casualties-of-empire?s=r
War criminals here are Biden and the US War uni-party (both D and R)
Amazing article Caitlin. Thank you.
The question remains how to get folks who are steeped in a propaganda souffle to realize it? I find an inability to think and a satisfaction with the status quo -- along with an unhealthy dose of partisanship -- is what so often roots them there in the first place. Unfortunately being spoon fed is just so damn convenient while crawling out requires a lot damn work, on purpose.
I feel like I’m gonna snap!
This Ukrainian-turned-Nazi thing is going to be dealt with and I doubt there will be a country "Ukraine" anymore. The Lenin's creation is going down and the de-Communization will be complete.
The problem is how the West's going to turn it into their victory. They cannot continue pushing infinitely unless they're ready for WWIII.
MAURIPOL
https://youtu.be/3rZK7o-pyw8
Information I came across recently
The CIA'S COMEDIAN and Off shore banking
https://youtu.be/Pp0WWZbNGq4
UKRAINE
- What your not being told
https://youtu.be/fWkfpGCAAuw
The Hidden Truth about Ukraine pt 1 ( English subtitles)
https://youtu.be/wR1NFI6TBH0
Pt 2
https://youtu.be/V0rR2Fh1zWI kip
🔗Full video (🇬🇧 sub): https://t.co/OcbuqihgEZ https://t.co/J2Buy6rYt3 https://twitter.com/mission_russian/status/1501585783454584839?s=20&t=MiHlXYSY6nvivVz5vmDL8w
https://twitter.com/i/status/1497747535783411714
Always a grift with ‘people’ like Caitlin.
Why do people like this always believe that everyone else should pay to financially support them?
How can you trust the motives of someone who cares more for the financial income, than the truth?
Wasn't this the same amalgam of MI6, CIA, Atlantic Council & CFR oligarch thug funding sources silencing Bezos' Prop'RNot, Brock's CTR & get Assange RussiaRussiaRussia BS scams, libruls were told, they all HAD to buy-into, or Tinkerbell would DIE? Cui bono?
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/18/bombing-mariupol-theater-ukrainian-azov-nato-intervention/
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-03-20/world-war-iii-is-here-but-its-not-what-we-expected/
https://mobile.twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/1504450407103451139
https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/hunter-bidens-infamous-laptop-confirmed-in-new-york-times-report/
To add to Caitlin's cite of Michael Parenti's observation that what is not reported and reiterated endlessly in the media - does not exist, is, as she observes, the fact that what much of what is reported is also excluded from day to day reality, as though it never happened. We select or base our cognition of reality, as the ace propaganda expert, Freuds's nephew Edward Bernays discovered, on what the authorities say it is. The US can kill a million people in Iraq, almost without notice and certainly without any great and lasting uproar in the halls of power, when they present no existential risk whatever except in the minds of the extreme paranoid. But the same power brokers are ready to see atrocity in the actions of Russia even as it faces a real existential threat in a US, NATO dominated West and affiliated shaping of the domestic and foreign policy of Ukraine, a country it borders. It is a magic curtain over the mind of the West, a magician's act with tricks and magic wands to cancel adversaries by the application of ridiculous numbers of sanctions, prohibitions and denunciations. But, as economics have noted, these fools seem to have forgotten that the world these days is almost totally integrated in neoliberal, globalist policy. The manufacture of almost all complex items is a team effort- many countries are intimately involved. If too many economies are crippled, the whole edifice could come to a standstill. That is the kind of effect no amount of propaganda, semantic maneuver, or sleight of mind can adequately cover-over or misrepresent.