Helios
Well-Known Member
Truth is the first casualty of The NEWS
The rise of television news, and its power over the mind, necessitated an agreement among the major networks:
On most issues, the networks would have to mirror each other’s coverage. Otherwise, the audience would experience an unacceptable level of confusion and cognitive dissonance.
This principle of agreement was basically about the rules of propaganda—and nowhere was it more evident than in matters of medical science.
For example, suppose, recently, the COVID PCR test became an occasion for disagreement among NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and FOX?
Three networks fell into line with the CDC and the WHO in claiming the test was accurate and meaningful, while the other two strenuously reported on the irreparable and fatal flaws in the test.
The network dissonance would upset a huge apple cart smack in the middle of COVID “science.” The public wouldn’t know where to turn.
Therefore, the truth of the matter had to take a back seat to conformity. All the major networks robotically echoed the CDC/WHO.
And the network anchors had to sell the PCR lies. Lester Holt (Lurch/ the Addams family); David Muir (Sears underwear model); Norah O’Donnell (student council president); Wolf Blitzer (“smart bombs went right down chimneys in Iraq”); a collection of shiny suits at FOX; they all had to pretend they’d looked at more than the opening lines of public health press releases.
The guiding light of network news is unanimity, and social media have adopted that m.o. as well.
Truth is the first casualty of The News.
Long before television secured its hold on the public (1923-1928), Austrian Born Edward Bernays, the man responsible in influencing Americans to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, the father of modern propaganda, wrote: “This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas.”
“Domination to-day is not a product of armies or navies or wealth or policies. It is a domination based on the one hand upon accomplished unity, and on the other hand upon the fact that opposition is generally characterized by a high degree of disunity.”
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.”
Today, vast numbers of people DO cooperate; they watch the news, which is a virtual construct.
The network editors, writers, on-air talent, and crews conspire and collaborate, every day, to fulfill Bernays’ prescriptions for society. And, for the most part, these plotters are true believers. They think they’re presenting fact.
This is what habit does to the mind.
Human society had to be hypnotized. Otherwise, profound decentralization would occur.
Consider this simple fact about the PCR test—which any news reporter should be able to spot in a minute, but doesn’t: a person who tests positive is called “a case of COVID-19.”
That isn’t even done with HIV/AIDS. A person who tests positive is called “HIV positive.” If he develops symptoms, then he’s called “a case of AIDS.”
Imagine this conversation: “Hi, Phil, how’s your son?”
“He has the flu.”
Oh. Is he in bed?”
“No. He ran the marathon yesterday.”
“What? You said he has the flu.”
“He does. He tested positive for the virus.”
Absurd.
In 1913, political commentator Walter Lippmann wrote: “Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong; where truth is poisoned at its source; one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to misleading a bewildered people.”
If the CDC says the sky is falling, all the networks will report it—and will censor the fact that it isn’t falling.
“…in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Adolph Hitler, 1925
The distortion of the truth applies to the past as well as to the present. As George Orwell puts it, in 1984:
“The past, he reflected, had not merely been altered, it had been actually destroyed. For how could you establish even the most obvious fact when there existed no record outside your own memory?…To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself…That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”
Why all this subterfuge? In order to produce mass uniformity of belief and consensus. You can be sure that, in the future, the history of COVID will be transmitted in a way that covers up all the lies and obfuscations. COVID will be invoked to prove contradictory propositions (both A and not-A), when it suits the propagandists.
Mainstream reporters, some of them are aware they’re on an Orwellian path. They squelch that perception. But they know they’re a) believing what they report is true and b) disbelieving what they report.
They understand they’re parrot-performers on a stage under the lights, and yet they accept their roles as absolutely authentic reflections of honesty.
They rationalize this contradiction in the same way that Edward Bernays did in 1928: “Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner [by accepting propaganda as fact] if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.”
Under hypnosis.
Have you ever seen a first-class hypnotist perform his act? The basic requirement—he must appear to know exactly what he’s doing. That skill is paramount.
And this is the standard toward which all television news anchors aspire.
The rise of television news, and its power over the mind, necessitated an agreement among the major networks:
On most issues, the networks would have to mirror each other’s coverage. Otherwise, the audience would experience an unacceptable level of confusion and cognitive dissonance.
This principle of agreement was basically about the rules of propaganda—and nowhere was it more evident than in matters of medical science.
For example, suppose, recently, the COVID PCR test became an occasion for disagreement among NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and FOX?
Three networks fell into line with the CDC and the WHO in claiming the test was accurate and meaningful, while the other two strenuously reported on the irreparable and fatal flaws in the test.
The network dissonance would upset a huge apple cart smack in the middle of COVID “science.” The public wouldn’t know where to turn.
Therefore, the truth of the matter had to take a back seat to conformity. All the major networks robotically echoed the CDC/WHO.
And the network anchors had to sell the PCR lies. Lester Holt (Lurch/ the Addams family); David Muir (Sears underwear model); Norah O’Donnell (student council president); Wolf Blitzer (“smart bombs went right down chimneys in Iraq”); a collection of shiny suits at FOX; they all had to pretend they’d looked at more than the opening lines of public health press releases.
The guiding light of network news is unanimity, and social media have adopted that m.o. as well.
Truth is the first casualty of The News.
Long before television secured its hold on the public (1923-1928), Austrian Born Edward Bernays, the man responsible in influencing Americans to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, the father of modern propaganda, wrote: “This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas.”
“Domination to-day is not a product of armies or navies or wealth or policies. It is a domination based on the one hand upon accomplished unity, and on the other hand upon the fact that opposition is generally characterized by a high degree of disunity.”
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.”
Today, vast numbers of people DO cooperate; they watch the news, which is a virtual construct.
The network editors, writers, on-air talent, and crews conspire and collaborate, every day, to fulfill Bernays’ prescriptions for society. And, for the most part, these plotters are true believers. They think they’re presenting fact.
This is what habit does to the mind.
Human society had to be hypnotized. Otherwise, profound decentralization would occur.
Consider this simple fact about the PCR test—which any news reporter should be able to spot in a minute, but doesn’t: a person who tests positive is called “a case of COVID-19.”
That isn’t even done with HIV/AIDS. A person who tests positive is called “HIV positive.” If he develops symptoms, then he’s called “a case of AIDS.”
Imagine this conversation: “Hi, Phil, how’s your son?”
“He has the flu.”
Oh. Is he in bed?”
“No. He ran the marathon yesterday.”
“What? You said he has the flu.”
“He does. He tested positive for the virus.”
Absurd.
In 1913, political commentator Walter Lippmann wrote: “Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong; where truth is poisoned at its source; one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to misleading a bewildered people.”
If the CDC says the sky is falling, all the networks will report it—and will censor the fact that it isn’t falling.
“…in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Adolph Hitler, 1925
The distortion of the truth applies to the past as well as to the present. As George Orwell puts it, in 1984:
“The past, he reflected, had not merely been altered, it had been actually destroyed. For how could you establish even the most obvious fact when there existed no record outside your own memory?…To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself…That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”
Why all this subterfuge? In order to produce mass uniformity of belief and consensus. You can be sure that, in the future, the history of COVID will be transmitted in a way that covers up all the lies and obfuscations. COVID will be invoked to prove contradictory propositions (both A and not-A), when it suits the propagandists.
Mainstream reporters, some of them are aware they’re on an Orwellian path. They squelch that perception. But they know they’re a) believing what they report is true and b) disbelieving what they report.
They understand they’re parrot-performers on a stage under the lights, and yet they accept their roles as absolutely authentic reflections of honesty.
They rationalize this contradiction in the same way that Edward Bernays did in 1928: “Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner [by accepting propaganda as fact] if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.”
Under hypnosis.
Have you ever seen a first-class hypnotist perform his act? The basic requirement—he must appear to know exactly what he’s doing. That skill is paramount.
And this is the standard toward which all television news anchors aspire.
