{"id":1141698,"date":"2023-07-19T02:34:45","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T02:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/?p=13137"},"modified":"2023-07-19T02:34:45","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T02:34:45","slug":"its-not-the-really-blatant-propaganda-that-gets-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/07\/19\/its-not-the-really-blatant-propaganda-that-gets-you\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Not The Really Blatant Propaganda That Gets You"},"content":{"rendered":"Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley)<\/em><\/a>:<\/p> <\/iframe><\/div><\/div> <\/figure>One of my favorite follows on Twitter right now is a smallish account run by an anti-imperialist activist who goes by \u201cLeft I on the News<\/a>\u201d, because he has a real knack for going through articles in the mainstream press and highlighting the mundane little manipulations we\u2019re fed each day to shape our worldview in alignment with the US empire.<\/p>One story he singled out recently was a New York Times article titled \u201cRussia Fires Drones and Missiles at Southern Ukraine<\/a>,\u201d which opens with the line, \u201cRussian forces launched drones and missiles at cities in southern Ukraine from the Black Sea early Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said, a day after Moscow blamed Kyiv for an attack on a bridge linking the occupied Crimean Peninsula to Russia.\u201d<\/p>Can you spot anything funny in that sentence? It\u2019s not super obvious at first glance.<\/p>\u201cLook how the NYT phrases this subhead to make Russia sound extra evil,\u201d Left I\u00a0tweeted<\/a>\u00a0with a screenshot of the article. \u201cNot \u2018a day after Kyiv attacked the Kerch Bridge\u2019, but a day after Russia blamed them for doing it (as if it\u2019s just some wild accusation). Remember \u2014 the most effective propaganda is the subtlest.\u201d<\/p> <\/iframe><\/div><\/div> <\/figure>\u201cThe most effective propaganda is the subtlest\u201d is a phrase you should try to remember, because it\u2019s so very true.<\/p>It is indeed ridiculous to try to frame this as some wild accusation by Russia, as though Moscow should have remained open to the possibility that the bridge was struck by Bolivia or Nepal. CNN\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0that Ukrainian officials have taken credit for the attack, and just days ago Ukraine\u2019s deputy defense minister\u00a0publicly acknowledged<\/a>\u00a0that Ukraine was behind last year\u2019s attack on the very same bridge. No serious person doubts that Ukraine was behind the attack, including\u00a0those who support Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>But that subtle manipulation didn\u2019t really stand out when you first saw it, did it?<\/p>As we\u2019ve\u00a0discussed previously<\/a>, these subtle little adjustments of perception are what constitutes the vast majority of the propaganda westerners ingest through the news media from day to day. This is because the really overt, ham-fisted propaganda isn\u2019t what\u2019s effective; what\u2019s effective is those sneaky little lies that slide in unchecked underneath people\u2019s critical thinking faculties.<\/p> <\/iframe><\/div><\/div> <\/figure>Contrast the above example with the response we\u2019ve been seeing to Yeonmi Park, whose\u00a0outlandish, larger-than-life<\/a>\u00a0propagandistic\u00a0lies<\/a>\u00a0about what it\u2019s like to live in North Korea have\u00a0turned her into an internet meme<\/a>. She\u2019s become so widely mocked that even The Washington Post,\u00a0among the first<\/a>\u00a0to help amplify her as a trustworthy North Korean defector after her arrival in the US in 2014, is now openly\u00a0questioning her credibility<\/a>.<\/p>This is because propaganda only works if it doesn\u2019t ring people\u2019s cognitive alarm bells. You can\u2019t slide propaganda down people\u2019s throats if it triggers their critical thinking gag reflex. If you want to poison someone\u2019s food, you can only pull off the deed if they don\u2019t taste the poison or throw it up before it takes effect.<\/p>So most propaganda isn\u2019t of the Yeonmi Park \u201ccommunists are so poor that they have to eat mud and get out of the train and push it because there\u2019s no electricity\u201d variety. It\u2019s subtle. It\u2019s these\u00a0tiny little adjustments<\/a>\u00a0where US allies are reported on more sympathetically than US enemies, claims made by unaligned governments are reported with much more scrutiny and skepticism than aligned governments, and the sins which take place within the US-centralized power structure are overlooked while those outside it are amplified and condemned.<\/p> <\/iframe><\/div><\/div> <\/figure>We\u2019ve been ingesting these tiny little manipulations all our lives like microplastics in our water supply, and they build up within our reality tunnels to significantly warp our perception of what\u2019s going on in the world.<\/p>And the fact that it\u2019s been so many tiny little lies over years and years means it\u2019s a lot harder to extract all the perception management from our worldview once we\u2019ve discovered that it\u2019s happening. If it was just a few really big lies we could reorient ourselves toward truth fairly quickly just by recognizing them, but because it\u2019s so very many tiny manipulations it takes years of sincere work to fully free yourself from all the distortions and false assumptions you grew up with.<\/p>But it\u2019s worth doing, because positive change\u00a0can only come<\/a>\u00a0from an\u00a0awareness of what\u2019s true<\/a>, whether you\u2019re talking about individuals or humanity as a whole. Our task as humans is\u00a0to come to a truth-based relationship with reality<\/a>\u00a0to the furthest extent possible, and that means fearlessly diving headfirst into the long, hard slog of sorting out fact from fiction, one lie at a time, no matter how subtle.<\/p>_____________<\/p>All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. My work is\u00a0<\/em>entirely reader-supported<\/em><\/a>, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on\u00a0<\/em>Patreon<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Paypal<\/em><\/a>, or\u00a0<\/em>Substack<\/em><\/a>, buying an issue of my\u00a0<\/em>monthly zine<\/em><\/a>, and following me on\u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Twitter<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Soundcloud<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/em>YouTube<\/em><\/a>. If you want to read more you can\u00a0<\/em>buy my books<\/em><\/a>. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list\u00a0<\/em>on Substack<\/em><\/a>, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I\u2019m trying to do with this platform,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/em><\/a>. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.<\/em><\/p> <\/picture><\/div> <\/figure>Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm<\/p> \n

This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): One of my favorite follows on Twitter right now is a smallish account run by an anti-imperialist activist who goes by \u201cLeft I on the News\u201d, because he has a real knack for going [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1775,94,583,65971],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141698"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1141698"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180756,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141698\/revisions\/1180756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1141698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1141698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1141698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}