How The Establishment Propaganda Machine Gaslights Us Into Submission

in #propaganda7 years ago (edited)

The dynamics of the establishment Syria narrative are hilarious if you take a step back and think about them. I mean, the western empire is now openly admitting to having funded actual, literal terrorist groups in that country, and yet they're still cranking out propaganda pieces about what is happening there and sincerely expecting us to believe them. It's adorable, really; like a little kid covered in chocolate telling his mom he doesn't know what happened to all the cake frosting.

Or least it would be adorable if it weren't directly facilitating the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people.

I recently had a pleasant and professional exchange with the Atlantic Council's neoconservative propagandist Eliot Higgins, in which he referred to independent investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley as "bonkers" and myself as "crazy", and I called him a despicable bloodsucking ghoul. I am not especially fond of Mr. Higgins.

You see this theme repeated again and again and again in Higgins' work; the US-centralized power establishment which facilitated terrorist factions in Syria is the infallible heroic Good Guy on the scene, and anyone who doesn't agree is a mentally deranged lunatic.

This is also the model for the greater imperialist propaganda construct, not just with regard to Syria but with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and any other insolent government which refuses to bow to American supremacist agendas. It works like this: first, the oligarch-owned establishment media, which itself is chock full of Council on Foreign Relations members, uses other warmongering think tanks and its own massive funding to force deep state psyops like Russiagate and "Saddam has WMDs" into becoming the mainstream narrative. Second, they use the mainstream, widely-accepted status of this manufactured narrative to paint anyone who questions it as a mentally defective tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist.

It's a perfect scheme. The mass media has given a few elites the ability to effectively turn a false story that they themselves invented into an established fact so broadly accepted that anyone who doubts it can be painted in the exact same light as someone who doubts the roundness of the Earth. The illusion of unanimous agreement is so complete that blatant establishment psyops are placed on the same level as settled scientific fact, even though it's made of little else but highly paid pundits making authoritative assertions in confident tones of voice day after day.

Yes, it is a perfect scheme. But there also happens to be a name for it.

In a lucid essay titled "Gaslighting: State Mind Control and Abusive Narcissism", Vanessa Beeley writes the following:

The psychological term “Gaslighting” comes from a 1944 Hollywood classic movie called Gaslight. Gaslighting describes the abuse employed by a narcissist to instil in their victim’s mind, an extreme anxiety and confusion to the extent where they no longer have faith in their own powers of logic, reason and judgement. These gaslighting techniques were adopted by central intelligence agencies in the US and Europe as part of their psychological warfare methods, used primarily during torture or interrogation.
Anyone who has been in an abusive relationship is likely to be familiar with this textbook abuse tactic to some extent, because it is such a useful tool for crippling the better judgment and alarm bells we all have which are meant to help us avoid situations that are harmful to us. If someone with confidence in their own clear judgement feels certain that their significant other is cheating, for example, there is likely to be a confrontation and some clothes out on the front lawn. If your significant other can convince you that you are paranoid or crazy, however, you will doubt what you are seeing and accept the stories you're being told by someone who appears to be a lot more grounded in reality than you are.



Any degree of abuse can be justified in this way. The documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? tells an anecdote of jazz legend Nina Simone once having been tied up, raped, beaten and held at gunpoint by her husband, who left and then returned telling her she'd imagined the entire thing. And it worked.

We see the same thing today with the establishment Syria narrative and the Russiagate psyop, which are both riddled with plot holes and depend on the irrational position that the same establishment which manufactured support for the Iraq invasion using lies is now beneficent and trustworthy. But if you point out the many reasons to be skeptical of these narratives, you belong in the crazy box.

The good news is that there is an easy remedy for this tactic. We need only to be thoroughly confident in our own judgment.

History has testified unequivocally that extreme skepticism is the only rational response to have toward establishment narratives, especially when those narratives are beating the drums of war. The US war machine has an extensive history of using lies, false flags and propaganda to manufacture support for its bloodthirsty agendas, and the adage that truth is the first casualty of war holds up flawlessly in cases of both hot war and cold war. It is simply self-evident that there is no good reason to take these people at their word, and every reason not to.

Your own educated best guess about what is going on in the world is infinitely superior to placing unquestioning faith in an establishment which has a vested interest in lying to you and a demonstrable history of doing so. Trust yourself and have full confidence that your conclusions, however imperfect, are always superior to those of known liars and manipulators.

Never, ever let anyone bully and cajole you for being skeptical of mainstream narratives instead of believing the say-so of malignant deceivers. Trust yourself. You are not being crazy, you are behaving logically. Don't let them gaslight you.


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Anyone who still watches mainstream "news" channels and believes even 1% of what is been presented as "facts" should consider going on some kind of medication. CUT THE DAMN CORD!

What's even worse are all of the people that parrot their TV... especially all over social media.

My first experience of gaslighting was regarding the Warren Commission. My father had taught me to shoot, hunt, and reload. Because of him I memorized ballistics tables, so I'd know where my bullets hit. He was well informed as to how bullets worked, and what happened to them when they struck something as insubstantial as powdery snow.

Part of the Warren Commission report was affirmation that a bullet found on a gurney had fallen out of Kennedy, and was the bullet that caused his death. Discovering this, I immediately knew the report was bullshit, and said so.

My father, however, disagreed. All those men on the commission, he said, were honorable, and would not lie. Therefore the bullet, pristine, even though they claimed it had passed through two men and three bones, was the killing bullet.

I was aghast. I could not, and still do not, understand how my father could have suspended his disbelief in physics to accept such obvious lies. To this day, I cannot have a meaningful conversation with him, because he is incapable of determining facts from propaganda.

Being raised on an island in Alaska has made me incapable of failing to stick to facts when I know them, admit when I'm wrong, and to change my mind as soon as I find out I'm wrong. It's a matter of life and death when you're confronted with the merciless actions of nature, and nothing more reveals this than the rigors of the sea.

I can be fooled. It may not even be hard to do. I cannot stick to my guns when I know they're pointed the wrong way, and just don't understand how people can.

Thanks!

I can relate to this in so many ways with so many people.

It's frustrating af when so many smart people can be so bat-shit stupid. :/

It absolutely amazes me how these con-artists get away with constantly flip-flopping on their stories from one position, to the complete opposite while keeping a straight face, and people just go along with it. Pretty hilarious that you get called a nutcase too. I mean, they publish their ridiculous hypocrisy in full view of the public, but yet they are the 'experts' and talking heads that speak on behalf of the war machine, that is trying to save Syrian people from their murderous regime? Does it get more surreal than this?

Just this morning I read a 1980 paper by occultist, alleged child abuser, and US Army Major Michael Aquino From PS YOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory

Some interesting quotes from the paper:

Essentially you overwhelm your enemy with argument. You seize control of all of the means by which his government and populace process information to make up their minds, and you adjust it so that those minds are made up as you desire.

MindWar is the deliberate, aggressive convincing of all participants in a war that we will win that war.

MindWar must reach out to friends, enemies, and neutrals alike across the globe - neither through primitive "battlefield" leaflets and loudspeakers of PSYOP nor through the weak, imprecise, and narrow effort of psychotronics 11 - but through the media possessed by the United States which have the capabilities to reach virtually all people on the face of the Earth.

These media are, of course, the electronic media - television and radio. State of the
art developments in satellite communication, video recording techniques, and laser and optical transmission of broadcasts make possible a penetration of the minds of the world such as would have been inconceivable just a few years ago.

MindWar must target all participants if it is to be effective. It must not only weaken
the enemy; it must strengthen the United States. It strengthens the United States by
denying enemy propaganda access to our people, and by explaining and emphasizing to our people the rationale for our national interest in a specific war.

There are some purely natural conditions under which minds may become more or less receptive to ideas, and MindWar should take full advantage of such phenomena as atmospheric electromagnetic activity, air ionization, and extremely low frequency waves.

You can read the paper here
https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-Mv-q4qGq8_TBPcwL/Michael+Aquino+%28US+Satanist%29+-+From+PSYOP+to+MindWar+-+The+Psychology+of+Victory+%281980%29_djvu.txt

Ooh, Michael Aquino. There's a rabbithole. What a freak. Thanks for the info.

The guys reputation makes such grandiose claims fall pretty flat. I can't even think of anybody more associated with evil. How does the worst PR in the world give anyone confidence in a guy that tries to explain how to get people to think how he wants?

The mind boggles.

Superb article as always! The little Twitter back-and-forth reminded me of The Princess Bride finale dialogue between Westley and Prince Humperdink. Just delightful!

I was honored to have the war mongering monster reply to me and we had an exchange. The guy is a tool of Satan.
https://twitter.com/Ventuckyspaz/status/960262438758203392

He's just another piece of shit mindless tool. They are like drones... running on their little scripts and parroting what they are told to parrot.

I love your style! 'bloodsucking ghoul' so true! Thank you for fighting the propaganda media!

Great article Caitlin, keep fighting the good fight!

You keep nailing it Catlin!
Sharyl Atkinson is looking over her shoulder.
Welcome to the STEEMit neighborhood ...AGAIN.

I have added your page as a bookmark in my browser since STEEMit has yet to provide us a way to save favorites.
Is Steemit gaslighting bookmarks?

Keep up the good fight.

Such a magnificent creativity sir

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She is a lady

Aww hehe sorry mistake Mam :):)

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