Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Mass Media Delusions

For anyone who lives in the West (the US, the EU and its various adjuncts such as Australia, New Zealand) and wants to know what really goes on in the world, a major hindrance is the powerful filter imposed on reality by Western mass media. It uses two methods to prevent reality from leaking through to the public, one active, one passive.

The passive method uses omission and obfuscation: certain events and facts are simply not reported. Some are willfully suppressed, others carefully underemphasized, yet others are presented in a context designed to disguise their significance. For example, anybody attentive enough could have easily ascertained that Robert Mueller is senile and in no way shape or form was ever capable of running any sort of investigation or writing a report. And yet this salient fact was not reported at all; that’s willful suppression.

But now that Mueller has provided six hours of congressional testimony to prove this fact before anyone who cared to watch, outright suppression has become impossible and context substitution has come into play: those who draw attention to Mueller’s obvious senility are accused of being right-wing extremists. But how can a readily observable medical fact be dismissed as political bias? How could he have failed to recall important details from a report he supposedly wrote (or at least read)? Mind you, I am just using the Mueller disaster as a handy example. As I have explained many times, it doesn’t matter who is president and the entire ridiculous witch-hunt is an instance of fiddling while Rome burns.

The active method is to label all those who try to circumvent their filter as “conspiracy theorists”—a derogatory term that is easy to apply, although making it stick is rather tricky. It is easy to fall into the trap by insisting on a certain version of events without being in possession of specific physical proof. But it is equally easy to act as an independent collector and connoisseur of conspiracy theories (which are popular because they are interesting) in which case your accusers must be on par with you in their depth of knowledge of conspiracies or else be ready to forfeit their position as preeminent authorities on all things conspiratorial.

If none of the major Western news outlets reported a certain salient fact that can be readily exposed and attested by multiple sources by some people who, each one separately, do a bit of research, then how are these people conspiring, and how is that a theory? It can perhaps be argued that there is indeed a conspiracy—on the part of the major Western news outlets—to suppress this salient fact. That would indeed be a theory, but a difficult one to prove, and so why would anyone care to argue this point? Why not just let the salient fact speak for itself?

In short, the trick for avoiding the label of “conspiracy theorist” when reporting an unreported or underreported fact is to always couch it in the form of a question—“Here’s some evidence of something quite important, but Western mass media has failed to cover it; why?”—and leave Western mass media with the burden of proof that they didn’t conspire to suppress the coverage. Of course, no mass media outlet would ever accept such a challenge. Alternative responses include stony silence and, when that tactic starts looking ridiculous, resorting to ad hominem attacks and name-calling. But that leads to an inevitable loss of face because it automatically reduces to the childish game of “I know you are, but what am I?” As, for instance, in “Is refusing to report on Mueller’s obvious senility a sign of political extremism?”

Western mass media malfeasance doesn’t stop at suppression of facts; there is also its massive failing to provide any sort of meaningful analysis, or even to form rather obvious conjectures that we can then consider on their merits. For example, I might wildly conjecture that Robert Mueller was chosen as a senile stooge behind whose back Hillary Clinton’s political operatives conspired to unseat Donald Trump by a combination of falsified and coerced evidence, entrapment and various other forms of prosecutorial misconduct.

Again, I don’t have a dog in this race because I believe the US is in the process of flushing itself down the same golden toilet no matter who is its president. I have no particular love of “Donny, Putin’s man in Washington” (that’s a joke; Russians find it hilarious), but I do enjoy the comedic elements of watching this “Art of the Deal” president fail to close a single deal with anyone. In any case, I am perfectly happy to wait until the truth of the matter comes out. Sure, maybe it was Putin’s clever plan to make Americans spend four years beating each other up over an orange-haired buffoon who, as ordered by Putin, has been working tirelessly to wreck the relationship between the US and China and to ease China into an alliance with Russia, and also to wreck the relationship between the US and Europe, leaving a weakened and faltering US stranded all alone on the wrong side of the planet, but that’s just a conspiracy theory, isn’t it?

15 comments:

sykes.1 said...

I was under the impression that Xi was pushing the alliance and that Putin was hesitant. I suppose it doesn't matter who is doing what. An American shipwreck is coming.

jal said...

Politicians keep repeating the same thing, like a broken record.
Is sounding like a broken record a sign of dementia

Mike D said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
hejiminy cricket said...

Donald Trump is the greatest Russian super spy of all time, and the personification of the toad God Kek. Prove me wrong.

Roger Rogers said...

Senile Dementia is a grave diagnosis. Has Robert Meuller undergone cognitive assessments? The man may be a buffoon and a knave, but he still retains some higher level functioning, apparently. The entire status-quo in the West shows signs of early onset Alzheimer's.

Pamela Storer said...

Very true, once again Mr. Orlov, you are "on the money".
In their attempts to hide truth and misrepresent facts, they use now, and have for a long time, something John Perkins [he of "Confessions of an Economic Hit-man fame] calls "Perception manipulation".
I've been studying this for a while. It's the way they use words to mess with minds, making the readers of MSM believe what they want to. The economics expert, Michael Hudson, pointed out the same thing, in his excellent "J is for Junk Economics". He tells us what a true "Free Market" was - free of rentiers - which always carries for us a golden glow of rightfulness, but that the same term now is used for the modern market of nothing but rentiers and law breakers.
Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1930's, before his untimely death, from his study of many languages and observation of human activity, showed how words influence our perceptions and from this our actions. As noted "95% of our thinking is done with our perceptions. Get them wrong, we get our thinking wrong, and thus our decisions".
Thus we have UK newspapers - on finding that Italy had uncovered a Ukraine - Kiev linked Nazi cell full of missiles intended to do damage, from the Ukraine Nazi cells in Kiev, reported it as being "from the pro-Russian groups in Ukraine". On being remonstrated with, they changed it "having been used in the Ukraine troubles!!". Like use of the word "annex" to describe Russia reunification - legal under every international law relevant - as "Russia annexed Crimea" the use of the word as a verb carrying the perception of use of force, arms, military. It just goes on and on.
Reading happens quite fast. The average person reads 3-4 words a second. Thus we dont analyse words, we simply use them subliminally to scan a previous understanding, only noting any new information.
There is an excellent book the author of which the journalist and TV host Abby Martin interviewed, who shows how, by use of words, America has Hidden it's Empire world wide from everyone. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df4R-xdKvpM ]
I'd recommend watching. It's a gem.

William said...

I would have found the Mueller testimony (what little I have seen) much less embarrassing and pitiful and, frankly, outrageous if I really did think the old man was senile. What I saw was just plain terrible acting!

Beagle Juice said...

The Mueller/Trump saga is just another weapon of Mass Distraction. It makes it seem as if the Swamp (https://time.com/donald-trump-drain-swamp/) is actually doing something besides feathering its own nest. This dog and pony show has been played out so many times through history that it resembles an irresistible force. It always continues until it runs into an immovable object which usually takes the form of resource depletion, plagues, or a foreign enemy. The U.S.A. will likely succumb to all three before the fat lady sings.

Ike said...

As a clear example of your point re media ommisionsHere in New Zealand the Media endlessly lambasts us with reports about the Hong Kong demonstrations and the Moscow demonstrations but not a word about the long running Yellow Vest demonstrations in France. To rub salt in the wound we taxpayers have to pay their salaries.

Dmitry Orlov said...

Ike -

Perfect example! I am going to write about this particular phenomenon on Thursday. The thing is, the Moscow protests and the Hong Kong protests are both completely fake. In Moscow, barely 3.5 thousand people showed up to protest certain candidates from being excluded from Moscow municipal elections, but more than half of them were not from Moscow municipality and the candidates that were excluded didn't collect enough petition votes because Muscovites think that they are a joke. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, the protest is supposedly over an extradition law. It was prompted by the fact that a certain mainlander came to Hong Kong with his girlfriend, killed her, lived off her credit and debit cards for quite a while (she was a rich girl) and now can't be extradited back to the mainland to stand trial. But the point is, these are both fake, synthetic protests designed as media events by Western oligarchs, NGOs and media consortia. And they are both ridiculous and 100% fake. But don't expect your media to tell you that.

Cortes said...

William is correct.

Mueller is laying the foundation for an Ernest Saunders defence for when the indictments start flying:

https://alchetron.com/Ernest-Saunders

Frihet og Helse said...

Ike,
Exactly the same media coverage here in Norway. Saw the news the other day. Public broadcaster NRK has a correspondent in Moscow and they did a rather large piece on the "protest" in Moscow, focusing on the opposition figure Putin and how Putin is afraid of them gaining traction. Then not outright saying so, but indirectly suggesting that Putin et al poisoned the poor Navalny in prison. Commercial TV2 went even further, digging up another character that had previously been in prison and who claimed he too was poisoned by the authorities.
First coverage about Moscow, immediately followed by Hong Kong, not a word about Paris.
It's beyond ridiculous but the ecco chamber which is western media has clearly decided this low level propaganda is all it takes to brainwash an uninformed and gullible population.

Seshette said...

So Jim Willie reveals that Mueller had nothing to do with his eponymous report, that it was written by one Andrew Weissman and Mueller knew nothing of the contents, he just signed off on it, and maybe even that is bogus. One should never get that Mueller ran the 911 investigation and was brought on board to head the FBI on 9/4/2001- just one week before the Twin Towers hit. There's no point in rehashing that smoke and mirrors episode. During his legal career he was involved in Waco, the Oklahoma bombing and Ruby Ridge. While in the Justice dept. he presided over the BCCI scandal. Post 911, while at FBI til 2013 ( longest run ever for anyone at that agency) he also handled the Anthrax mysteries and rounded up numerous muslims with dubious evidence.
Mueller is familiar with all the important players across the globe in this script. He has worked with the most criminal elements at large in the world, and has oftened partnered with James Comey. Mueller may be senile, it may just have been terrible acting, but he has proved himself loyal to his handlers and that's all that matters in his world. After all, does anyone really believe he had no idea what questions he would face? Yes, these circuses are crafted to entertain and bamboozle us, despite their poor quality, but they also help feed the legal industry revenue stream with armies of lawyers and staff making a boatload of money off the taxpayer. It happens with every administration so we should be on to it by now- but we're not. We think it's legitimate- will we ever learn?

NoobishPineapple said...

From what I have seen Tucker Carlson's show on Fox news is a huge hole in the media matrix. Just last night, he did a segment on how Google is manipulating it's search engine in order to manipulate public opinion and hide information. He exposed that people critical of the Federal Reserve, were having their videos and discussions removed from Google searches and YouTube. He even pointed out that this was done shortly after Chris Hayes typed Federal Reserve into the YouTube search bar and the first thing that popped up was a video titled, “Century of Enslavement: The History of The Federal Reserve. YouTube has fortunately not taken down Mike Maloney's video The Federal Reserve: Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind - Hidden Secrets of Money Ep 4. This is a must see.

BitChute is a hole in the matrix big enough to drive a tank through. The site is completely uncensored. But, it is being isolated and cut off by big finance and big business. There are no advertisements on it, and I had a very hard time supporting the site by buying a membership. I tried paying for my membership with my Visa Card but the payment did not go through. I also tried using my debit card but even that was declined. I had to call the bank to finally make my payment with my debit card.

What I learned was that our media is ultimately controlled by the banks and big business. They allow Marxist rubbish and anti-white racist material but populist media is heavily suppressed.

So, a free media will require that people be willing to pay out of pocket to support it. It will also require that people be willing to get around banks that don't want to support a truly independent media. But, if people are willing to pay a little money, and make a phone call or snail mail a check or money order to do so. We can have independent media.

RB Seymour said...

If Mueller was faking he should get an academy award.