The Five Rules of Propaganda
I was doing some research on tomorrow's Scottish Independence vote... one of the "Yes" sites had this. Reminds me a LOT of what we see in the dotgov - especially in the complicity between them and the media:
• The rule of simplification: reducing all data to a simple confrontation between 'Good and Bad', 'Friend and Foe'.
• The rule of disfiguration: discrediting the opposition by crude smears and parodies.
• The rule of transfusion: manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one's own ends.
• The rule of unanimity: presenting one's viewpoint as if it were the unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people: draining the doubting individual into agreement by the appeal of star-performers, by social pressure, and by 'psychological contagion'.
• The rule of orchestration: endlessly repeating the same messages in different variations and combinations.
• The rule of simplification: reducing all data to a simple confrontation between 'Good and Bad', 'Friend and Foe'.
• The rule of disfiguration: discrediting the opposition by crude smears and parodies.
• The rule of transfusion: manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one's own ends.
• The rule of unanimity: presenting one's viewpoint as if it were the unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people: draining the doubting individual into agreement by the appeal of star-performers, by social pressure, and by 'psychological contagion'.
• The rule of orchestration: endlessly repeating the same messages in different variations and combinations.
Propaganda is never impartial (Impartial is the information in a system definition, facts), therefore it can never be objectively true.
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
If I point out that President Clinton was impeached, that's true. I'm not impartial, because I wanted him removed from office. I could have used that *fact* to promote my agenda of having him removed from office. It would have been propaganda, but still true.
A fact is true. Propaganda is a process. A process of achieving what you want through the way you present to audience facts, is a matter of public opinion
Clinton was impeached is a fact, not propaganda
One of the ways of trying to make people support removing him or not of the office is propaganda not a fact.
Clinton deserved or not get removed is an opinion not a fact. Stir the opinion towards what you want is achieved through propaganda.
Propaganda can be based on facts, often loosely (generalization, reduction and other techniques). But is not the same as saying that propaganda is true under certain circumstance..
Propaganda and facts are not the same, propaganda doesn't care facts it cares about opinions about the facts
Note that I don't say that propaganda is necessarily bad (almost always it is). But that will get us to a discussion of what is good or bad.
Take something a lot of people like, be it good or bad but people has some kind of connection and affection. Use it as a symbol of your project.
Say God is on your side... or Jesus was socialist, or Simon Bolivar was socialist, Chavez is the Christ of the poor, Maduro is the son of Chavez the eternal commander. Even make Chavez shrines. Make it religious.
Interesting, how a society that eschewed religion, called it the Opiate of the masses, turned around and built their own form of religion around itself and it's founder. Germany tried to do the same thing in the 30's and early 40's with their shrine to the Alter Kampfers... Had they not crashed and burned so well, they probably would have succeeded - after all, look at the various religions that use that -ology as their mantra.
Moral relativism is an essential part of the communist/liberal/Democrat agenda. Blurring the lines between right and wrong allows for anything to be acceptable. "Islam is the religion of peace." That slogan and it's current variations (Obama's statement that "no religion condones what ISIS does.") are intended to diffuse the boundaries between right and wrong so that we cannot have a clear line where it is appropriate to stop evil.
It may seem simplistic, but it is necessary to make a decision about what is right and what is wrong. Without that distinction, everything is just 'someone else's opinion;' and therefore acceptable.
The question for us is, how do we reach a mass of voters, most of whom are so shallow that those rules work?
BTW I saw the movie and loved it!! :)