August 13, 2022
Originally Published April 30, 2022 by Cheryl Pass, Tribune News Service
If you know the story of "The Emperor's New Clothes," by Hans Christian Andersen, you understand the meaning of propaganda; a mass campaign of deception meant to cause people to act in certain ways. (Read it, if you haven't.)
As the story goes, the people were afraid to speak the truth in spite of an obvious fact because they were led to believe the truth was less important than the perception of a lie. The propaganda campaign in the story convinced the townspeople that if they dared to point out the truth of the naked Emperor, they were stupid and incompetent fools.
One day a young boy was brave enough to blurt out, "The Emperor has no clothes!" At that moment, the propaganda scheme was exposed. Truth set the people free. The story is a perfect allegory of mob psychology and how effective it is.
Sadly, most people don't want to be the lone voice in the wilderness shouting out the truth. They are afraid to speak up.
Fast forward to 1948. The era of the Cold War begins and the United States Congress along with the State Department set up Voice of America to send radio messages to the rest of the world. The messages could be biased information or disinformation, more commonly known as propaganda.
At the same time, in order to protect the American people from their own government, Congress passed the Smith-Mundt Act which prohibited our government from using our departments, agencies, and tax dollars to propagandize the American public.
Our media outlets were intended to be a "free press" as stated in the First Amendment. Smith-Mundt was designed to protect that right from our government. Without that protection, all manner of media can be usurped by political operatives within our government.
Fast forward again, this time to 2012. Under the Obama Administration Congress reversed the Smith-Mundt protections. They buried the "Smith-Mundt Modernization Act" into the National Defense Authorization Act which passed and was signed by Obama in 2013.
"Modernization" meant they dropped the propaganda protections and allowed government agencies and bureaucrats to create media "news" and opinion to feed to the American public. It is written in typical legalese convoluted language, but nonetheless creates a huge loophole for the State Department and the Board of Broadcast Governors to create and disseminate all the propaganda they want toward Americans using taxpayer funding.
Virus: Mob psychology
Fast forward once more to today. In the age of too much information, how is it that the mainstream news outlets are parroting the same exact talking points verbatim at the same times? You can't help but see it and hear it. It's coordinated.
So much news doesn't match the reality on the ground. And, so much news is now opinion rather than facts. Have the news agencies become the media arm of the government? Looks like it.
Is this mob psychology an operation that you dare not question? Looks like it.
Too many examples to cite, but probably the most glaring example of this propaganda machine would be the "Global Warming" hype. When that didn't become reality, they changed it to "Climate Change."
Within that idiocy, CO2 has been declared a threat to the planet, when in fact it is a trace gas and without it there would be zero plant life. We do exhale CO2, by the way. If I didn't know better, I'd think some purveyors of this propaganda have a personal agenda to kill the population. Ahem....
Today we have the media "yelling fire in a crowded theater," causing panic and promoting the entire shut down of our livelihoods and normal activities due to a virus that turns out to be no more lethal than the usual flu.
Hospitals were told to focus entirely on this coronavirus and close all other health related activities, including serious surgeries that people need. Hospitals are empty and furloughing medical personnel due to this "focus on this one virus" panic.
If I didn't know better, I'd think some purveyors of this information have a personal agenda to wreck the U.S. economy and completely co-opt our health care and decisions.
This time we have most definitely been had by a mass propaganda scheme gleefully delivered by the mainstream media. The tell is the reality on the ground.
There are around 10,500,000 people in NC. We have been told there are 314 deaths due to COVID19. That's .00299% of the population.
Use your eyes and ears and brains! Yes, I'm yelling this emperor has no clothes.
Like the boy in Andersen's story who bravely blurted out, "The Emperor has no clothes," it needs to be said here and now in America. "The propaganda is exposed!"
Repeal the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act!