How propaganda works and why so many have fallen for it

The persistent uniform propaganda of government and mainstream media, as well as the human mind, are cited as causes by those who study this process retroactively.

This article takes these two things to shine a light on the present predicament. Those who continue to turn a blind eye and refuse to deal with the traumas that have led to their passivity up to this point are complicit in the rising tyranny and potential dystopian developments.

Propaganda Trumps Information

Politics and the media have used sophisticated propaganda techniques to successfully misinform and disillusion the majority of the public. Many people, for instance, are unaware that the PCR test examines just “snippets” of the virus and not infections, and that the PCR test frequently yields false-positive tests. The PCR test is useless from a medical perspective because it does not detect infections. But it must be utilised to justify the lockdown procedures. As such, it provides cover for a wide range of negative outcomes, including the alienation of the old, the bullying of children, the destruction of the economy, and the isolation of both.

That government is either stupid or malicious if it refuses to notice these links or purposefully conceals them, causing severe damage – and I assume we all know that they are indeed NOT stupid but just employ countless useful idiot politicians.

If these people are aware of these ties, they are engaging in criminal behaviour and should be brought to justice.

People who get all of their news from the same sources are more likely to believe falsehoods, such as the one that people who see what is behind all the madness march together with the far-right or Nazis. This is the best example of a classic framing technique, in which we are led to believe that something is true because it fits within a predetermined framework.

Critical and independent thinkers are framed to be associated with either the right or the Nazis. In framing, a specific frame is established in which we are expected to think; for example, “women cannot drive,” and “men only want one thing.”

During the pandemic, the narrative was that protests against Covid-19 measures were mostly attended by Nazis and neo-Nazis. Furthermore, whoever speaks there can only be a Nazi. In fact, the participants in these protests are almost entirely peaceful people advocating for their basic rights. The classic Nazi framing serves only to demonise political opponents. Because the average citizens have probably never or hardly ever dealt with propaganda techniques and thus are unaware of them, they fall for them before forming their opinion. So, why should people revolt if they are misinformed or have been duped into clichés or pigeonholed thinking through clever framing?

In his book ‘Warum schweigen die Lämmer?’ (transl. ‘Why are the Lambs Silent?’) Rainer Mausfeld writes under the heading ‘Opinion Management’ how mass media manipulates us through selection, de- and re-contextualisation, i.e., “taking us out of context, putting us in a different context.” There is also outrage management, which is how to deal with opposing viewpoints. Aside from Nazis, neo-Nazis, and right-wing extremists, we find framings such as “conspiracy theorists” and “vaccination opponents.”  In Germany, the term “Corona Leugner” (transl. “Covid denier”) was coined to be semantically linked to Holocaust deniers. However, the label “anti-Semite” is the most defamatory. Such an accusation renders any substantive discussion impossible. The perversity of this accusation was palpable to me as a Jew when I was labelled an anti-Semite for daring to criticise our “Great Leaders.”

That is precisely what the propagandists want. The method of putting listeners into a trance by certain propaganda techniques to prevent their clear ability to judge is a little more subtle. This is to be found in ‘Propaganda’, a favourite book of Joseph Goebbels and written by Edward Bernays, a nephew of Siegmund Freud, in 1928. Bernays describes the technique of dramatising and repeating, which has been used by our mainstream media for years: We always encounter the same topics whether we consume TV, radio, or print media: coronavirus, dead people – “everything is terrible, and in despair”- war, economic crisis, food crisis, etc.

Intentionally Stirring Up Fears

The most important aspect for understanding the current situation is undoubtedly that the media has relentlessly and permanently instilled fear of death. The population has been and is still undergoing massive traumatisation or re-traumatisation.

As a result, the mind largely ceases to function, and the traumatised no longer see the most basic connections. Only a few people noticed a complete disparity between media scaremongering and the number of patients and deaths from the start. I came across a ‘Seven-Step Prescription for Generating Interest in and Demand for Influenza (Or Any Other) Vaccine’ during my research in April 2020. Glen Novak, the deputy director of the CDC’s public relations department, wrote it in 2009, and it has since vanished from the Internet. However, there is another of his hit pieces still available. In addition, Anat Gesser-Edelsberg’s and Yaffa Shir-Raz’s book ‘Risk Communication and Infectious Diseases in an Age of Digital Media’ contains a chapter on this topic.

Arousing interest and demand sounds normal for a public relations consultant at first. However, the document has it all:

• Step 1: A villain enters the stage, the killer virus.
• Step 2: National experts express concern and dire predictions.
• Step 3: Science journalists from well-known newspapers pick up the topic and spread fear and terror.
• Step 4: Images of death and suffering support this “message”, see for example New York City.
• Step 5 and 6: Dramatise and repeat.
• Step 7: The appearance of the white knight: the vaccine.

According to Novak, it is necessary to “create concern, alarm, and fear”. He speaks of “intimidation tactics.” I have rarely read such a perfidious plan. I cannot say this plan has been used worldwide, precisely following Novak’s playbook, however, the similarity is striking. Therefore, it has not been surprising when a leaked paper revealed that the German and Austrian interior ministries were working with exactly this fear, namely the fear of dying from suffocation. The ministries called for intimidating people with the fear that anyone who does not obey the rules could fatally infect others.

This fear and intimidation technique has succeeded in getting more than 90% of people to respect the rules: social distancing, mask-wearing, and testing. Some physicians wrote as early as April 2020 that all non-pharmaceutical interventions (“NPIs”) would be useless in the spread of the virus. An intervention is evidence-based if numerous renowned scientists have validated its effectiveness. Even the WHO stated that all randomised trials, i.e., the highest scientific level, showed that face masks have no effect. This is the scientific community’s current state of knowledge. It has not changed. New randomised studies would be required to overturn this. Even if any committee had immediately approved such a study in April 2020, no results could have been expected before mid-2021. Instead, we have been hearing the opinions of “experts” and the findings of vulnerable, non-randomised studies since March 2020. If you ask the CDC today about the scientific basis for mask use, you’ll get a booklet that says there is “evidence” for efficacy. Everyone should realise they have been duped and deceived.

Based on the aspects presented so far, it is clear to me that one of the main reasons why people go along with this scientifically unproven and legally hardly justifiable “nonsense” is fear. Fear of the allegedly lethal dangers of a virus, fear of threatening punishments in the event of non-compliance, fear of being shunned, fear of extinction, etc. This fear is maintained by new, perplexing measures, new messages and grotesque arbitrariness, as well as other scenarios such as war or climate change.

Obedience

Depth psychology adds another dimension to understanding human behaviour. Sigmund Freud distinguished the Id, ego, and superego. Id describes the unconscious, which largely controls people without their knowledge. The ego is a person’s personality, and the superego, according to Freud, is an idealised level. This includes all the norms and ideas that the person has adopted from the outside world. Our parents occupy this level at the start of our lives and tell us what they believe is right or wrong. They do not, however, tell us, “I do it this way or that way,” but “one does it this way or that way,” because they, too, are subject to a social standardisation process. As long as we haven’t developed our own conscience, our parents serve as our external conscience.

A successful maturation into an adult includes conflict between the Id, ego, and superego for our conscience to form. Then we know what is right and wrong for us and have a conscience within us. Those who fail to progress in this process transfer the superego’s norms to superiors, authorities, or even the state. They then obey this, listen to what comes “from above” and “do their duty.” This is the source of obedience to authority, anticipatory obedience, which ultimately enables dictatorships to function. Someone who has developed his ego, who has developed his own conscience from the initial superego, will not accept everything authorities say but will form his opinion and act independently.

Furthermore, most people cannot imagine their superego turning against them. Children idealise their parents even after they have been cruel to them; in some cases, they maintain this idealisation as adults. This behaviour is especially serious in victims of abuse: in numerous instances, they love or seek the love of the abuser who has just deeply wounded them. This can result in severe dissociative experiences, even schizophrenia.

Psychologists and doctors refer to this as identification with the aggressor: by identifying with the aggressor, we reduce our fear of the aggressor. Something similar happens when someone has transferred the superego’s norms to the state: “The state means well with us, it takes care of us.” Currently, it appears that most people believe exactly that. Many people find it difficult to believe that the state or government has bad intentions toward us.

This gets even worse if the state’s representatives are corrupt, criminal, or even malicious: many must repel this idea from within because they cannot bear it. It is also frightening that the middle class of our society, i.e., civil servants, health officers, police, school principals and so on, implement exactly what they are being told and act as if they are simply doing their duty. Why don’t they get the idea that illegal orders are given here, which to resist is their actual duty? It is as if these people have never heard of dissent.

But the arbitrariness is carried through: “Our” representatives have devised a system that allows them to violate the Basic Law by leveraging 50 medically meaningless positive PCR results (statistically equivalent to 15 colds) per 100,000 inhabitants; they are undermining the Basic Law, robbing us of our liberties and other rights, forcing us to get a dangerous vaccination, imposing a state-ordered self-harming mask coercion, and willingly condoning the destruction of our economy.

Why is there no outpouring of rage? Why is there no corresponding action? Who stops the perpetrators from wreaking further havoc? Instead, more than half of the population still supports the measures because they believe it is all for their benefit. Those who raise concerns are persecuted, marginalised, and criminalised. The majority’s behaviour can be interpreted as Stockholm syndrome to some extent. During a hostage situation or other violent event, it describes the psychological phenomenon in which the victim develops sympathy for the perpetrator. As a result, it’s no surprise that people love to support those who take the most drastic measures.

This means that a sizable portion of the population sympathises with its most vexing tormentor. It ensures that the economy is destroyed, children are traumatised and tormented, the elderly are isolated, and people are at odds with one another. Fortunately, there are those who have kept their cool, who see right through this, and who do not want to see this vicious clique get away with it.

The Pressure to Comply

The tendency to adapt one’s own perceptions, opinions, or behaviours to those of society or a reference group is referred to as conformity or conformism. “Everyone does it that way” or “if everyone does it that way, it can’t be wrong” are common responses.

The reasons for conformity are numerous: the desire to belong, the desire to avoid negative attention. This can result in opportunism. Those who are behaviourally insecure seek information from the group. Conformist behaviour ignores one’s own needs while also preventing social change. Individuals have almost always been at the forefront of social and scientific change. The fear- and panic-inducing measures of governments and the media, which are all aligned, are currently putting a lot of pressure on people to conform. Whoever risks not belonging also risks losing his or her job and being excluded from his or her circle of friends and family. Politicians have already hinted that only vaccinated people will regain (temporary) full access to basic rights such as going to the movies, shopping, travelling, and so on. Many people have stated that they got vaccinated so that normalcy can return.

According to Martin Luther King, “Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”

The Psychological Implications of Evolution

If we dig deeper into psychology, especially developmental and evolutionary psychology, we can see that obedience has been critical to human survival for millennia. Our forefathers were most likely the most brutal of men and the most submissive of women. Under these conditions, the obedient adapted to fearful political situations and established their families. Sophie Scholl, Rosa Luxemburg, and Jeanne d’Arc had no children; their reproduction was purely mental, based on their ideas.

Obedience and adaptation, all the way to denial of one’s own identity, have been deeply etched in the collective unconscious for many generations, perhaps millennia, and shape our thinking, feelings, and behaviour. Those who want to overcome these fear-obedience structures must be aware not only of society’s historical traumas but also of their continued effectiveness in the present and the unfolding of their own inner psychodynamics.

Psychologists played an important role in exploiting people’s trust in authority and conditioning them into submission. The fact that the prisoners at Guantánamo wear masks is one of the psychological torture techniques used. Its goal is to infiltrate the victim’s mind. The requirement to wear masks in the context of the “Corona Crisis” amounts to psychological torture of the public.

Those who use these mechanisms mercilessly and brutally against their population are on the side of the ruling cliques. A new, perplexing, and frightening signal is sent at regular intervals:

Mask compulsion, lockdown, viral mutations, second and third waves, and possibly an “even more terrible disease”. Through deceptive fear- and panic-mongering about the “killer virus,” the so-called elite deprives people of basic rights, which they may reclaim in titbits in exchange for good behaviour, such as vaccination acceptance.

This strategy will not work for everyone. The Basic Law is a fundamental right, not a mercy right! We will reclaim our rights!

The information deficit or the unpractised handling of propaganda, the various forms of fear, obedience to authority and obedience, the pressure to conform, and the opportunities to profit from the situation are among the fundamental reasons for the blind obedience we have seen in the past years. Those who do not comply, who are well-informed, who are not irritated by propaganda, who are not afraid, who resist the pressure to conform and renounce profits will also affect social, political, and scientific change.

Each of you contributes to the fact that humans regain faith in themselves, feel the desire for liberty, and rise against injustice, arbitrariness, and dictatorship.

Source: How propaganda works and why so many have fallen for it – The Expose