Don't Play the Game They Want You to Play

Invest Your Time Wisely

Covered Topics

• How to handle a foreign news event like the “Russian Coup”

• Learning history is a much better investment of time

• Why “baked-in” propaganda might be more worrisome

The “Russian Coup”

We are fooling ourselves if we think we can dissect the actual truth about what happened recently in Russia at this stage in the game. I’ve encountered headlines declaring the event to be a “US Backed Coup,” “A Russian Mercenary Coup.” and not a real “coup” at all, just a dust-up between a military leader and Putin.

It’s like a carnival-lots of interesting sights and attractions, but mostly a distraction from the important things in life.

Here is a round-up by Paul Craig Roberts on the latest Russian “Coup." If you don’t know him he has held multiple academic appointments, was the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Reagan and composed a syndicated column from which he signed off with the comment, “Truth has fallen and taken liberty with it.”

This is a man who has had front seat to many of the political events of the past 50 years, which by itself does not justify instant credibility but I’ve listened to him for over twelve years and find him to be worthy of my time.

In his brief article he summarizes what little can be said at this point over the whole affair. The media is positioning this as a weakness of Putin which is of course suspect, since they have been on the hate Putin, blame Putin narrative for some time now. Roberts asks many more questions than he answers at this point.

Here is another intensive in speculation by James Corbett with a Russian expert, Rolo Slavskiy but it is going to cost you another 1.5 hours of your time, time you can’t get back, sucked into the netherworld of purposely confusing disinformation.

Parsing current events, even for those as experienced as Roberts and Corbett, is difficult to say the least. Time will tell as more truth leaks out. So let the experts like Roberts and Corbett do their jobs and check in 6 months from now when some of the dust has settled.

Remember juries can take months, even years getting to the bottom of who did what, when and why. Why do we think we can or should be able to access truth faster in regard to complex international events especially with the Media Industrial Complex working against us?

Learn History

My advice in an age of juiced-up hyper disinformation- Simply note the basic outline of the event, how the media is positioning it and some lingering questions that may have stood out to you and move on—quickly.

A Question: The Wagner Group is a mercenary fighting group—Humm since when are nation states employing mercenary groups to fight their wars or part of their wars. Who is funding them and who is supplying their weapons? Duly noted I move on. I guarantee the answer to that question will return to me at some point in the future.

If you are serious about being a student of propaganda, invest that 1.5 hours of saved time and devote it to learning history. Time and many able bodies have done most of the heavy lifting in terms of investigation and dot - connecting. You, for the most part, merely show up and collect the gold that is lying on the ground in easily accessible places.

You will then have collected a vast storehouse of real life examples training your eye for the patterns repeatedly found in the big playbook of deception.

Why “Baked-In” Propaganda Might be More Worrisome

We tend to compartmentalize propaganda as lies and misinformation used in the political/news spheres. “Here and now” propaganda littered about the intellectual landscape, like so much trash by the side of the road. It’s an ugly sight no doubt.

However, a much more dangerous and veiled propaganda is the control of ideas at the headwaters of the ideological marketplace. And glory be for the propagandist- this type of propaganda won’t become evident for years to come if ever as it takes its old sweet time distilling into the ideological landscape like the drip on a facet that no one notices.

Let’s call this influence “structural propaganda.” It’s a reality that hasn’t really been defined or discussed. Many of those laboring diligently in the ivory towers of academia can’t see the forest for the trees for they are sitting smack dab in the center of the foremost creator of structural propaganda—the academic institutions of higher learning.

The head waters of ideas in a culture are the universities. If you want to win the war of ideas, why not go there… to the headwaters and damn the thing up, drip-feeding the so-called winners downstream on your set timing?

Create a literal choke hold on ideas. As I have tried to outline in my book, One Idea to Rule Them All: Reverse Engineering American Propaganda, we have an Idea Syndicate in this country.

You can try your hardest to understand all the ping pong back and forth of “Here and Now” propaganda but if you miss this, you’re missing a huge piece!!

The closest we have ever come to exposing this was in the 1930’s with the Reese committee tasked with looking into the worrisome and insidious role of the major foundations in academia and beyond. The committee was hamstrung from the start and repeatedly took flak from multiple directions, including active sabotage by high ranking Republicans, a Republican white house and other committee members. Rene Wormser, a lawyer for the committee tells the sad story in Foundations: Their Power and Influence.

The news made sure that any important information allowed to squeak through the hatchet job never found its way into the American consciousness. [Remember—the Media’s role is to hide the REAL problems]

I’m calling it structural propaganda because the ideas become baked in before they have been tested. The winners are first determined then funded, As the money flows the ideas move downstream complete with evidence and experts to support them.

The systems to create structural propaganda have been in place since the early part of the 20th century to control academic output through large foundation grants, government money and more recently corporate largesse. These funds come with strings attached, earmarked for designated projects, ideologies and/or personnel.

Anyone who tells you that all ideas have an equal shot at success in America are fools.

Approved ideas, i.e. those that get funded, end up emerging from the university into the culture as various and sundry pieces of evidential collateral—white papers, research, conferences, projects, books, new departments of inquiry, etc. —signaling proof to the masses as to the veracity of the idea. Science anyone?

Not only is collateral produced, but newly minted experts, following in the wake of the money spigots, fan out across the country promoting the “winning” ideologies that money has wrought.

After having been out of college for some fifteen years, I returned to get a PhD in social sciences and bumped into the concepts of critical race theory (CRT) and multiculturalism. Not surprisingly, I thought they were garbage. Victimology never helped anyone. This was about 20 years ago. Now, it’s mainstream with a legion of supporters peddling the stuff.

So don’t get all worked up about the propaganda on nightly news and miss the forest for the trees. Structural propaganda is real and much more problematic. We can shut off the News, but how do you calculate the irreplaceable loss of a generation of great ideas that were ignored and allowed to die in their infancy?

Money at the head waters of the ideological marketplace controls the output. Make no mistake about it.

We have the “best” ideas money can buy…and they’re killing us.

It’s time to free the ideological marketplace once more.

Ideas are revolutionary. They are spark, light, revelation, creativity and dreams, all rolled into one.

Structural propaganda is a cast system for the mind.

Damn the money. Free the ideas.

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