Propagandizing the Grey Lady: NED at its Best

July 31, 2014 in CIA, Propaganda, Russia

“Propaganda is a means to an end”

By JC

This week’s look into how the U.S. government — which, btw, I don’t “hate” but I am a dissident — and it’s handlers and tools use propaganda is a fairly simple and straightforward one.

Of course, it is related to how we are aiming to take down Russia, whether it is economically through sanctions, politically through isolation policies, overtly through the escalating chances of war (due to the drum beating of our Administration, necons, neolibs, and just plain old every day democrats and republicans) or covertly through the actions of the Deep State.

It all started with a simple headline a few days ago at the Huffington Post: “Russians Increasingly Alarmed About Putin’s Tactics” complete with a picture of a scowling Vladimir Putin. For those who just scan the headlines at online aggragater sites like the Huffington Post, you get the immediate impression that all is not well in Russia. That’s the first propaganda push: immediate impression.

Well, for whatever small fraction of people who want to read the article decide to click on the link, it goes not to a HuffPo story, but a direct link out to a NY Times article, entitled “As Sanctions Pile Up, Russians’ Alarm Grows Over Putin’s Tactics”. The HuffiPo headline writer got it sorta right, having to edit down the Grey Lady’s more informative headline.

But the HuffPo’s editorial staff didn’t bother to do any fact-checking, or look into the veracity of the Times story. The aggregator just did what they do: give a story further reach. This makes propaganda oh, so much easier!

But for the headline scanner, again we are led to believe that it is our “sanctions” that are resulting in Russians being unhappy with their dear leader and his “tactics.” Well, we know that our country’s sanctions are targeted at Putin’s allowing Crimea to rejoin Russia as part of their secession vote from Ukraine. Also, our country has been highly vocal with its accusations of Russia assisting Ukrainian federalists wanting some autonomy. The kicker is the President accusing Putin of being responsible for the shooting down of MH 17 just by being involved in the conflict.

Well, the reinforcement stage of propaganda has arrived when the headlines insinuate previously released propaganda, and it sucks you in. So if our headline scanner (me in this case) decides to read on, what can they discern from the article? First you have to get past another picture of Putin scowling with the caption suggesting that people aren’t happy with Putin flipping the rest of the world (read “G-6”) the bird for their sanctions.