Propaganda and the Liberal Conspiracy
If the controversies over “fake-news”, Donald Trump’s media coverage, and liberal media bias are a matter of interest to you, you’ve come to the right place. Here I have managed to find irrefutable evidence that the liberal conspiracy does, and has, existed for a very long time and has been endowed by people and foundations in very powerful places.
It might not be what you might have imagined it would be, though: truth is always stranger than fiction.
The fact that the CIA was involved in direct (but covert) funding of writers, artists, intellectuals, historians and scientists during the 60s-70s through the Congress of Cultural Freedom is a well-documented, historical fact. It was a massive entangled web of government/political organizations, charities, prominent celebrities/dignitaries, intellectual circles and media campaigns that would make the “scandals” of today seem like a joke.
It would be naive to think that similar things aren’t happening today between the Russia and the US, given that these countries have been involved in these types of activities since the end of WW2. Did they suddenly stop just because the Cold War had “ended” and the media was becoming more digital? Not likely. So whether or not the media is susceptible to external manipulation shouldn’t really be a matter of question: it is, it has, and it always will be, at least on some level. The more interesting questions to ask are “by whom” and “towards what end?”
For the CCF, its mission was to establish and support an ideology of an “anti-communist left” that was both liberal yet pro-individualism in its outlook and disposition. You could argue that this was the beginning of the America’s particular brand of liberalism that included aspects of pro-capitalist progressivism as well as identity politics — an ideology that has more or less turned into a way of life for many on the left.
The CIA, even when they were “caught” by the media for their covert cultural activities, have more or less been brazen about their efforts: they freely admit that this was going on at the time and deemed it necessary for the safety and security of the American way of life. There was a sense that what they were doing was serving a purpose bigger than themselves that made it easier to tolerate some of the less savory activities that had to be done in the name of freedom.
Today we’re facing a new type of enemy, however: terrorism. I get the sense that our tactics for combating these developments, at least on the cultural front, hasn’t really kept up with the times in order for it to be considered effective anymore. Even though the Cold War has been “officially” been over for more than two decades now, “socialism” and “communism” still continues to be a bad word (as evidenced by Fidel Castro’s death), proving that we haven’t been able to let go of our past ideologies just yet. The populism of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump — along with the weird connections we’re now making with Vladmir Putin and the Russian government (true or not) is a sign that we’re still desperately trying to hold onto the mental models of the old.
For the to-be lone-wolf gunman who might be consider engaging in a mass-shooting, the pursuit of individualism and identity only serves to encourage him to become a provocateur and disturbance within the social order. As long as we continue to encourage and reward these behaviors, dangerous edge cases will continue to pop up perpetually no matter what we say or do. What we need right now is a new model — a more universal way of seeing the world that includes anything and everything we happen to come across. And it can be done, as long as we’re willing to really understand and let go of the steps that got us to this point in the first place.
