Where is the truth, how do we find it in the smoke and mirrors of the state propaganda mouthpiece, the mainstream media? How many of us live the false narrative of the state, seeing "our people" as special, better, different, while those "others" over there are in some way inferior, to be treated with suspicion and to be feared. The appalling treatment of migrants is one living proof of the result of this poisonous narrative. Wars are built on false narratives, otherwise would the bus driver want to go overseas to kill the shop assistant, or the gardener want to kill the plumber from over there? States can't exist without a false narrative, how else would they keep their wealth, power and privileges, while the rest of us struggle from week to week? How else would they get their citizens to send their sons and daughters across the sea to kill some other parents' sons and daughters? Our system is built on false narratives. One way to see through the false narratives is to abolish borders, see all humanity as our brothers and sisters, see our differences and admire at the variety, live with a system of mutual aid, sustainability, co-operation and seeing to all our people's needs, free from the profit motive. Put an end to wealth accumulation, privileges, and power over another. A difficult job, but do you see an alternative?
An interesting extract from from Tony Kevin, (retired Australian diplomat.)
Read the full article HERE:Truth, Trust and False Narratives
Let me now turn to some theory about political reality and perception, and how national communities are persuaded to accept false narratives. Let me acknowledge my debt to the fearless and brilliant Australian independent online journalist, Caitlin Johnstone.
Behavioural scientists have worked in the field of what used to be called propaganda since WW1. England has always excelled in this field. Modern wars are won or lost not just on the battlefield, but in people’s minds. Propaganda, or as we now call it information warfare, is as much about influencing people’s beliefs within your own national communityas it is about trying to demoralise and subvert the enemy population.
The IT revolution of the past few years has exponentially magnified the effectiveness of information warfare. Already in the 1940s, George Orwell understood how easily governments are able to control and shape public perceptions of reality and to suppress dissent. His brilliant books 1984 and Animal Farm are still instruction manuals in principles of information warfare. Their plots tell of the creation by the state of false narratives, with which to control their gullible populations.
The disillusioned Orwell wrote from his experience of real politics. As a volunteer fighter in the Spanish Civil War, he saw how both Spanish sides used false news and propaganda narratives to demonise the enemy. He also saw how the Nazi and Stalinist systems in Germany and Russia used propaganda to support show trials and purges, the concentration camps and the Gulag, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, German master race and Stalinist class enemy ideologies; and hows dissident thought was suppressed in these controlled societies. Orwell tried to warn his readers: all this could happen here too, in our familiar old England. But because the good guys won the war against fascism, his warnings were ignored.
We are now in Britain, U.S. and Australia actually living in an information warfare world that has disturbing echoes of the world that Orwell wrote about. The essence of information control is the effective state management of two elements, trust and fear, to generate and uphold a particular view of truth. Truth, trust and fear: these are the three key elements, now as 100 years ago in WWI Britain.
