Feb 24th, 2011
by Stephanie Baselice
Once upon a time, people sought to educate themselves with news. For founding father Thomas Jefferson, an educated public was seen as key to a functional democratic society. Yet education can be a slippery concept in today's media. Corporate interests and billionaires invest heavily in selling us their vision for our future, and we buy this vision at the expense of that very future. They utilize Orwell's “newspeak”--simplifying the language and message so severely that no argument is possible, and defining the very arguments against them in their own terms, such as the Orwellian juxtaposition of “Freedom=Slavery”. This is very simple; once you understand it you will begin to see it used everywhere. They vigorously and repeatedly associate any person or idea working against their interests with persons or ideas the audience hates and fears. The idea is that you repeat a VERY big lie loudly and often enough that listeners will believe it must be true. This strategy is attributed to Adolf Hitler - it is popularly known as The Big Lie. Once you have done this you just insert your preferred truth, and voila! Propaganda success.
