Propoganda today

Here's a primer I use and believe in.

What is it? In my KISS (keep it simple stupid) method, it is saying black is white enough times to where people start believing it. And it is a technique, a method if you will, to influence fellow humans.

Is it an ancient "thing"? Yes. It has been going on as long as humans lived on the earth.

Who tradionally practices it? Usually governments of all stripes, as a way to influence "their" populations, use this method.

Is it about the same or different now?
A) It's worse now, and in my lifetime. I am age 63. By worse I mean its practice. Said another way, it is being used more often by governments and institutions than even 50 years ago.
B) Now an institution, the 4th Estate if you will, or the reporters, or the media, seems to practice this method, too. I suspect most of the younger ones don't even recognize this. They (and probably the parents who paid for their education) don't know how bad they have been screwed). Hence a lot of other people are going to other sources for their "news".
1) When reporters casually accept conflicts of interest, then things have changed from even decades ago. Conflicts of interest are a big deal to so many. Even I have signed "conflict of interest" statements, and avoid the obvious things, too. Most of us do avoid the obvious things, I think.
C) The method is deliberate, in other words, the practicer is attempting to influence our thoughts. Even go back to the "Yellow Press" who helped get the USA into the Spanish American War, as an example.
1) Lying is immoral, period. Selectively distorting the facts is immoral, too.
2) High school cliques and debating methods and sales pitches are understandable. I've been a recruiter for the Marines, and understand sales pitches. Propoganda is different.
3) Lying to get elected is one thing that most voters accept. Lying to rule, or report to the ruled, is another matter. Back to the immoral idea about lying as a method.

Does propoganda work? To those who use it as a technique or method, I guess they think it does.

What are the implications these days.
A) People around the world are becoming more jaded than in the last half century. Depending on where you live, one may call it cynical. All I know about, or think about, is where I live; and propoganda, or the hint of it, is a wasted effort. It has a bad connotation because of its association with Nazi's. Most where I live on the Cumberland Plateau in east Tennessee also know there is no free lunch, or "no body gets something for nothing", in the end. And there are a lot of deadbeats who live on the government dole these days. But even they know "the times they are a changin".
B) It doesn't work in the long run.
1) Even the more recent Nazi's who used this method in their bag of tricks lost WWII.
2) People will change their views of the integrity of the present system. Hence the status quo is changing.
3) People aren't stupid all of the time.
C) Reporting what others want you to hear, like what the terrorists want one to hear, is a manifestation of how bad the problem of how propoganda has become these days. It seems to me to be the height of laziness to even "cover" such obvious things. Yet it is going on, right now at least.


"Would you like fries with that order?" may increase as an often used phrase.