Propaganda and the Power of Influence on the Mind and Donald Trump

Decades ago, New York’s Madison Avenue advertising agencies discovered a powerful truth: repetition in messaging has a profound and lasting effect on the human mind. The more frequently a message is shared, the more likely people are to believe it, eventually accepting the products being promoted as the best. This perception is often an illusion, yet people spend their money on these products, sometimes even if they have no need for them.

Children are especially vulnerable to advertising. They quickly develop loyalty to brand names they hear repeatedly on television, even requesting medications they see advertised, believing these products will solve their imagined problems. Adults, often without realizing it, also start favoring whatever brands or ideas they’re exposed to through propaganda or advertising.

One of the masterminds behind the use of propaganda was Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, who famously said, “If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” This principle applies equally to modern political advertising. For example, a continuous stream of political attacks directed at Donald Trump over the past decade has influenced public opinion, much of it generated by Washington insiders. Many who dislike Trump struggle to provide reasons beyond superficial criticisms often picked up from the media.

Our natural tendency is to seek out sources that align with our political beliefs, reinforcing what we already think we know. However, it’s essential to examine our views and question whether they are rooted in facts or influenced by repeated propaganda. Careful research is crucial, as we can’t rely solely on the statements of TV personalities or politicians.

Hitler's Hollywood, A Look at the Documentary Film

Hitler’s Hollywood, is a a documentary film about how Joseph Goebbels reinvented Hollywood film making for the Third Reich.

After completely cleansing Jews out of filmmaking, Goebbels used the relatively new media of talkie films to legitimize anti-Semitism and euthanasia as he glorified the concept of people sacrificing their own lives for the honor of the Third Reich.  

Goebbels was able to oversee the subtle mixture of entertainment, art and propaganda to indoctrinate Germany and soon all of Europe.  

There was no television during the Nazi administration 1933-1945 so attending your local movie house was your only option for seeing films. 

Before you could enjoy the Nazi entertainment film at your local theaters they’d show a newsreel (Fake News) film.  There were potentially serious consequences for those movie goers that came to movie houses purposly late avoiding the newsreels. That was seen as a form of resistance by the Nazis.  

This mixture of entertainment, art and indoctrination was not lost on our own Hollywood.  They later used films to legitimize homosexuality, gender confusion along with various societal and politically unAmerican aberrations.  

As we enter the age of YouTube and citizen journalism the mixture of entertainment and diverse propaganda is now in its own Renaissance Period.  Today nearly anyone can create video Media to promote whatever they please.  

Free speech is all about diversity of opinion.   The efforts to control and censor video content has become a hot button in our new media society.  It’s all fun until others want to silence your voice or content.  

As for this Documentary film, Hitler’s Hollywood, the grand and nefarious scheme of creating and shaping popular public opinion is laid out for all to see.  Below is the trailer. 

Is There Really a Sudden Fake News Epidemic or has Democracy Finally Come to Journalism?

Los Angeles, CA—The father of broadcast Fake News is Josef Goebbels.  As Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Enlightenment  and Propaganda, he was a pure genius.  Goebbels convinced the entire nation of Germany that what they heard on their newly acquired radios was always absolutely true. 

Goebbels success was not lost on our own CIA, back then called, OSS.  The OSS learned of the amazing power of the radio and soon Franklin Roosevelt was broadcasting propaganda “Fireside Chats” that mesmerized our entire nation binding us together against Germany, Italy and Japan. 

In the last 150 years we had powerful newspapers and soon followed radio and television.  I don’t give a rat’s ass who the news provider may be, they all have their own secret and vested interests that they are selling to the public as news.  

Only the very richest Americans could own newspapers and broadcasting organizations.  We the people were never part of the powerful media.  

Reporters and producers are hired based on the ability to craft news stories but also subject to their employer’s political proclivities.  There were once some Conservative newspapers but they all sold out to the wealthy political Left. 

There are no serious mainstream Conservative news organizations around anymore. Conservatives need not apply for media jobs today unless they can hide their political leanings really well.  

The six corporations that own and operate what we call today, The “Mainstream Media” are Leftist and in editorial lockstep together as one. What they’ve expertly been putting out as news is carefully crafted propaganda.  

Since all the news organizations are in agreement on various issues the public is convinced our media giants must be telling the truth. 

The Mainstream Media honchos all understandably thrive on deals and corruption to make their personal wealth and power grow.  They could care less about their audience/readers or their real needs.  They have very human failings at every level.

It’s been said may times that, “He who controls the information can rule the world.”  Recently that control has now somewhat shifted to, we the people!

Suddenly we have the Internet that can transmit text, pictures and high quality video along with affordable equipment that allows anyone to offer up what they call news!  

Slowly citizen journalists, bloggers and podcasters have cropped up by the thousands! Accordingly the newspapers and news broadcasters began to fail big-time!  Pink slips have rained in everyone of the nation’s Mainstream Media newsrooms. 

Some of the Internet news providers are not so clever or capable of crafting propaganda into their offerings subtilely.  Some are reckless and some are absolute abominations. However, now matter how well you can tell a lie or mislead an audience it’s no less deceitful or evil.  

Lack of experience and education has hampered many Internet journalists who have made somewhat clumsy attempts to sway public opinion.  That too will change as they gain necessary skills. 

Adding to the news mess is Twitter, Facebook and a growing list of places where any troll can put up a somewhat convincing “news” item. The problem is people want to believe some of the crap that is maliciously published and don’t bother to check anything out. 

If that’s not enough confusion there are fact checking websites that have their own political agenda and facts are turned into fiction and vise versa.  The only real way to check facts are to actually interview the newsmakers and require they provide reasonable evidence backing their statements. 

Are we somehow in a worse position now than before the Internet News sources?  No, we are better off because there are trusted bloggers and sincere journalists uncovering lies by government and politicians. Wikileaks, Edward Snowden and Bradley “Chelsea” Manning have been able to expose government tyranny and some really outrageous political intrigue.  

Whistle blowers now have real options that never existed before. Yes, despite the longstanding existence of fake news we are slowly becoming more sophisticated and better informed.  

I think we've seen the last Presidential election where the dying Mainstream Media will be able to maintain any relevance whatsoever.  They shamelessly fawned all over Hillary Clinton and padded the pre-election polls in her favor.  That came for them with a severe price.  

Let me end this with a simple truth, every writer has an agenda and the First Amendment thankfully protects that short of Libelous publishing or broadcasting.  Only the government gets to lie without punishment but at least now we can expose the crap they dish out.  Democracy has finally come to journalism!  

There are lots of qualified people that can gather and report news.  There are more people than ever that can podcast or post video news packages on the Internet.  There is no better time than now to make an Internet news channel of your own.  

Frankly I won’t cry for the losses of our longstanding Mainstream Media fat-cats. They’ve abused their power long enough.  

The Great Assault Rifle Propaganda Scam!

The more powerful .30 caliber round above the little M-16/AR-15 (.223 caliber) round

Common (.30 caliber) hunting rifle

M-1 Rifle semi-automatic (.30 caliber) used in WW-2 and the Korean War

AR-15 civilian rifle (.223 caliber)

Los Angeles, CA—Nearly three decades ago the Gun Control zealots pulled a fast one on the public and media.  This was right out of Nazi propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels’ playbook.

Goebbels said that,  “If you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.” We all know now that he was spot on in that observation!

Certain military rifles were called assault rifles.  Perhaps it was a marketing gimmick to make them sound all-powerful and magical.  They were also all fully automatic as in, machine guns.

Soon gun makers exploited the designs of some of these assault rifles for the legal civilian market.  They made lookalike rifles that were only semi-automatic. 

Any similarity of the AR-15 rifle to the M-16 was purely cosmetic.  But these civilian copies became popular with military veterans that were all trained with the M-16.  That was simply because they were somewhat similar.

From the distance the M-16 and the AR-15 are identical.  Looks here are deceiving.  The Gun Control propagandists renamed the military lookalike rifles as, Assault Rifles!  This was a huge semantics scam.

The little lightweight M-16 (.223 caliber) rifles made their combat debut in Viet Nam.  It was a fast firing light rifle suited for jungle combat. 

The Viet Cong enemy in Viet Nam had no body armor and they lived in grass huts.  The more powerful rifle rounds of earlier wars just weren’t needed there. 

Soldiers could also carry much more of the smaller M-16 rounds into combat.

Military tacticians were also savvy enough to know that every wounded soldier required two healthy soldiers to carry and tend to each man wounded.  The lighter round proved very effective this way.

In an urban setting with concrete barriers and body armor availability the M-16 is woefully inadequate.  Low powered M-16/AR-15 rounds have poor penetration ability and can’t stop vehicles or anyone wearing light armor.

Currently, our soldiers in the Mideast should be carrying heavier weapons such as the M-14 (.30 caliber) developed at the End of the Korean War.  Instead they must rely on the weapons better suited for Viet Nam jungle warfare.

American law enforcement chose M-16 style weapons simply because of ammunition availability and the veterans that were hired were already familiar with them.  

Accordingly police agencies were satisfied with using cheap, light body armor that would stop the little M-16/AR-15 rounds.

The ignorant media and public assumed that these lookalike weapons of war were the deadliest ever! They always ignorantly refer to them as “high powered assault weapons”.

The AR-15 (.223 caliber) round proved too underpowered for hunting larger American game animals like deer and antelope.  The animals would get shot and runaway wounded only to needlessly suffer. 

High-powered rifle rounds barely begin at .308 (.30 caliber) and advance upward until the .50 caliber BMG.  Calling a M-16/AR-15 round, “high powered” is indeed laughable.

Assault weapon bans were designed to take out the most popular AR-15 rifles because of their sheer numbers.  

The fact remains the more benign looking wood stocked rifles are still much more powerful.  The American Sniper, Chris Kyle used a bolt-action .308 (.30 caliber) rifle for his legendary, one-shot, one-kill missions.

Just look at the size difference above.  Pictured above is the tiny M-16/AR-15 round (.223 caliber) is compared to the M-1 rifle round (.30 caliber).

NBC News Credo--We Make Up the News That We Want You to Believe.

Brian Williams and Josef Goebbels 

New York, NY—NBC News has like all the major networks have lost audience, revenue and credibility in recent years.

Make no mistake; the days of Walter Cronkite are long gone.  When Cronkite said, “And that's the way it is.” that had some real meaning.  Instead today it’s,  “that’s the way we want you to believe it is.”

It was Nazi propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels who said that,  “If you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.”  He used the new media of the day, radio to convince the German people that Adolf Hitler was their savior.  Of course if you heard it on the radio it must be true. 

Likewise Franklin Roosevelt fed Americans what he wanted them to believe in his infamous radio Fireside Chats.  

Soon it was TV that took on the role of indoctrinating the masses. But in the USA they made somewhat an early effort to avoid the Goebbels style of reporting news.

In recent decades NBC has reported all things from a Leftist slant and like the others major news organizations.  They became the de facto Obama Administration’s public relations agency.  They’ve managed to cover-up scandal after scandal plaguing Obama.

We seem to have forgotten how relentlessly American TV news destroyed Richard Nixon on the Watergate Scandal.  The difference was Nixon was a Conservative and was naturally targeted by the Left leaning media.

Now in a senseless moment of stolen valor the NBC News primary news anchor claimed to be in a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq.  That fable took on a life of it’s own but was exposed as being so much baloney.  

Williams apologized suggesting that he misspoke mitigating it like it was some unintended teleprompter error.  In a real world where the truth matters NBC would have removed him the second he crossed the line. 

It remains to be seen what NBC does but they all know that the news media has seen instance after instance where news stories have been invented, slanted and fictionalized.  Do they even care at this juncture?

Williams is the masthead of NBC.  NBC is on a steep decline anyway so whatever they do will be too little and too late to save the network’s reputation.

Similar issues came up with CBS and their former anchor Dan Rather. Rather was spreading libelous propaganda targeting George W. Bush but when he was caught red-handed CBS had to show him the door.

If you see it on TV you can bet it’s a lot of things, but truth is not necessarily one of them.

For those that call themselves journalists and take that role seriously Williams is now as toxic as they come.  

Why All The Anti-Drone Propaganda? Some Real Answers…

Los Angeles, CA—Report after report has been broadcast and published by the mainstream media alleging dangerous misconduct committed by people piloting little camera drones.

“Experts” quoted in media reports are constantly citing serious danger and privacy concerns.  They all talk about the large number of the sighting reports as a reason to regulate, restrict or otherwise outlaw this new technology.

There is just something really fishy about this propaganda campaign.  There is not one reported collision between a single little drone and any aircraft. 

Despite the reality that absolutley everyone has a decent cellphone camera in their pocket there is not a single image of a drone even near an aircraft.  All we have are unsubstantiated claims from various pilots flying conventional aircraft.  

More importantly there is not a single death or serious injury involving a civilian multi-rotor camera drone despite the fact that more than a million of them are in the hands of ordinary civilians.  Many of these owners are young teenagers.

As for privacy concerns existing laws allow for the arrest of stalkers, peepers and alike.  The use of a drone in no way insulates someone criminally invading privacy.  There is not a single case involving these drones resulting in sufficient evidence to bring about and indictment or conviction.

The fact is each and every claim of drone misconduct has been debunked.  However new, non-stop phony reports instantly follow the ones that fail.

The late Nazi Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels said it best; “If you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.”

The only people cited in any drone incidents were those found flying their drones in areas like national parks that have suddenly banned them. It’s safe to assume that the violator’s were ignorant and unaware of these brand new prohibitions.

The major media honchos have their own issues and conflicts in this dogfight.  TV and Newspapers are losing ground to Internet bloggers like me. 

I did not have to invest in expensive presses or buy ink by the barrel.  For less than $10K I’ve acquired all the TV production equipment necessary to produce quality video news stories and full documentaries.  

Now, I even have two camera drones to get the aerial still shots and video I could only dreamed of capturing two years ago.  The big media giants no longer have an edge on me!  Wow!  What raw power! 

In the next decade the entire news and entertainment landscape will be Internet based.  We will see some the major news providers vanish altogether.  It’s all changing by the second! 

The only apparent uncertainty is how revenue the will be generated by content providers.  One thing for sure the new power of the little camera drones is making a lot of people nervous.  

Drone technology is a very serious threat to professional pilots.  Not to their safety, but their livelihood. We are close to aircraft that will fly free of pilot error crashes and of course pilots!

Very recent emerging drone technology has made great strides in collision avoidance software.   GPS, computer software and imaging hardware will eliminate the need for a large percentage of pilots.  Right now there is no love lost between conventional pilots and the burgeoning drone technology. 

It was just after the Wright brothers created air travel that the military discovered the value of being able to observe enemy movement from high above.  Aerial reconnaissance soon gave way to aerial combat and later bombing missions.

There are those in government that fear the population and never want to see any leading technology in civilian hands.  It’s about people control.  Our First Amendment already protects newsgathering drone cameras.  Is the Second Amendment arms bearing right potentially involved here too?

I recent years during civil disturbances the FAA declared cities or entire regions, No Fly Zones.  This was only about keeping newsgathering helicopters grounded.  It’s more than obvious that this is to give government absolute power to control and dictate what news is reported.   

The whole drone propaganda campaign is not based on public safety or flying Peeping Toms.  It’s obviously all about controlling Americans and who can report news. 

Police, Media Relations and Disinformation

Phoenix, AZ—Politicians and their appointed police chiefs across this nation demand nearly total control of police related information.

It’s epidemic in the larger cities controlled by Democratic Party mayors.  They see the value of leaving their citizens with a false sense of security and public safety as they spin any and all information accordingly.

Police business was once considered just that.  Certain information was kept away from all but sworn police officers.  That’s not the case because the local politicians have demanded and unlawfully obtained access to sensitive police data nearly everywhere.

Politicians also demand the ability to influence arrests and prosecutions of friends, relatives and of course their campaign contributors.  Illicit influence is used to both free the guilty and even jail the innocent.  Cops and prosecutors have no choice but to look the other way.  Whistle blowing in law enforcement circles simply does not exist. 

Our cops are considered expendable so reality dictates that the bosses find a sacrificial lamb or two to frame, fire and destroy their reputations.  This creates the appearance of avoiding corruption by eating a few of their own.

If you think things are operating by the book anywhere, you’re dead wrong.  Of course the actual Obstruction of Justice must be subtle and well below media radar. 

Controlling the cops is somewhat easy for politicians because they control the lives of officers through their jobs, working assignments and pensions.

Because of political corruption the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports system is almost totally unreliable because of local politicians and their police chiefs. 

They have learned that they can skew statistics to get additional federal funding or to hide things like murders from the public.  They’ve found creative ways of making crime statistics appear almost anyway they want.  

I’ve been both a cop and an investigative TV news producer over the last four decades and have seen this all-first hand. 

The police agencies have learned that they can control information by the use of Public Information Officers.   These are the kind of people that know how to do exactly what they’re told by superiors. 

PIO’s are not there to disseminate information but to protect and hide it.  They provide not a single syllable beyond what the public record demands.  They do this with a broad smile and appearance of cooperation. 

PIO’s know how to arrange a live news conference on an important crime story.  They love the captive audience that live TV gives them.  The PIO’s dutifully subvert the news conference purpose and instead use it for face time of the local politicians that have absolutely nothing to do with the story. 

Then they all brag about the “great work” they are doing for the taxpayers until the mass nausea sets in.  Only after that they will say a few words about the story involved. 

Today’s local news is troubled in a big way.  Lost audience and revenue has eliminated any challenges to the PIO’s disinformation.  The PIO’s and their bosses love this and know the stories will spin they way they want them.

As an investigative TV news producer I’ve made it personal policy to purposely avoid the PIO’s and not waste my time with them.  

Instead I locate and contact the witnesses, victims and property owners for the real story.  Instead of waiting for the cops to tell me about the backgrounds I investigate the newsmakers myself. 

If news organizations like allowing the PIO’s to tell their audiences what the news is, reporters and producers are not necessary.  Let the PIO’s Skype in their sound! 

No police department, politician or other obstructionist is going to prevent me from digging and learning the truth about a story I’m working.  Getting a news director to authorize my time these days is the real challenge. 

I’ve always watched the lamest of reporters suck up to the PIO’s thinking they will somehow get something extra.  The PIO’s are enemies of the truth and exist only to demolish or derail anything that might show government ineffectiveness or questionable motivation. 

Reporters should simply refuse to deal with the PIO’s.  If the cop or a low level supervisor like a sergeant or detective handling the story you're working has been muzzled that all the more reason to skip wasting time with the PIO’s. 

At a minimum no sound bites, name recognition belongs in print or on video of any police PIO. 

Every journalist that covers crime and courts should know this. 

The truth is that many reporters these days only want to get their minute-thirty second package up or six-inch print story without any effort.  What a sad existence.  I say do it right or don’t do it at all.