Somehow, large parts of our civil society have succumbed to that base but instinctive drive in people to lord it over others. That drive, as always, motivates those who tend to seek the reins of power. History is filled with unsavory characters determined to reset the universe so it revolves around them.
…The point is that freedom of expression, when legally protected and practiced universally, stands in the way of their accumulation of power. So the first order of business for a power-monger is to break down free expression, to control the language. That’s a tall order when the public is well-informed. To combat a high-information public, community “organizers” have been hard at work pushing policies that cultivate ignorance, vulnerability, and scarcity.
As they march through the institutions of a society, these conditions produce a culture of confusion, dependence, fear, and resentment. Once power-mongers control all the outlets of communication—particularly the media, Hollywood, and academia—their propaganda can do its work. The work of propaganda is to condition people through political correctness to get with their program. This, in a word, means to promote the elites’ accumulation of power in perpetuity.
Stella Morabito, “How Journalism Turns Into Propaganda”
Oh, this is so good. Ms. Morabito is a national treasure.
I agree wholeheartedly. But, it could very well be the case that liberty has died in the hearts of a large swathe of the American public who want their “free stuff”. As the New York judge Learned Hand once said, when that happens, the best Constitution, best institutions, and best intentions can’t revive it.
Here in the UK disciplinary action was taken against a Christian teacher because she answered direct questions put by a 14-year old student about her personal religious beliefs in respect of homosexual relationships, the meaning of the rainbow, and the Pope’s teaching. She appealed, but the action was upheld by the board of governors. The matter has just been settled out of court, but it highlights a very worrying trend in society to gag Christians (in this case even when being asked direct questions about their personal beliefs), whilst actively promoting anti-Christian views.
With regard to journalism and propaganda, many journalists do not believe it is their role to report events and facts in a neutral way: they see their job as propagandizers and opinion formers. I read a piece recently where the election of Donald Trump was described as a ‘failure of journalism’: Prof. Jeff Jarvis of the Tow-Knight Center for entrepreneurial journalism, City University New York stated, “The mere fact of Donald Trump’s candidacy is evidence of the failure of journalism.”
The article reported that 98% of the top circulations newspapers in USA had backed Clinton, but in spite of this the presidential result was a failure of journalism because the media gave a balanced amount of time to reporting both sides. In future, so the journalists aver, it will not be enough merely to be biassed in favour of one candidate and against another, there should be a near blackout of reporting for candidates that the journalists overwhelmingly disfavour. Journalists henceforth must be partial not only in content but also in time and space. It is thus rather obvious that once the party that the journalists favour gains power, such journalists will become the willing servants and tools of propaganda to keep that regime in power.