Since we are comparing the Trumplican “Regime” with the Nazi Reich (we ARE, aren’t we?) let’s address the Trumplican Propaganda Machine: Fox News, OANN and the 21st Century players, including foreign adversaries and their traitorous mouthpieces, on Social Media and the Internet.
They all use the same tactics as Hitler and Goebbels, regardless of platform. Tell lies. Tell BIG lies. Lie about the lies. Consistently. Constantly. Assume the weak-minded, poorly educated and gullible will believe and repeat the lies.
Hitler described his view of propaganda in “Mein Kampf” which contains his blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts. Hitler writes:
Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.
As to the methods to be employed, Hitler explains:
Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favorable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must, of course, be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has published an article describing how we can stop disinformation (propaganda) by our adversaries; foreign AND domestic.
ETA - and that part about "feminine character" and "sentiment" and "sober reasoning" ...?
Seems to me Donald and Goebbels Miller and the angry violent men who see them as avatars are the ones doing all the hollering and screaming
Hillary Clinton and MVP Kamala Harris were the calm sober intelligent ones, but somehow the nation refused to elect them for the top job
🤔
(and to my mind and anyone who knows anything about Cambridge Analytica or the electoral cyber infrastructure bill that never made it out of Senate Intelligence in 2018, they cheated to keep them out of it both times ... but that's obviously another whole discussion)
Because in 2018 I asked a Deputy Secretary of State where the counterpropaganda materials were to fight Russian infection of the Republican party and by extension, American voters with vulnerable minds, and he said he didn't know of one ...
so it would have been so great for those two bodies to have been talking before this - since they're supposed to be the societal leaders and we're just the peons ; then we might not be in this mess
Something Different: After all the fiers in California are burned out, Land Prices Should Be Very Cheap. Buy 10 acres in the Middle of hundreds of burned out bare lands and you will be safe from fiers and from needing fier insurance for decades $ (note: IMO Fire is pronounced Fi-re, NOT Fi-er. Fier). I'm gonna check with a realtor out there in a couple of months. A "Paid for Mobile Home", a well and a septic tank, and no insurance costs. Finally! California will be Affordable to live there.
I am a Houstonian. Just before I read your words (and I happen to also be a WAPO digital subscriber), I checked my personal email. I received an email from Hearst Corporation's "Houston Chronicle", of which I am a subscriber, that my new subscription rated for full home delivery plus digital access will now be $109 per month, over $1200 per year. I am retired but we are able to afford it. I don't see how others can. Local tv news (from which you originally came) provides lots of meaningless, unoffensive to all, coverage of crime, fires, and some neighborhood events. Very little of what happens in Texas State Government gets into its coverage and coverage of Harris County politics is tenuous.
I've seen it all coming--I began my career in the tv business.
Indeed "Democracy Dies in Darkeness." The man who coined that phrase, Mr. Bezos, is proving it. It is truly disturbing. Mr Bezos is kicking to the curb the democracy that provided him with the opportunity to make the fortune he now holds. I pray for the USA.
People should boycott Amazon products. Billionaires are buying this country and our Democracy. Not to mention other countries who believe in Democracy. It's a plaque of autocracies taking over this world and our country. We the people have to challenge this and write letters to our Democratic leaders and ask them what is their plan. We can't afford to wait 4 years.
I did cancel my WAPO subscription and was ready to cancel my Amazon account, too. But I looked it up and Bezos now owns less than 9% now. Lazy girl that I am, I stuck with Amazon.
As for what’s going in with the billionaires, I totally agree with you. Hopefully this will all come back to bite them in the butt when the bubble, and hopefully the man himself, implodes.
If it is misinformation and disinformation in a publication supporting Republicans it is free speech, but truthful and accurate information in a publication supporting Democrats and progressives, it should be suppressed. I totally agree that a free press is the anchor of democracy. They can fling there lies and a free press can challenge it. Suppressing reporting you don’t like doesn’t sound like democracy. Just sayin’!
A cartoon depicting the reality of billionaires bowing to and serving the king seems to have struck a nerve. Does someone find an illustration of the truth unsettling? Interesting. Reality and truth do have a way of being offensive to some people, don't they?
Bezos is killing the WAPO. Started reading the paper in 1959, subscribed no matter where I lived. What has happened there the past weeks is a crime. Bezos has kissed the ring and now he going to destroy one of the last newspapers in the country. It has truly begun.
I was one of those people who canceled their subscription but then resubscribed figuring it was hurting the journalists more than Bezos. Now if I could just get rid of Amazon Prime.
An update to my comment on Jan 8: I can’t outright cancel my Washington Post subscription as I paid for it on an annual basis… which does not come up for renewal until October 2025. But screw it, I have removed the automatic renewal option. This one hurts. I was born in Wash DC and lived in the Washington area for 60+ years before recently retiring and moving to another state. If the Washington Post ever folds, it will be a dark day for me.
Since we are comparing the Trumplican “Regime” with the Nazi Reich (we ARE, aren’t we?) let’s address the Trumplican Propaganda Machine: Fox News, OANN and the 21st Century players, including foreign adversaries and their traitorous mouthpieces, on Social Media and the Internet.
They all use the same tactics as Hitler and Goebbels, regardless of platform. Tell lies. Tell BIG lies. Lie about the lies. Consistently. Constantly. Assume the weak-minded, poorly educated and gullible will believe and repeat the lies.
Hitler described his view of propaganda in “Mein Kampf” which contains his blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts. Hitler writes:
Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.
As to the methods to be employed, Hitler explains:
Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favorable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must, of course, be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has published an article describing how we can stop disinformation (propaganda) by our adversaries; foreign AND domestic.
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-stop-disinformation
ETA - and that part about "feminine character" and "sentiment" and "sober reasoning" ...?
Seems to me Donald and Goebbels Miller and the angry violent men who see them as avatars are the ones doing all the hollering and screaming
Hillary Clinton and MVP Kamala Harris were the calm sober intelligent ones, but somehow the nation refused to elect them for the top job
🤔
(and to my mind and anyone who knows anything about Cambridge Analytica or the electoral cyber infrastructure bill that never made it out of Senate Intelligence in 2018, they cheated to keep them out of it both times ... but that's obviously another whole discussion)
Well, it sure took the union long enough
Because in 2018 I asked a Deputy Secretary of State where the counterpropaganda materials were to fight Russian infection of the Republican party and by extension, American voters with vulnerable minds, and he said he didn't know of one ...
so it would have been so great for those two bodies to have been talking before this - since they're supposed to be the societal leaders and we're just the peons ; then we might not be in this mess
Love the cartoon.
The Billionaires are sucking up to Trump to keep their standing with him. I find my news other places these days.
Jim Jones was a forewarning that we failed to heed.
Something Different: After all the fiers in California are burned out, Land Prices Should Be Very Cheap. Buy 10 acres in the Middle of hundreds of burned out bare lands and you will be safe from fiers and from needing fier insurance for decades $ (note: IMO Fire is pronounced Fi-re, NOT Fi-er. Fier). I'm gonna check with a realtor out there in a couple of months. A "Paid for Mobile Home", a well and a septic tank, and no insurance costs. Finally! California will be Affordable to live there.
CNN: Analysis There’s going to be even more harmful content on social media as Meta drops fact-checkers.
(Musk/Goebbels In Action...)
"Biden: Carter's enduring attribute was 'character"
2025: NOW NOW! We'll Have None Of THAT!!
Thank you Dan.
I am a Houstonian. Just before I read your words (and I happen to also be a WAPO digital subscriber), I checked my personal email. I received an email from Hearst Corporation's "Houston Chronicle", of which I am a subscriber, that my new subscription rated for full home delivery plus digital access will now be $109 per month, over $1200 per year. I am retired but we are able to afford it. I don't see how others can. Local tv news (from which you originally came) provides lots of meaningless, unoffensive to all, coverage of crime, fires, and some neighborhood events. Very little of what happens in Texas State Government gets into its coverage and coverage of Harris County politics is tenuous.
I've seen it all coming--I began my career in the tv business.
Indeed "Democracy Dies in Darkeness." The man who coined that phrase, Mr. Bezos, is proving it. It is truly disturbing. Mr Bezos is kicking to the curb the democracy that provided him with the opportunity to make the fortune he now holds. I pray for the USA.
Godspeed to you, Dan.
People should boycott Amazon products. Billionaires are buying this country and our Democracy. Not to mention other countries who believe in Democracy. It's a plaque of autocracies taking over this world and our country. We the people have to challenge this and write letters to our Democratic leaders and ask them what is their plan. We can't afford to wait 4 years.
We need action , now!
I did cancel my WAPO subscription and was ready to cancel my Amazon account, too. But I looked it up and Bezos now owns less than 9% now. Lazy girl that I am, I stuck with Amazon.
As for what’s going in with the billionaires, I totally agree with you. Hopefully this will all come back to bite them in the butt when the bubble, and hopefully the man himself, implodes.
𝗔𝗻 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗟𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗝𝗶𝗺 𝗝𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀, 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲’𝘀 𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲, 𝘁𝗼 𝗠𝗔𝗚𝗔 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀
𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝟵𝟬𝟬 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘀, 𝗖𝘆𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗞𝗼𝗼𝗹-𝗔𝗶𝗱, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗙𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿'𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆
https://patricemersault.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-from-jim-jones-leader
I am reading an article this evening from "The Atlantic" titled: "How Hitler Dismantled A Democracy In 53 Days".
(He used the constitution to shatter the constitution)
By Timothy W. Ryback January 08, 2025
"Ninety-Two Years Ago This Month"
*An Educational and Very Disturbing Piece of History.
Read It if you can find it. So far, it resembles exactly what is about to transpire here in America.
President Hindenburg Failed Germany in It's Hour of Need, the same way that President Biden Has Failed The United States, in Our Hour of Need.
Germany's History may soon become our history.
I wonder if Our Nation's Capital Building will be burned to the ground the way the Reichstag was?
January 6th was the start...
If it is misinformation and disinformation in a publication supporting Republicans it is free speech, but truthful and accurate information in a publication supporting Democrats and progressives, it should be suppressed. I totally agree that a free press is the anchor of democracy. They can fling there lies and a free press can challenge it. Suppressing reporting you don’t like doesn’t sound like democracy. Just sayin’!
A cartoon depicting the reality of billionaires bowing to and serving the king seems to have struck a nerve. Does someone find an illustration of the truth unsettling? Interesting. Reality and truth do have a way of being offensive to some people, don't they?
ProPublica has good and brave journalists and they are funded by donations from people like me.
Bezos is killing the WAPO. Started reading the paper in 1959, subscribed no matter where I lived. What has happened there the past weeks is a crime. Bezos has kissed the ring and now he going to destroy one of the last newspapers in the country. It has truly begun.
I was one of those people who canceled their subscription but then resubscribed figuring it was hurting the journalists more than Bezos. Now if I could just get rid of Amazon Prime.
An update to my comment on Jan 8: I can’t outright cancel my Washington Post subscription as I paid for it on an annual basis… which does not come up for renewal until October 2025. But screw it, I have removed the automatic renewal option. This one hurts. I was born in Wash DC and lived in the Washington area for 60+ years before recently retiring and moving to another state. If the Washington Post ever folds, it will be a dark day for me.
I know, I have been thinking the same thing about Amazon Prime.