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The Honorable Senator Flake would benefit from reading Jang's account of what real despotism looks like. The Senator seems not to know

Liberal journalism's hatred of Trump breeds propaganda



Liberal journalism's hatred of Trump breeds propaganda Today's liberal journalism is motivated by hatred of Donald Trump. And, as a consequence, much of what claims to be "reporting" is ideological propaganda. Once a generally-honorable profession, today's political journalism generates heat, but little light. It has become a redundant-meme machine; e.g., Russian Collusion ad nauseam. But the redundant part isn't new.
As a teenager, I'd watch the 5:00 p.m. national news with my father. He'd switch back-and-forth between NBC, CBS and ABC to show me how the "news" was predominantly an echo chamber repeating identical highlights from that day's Washington Post and New York Times. Each network news station sang the same tune--with different voices on stage. But back then it was often a benign mirroring. Until Watergate. During the Obama years the words to the tune were--Obama is doing wondrous things for America, etc. But after November 2016, the notes went sour, the voices flat, the lyrics became acidic, the tune caustic--as hate took over. So why did this happen? Long ago, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) gave us a clue in his essay entitled "How the soul vents its emotions on false objects when true ones are lacking." "What causes do we not invent for the misfortunes that befall us! What do we not take offence at, rightly or wrongly, in order to have something to spar with!" Hatred of Trump was born the night he won the Presidency, and it lives on. Most liberal journalists despise Donald Trump because he beat Hillary Clinton. Their souls continue to vent the emotions they felt the moment Clinton lost. Many liberal journalists were existentially invested in her victory. To the extent they aimed to facilitate that outcome, they failed. And, they continue to bemoan that failure, viscerally--from a gut level.

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Over time, hatred takes a tool on its hosts. More from Montaigne: "It would seem that the mind, when disturbed and excited, goes astray of itself, if we do not give it something to lay hold of; and it must always be supplied with some object to seize and work upon...And we see that the mind, when most excited, deceives itself, setting up a false and fanciful object, even contrary to its own belief, rather than act against something." Much of what is offered as political "news" today in America is intentional propaganda.
"Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an organization." (Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes," -- Jacques Ellul, © 1965, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., p. 61)
The primary target of liberal anti-Trump propaganda is the "marginal man." Media propagandists keep "in mind that most important man to be reached is the so-called marginal man: that is the man who does not believe what the propagandist says, but who is interested because he does not believe the opposition either; the man who in battle has good reason to lay down his arms." (Ellul, p. 34, n. 8) In the public venue of political ideology,
"...the Undecided--those people whose opinions are vague, who form the great mass of citizens, and who constitute the most fertile public for the propagandist. The Undecided are not the Indifferent--those who say they are apolitical, or without opinion and who constitute no more than 10 percent of the population. The Undecided, far from being outside the group, are participants in the life of the group, but do not know what decision to make on problems that seem urgent to them. They are susceptible to the control of public opinion or attitudes, and the role of propaganda is to bring them under this control, transforming their potential into real effect." -- (Ellul, p. 48)

In short, liberal media propaganda aims to recruit new anti-Trump lemmings into the campaign to, at least, diminish Trump's effectiveness as President, or, at most, remove him from office. They aim to share the hatred. Meanwhile, on January 17, 2018, in a pre-announced speech addressed to President Trump that played to an empty Senate chamber, Republican U.S. Senator Jeff Flake was true to his surname in comparing Donald Trump to Joe Stalin saying, "Despotism is the enemy of the people. The free press is the despot's enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy." More political propaganda--this time from a NeverTrump Republican politician. Despotism is, indeed, the enemy of the people. But an unchallenged press trafficking in propaganda is no guardian of democracy. On the contrary, it is a threat to democracy. The true, frontline "guardians of democracy" are the women and men of America's Armed Forces. A deeply biased press, whether acting under duress, or voluntarily, enables despotism and, thereby, becomes an enemy of the people. An escapee from North Korea knows something about that.
Jang Jin-Sung, a former counter-intelligence officer and Poet Laureate for the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, and the author of "Dear Leader: North Korea's senior propagandist exposes shocking truths behind the regime," -- (Rider, Random House, London, © 2014) describes how thoroughly corrupted journalism works.
On page one of his accounts of life in North Korea as a state propagandist, and his escape to freedom, he writes:
"Throughout his life, Kim Jong-il stressed, 'I rule through music and literature.' Despite being the Commander-in-Chief of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Chair of the National Defence Commission, he had no military experience. In fact, he began his career as a creative professional, and his preparation for his succession to power began with his work for the Party's Propaganda and Agitation Department (PAD)...[H]e was a dictator by means of physical control, but he was also a dictator in a more subtle and pervasive sense: through his absolute power over the cultural identify of his people. In a mode characteristic of Socialism, where ideology is more important than material goods, he monopolized the media and the arts as a crucial part of his ambit of absolute power. This is why every single writer in North Korea produces works according to a chain of command that begins with the Writers' Union Central Committee of the Party's Propaganda and Agitation Department. Anyone who composes a work that has not been assigned to the writer through this chain of command is by definition guilty of treason."
On December 7, 2004, eight months after a narrow escape from North Korea, Jang became a South Korean citizen. The Honorable Senator Flake would benefit from reading Jang's account of what real despotism looks like. The Senator seems not to know.


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Lee Cary -- Bio and Archives Since November 2007, Lee Cary has written hundreds of articles for several websites including the American Thinker, and Breitbart’s Big Journalism and Big Government (as “Archy Cary”). and the Canada Free Press. Cary’s work was quoted on national television (Sean Hannity) and on nationally syndicated radio (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin). His articles have posted on the aggregate sites Drudge Report, Whatfinger, Lucianne, Free Republic, and Real Clear Politics. He holds a Doctorate in Theology from Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, is a veteran of the US Army Military Intelligence in Vietnam assigned to the [strong]Phoenix Program[/strong]. He lives in Texas.

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