How To Read The News In Totalitarianism

accordingtohoyt.com ^ | Jan 14, 2021 | Sarah A. Hoyt

[Lee N. Field]

One of the first memories I have of news and people discussing news is of my parents trying to figure out whether the president was dead.

This is because in Portugal in the early sixties, the news of course couldn’t publish anything that the regime disapproved of. When they announced Salazar was dead, and who his successor was, mom’s answer was “he’s been dead for x months” (aka since he’d disappeared form in public/or they’d noticed a shift in governance) “they just finished the behind the scenes power struggle and can announce it now.” Also much was made of the way he was said to have died, which was to fall backwards in his chair and hit his head. Well, I’d also have my doubts, right?

I guess this set me up for the way I read news. Particularly because after the regime changed from national to international socialism, I was at several news worthy events which were completely misreported in the press.

Much like the participants in the rally in DC probably are rather puzzled at the idea that they “really” wanted to kill black people, particularly those marchers who were black, or that their goal in life was to kill Pelosi, or whatever the crazy ass thing the occupiers of our capital say.

.....

[Lee N. Field]

SF author Sarah Hoyt grew up in Portugal, and has some insights (not unique to her, by any means) on how to get truth from American Pravda, News from American Izvestia.

Some highlights:

"The all too perfect choir. "....

"You’re not allowed to dissent: As the FICUS (Fraud in Chief of the US) puts it “Don’t you dare call them protesters. They’re rioters. Insurgents” etc. etc. etc."...

and this is gold:

In the same way, the current clown car coming into DC tells us they totes won, with the most votes ever, but the way they’re acting, tamping down all dissent, screaming the big, and ridiculous lies, and trying to get us to accept they’re totes legitimate or be punished if we don’t?

"That’s not the way legitimate winners act. That’s the way nervous (and stupid) embezzlers act, when they don’t want you to open the package and find out it contains cut up pieces of newspaper, instead of bank notes."

Recommend you read the whole thing.

See also blogger Peter Grant's comments on this piece, based on his experience in post-apartheit South Africa: How to interpret the news in a totalitarian society

[7thson]

My first indication that the news is slanted was during the early 70's. Being a radio/news junkie, I listened to the radio a lot. I remember during the early 70's when the news would pop up at the top of the hour. Near the end of the news, the news reader would mention something PRAVDA was commenting on. My thought was always, why should we pay attention to what a communist state-owned news source is reporting?

In 2003, when we went into Iraq and after 2 1/2 weeks, the news media was reporting that we were bogged down and it was another Viet Nam. The next thing you know, we are rolling through Bahgdad and pulling down the statue. Then in 2005, when photos were shown of the all the school buses sitting under water - buses that could have been used by the local authorities to transport people out of the city. I thought people would wake up but they did not.

After 9/11, as the years went by, they would show less and less of the planes crashing into the buildings. Flying man virtually disappeared. President Trump talked about how he saw people celebrating the disaster and was called a liar. But I remember seeing it also.

One last thing about Katrina. When Tony Snow had a talk radio program, he reported the news of all the disappearing police from New Orleans. He reported that the police did not disappear because they were never there. These were made up police and someone was collecting the pay for fake police. After that, I never heard about it again as I am sure someone ordered that story spiked. As a matter of fact, shortly after reporting that story, he accepted the job of Bush's press secretary. Draw your own conclusions.

Since 9/11, whenever there was a terrorist attack or shooting within the United States, I always knew it was Muslim/Islam because the news reader would never mention the name of the shooter or the religion. The same thing when a crime is committed by one of Obama's children. If they do not mention the race, you can bet a dollar to a donut it was a black that committed the crime. You also know a story is false by how quickly it disappears.

Anyway, my two cents.

[John Milner]

I always suspected it was slanted.

My first realization that there was serious problems. Early in the Clinton administration when the Whitewater issue began to heat up. Suddenly there were reports of documents being shredded in the offices of (I think) the McDougals.

I was sure there would be a huge uptake in negative press takes on the Clintons. I based that on how I remember the reaction of the press when similar things happened in the Nixon administration. Shredding documents was “covering up the crime,” which was “worse than the actual crime”.

Instead pretty much crickets...