The most heartening thing is that the unprecedented power and resources devoted to lying that we see today haven’t been that effective. On a whole range of topics there has been complete media, social media and Big Tech uniformity. The entire resources of networks, newspapers, institutions and governments have all aligned to sell us a lie and silence a truth.
No propaganda effort from any previous tyranny has ever been this widespread, this sophisticated, this global. The resources available to a company like Facebook, a political party like the Democrats, a network like CNN or an individual like Soros to lie to the world exceed the resources of any 20th century dictatorship.
Think of the way in which by the say so of a handful of people they can instantly spread a message to a global audience, or cut off a message to a global audience. Hitler could not do this. Stalin could not do this. The technology wasn’t there, although of course the intention was. At best an old dictatorship might utterly control news in and out of its own nation, but even that was limited. The Soviets couldn’t pretend to the rest of the world that the Hungarian uprising of 1956 didn’t happen at all, and the Chinese couldn’t stop the rest of the world noticing Tiananmen Square in 1989.
In recent times we have seen some remarkably enormous lies presented as truth. And in one sense they have been utterly dominant. They are the sole view of our shared reality you will see presented on television or allowed in any significant form on social media. Just a handful of these lies indicate the level of bias and propaganda we are subjected to. For example:
Coronavirus originated in a wet market naturally
Coronavirus is an extremely deadly plague that requires unprecedented responses
BLM is a peaceful and noble cause
The 2020 US election was legitimately won by Joe Biden
The Israelis are to blame for conflict with Hamas
There are of course many more examples of such lies. All of them see total endorsement in the mainstream media. All of them are validated by official bodies, by governments, by institutions, by experts, by scientists, by academics, by all the resources of manipulation and persuasion that all the professionals in the art of such things can gather.
And all of these and other lies whilst being relentlessly promoted have also been ruthlessly protected by the silencing of any fact, any expert, any analysis, any report that differs. People have been fired for challenging these things. People have been thrown off platforms. People have had their lives and reputations ruined.
In some cases people have been imprisoned for questioning these lies, or in China for example killed. When the FBI and the CCP are policing the same thoughts, that’s an awful lot of money and power supporting a particular lie. When the UN is lying, the governments of the whole globe are lying, the great corporations are lying, and the media of the entire globe are lying, that lie will rule our lives.
We have never seen this kind of concerted global manipulation of truth, by the way. The League of Nations may have been useless in preventing the drift to World War Two, but they were not a mouthpiece of Nazi Germany. The BBC in 1939 did not attempt to pretend that World War Two hadn’t started, or that Britain was to blame. There was a distinction between the nations where the lie was absolute, and the nations where the truth was known. Through the entire Cold War the victims of communism not only had destinations they could flee to, they had places where truth was commonplace and expected.
It should however be greatly encouraging, as we look at these modern All Powerful Lies, to realise that we are not alone in spotting their feet of clay. They may shadow us like giant statues, but there are others who would happily fling ropes around them and pull them down. And the amazing thing is that this unprecedented global conformity of lies cannot break that awareness, that resistance, that possession of truth.
The first of the examples I gave has already fallen. Despite all the effort invested in it. The same people who banned and silenced truth are now admitting that coronavirus probably originated in a Wuhan lab. And despite the enormous effort and conformity and resources expended on the other lies, many of us have never been persuaded or fooled. And polling shows that. The Jerusalem Post conducted polling that showed majority support for Israel in the U.K. and US. Despite a media campaign of constant vilification. People unfurl ‘Trump Won’ banners at televised sports events in the US. Polling shows most Republican voters and even a significant number of Democrat voters regard the 2020 election as stolen. Despite a media campaign of constant vilification.
The People Know. Despite all the power there is in this world being in love with lies, the people know. And that itself is beautiful. That itself is resistance.
– Bartholomew Chiaroscuro