Propaganda, like many other things can be used to good or evil depending on its source. American propaganda was considered necessary in pursuit of moral victory during World War II. Japan and Germany both had propaganda machines that promoted an evil agenda.
The Nazi propaganda effort was headed by Joseph Goebbels to whom the term “The Big Lie,” meaning if one tells a lie often enough people will come to believe it is true, has been attributed. American forces could listen to several women they called “Tokyo Rose,” whose Japanese propaganda was aimed at demoralizing troops by telling them they were losing the war. Many soldiers who listen to their radios considered it entertainment.
In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin employed newspapers, Pravda and Izvestia, and TV “news” shows to lie to his people. To prevent Russian listeners from hearing information from Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, he and his successors used jamming equipment.
The announcement is now made. New office within the Department of Homeland Security to police “disinformation” and “misinformation.” Some critics are comparing it to the fictitious “Ministry of Truth” in George Orwell’s novel “1984.”
This office will now be led by Nina Jankowicz who styles herself as Mary Poppins on TikTok (a social media platform owned by the Chinese communist RegierungIt is an alarming source of disinformation. Didn’t Jankowicz spread disinformation about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which she said was a product of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign? Wasn’t it Jankowicz who joined fellow Democrats in claiming Trump “colluded” with Russia to help him win the presidency?
It UK Daily Mail reported Jankowicz “shared misleading tweets about COVID-19 masks, claimed (a) Trump presidency would ‘embolden ISIS’ and praised (a) British spy behind the debunked Russian dossier.”
Why would anyone believe that the U.S. government – or any government – could be an arbiter of what is true and what is false? These people should not be trusted.
Dwight Eisenhower lied about U-2 flights over Russia; John F. Kennedy lied about a “missile gap” between the U.S. and Soviet Union; Lyndon Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident that got us more deeply into the “big muddy” of Vietnam; Richard Nixon lied about Watergate; Jimmy Carter, who promised never to lie to us, engaged in what can only be charitably called disinformation in his book “Keeping Faith,” which a Washington Post reviewer said he didn’t; Ronald Reagan lied about aid to the Contras in Nicaragua, George H.W. Bush lied about not raising taxes; Bill Clinton lied about having sex with Monica Lewinsky; Barack Obama lied when he said about Obamacare, “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor”; TThe Washington Post calculated Donald Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims over four years (they can’t all be “fake news”) and now we have President Biden who lies about how well the economy is doing and whose Secretary of Homeland Security lies about the southern border being secure.
The new office is to be regarded as a ministry for the worst type of propaganda. It will likely focus on censoring or denying anything that makes the Biden administration and Democrats look any worse than they already do – a difficult task given their declining poll numbers. There are plenty of ways Americans who are unsure of what is true and what is not can find out independent of an administration – any administration – that understandably has a personal and political interest in the public believing only what they tell us.
Florida responded to Jankowicz’s announcement. Governor Ron DeSantis said: “They want to be able to put out false narratives without people being able to speak and fight back, but we’re not going to let Biden get away with this one, so we will be fighting back.” One presumes details will follow.
About Post Author
