September 22, 2016

A "mostly peaceful" mob: Propaganda, or good feels from the hugbox?

One of the recurring ideas of riot coverage is that the mob is "mostly peaceful". They mean this to cover individuals -- only a "few bad apples" are throwing rocks into the heads of police -- and to cover the time-frame -- for hours the demonstration was without violence, except for that brief instant when some guy threw a rock into the policeman's head (and that other brief instant when some guy broke the windows of an apartment building).

Members of a mob are only emboldened to throw rocks at cops, etc., when they have large enough numbers of people who literally have their back. By the time the mob dissipates, curiously nobody is willing to get into any serious shit with the police, who now outnumber the handful of remaining rioters. The members of a mob who aren't directly aggressing against the cops are supporting those who are, and they know that -- that's why they're there, admiring the front line soldiers, rather than trying to stop them from giving the group a bad reputation.

And only an autistic would meter the flow of time to see what percentage was spent engaging in violence, rather than the extent of violence inflicted during the course of an event. Aside from that brief moment at the end, Abraham Lincoln was enjoying a safe and sound evening at the theater, being pursued by an assassin who was non-violent for 99% of his time in the building.

According to the media, the world is fundamentally at peace unless there is a state of constant, all-against-all mayhem. So however disgusted you are by the riots you're seeing unfold on live TV, just remember -- it was mostly peaceful.

The level of desperation and repetition makes me think that the general public doesn't buy this crap. They can spin all they want, normal viewers understand that it's not a trivial problem -- reducing violence from 1% of the time to 0% -- but something far more serious -- preventing riots from breaking out in a major city for at least two nights in a row.

More and more, it's becoming clear that the media do not serve as propaganda, which implies some degree of effectiveness in manipulating public opinion. Nobody with half a brain believes that riots are mostly peaceful. Rather, their job is to provide rationalizations to their audience, who feel a gut-level need for reducing their cognitive dissonance about some important matter.

"Blacks rioting in another city -- uh oh, sounds like it could HELP TRUMP... quick, MSNBC, tell me why it's not really such a big deal after all. Aha, they're 'mostly peaceful' -- indeed. Ahhhh..."

Soothing the viewer's fragile ego, pumping them full of a topic they've got an addictive craving for, giving them ideological morphine when they've got a cognitive dissonance headache -- the media are more of an informational pharmacy, and a shady sell-all one at that.

It's not to deny the propaganda role that they play, but most people already have their minds made up about most of the topics that they would sit through a story about. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

2 comments:

  1. Canary in the coal mine: there's a 538 article about Jewish donors fleeing the Trump era: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gops-jewish-donors-are-abandoning-trump/

    So you're telling me that the sky is blue? Good times; the article explains why Jews are acting like roaches scurrying from the light.

    - Jews fear populists with heartland appeal (no shit)
    - Jews are not sympathetic to conservative social causes (duh)
    - Trump's supporters are not multicultural BS artists (sure)
    - Jews are an "unfairly" maligned minority who are more sympathetic to Mormons than they are to founding stock Americans (bingo).

    America has to an increasing degree over the last 50 years been gang -raped by clueless liberal gentiles, devious and hateful Jews, and uppity blacks. Still, Jews are of course reliable in their chutzpah. One Alt-Right figure said that he gets the most openly hostile treatment from Jews. Remember commie Bernie saying "I'll be damned if Trump is elected"? If only he was as opposed to Hillary.

    Until we're rid of Jews, society at best (e.g. during a non-striving era) will consign commie subversive Jews to the margins where they belong.

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  2. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is…in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”

    ― Theodore Dalrymple, c. 2004

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