How the Spider Web of Propaganda Affects You
How the Springfield Daily Citizen became the propaganda arm of Southwest Missouri's invisible government
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” – Edward Bernays
Most of us understand that media bombards us daily with ideas that are meant to form and sway our opinions. Individuals and companies pay a lot of money to influence us to buy a product or hold an opinion. We usually think of it in terms of convincing us to buy a product. But the organizations and individuals David Rice will be writing about don’t just want our dollars. They want our buy-in. They do it because they stand to gain—usually money, but also influence and power.
Often we think these individuals and groups are mostly national in character, but local and regional groups also seek to propagandize citizens using the same methods and even the same organizations. The online Springfield area news outlet, the Springfield Daily Citizen (SDC), was established in 2021 as an “independent nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that is primarily funded through donations from individuals and businesses. Additional revenue is obtained through grants, events and other activities. As a matter of policy, funders exercise no control over the Daily Citizen’s editorial decisions.”
Having experienced the coverage of the Christian County Library by the SDC, we began to look into this latest local media effort. We wanted to confirm that the SDC is indeed an “independent nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.”
We found something else.
David Rice has investigated the online media site and several organizations whose connections with the Springfield Daily Citizen illustrate the “invisible government” that influences and manipulates our tastes, our political views, and the decisions we make for our communities.
As background, I am going to share how these local organizations conspire to influence your ideas on voting for things like tax bonds, childcare centers in public schools, support for certain charities, and so on. How did this kind of manipulation begin? And when?
OLD AS THE HILLS
Although mind control and manipulation are not new, in the last century techniques to sway our opinions and decisions have taken on more sophisticated methods. Let’s start with Edward Bernays, considered the father of modern propaganda. His 1928 book, aptly titled “Propaganda,” describes a blueprint for manipulating people on a mass scale. He covers “The Psychology of Public Relations,” “Business and the Public,” “Propaganda and Political Leadership,” “Propaganda for Education,” “Propaganda in Social Service,” and “Art and Science.”
In Chapter IV, Bernays (the nephew of Sigmund Freud, by the way) writes, “The systematic study of mass psychology revealed to students the potentialities of invisible government of society by manipulation of the motives which actuate man in the group...So the question naturally arose: If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?”
He goes on to describe the “group mind” as not actually one that thinks, but rather one that “has impulses, habits and emotions. In making up its mind its first impulse is usually to follow the example of a trusted leader. This is one of the most established principles of mass psychology. It operates in establishing the rising or diminishing prestige of a summer resort, in causing a run on a bank, or a panic on the stock exchange, in creating a best seller, or a box-office success.”
Here is an informative video from a teacher on Edward Bernays and the “invisible government”:
And for more information, take a look at Walter Lippmann’s book “Public Opinion.”
UPCOMING SERIES
David Rice’s upcoming series will uncover the trusted leaders in our local area who utilize the SDC’s online site to sway citizens to a progressive point of view that allows much mischief to occur. Rice will trace, in part, who funds the SDC, who houses the offices of the SDC, and what viewpoints are presented in news articles and podcasts of the SDC. The Daily Citizen claims their funders exercise no control over their editorial decisions. Is that true? Rice’s series will shed light on it.
There’s an interconnected web of individuals, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and political connections that utilize the public forum provided by the SDC. In his article, “How Barack Obama Built an Omnipotent Thought-Machine and How it was Destroyed,” David Samuels details how online media is used to manipulate the public. He writes,
“Catchphrases like “defund the police,” “structural racism,” “white privilege,” “children don’t belong in cages,” “assigned gender” or “stop the genocide in Gaza” would emerge and marinate in meme-generating pools like the academy or activist organizations, and then jump the fence—or be fed—into niche groups and threads on Twitter or Reddit. If they gained traction in those spaces, they would be adopted by constituencies and players higher up in the Democratic Party hierarchy, who used their control of larger messaging verticals on social media platforms to advance or suppress stories around these topics and phrases, and who would then treat these formerly fringe positions as public markers for what all “decent people” must universally believe; those who objected or stood in the way were portrayed as troglodytes and bigots. From there, causes could be messaged into reality by state and federal bureaucrats, NGOs, and large corporations, [bolding added] who flew banners, put signs on their bathrooms, gave new days off from work, and brought in freshly minted consultants to provide “trainings” for workers—all without any kind of formal legislative process or vote or backing by any significant number of voters.”
Samuels also explains how wealthy foundations and NGOs worked directly with government:
“In field after field, from sex and gender, to church attitudes toward homosexuality, to formerly apolitical sources of public information, to voting practices, to the internal politics of religious groups, to race politics, to what films Americans would watch and how they would henceforth be entertained, the oligarchs would do their part, by helping buy up once independent social spaces and torque them to function as parts of the party’s permission structure machine. The FBI would then do its part, by adopting political categories like “white supremacy” as chief domestic targets, and puppet groups in the vertical, like the ADL and the ACLU, would pretend to be objective watchdogs who just happened to come to the same conclusion.”
Are you getting an inkling of how organizations and individuals who seek to use government (and vice versa) for their own profit, utilize advertising techniques like “permission structures” to control and manipulate citizens? They often work hand-in-hand with government agencies to effect progressive goals.
These techniques have been used on a global scale to begin wars, and on a local scale to get taxpayers to approve bonds for ever-expanding government institutions and programs. Get ready to see how this web of connections is at play in our local counties through Rice’s series titled “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Readers will learn how deeply the web of control and manipulation ensnares citizens, even here in southwest Missouri.
Never forget that Obama made it legal for the media to “purposely LIE to the American people.” In 2012, he signed H.R. 4310 which allowed PROPAGANDA to be used on US citizens by its own government. Essentially repealing the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 which BANNED the use of… Kash Patel 🇺🇸 News (@KashPatel_News)
https://twitter.com/KashPatel_News/status/1877487786384663018?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January
Gretchen Garrity is a former journalist who has written boldly for years. She is a brave Christian conservative, but she’s most proud of being a grandmother.