“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
- Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman
> Propaganda - The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.
It pays to collect a breadth of news / information from all sides and dive deep into any subject you want to know well (can't do everything).
In terms of identifying it, typically you'll see general discussion without diving into facts and / or name calling. Alternatively, you'll see downplaying of particular events, specifically of ones own "side" so to speak.
Here's a few articles that are clearly propaganda:
- "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests ..." - https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/conte...
- "Larry Elder is the Black face of white supremacy. You’ve been warned " - https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-20/recall-c...
There's two tactics I've seen:
1. Omission - A group of similarly aligned pundits, reports, etc will not report on a topic. This is when the topic is likely partially true, but they have no response. Think "Hunter Biden Laptop" - which was reported pre-2020 election; but only reported on by the left wing news in 2022 (https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/hunter-bidens-infamous-laptop-...)
2. Propaganda - The more common thing you'll see is spin or dismissive name calling. Things like...
- "Why inflation can actually be good for everyday Americans and bad for rich people" - https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/01/economy/inflation-good-bad-wi...
I personally think the above is damage control and effectively paid propaganda. Clearly inflation is bad for everyone, no one likes paying more.
- "Climate change: How to talk to a denier" - https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-61844299
You'll see the name calling "denier" or "anti" a lot in the spins (think: "climate change denier", "election denier", "anti-vaxx", "anti-science", etc). Most of the time, if you actually read articles about said "denier", they really take a more nuanced view. The article itself is titled to attract a particular kind of reader. Often you have to read between the lines or go to a transcript to get a clear understanding of the persons views.
If you can't tell, I take particular beef with CNN. But most news on all sides of the spectrum are effectively doing the same. My particular beef with CNN started when they said (paraphrased): "It's illegal to read documents from wikileaks, you must get your news / interpretations from us" - https://streamable.com/6g5v
What I was wondering aloud is, do some people have ideas about a way to discern what's more or less propagandized? IE, even being propagandized, it is relatively less so and safer for mental health (since being scooped up into a culture war can be pretty taxing). I was asking hoping someone might chime in with different perspectives/strategies. Something I might glean insight from.
Just because something grows in nature does not mean it is safe or must be tolerated.
Or possibly we are all just being blown around by the best propagandists.
You can also jump off a (naturally occurring) cliff and that’s not illegal (as long as no one pushed you I guess).
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1973/1/24/the-crimson-tak...
Presuming the psychological magnitude of their experiences I can find my way into the psychology of someone being propelled into some decade long mania of propheticism and hubris (not to justify or sugarcoat the consequences).
My perhaps misinformed impression of Leary was that he held the view psychedelics were best used by the intelligentsia who should then pass on what they learned to the general public. Maybe it just shifted after Leary was ostracized by academia and pushed into the same camp as Kesey in the fullness of time.
It's not something I've spent much time researching.
Speaking of tests on the unsuspecting public...
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra#Experiments_on_America...
Similarly, the moral panic about psychedelics was because it threatened vested business and corporate interests (and the economic war with communism), especially when slogans such as "Turn on, tune in, drop out" because associated with them.
If he is correct then you could argue that drugs have not been seen as witchcraft since the beginning of Christianity. But I wasn't really trying to argue historical fact, simply that it's a long held mainstream belief within Christianity.
So yes it is easy to fault the Church of Rome and others like it, but also there is benefit in gentler means of enlightenment.. is that not the higher evolutionary goal? Having more powerful black-metal shows or whatever, is not fertile and not productive over time.. Whereas the focus of the Church of Rome now is the family, stability and arguably forming the social strength to make strong military. There are other groups to pick on that way, not exclusive to the Church of Rome.
I go out of my way to explain this because I also have Catholic-or-not conflicts in my own family tree.. so it is a real issue, for sure. I will also add that schizophrenia is a real and serious condition, and could be ignorantly connected to some strong drugs. Sadly, marijuana is now linked to schizophrenia in a small percentage of the population that is prone to that.. So .. more research needed.
Taking nightshades and "speaking with the devil" seems entirely plausible to what people of that cultural mindset would have experienced. Erowid's Datura experience vault has a collection of first hand accounts of the experience, and they sound quite terrifying: being in a dream-like state for days at a time with heavy amnesia, hallucinations of people who aren't really there, dark ominous imagery and out of body experiences. Much more realistic hallucinations than are reported from psilocybes. See also "flying ointment" for some interesting (nsfw) context to 'witches riding brooms".