Nah. We all know them pesky Russkies rilly the ones wot dun it, eh?

Today I was reading some US media channels in my BazQux feed-reader that seemed to be absolutely choc-a-block with "news" about the pillorying of one Brett Michael Kavanaugh (a US Circuit Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit) - almost to the exclusion of any other US/world news.

I don't know anything about Kavanaugh, but what struck me was a news feed (chicagotribune.com) that referred to it as Kavanaugh's 'character assassination'.
The related videos were absolutely pure theatre...


- but, watching them I had a sense of déjà vu and after a bit of head-scratching, I finally traced it back to that well-known hated/loved world leader, Adolf Hitler. I mentioned in this discussion thread, back in 2011:

...I am reading an interesting book at the moment, as I explained in a separate post...

...I had not actually wanted to read it, though I had been steeling myself for the time when I would have to.
I am reading this English translation, here, if you want to take a look: Adolf Hitler - Mein Kampf (James Murphy translation).pdf...

-IainB (December 31, 2011, 10:21 AM)

-IainB (December 31, 2011, 09:07 PM)

At 557pp, Mein Kampf is not a light reading exercise, but searching the .pdf file eventually turned this up: - Hitler was apparently describing the timeless methods that would seem to have been employed in the Kavanaugh pillorying:

From Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler - from pages 78 and 79:

... By far the most effective branch of political education, which in this connection is best expressed by the word 'propaganda', is carried on by the Press.  The Press is the chief means employed in the process of political 'enlightenment'.  It represents a kind of school for adults.  This educational activity, however, is not in the hands of the State but in the clutches of powers which are partly of a very inferior character.  While still a young man in Vienna I had excellent opportunities for coming to know the men who owned this machine for mass instruction, as well as those who supplied it with the ideas it distributed.  At first I was quite surprised when I realized how little time was necessary for this dangerous Great Power within the State to produce a certain belief among the public; and in doing so the genuine will and convictions of the public were often completely misconstrued.  It took the Press only a few days to transform some ridiculously trivial matter into an issue of national importance, while vital problems were completely ignored or filched and hidden away from public attention.

The Press succeeded in the magical art of producing names from nowhere within the course of a few weeks.  They made it appear that the great hopes of the masses were bound up with those names. And so they made those names more popular than any man of real ability could ever hope to be in a long lifetime. All this was done, despite the fact that such names were utterly unknown and indeed had never been heard of even up to a month before the Press publicly emblazoned them.  At the same time old and tried figures in the political and other spheres of life quickly faded from the public memory and were forgotten as if they were dead, though still healthy and in the enjoyment of their full viguour.  Or sometimes such men were so vilely abused that it looked as if their names would soon stand as permanent symbols of the worst kind of baseness.  In order to estimate properly the really pernicious influence which the Press can exercise one had to study this infamous Jewish method whereby honourable and decent people were besmirched with mud and filth, in the form of low abuse and slander, from hundreds and hundreds of quarters simultaneously, as if commanded by some magic formula.

These highway robbers would grab at anything which might serve their evil ends.

They would poke their noses into the most intimate family affairs and would not rest until they had sniffed out some petty item which could be used to destroy the reputation of their victim.  But if the result of all this sniffing should be that nothing derogatory was discovered in the private or public life of the victim, they continued to hurl abuse at him, in the belief that some of their animadversions would stick even though refuted a thousand times.  In most cases it finally turned out impossible for the victim to continue his defence, because the accuser worked together with so many accomplices that his slanders were re-echoed interminably.  But these slanderers would never own that they were acting from motives which influence the common run of humanity or are understood by them.  Oh, no.  The scoundrel who defamed his contemporaries in this villainous way would crown himself with a halo of heroic probity fashioned of unctuous phraseology and twaddle about his 'duties as a journalist' and other mouldy nonsense of that kind.  When these cuttle-fishes gathered together in large shoals at meetings and congresses they would give out a lot of slimy talk about a special kind of honour which they called the professional honour of the journalist.  Then the assembled species would bow their respects to one another. 

These are the kind of beings that fabricate more than two-thirds of what is called public opinion, from the foam of which the parliamentary Aphrodite eventually arises.

Several volumes would be needed if one were to give an adequate account of the whole procedure and fully describe all its hollow fallacies.  But if we pass over the details and look at the product itself while it is in operation I think this alone will be sufficient to open the eyes of even the most innocent and credulous person, so that he may recognize the absurdity of this institution by looking at it objectively. ...

- which all rather coincidentally seems to indicate that The Führer was apparently sitting in Cell 9 writing about the producers of what we today have labelled "Fake news".

My conclusion: Mein Kampf is worth a read as it may have perceptive, real educational and historical value - and maybe news media organisations have for years appreciated this fact and been using it as a textbook tutorial for honing their "reporting methods".

Utterly amazing. Read dis book!    :Thmbsup:
#BlownAway

I'll try to address this later or in a future post IainB but I just finished listening to ContraPoints' Discord Hang Out right now and I need to rest and later I have to prepare for a 15 minute talk with Dr. Debra Soh in Patreon.

-Paul Keith (September 28, 2018, 08:38 PM)

Well, I'd probably do the same in your shoes, truth be told. Always take the easier option. The world ain't gonna stop spinning if we say "manyana". And getting some rest is always a good idea anyway, in these turbulent times.