Sick Marketing: War on Science has been a Big Contributor to Today’s Fake News Cycle

“The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” — Steve Bannon

When my Father used to tell me about Joseph Goebells and the “Big Lie” technique, I viewed it as an historical oddity, not something that could be a serious part of modern politics.
Our experience with “Obama was born in Kenya” has been instructive in that regard – because those of us who saw it as a joke for years have come to realize that it was, in fact, Goebbel’s very technique being empowered by Fox News repetition, and the amplifying power of the internet.
Goebbels understood that the “Big Lie” was the best, because, if you can get just a fraction of a population to buy into it, you effectively split them off from objective, consensus reality, and they become helpless and compliant, almost as if under a subtle hypnosis – ready for further, and wilder, suggestions.

That’s one reason why conspiracy theories have always been a part of partisan politics, not just in the US, but across the planet.  As the quote above demonstrates, political operatives with no scruples have always known that destroying people’s ability to distinguish fact is an effective control strategy – it is Putinism 101.
Social media has brought a new dimension to the art form.

During Bill Clinton’s presidency in the 90s, there was a cottage industry ginned up accusing the Clinton’s of several murders as well as a number of other crimes. There’s always been a ready audience for this among the “None Dare Call it Conspiracy” crowd, but Russia’s recent forays show us just how dangerous it can be.

I remember when Hilary Clinton hosted some workshops by Margaret Mead protege Jean Houston, using standard self actualization practices of visualizing leader of the past, say Abraham Lincoln, or Eleanor Roosevelt, and asking them for perspective on an issue.
It’s a way of accessing internal resources, standard fare at corporate team building retreats – think “What would Jesus do?”
Naturally, reported as seances by right wing nuts, and amplified by a childlike, totally clueless media.

The 30 year campaign by fossil fuel interests to degrade credibility of mainstream science and reliable evidence has only added fuel to the fire.

Wired:

1. What was the scope of the Russian effort?

The Mueller indictment permanently demolishes the idea that the scale of the Russian campaign was not significant enough to have any impact on the American public. We are no longer talking about approximately $100,000 (paid in rubles, no less) of advertising grudgingly disclosed by Facebook, but tens of millions of dollars spent over several years to build a broad, sophisticated system that can influence American opinion.
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2. What kind of content did it rely on?

As the indictment lays out in thorough detail, the content pumped out by the Russians was not paid or promoted ads; it was so-called native content—including video, visual, memetic, and text elements designed to push narrative themes, conspiracies, and character attacks. All of it was designed to look like it was coming from authentic American voices and interest groups. And the IRA (Russia’s troll farm “Internet Research Agency) wasn’t just guessing about what worked. They used data-driven targeting and analysis to assess how the content was received, and they used that information to refine their messages and make them more effective.