Propaganda - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

In those days of the slow burning war, the one waged on all of humanity, they sought to overrun our emotional drivers with stories that tugged at the heart strings and yet also invoked fear. The heart was their hook and the fear was the line tied to a concrete weight. Our response was simple yet effective, "Focus only on the money trail, follow it as a faithful dog," and it led us to those who were the evil puppeteers, the demons of the death and carnage we see around the globe among all of our international kin. In truth, there is only good, noble dark and evil... and in the end, that was the real fight, one without any frontiers. The good and the noble dark were everywhere, so were the evil, but the evil were perhaps four percent of the global population, so... once we got that straight, with a united "good" and "noble dark" we saw friends everywhere and peace was a slam dunk.

The brain uses the same apparatus for love and hate; have you ever noticed how romantic love often becomes hate when a relationship ends? That's why. This conversion of love to hate is used in propaganda too. It stirs up strong love for children, family, community and country - then weaponizes it - love becomes hate as the "enemy" are shown to be monsters.

Why is propaganda used? It's the only way to weaponize ordinary people - we have a strong aversion to killing. In the Battle of Gettysburg over eighty percent of guns were never fired. It's common in battles with conscription for enemy soldiers to become friends, to have agreements to fire over each other's heads. Additionally, it has been shown that people are less motivated by saving themselves, but highly motivated to save friends and family. In essence, we are a peaceful and friendly species.

So, when something on the news, or in the media, brings your love out in full strength and then the "enemy" is made sound as if they are inhumane... that's what we call pseudo-speciation or dehumanisation... Your love quickly becomes hate for the "monster enemy." The stronger the initial love invoked, the stronger the resulting hate.

So, by all means love, love with all your heart, mind, body and soul - but resist being weaponized. It's what warring governments do; it's what racists, xenophobics, and those with religious-based hatreds do too. Propaganda is everywhere. Resist it. Keep your own mind. There's good news too. Love is the antidote, take some every chance you get.

The governments and advertisers had learnt how to talk straight to our subconscious minds, bypassing our decision making process, directing us to behave how they wanted us to. The message on the top was just an arrangement of chairs on the deck, the real war horse was hidden underneath. We chose to fight by using the same techniques, not for counter-propaganda, but to free our minds from their sickly cages of fear.

What was the point of the Dakota story? Because you have to know how easy it is to manipulate the truth, or make bad decisions made on partial evidence. Again, similar to Kitty, with Dakota there is a life vs money issue; but there is more than that going on. Every day when you watch the news you see only a partial story, like the first three envelopes. And in real life you never get the second three, the truth of the matter. So unless you train yourself in critical thought you will be a puppet of the media and advertisers, it's all designed with a knowledge of psychology, you have to know get your free will back.

I don’t care what country you live in, your news is propaganda. Fear and misdirection. They’ll tell you who to hate, who should live and die - show you how the enemy is barbarous and the powers that control your life are heroes. Those enemies are all “Dakota,” they were children once too, perhaps they still are children. Maybe they have names you can’t pronounce and no-one to speak for them. Maybe they call their God by a different name than you do. Maybe they pray differently, eat differently, have a different family structure. Do any of those things mean they should die? Be expendable in “war”? Does it mean they should be allowed to starve to death? Are they so good at dehumanizing the “enemy” in your mind so you will turn a blind eye or even support war? Chances are strong that if you met these "enemies" in real life you’d be firm friends very quickly. I know I've fallen into a rant again, but I need to finish or my brain will boil over.

Love is the answer, not hate; let's have grace over intolerance; critical thinking and genuine research over ignorance and impulsiveness. If you were back in the Nazi Germany, how would you avoid being swept away with anti-semitism? How can you avoid hating people you don’t know now, likely people from another culture and religion? Are any of them expendable? For less than we spend on war we could save them all.

The genocide had been coming like a slow motion train wreck. For years the fear and propaganda had been increased, just a little at a time. Nadine had made the connection between the current climate and the pre-world war II vilification of the Jews some time ago. It was easy to think of those Germans as evil, but such black-white thinking was dangerous. Those Germans were decent hard working family people made to hurt and fear, then supplied with a scapegoat and a final solution. It was people thinking themselves superior that allowed it to happen again. We were no better, no wiser, no smarter, just as simple to manipulate. First the "muslim terror" had been abroad and more heinous than hollywood movies. Then it came to our own shores in waves of attacks. Once the electorate started to think with their primitive survival brains all sympathy for the "enemy" was gone. They were inhuman after all, we'd all seen that on the televisions. With the coming "solution" came the resources grab...

There was a serious problem. The old ruses used to get the public on side in the last war just weren't going to work anymore. They'd lost thousands of troops, had many times more injured physically and mentally and those damn international do-gooders were whining about native civilian deaths north of a hundred thousand. Photographs of dying children circled the internet and public support had been transformed largely to outrage. A new plan was required, a new playbook. The public were soft, they couldn't stomach going to war for resources like humanity always had. They had to be babied with stories of heroism and at the same time scared into supporting the new battle. Otherwise at the first casualty they would turn yellow and cry for the troops to return. The enemy had to be worse than a storybook villain both in their own land and in terrorist strikes at home; they had to be equal to the horror movies so ubiquitous on television. Then the war would be demanded, cheered for.