The meme, "fake news" made its appearance in the last election cycle, but is it really a new phenomenon?

Mark Twain said, "If you don't read the newspapers, you are uninformed…. if you do read the newspapers, you are misinformed." Edward Bernays, the "Father of Propaganda," was involved in campaigns from marketing cigarettes as “torches of freedom” to women in the 20s, to promoting the fluoridation of drinking water, to painting democratically elected leaders as tyrannical communist dictators in order to make it easier to sell Americans on the idea of removing those leaders who don't go along with corporate or banking interests.

Operation "Mockingbird" was a CIA propaganda campaign to pay off the media in order to further a Washington/banking/oil/corporate agenda, and market foreign interventions in humanitarian terms. Hill & Knowlton, a perception management company, coached a Kuwaiti ambassador’s 16-year-old daughter to perpetrate the "incubator baby" myth on national TV, which was used by the George H. W. Bush administration to tip the scales of support for the first Gulf war. 

It would be very naive to assume that the "fake news" phenomenon is limited to one side of the political spectrum. During the Obama administration "Sarin gassing" of citizens by Assad was the the reason Obama gave to sell the idea of bombing Syria, which turned out to be … not Assad, but Al Qaida, which is funded by CIA and other elements of "The Deep State."

Fortunately, there was enough pushback from the military and the people that the bombing did not occur at that time.

The same theme was used recently however, when President Trump authorized a bombing campaign on a Syrian air base. So far, there has been no real evidence that Assad was involved in the gassing, or even had any motive to do it.

The ideas of the German philosopher Hegel are used by those in what has been termed "The Deep State" to manipulate and control the masses. Hegel was the originator of the thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad. Hegel believed in the superiority of the state and freedom was attained by obedience to the state. He also believed in unity through contradiction, and if the narrative could be controlled on both sides of an issue (thesis-antithesis) the resulting synthesis could be controlled, and even be predetermined. Part of this dialectic is called "Problem, Reaction, Solution". Clandestine organizations such as the CIA, who are very compartmentalized create a problem which is orchestrated in a way that can be blamed on a perceived enemy (Mossadegh, Arbenz, Allende, Gaddafi, Assad), there is a reaction from the people, and then, elements of the deep state come charging in on their Machiavellian white horse to save the day with their SOLUTION, which has been predetermined from the beginning…a solution that always gives more power and control to the state and strips away civil liberties…and money from the people. 

In addition to foreign policy, these methods and tactics are used routinely to create fear in many other areas of our society, which is used to grow government and  initiate programs that promise protection and safety, but turn out to enslave humanity. And it has been said that “the most productive slaves are the ones who falsely believe they are free."

If we are to have any hope of overcoming these enslaving control mechanisms, our task must be to free ourselves and others from the shackles of this manipulated and controlled left/right paradigm. The Internet has been demonized as the source of disinformation, but it, along with books from true investigative journalists, whistle-blowers, and honest historians, may be the only places left to get the “truth."

We certainly can not rely on the spectrum of mainstream media, left or right.