Liberal Propaganda

The term “propaganda” entered our lexicon thanks to the Roman Catholic Church’s “Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.”  Created by pope Gregory XV in 1622, it was charged with the dissemination of information favorable to the Vatican’s mission.

Earlier, in 1559, pope Paul IV had initiated the “Index of Prohibited Books.”  These were works deemed antithetical to the true faith and therefore which could not be printed or read.  Both of these programs were launched as part of the Counter-Reformation.  With Protestantism gaining momentum, the Church sought means, however heavy-handed, to crush it.

Today, with Liberalism under assault, it has resorted to comparable tactics.  Despite talk about transparency, censorship and bias have become the order of the day.  The Obama administration and the mainstream media are more interested in promoting an authorized perspective than in sharing the truth.

Bias is nothing new in politics.  Three thousand years ago, with the advent of writing, Ramses II ordered Stella constructed that boasted of his enormous victory over the Hittites.  The battle had, in fact, been a draw, but news of that would have been bad for the Pharaoh’s reputation.

What is different today is the extent of the bias and the sophistication of the technology used to propagate it.  The liberal establishment, whether in government, the media, or academe, is dedicated to non-stop distortion of the facts.  If these must be suppressed, that’s no problem.  If they need to be turned on their head; so be it.

Back when progressivism was in full flower, things were different.  Teddy Roosevelt believed in the agenda he was promoting.  He did not feel a need to disguise it.  As a result, he could bring journalists such as Lincoln Stephens and Ray Baker into his office to candidly share his opinions.

Barack Obama pretends to do the same, but journalists know they are being manipulated.  Most go along with this because they agree with his policies.  While they may grumble in private, in public they pass along the party line.  The phony statistics about ObamaCare provide a good example.

The extent of this misinformation has been revealed in Sharyl Attkinsson’s excellent new book Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.

Attkinsson was a star reporter at CBS until she ran into the network’s version of the “Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.”  Literally told that the news department did not intend to embarrass the president, the sort of investigative reporting she had done under Bush was now unwelcome.

Time and again, stories that challenged the orthodox views on Fast and Furious, Green Energy, and Benghazi got canceled—especially if they were hard hitting.  While reporters were complicit in this censorship, the weightiest measures came from editors who had axes to grind.

As for the government, it is today riven with public relations offices.  Each agency has its own PR staff, the mission of which is to publicize favorable stories and quash unfavorable ones.  They are not in the business of informing the public, but in seeing to it that it is deceived.

Why?  The answer is simple.  It is for the same reason that the Roman Catholic Church resorted to propaganda.  If is for the identical reason that the pope Paul V ordered Galileo never to publish his work on a heliocentric universe, and then placed him under house arrest.

The Church was frightened by the success of Luther and Calvin.  Too many of the faithful had been converted to Protestantism.  This trend needed to to be reversed regardless of the consequences.

Today, liberalism is under siege.  It policies have failed to deliver on the economy, health care, education, race relations, crime, foreign policy, and so forth.  This cannot be admitted out loud; ergo the blizzard of lies and suppression.

Why does the public tolerate this?  Almost everyone is aware of the deception.  Are we too complicit in protecting an antiquated faith?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw StateUniversity