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[–]magnora7[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

What's also frustrating is to see the front page of reddit filled with pro-war lies.

Like this thread, which is completely shilled to the brim: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/8bqry5/russian_trolls_denied_syrian_gas_attackbefore_it/

As if the great fault here was that people saw this coming for the 3rd time. It also implies that anyone who questions what the US government says is a russian shill/bot/troll. When infact that thread is almost entirely controlled in comments and votes by shareblue and other neoliberal messaging organizations. There are probably neoconservative messaging organizations participating too, since war seems to be the one issue that both political sides come together on (since the war companies are the ones that pay much of their bills).

It's disturbing to see this false public consensus created, and it's scary to think people might walk away from that thread (one of the only threads about Syria allowed on the front page of reddit's /r/all, btw) thinking that they believe anyone who questions the government narrative is a russian shill! Or simply being confused by so many nonsense perspectives that they're unable to form an opinion one way or the other, which effectively disables them as well.

It's scary to think about the teenagers and young people who might not know the history mentioned in the OP, and might walk away from that thread thinking that invading Syria is a good idea. Or at least, not a bad one.

This is how they manufacture consent. This is the type of public image-forming that Noam Chomsky, Adam Curtis, and many others have spoken of. The media is not an information-giving system. It is a messaging system that determines the information you're allowed to consider, and information that runs against the narrative they wish to push, is simply removed. The things mentioned in the above OP will NOT be mentioned on US media, despite the being extremely pertinent to the situation for any thinking person. They will simply intentionally neglect to mention those things, and then act like they did nothing wrong.

This used to be upsetting to me, but now what upsets me most is the people who still buy in to it, even when the lies are so blatant and poorly-constructed.