Propaganda

Speaker 0 00:00:06 Welcome back. It is great to be with you again today. Welcome to thinking it through. This is a podcast put out by village church, East on a variety of topics that capture our attention in our ever changing culture. I'm your host, Craig Jarvis. And it's my privilege to spend 12, 15 minutes each Tuesday and Thursday with you thinking it through. Well, it was several years ago now, but I'll always remember an article I read in golf digest. I remember it because it was so off the wall for a golf magazine, a group from golf digest went to North Korea to play golf. Now that's weird and of itself strange mission to be sure because North Korea is a Sikh Speaker 1 00:00:40 Could have country socialist, even straight up communist rule by a family that never loses power. They persecute people for their beliefs and do a lot of terrible things with their population. More on that in another episode. But bottom line is we need to pray for those persecuted people in North Korea. What made the article off the wall is that it talks a little about golf or golf courses. Instead, the guys who were there were absolutely overwhelmed with how the dictator of North Korea, his picture and accolades were everywhere. So that is all they ended up writing about in this article. They were so taken by the absurdity of what they were seeing. They got to the golf club and they saw a huge painting of Kim Jong IL that's Kim Jong-un's father, the current leader of North Korea hanging in the club underneath this picture of Kim Jong IL. Speaker 1 00:01:27 It said he scored 17 below par on this prestige course. Now that's an incredible in and of itself. So they went that night out to bowling. And when they got to the bowling alley, they saw a picture of Kim Jong-il underneath praise for him scoring a perfect round of 300. And then they went to a bar and there he was again, buying rounds. Pictures of Kim Jong-il buying rounds for everyone at the bar, no matter where they went, Kim Jong IL's picture followed him with words and accolades, always founding, always praising. Kim Jong-il was the best at everything. He was loved by everyone and whatever he did, if not unbeatable was absolutely perfection. You may not know this, but this guy actually refers to himself as Supreme ruler. No wonder he gets perfect scores. Since then, Kim Jong-un has come to power. That's Kim Jong IL sun, and nothing has changed. Speaker 1 00:02:19 Now, Kim Jong UHIN rivals his dad at everything. There's one word to describe this kind of activity still going on today in North Korea. And that is propaganda. It's not a commonly used word today, but propaganda has never been so popular. Propagandize means to promote or publicize a particular cause organization or view, especially in a biased or misleading way in North Korea. The whole goal is to publicize the granddaughter of the Supreme ruler in a biased or misleading way. Another dictionary definition of propagandize is, and doctrines or allegations to spread often used disparagingly to connote deception or distortion. Bottom line propaganda is not a positive activity to promote it's based on the agenda of a few in order to deceive many through distorted facts or for the purpose of promoting ideas, doctrines or allegations, propaganda has an agenda. It is simply not interested in discovering or even searching for any semblance of truth. Speaker 1 00:03:19 At all. Propaganda is growing in our world. Social media is based on this very concept. Facebook pages are full of propaganda. People trying to sell you on a particular cause organization or view Twitter is full of propaganda. People trying to sell you on a particular cause or organization or view often in misleading ways. And if you think that you're got propaganda at Bay, your kids and grandkids are not in any danger. This their teachers have. Also, I'm sad to say, began to write and get involved in this particular activity. How is it that you can enroll a kid in mathematics class and constantly have them lecture, not on mathematics, but on a particular cause organization or view that belongs to that teacher. Do you realize how much propaganda we see in our newscasts every night? Have you any idea how many things happen in the run of our world that could get into the news? Speaker 1 00:04:09 I love often thought that, like, how are we just hearing about these pieces in the news when the world is such a big place who decides what we hear? Well, that's a good question for news organizations to decide what to report. There's a group of people who decide what you're going to hear on their, on their newscast. You are being told only a small portion of news that goes on in our busy world based on what that group decides. You should hear having you ever asked yourself the question, why is it that some news outlets report on a news story on one station, but it never hits. The other news outlets. Someone is decided their viewers do not need to hear that news, but has inserted other news that they want their viewers to hear. Why do they choose some news and not other news they're selling a product. Speaker 1 00:04:53 They want that product to be sold to their viewers. They sell the news in a way that their audience will want to hear it. There's a scary warning in the Bible that this reminds me of in second Timothy four verse three, it says for a time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions in one translate translation that says they will want teachers to tell them only what they want to hear. No alternate viewpoints, please. And what if there is an alternate viewpoint while you've got to couch it in a way that doesn't stir the pot, doesn't mess up the propaganda. Doesn't damage the painting we're trying to put forward. And when the truth becomes too unavoidable, while it's interesting, the next verse says they will turn away from listening to the truth and they will wander off into myths. Speaker 1 00:05:44 In other words, they'll put their back to the truth so that they can listen to what they know is not true. People who are selling propaganda are not interested in the truth, but the fact is people who fall for propaganda apparently are not either those who engage in propaganda are using it to achieve an end. The goal is to get you to buy what they're selling. Remember propaganda means to promote or publicize a particular cause or organization or view, especially in a biased or misleading way. The bottom line is we may not be reporting the news at all. We might be selling it. And what is the means to deliver propaganda? Well, the same as any person trying to get you to buy something from them. Manipulation, let's invent a powerful superhero called the manipulator. Manipulator is powerful, but he needs his tools like Batman with his wonderful gadgets. Speaker 1 00:06:36 Propaganda is one of the main tools manipulator will use. If manipulator was a plumber, the wrench to do his job would be labeled propaganda. If manipulator was a food truck owner, the food he sold would be propaganda, manipulators, love propaganda. And they use it to their own ends. Even when the media can not ignore a star because it gains popularity legitimacy through more discovered facts, propagandized, others will still engage their craft. They will manipulate facts until the story fits their propaganda. They'll tell you a portion of the story. They'll tell you their view of the story. They will even hold back facts that go against their delegated propaganda. Their goal is not just the facts, bam. Their goal is to sell your propaganda through manipulating their version of the story you hear. How do you know if you're listening to unbiased reporting or being propagandized while here's how you can tell, look for hard hitting stories and see if you can easily identify alternate views of those events. Speaker 1 00:07:39 Most Norco news organizations will link give you their interpretation. Let me give you a real time. Example of how I saw this just recently. Now, I don't know what you think of our previous administration, and I'm not here to debate that, but it's hard to deny that the media was very hard on president Trump. So I began researching for our talk today and I wanted to see how was the media putting forward? Our new president, Joe Biden, would they be as hard, hidden on him as they were on president Trump? I literally took one random day last week to see how they treated president by like a card I pulled out of a deck. I picked one day, here's what I found Joe Biden on CNN. There were dog stories, a follow up on his favorite ice cream. There was a special spot entitled life at the white house. Speaker 1 00:08:23 And under that, there was a few sections. One section was pop is calling kids and grandkids on the line with Joe Biden. It said Biden always takes time for his grandchildren, no matter what, there were pictures of him hugging his whole family and next to his wife and with his son Biden. In fact, there was another section under there with him and his son Biden Biden was actually sharing how his father staged an intervention with him in that section to get them off drugs. I thought this is weird. I don't remember any stories like this about Trump. Just to be fair. I looked on other major news websites that same day, maybe CNN is a little bias. So I looked on U S news, ABC news, NPR, New York times USA. Today, I looked on a bunch of different news sites and I had to dig to find it. Speaker 1 00:09:07 Anything at all on this current political administration. I did find something on USA today. I found three. Here's what they were Biden addresses. Climate change with world leaders. Biden tries to show the world, not just tell them the U S can be trusted again. Biden ad sign language to address Congress next week. In all honesty, this is not proper hard-hitting reporting. This is not presenting alternative viewpoints of any hard-hitting story. I was actually shocked at how similar the reporting was to the propaganda. Being to the population in North Korea. Could we be moving dangerously, close to straight up propaganda in America? What will happen if we keep itching, ears and cease offering truthful views, a critical population will eventually wonder where are all the alternate viewpoints? Anyway, actually that critical mass will begin questioning the manipulators and the money. So the leaders, they won't like that. Speaker 1 00:10:05 They don't like propaganda being questioned. You might say that this is not the fault of the administration. I'm not saying that it is. Propaganda is a tool that those in power have grabbed on to today. Like few other times in history. And who are those in power while when it comes to propaganda, it's whoever organizes the information used to formulate ideas. If you do not have a center, your ideas, you stand the risk of bleeding. Any idea? That sounds good. As long as it's wrapped up in the right, emotional moving propaganda, why do people sell propaganda? My guess is they've lost control of their own lives so they can only feel fulfilled by controlling the lives of others. In Daniel three, there's a story of never can. Nesser Nebuchadnezzar was the King of Babylon who was very much in love with himself. He built a statue of himself as a matter of fact, 90 feet high and covered it with gold. Speaker 1 00:10:59 It was in the plain of dura, so it could be seen for miles. And he had one special day where he invited every person in Babylon to come and see him. Great statue of himself, Nebuchadnezzar and Kim Jong IL might have something in common here. When you say, well, the propaganda here that's was the selling of Navigant as there's greatness. And the manipulation used to sell the price began to what did he use? Well, he invited an orchestra and when the orchestra would play, all the people would bow. And if they didn't bow well, they'd be thrown into a furnace and burned alive. That's pretty proper motivation. Wouldn't you say? So the orchestra played hundreds and thousands of people bowed except for three guys who stuck out like sore thumbs, because they would in a group of hundreds of thousands of people that bowed their names are Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Speaker 1 00:11:48 And they stood straight up. I like to call them your shack, my shack, and a bungalow. These three guys worshiped God, God told them not to battle idle. So they didn't never get Nez or threatened them with death. He called them in front of himself. He said, I'm going to burn you alive. If you don't bow, let's try it again. And they said, we're still not going to do it. You see our God can save us from you. But even if he does not, we're still not going to bow. These guys were free-thinkers. They didn't follow the crowd. They didn't buy what was being sold. They had a center, they had a base and they would not buy. I'm always looking for folks like that. That don't bow. When that larger groups tell them too, aren't you? Well, the end of that story is really good. Speaker 1 00:12:29 And you can read about it yourself when you get to Daniel chapter three. But I want to tell you about an event of the Oscars that I just saw, where Tyler Perry impressed me. He received a German Hersholt humanitarian award. Perry was a breath of fresh air to me. He used his time receiving this award to wake in a world, being lulled, to sleep by propaganda. He said, I refuse to hate somebody because they are Mexican or because they're black or white or LGBTQ. I refuse to hate someone because they're a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they're Asian. And in all this time, Perry said with all of the internet and social media and everything that wants us to think a certain way, this 24 hour news cycle, it is my hope that all of us would teach our kids. And I want to remember just refuse. Speaker 1 00:13:15 Hate don't hate anyone way to go. Tyler. The bottom line is propaganda is growing in our world today. It's fueled by getting people to buy a certain point of view from those who desire to use manipulation to form culture. Mostly it gains momentum by getting your brain to stop and your emotions to take over. Watch for it. The easiest emotion to manipulate is anger. And you know, you're being propagandized. Listen, here's the way, you know, when your blood boils over for something today, over a group or organization or topic that wasn't even on your radar three years ago, you are being propagandize. You'll know you're being propagandized. When you can be manipulated to hate something or somebody tomorrow, you never even thought of today. You're just waiting for those who control the information to tell you what Hill to die on. Next start the music and bow propaganda sellers stand ready and willing to wrap up their latest purchase for you to buy don't fall for it. Speaker 1 00:14:13 Even if it comes from a plethora of sources, popular view does not equal correct view. Listen, I've enjoyed being here with you today, thinking through the pitfalls of propaganda and listen, if you're out there and you're thinking, I feel like I'm being propagandized. Don't fear. You're not alone. Those propaganda sellers will tell you you're in the minority. Don't give up. Even though they tell you to they'll say, stopping stubborn, eat what we're selling. It tastes so good. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Like Jesus said, we are in the world, but we are not of the world. If you need a space to fill your life Dell by propaganda, to do it, listen to what Jesus says, Speaker 0 00:14:52 Cast your cares on him. He cares for you. His cause is the best cause to follow. And it matters for eternity. And if I, as I always say, if you can't find that center where you will stand like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, be careful. Someone's always willing to sell you theirs. As always. If you like this podcast, you can experience a room full of folks, just like you broken by looking for truth. Join us at village church East. We'd love to have you there. If you want to check us out online, www.vc, east.org. Hope to see you again, as we speak