From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core

"Hey, you; stop staring at that dead body and start looking at my dress! Look at it!!! It's got a Bill stain!!! He's going to lie about it, you just watch, and then you and me and everybody will talk about it and nothing else for a full year!"

“ The devil will tell a thousand truths in order to slip in one lie. ”

Fall-back propaganda refers to the lesser political scandals and disinformation that the Shadow Party promulgates in order to maintain an illusion of prevailing healthy skepticism and journalistic inquiry free of obvious censorship. Reliably relaying propaganda is an important loyalty test for those aspiring to political careers, either directly as legislators, or in accessory roles such as punditry. Unlike official narratives promulgated through the mainstream press and government bureaucracies, fall-back propaganda is often peddled back-door through undercover operatives to credulous critics and social media, and is formulated to be easily debunked after the opposition has invested their credibility promoting it, with the opposition then being painted as foolish or worse (and henceforth, unelectable).

While sometimes wholly false, there is usually enough of an element of truth in fall-back propaganda to hook regime adversaries into wasting endless amounts of time chasing phony clues. On occasion, such as when there is a severely elevated risk of an official narrative collapsing (e.g., in the case of felony accusations piling up against a highly valued cog within the Shadow Party network), the disseminated fall-back propaganda may even be entirely true but serve to deflect attention from far more serious and damning wrongdoing. The guilty party is then slapped on the wrist over the easily-proven minor charges while reporting of his capital crimes is spiked and swept under the rug.

The ruling elite are thus able to exercise nearly complete control over all "official" information the average citizen encounters. By the time it is belatedly realized that the propaganda is either erroneous or trivial, too much time has elapsed. In this manner, the Shadow Party is able to rule without expending inordinate effort suppressing dissent. This has become especially important since the advent of the internet age has rendered leaving a trail of corpses less of a viable option than it was in years past.

An environment of saturation fall-back propaganda successfully deployed creates an oxymoric fictional reality in which fake scandals and "conspiracies" supplant real ones, and almost nothing that an individual thinks he has finally figured out is actually true. A yin of official press allegations and yang of alternative media bury the listener under an avalanche of widely diverse theories to the point that jaded veteran observers rationally conclude that the truth can only be that one thing that none of them are willing to talk about.

“ "The Soviet system of propaganda and censorship existed not so much for the purpose of spreading a particular message as for the purpose of making learning impossible, replacing facts with mush, and handing the faceless state a monopoly on defining an ever-shifting reality." [2] ”

Etymology

To "fall back" means to retreat; in the context of fall-back propaganda, it is an autotomy to misdirect.

Goal

Fall-back propaganda is intended for critics and other suspicious sorts who aren't "buying" official narratives (i.e., mainstream propaganda); its purpose is to get them to waste all of their time chasing false or expired leads or participating in co-opted phony opposition groups that repeatedly sell them out. There is a finite amount of time in each day, and the more of it spent on distraction, the less is available to encounter the truth, whether by deliberate search or happenstance. (The most odious forms of fall-back propaganda are formulated to make those who swallow it permanently unelectable.)

Here's a typical example, in which the US establishment press is overly generous in providing a "bad" (narratively-speaking) group with an exceptional amount of free publicity, enough to make you go "Hmmm...":

Don't your spidey senses tingle when the Propaganda Ministry tries to herd you around? I know mine do....

"Most of you wouldn't know your ass from a hole in the ground unless someone told you otherwise, and this uncritical naivete is why you swallowed your Deep State and fake anti-state media organ pretenses of hating and fearing my campaign promises to drain their swamp so much that they gave me around-the-clock free advertising[1] the moment I announced my candidacy in 2015 so that I could coast straight into the White House after only narrowly defeating some crippled witch with skeletons packed into her closet like cordwood. It's truly amazing how these things just randomly happen to swell guys like me when I could have instead disappeared in a poof of smoke after New Hampshire had they instead decided not to cover me at all like those shunned bastards whose names you've already forgotten. The reality is that elections are rigged, and have been for quite some time to keep the plunder trains running smoothly. Guys like me? We're actors now, and are not permitted to get anywhere near real power without decades' worth of loyalty-tests resulting in only those aspirants judged most trustworthy to follow script being anointed. (This is also why there's no incentive for us to assassinate each other, as was once popular, in case you're wondering why that never happens anymore.) Periodic voting remains as a national past-time to keep you both entertained and pacified, like a cat fascinated by a laser-pointer."

“ "...Georgia's lieutenant governor says he will 'kill' Delta tax break unless airline reinstates relationship with NRA...." Republican politicians in Delta Air Lines' home state of Georgia are striking back at the airline after it decided to scrap discounted airfare for participants in an upcoming National Rifle Association meeting. "I will kill any tax legislation that benefits Delta unless the company changes its position and fully reinstates its relationship with the NRA," tweeted Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, referring to a bill that could save Delta taxes on jet fuel. "Corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back." (CNBC, Feb. 26, 2018) ”

This same story was repeated across every news entity, generating what would have otherwise cost the NRA multiple tens of millions of dollars to purchase as ad-time. So what is really going on? —It is a beautiful example of pack journalism working to maintain political kayfabe, or a phony narrative replete with heroes and villains into which the reader's mind is safely shunted such that, no matter what proffered "side" he chooses to gravitate to and agitate over, the goals of his rulers are accomplished either way. It's a given that a large fraction of the article's readership support government control of property and that their sentiments regarding private firearms ownership will be cemented further by the article,—but the article is actually written for its OTHER readers: those conservatives, who must be fooled in a different way.

The conservative reader is reminded four times that the National Rifle Association exists (and he might recall, a month before his taxes are due, that the NRA is a 501c3 tax-exempt organization, donations to whom can be written off).

His Republicans lawmakers are hell-bent on protecting his 2nd Amendment rights, and the NRA donates to them.

Phone calls and emails haranguing various companies represent an appropriate use of hours of his time, as would sharing the article widely on social media.

That's the fantasy; here's the reality:

General categories of fall-back propaganda

Sexual scandals

—Offensive usage: "This person is threatening our interests; accuse him of a crime! Or just #MeToo him! He'll be found not-guilty after he's lost the election or resigned! Or maybe he goes to jail anyway, like we care (do we control a judge in that district?)." —Defensive usage: "Our man is in trouble; let's dog and pony a blowjob scandal to show we mean business about punishing perjury while he smirks on camera like a total alpha. Alternatively, we'll feed conspiracies alleging he's screwing kids or trafficking sex-slaves or something else so preposterous as to inoculate him from further criticism and permanently impugn the credibility of anyone stupid enough to relay them." —Spurious sexual scandals may be employed as a demonstration of power and control over narratives, e.g., for example a politically important cog who is obviously and even incessantly guilty of far worse being "punished" when the lightest of possible allegations are pursued by controlled-opposition "heels".

Weapon- or military-related stories

—Offensive: "Drone-strikes are killing our covert proxy army; this must stop! Trot out the bodies on CNN!", "If it bleeds, it leads!", "Never let a tragedy go to waste!", "Gun violence!" "Nukes! Panic! Aauggghhhh!" —Defensive: "Police have a tough job!", "We must arm teachers to protect the kids!", "The NRA defends your 2nd Amendment rights!"

"Greed" and financial corruption

—Offensive usage: "Fomenting malicious envy is necessary to instigate class conflict!" —Defensive: "Our man is in trouble; let's float press stories accusing him of doing something utterly mundane and non-criminal, such as being concerned with profit if he is in business or of spending tax-money if he is a Congressman. Our media wing pretends to be 'out to get him' while talking about nothing important. Get the rubes excited over ten-million-dollar "bridges to nowhere". *Trillions* will fly into our pockets while they obsess over infinitesimals."

List of fall-back propaganda narratives

Corrupting the language

The reality withheld: Permissible fall-back propaganda alternatives: 1 English Newspeak Thought-experiment: read the following text out loud: "Anarchism is the political manifestation of liberty; Capitalism is the economic manifestation of liberty." —If having to say that jerked you up all defensive with fingers itching to type furiously, it's because you've been marinated, by government educationists and mass media, in that other language replete with bastardized definitions concocted by professional parasites on a mission to justify their existence at others' expense while enlisting your support as shock troops to their cause. They bury concepts by destroying the words defining them. So ingrained is their conditioning in your hind-brain that, even if you intuitively realize that some term ought to define the concept comprising "economic manifestation of liberty", you're nevertheless reflexively unwilling to permit that particular word be used because you've accepted its theft into service as a descriptive connoting any alleged nefariousness committed by entities with more money than you (and will that envy ever be stoked by the lamprey with its hooks into your subconsciousness: "Steal some for me, too!" it softly hisses).



Full immersion in newspeak is realized when you consider it a moral crime for anyone to withhold their own property should the government, or you, insist that they or you should have it instead; at that point, the very concept of ownership has been destroyed for you, you've successfully argued for your own enslavement, and you have been reduced to a pack-predator mindlessly obeying the edicts of your alpha boss. You fancy yourself better than the weakling "sheeple" whose property you'll tax into oblivion, even though you be the lowest-ranking incel mutt on Team Dog. The "sheep" is at least capable of producing wool; what are you good for?



Even Rand, the foremost defender of the right of property in the 20th century, committed an error in accepting the 19th century hijacking of the definition of "anarchy" (concept-stolen by Proudhon in 1840). The ancient Greek "ἀναρχία" literally meant (without)(tyrants). This was bastardized by the socialists, who, while not desirous of being ruled by anyone, certainly had every intention of telling everyone else what to do, starting with what they could own (property, i.e., capital) and how they could disperse it (trade, free of the predations of socialist parasitism). But then what is "socialism" anyway if not a Newspeak term itself? It's certainly not social in any gregarious sense.



"Wikipedia is not a dictionary!", exclaims that other place. Well of course not! Why would it open up already-seized language terrain to renewed ownership dispute? Its philosophy is: "What is yours will become mine, and what is mine will remain mine." —And here you thought that "PC terminology" and euphemasia were the worst of it, when they merely denote the words and concepts being bastardizing today. Consider how much vastly more of the language was torpedoed and sunk beneath the waves long before you were born.

The Crime of the Blackest Dye

The real "New World Order"

The Lying Bastard's Hit Parade

The reality withheld: Permissible fall-back propaganda alternatives: 4 A mountain of corpses The Lewinsky Shitbomb [1] There's nothing better than a ridiculously irrelevant sexual scandal (even a ginned-up fake one) to shove everything else off the front page (with an able assist from the FCC and FBI in going after any stragglers).

Who's Zoomin' Who?

The reality withheld: Permissible fall-back propaganda alternatives: 5 Invasion of Chechnya No blood for oil Show of hands: Who among you who protested Russia's lackey Saddam getting his ass kicked also marched in opposition to Putin invading Georgia, Chechnya, and Ukraine? Please don't lie all at once, now.

One asset after another

The Permanent Cold War

Red Diaper Baby Presidents

The reality withheld: Permissible fall-back propaganda alternatives: 8 The Red Diaper Baby President His stupid birth-certificates "We've been training this whelp to rule over you since his literal conception; however, as the spotlight is obviously going to be all over him (or at least your expectation that your 'investigative' journalists look into things), we'll give you something sufficiently nebulous to waste your time on in case you don't believe what our shills at the Gray Lady write. But don't you you fret; our grip over the establishment press is much stronger now than it was back in '04 when we had to let Rather go as a scapegoat. How silly we were back then assuming we couldn't just completely ignore anything said on the internet, because we rule meatspace. Face the facts: You're never going to leave the basement and put up your dukes."

The "loyal opposition" gun lobby

Will the real commies please stand up?

The reality withheld: Permissible fall-back propaganda alternatives: 10 Secretary of State Project marionettes[3][4] "Russian meddling threw the election to Trump!" Already enjoying considerable success in marketing KGB-alumnus Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "conservative", "right-wing" "strongman" (among other labels calculated to increase his standing in "high-T" nationalist movements) instead of as the Leninist that he certainly is, the Shadow Party-controlled permanent bureaucracy and establishment press would in 2016 incongruously accuse Russia of meddling in the US presidential election of Donald Trump. Aside from being a seemingly de rigueur instance of attack-journalism in an election year, it was a classic case of fall-back propaganda primarily intended to influence those whom they knew wouldn't buy the official narrative: The flip-flop into an ostensibly anti-Russian stance enabled the Shadow Party to solve a plaguing annoyance inhibiting its integration of populist sentiment: So long as the Left was openly pinko, it was difficult to drag conservatives into supporting Russian objectives no matter how much prior propaganda they'd already swallowed. But with the establishment press and official bureaucracies now feigning an anti-Russian stance, the "Russia is our ally against the Deep State cabal!" fall-back propaganda narrative became much easier to peddle. Their turns at the wheel over, the likes of Frank Marshall Davis, Jr., Hillary Clinton, and "Piss Boy" Al Franken, etc. trundle off into the sunset, their myriad capital crimes unexamined and soon forgotten, to be replaced by the next fresh crop of Shadow Party drones while everyone excitedly squabbles over dangled rubbish.

See also