Date: August 02, 2018
01) Crying ‘Pedophile’ Is the Oldest Propaganda Trick in the Book
“Almost a year ago, a woman accused Tom Hanks of sexually abusing her as a child and began posting reconstructed memories on Twitter. The accounts are disturbing and specific, but incomplete and unproven—something Hanks’ accuser attributes to the trauma-based mind control she believes herself a victim of. Even though (or perhaps, because) her claims remain unverified, the pedophilia allegations were quickly embraced by a group known for up-leveling whisperings of child abuse into full-blown scandal: devotees of the QAnon conspiracy.
Believers in the QAnon conspiracy hold that President Trump is a “brilliant four-dimensional chess player” using the Mueller investigation as a smokescreen to root out the murderous, Satanic, pedophilic deep state. (It’s a Trump-era catchall conspiracy: Pizzagate + Seth Rich + the Illuminati.) Hanks is the QAnon conspiracists’ perfect target: A Hollywood A-lister who donates to Democrats and has been shielded from moral censure by monogamy and his preternaturally wholesome dad routine—until now. And QAnon has done what they do best: Trumpet the unconfirmed revelation until suddenly, in the eyes of internet search algorithms at least, Tom Hanks, America’s uncomplicated, unproblematic favorite, is a pedophile.
…somewhere a conspiracy theorist is very pleased that you’re suddenly, automatically feeling a little suspicious. All the debunkings in the world won’t extinguish that initial spark of suspicion, and that’s exactly the point.
Hanks is only the most recent protagonist in a spate of high-profile pedophilia accusations levied by far-right commentators…
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Alleging that your enemy preys upon children is an ancient propaganda tool that’s been used by everyone from medieval Catholics to the Soviet Union. It’s a powerful indictment because it trades on fundamental human fears. It’s designed to otherize the opposition and sabotage any sympathy you might have for them. It’s a ubiquitous tactic because it works.
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…“Children represent the most sacred ideals any society can have,” says Margaret Peacock, a historian at the University of Alabama who has written about the role children play in propaganda. “They represent the future.” Because humans are biologically wired to protect their offspring, painting your enemy as a defiler of innocence and a threat to the next generation instantly dehumanizes them. And because many societies see pedophiles as not just monstrous but irredeemably so, this charge provides endless opportunities to justify mistreating the group accused of it.
Establishing your opposition as a subhuman beast has been justification for the harshest forms of retaliation.
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Where false pedophilia charges go, genocide and repression follow.
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And if we post enough, tweet enough, make enough YouTube videos making the same claim, search algorithms will link your name to pedophilia—forever. That’s what happened to Tom Hanks.”
We have seen this exact tactic play out enough times in the past, to clearly recognize it in “pizzagate”, “pedogate”, or whatever the hell you want to call this thing…
It is why so many of us have vigorously rejected this malignant smear campaign, almost [or literally] from the very beginning.
There is this tactic called “psychological operations”…It is generally used on the public…It’s a form of mental manipulation…aggressively floating false, or faulty, information, in an attempt to pressure the majority to turn on, attack or otherwise alienate a specific individual or group of people.
As in the case of “pizzagate” [or “pedogate”]…it was clear from almost the very beginning, to anybody who paid enough close attention, that people were actively trying to unreasonably inflate the relevance of diverse bits of information, connected by the most vague of “connections”, and by their own initiative weave them into some sort of clearly unjustified narrative…which they further go on to obsessively talk about and spread…in this day and age, go onto each other’s podcasts, on their own “cottage media” circuit…making lots of noise, until the more mainstream media starts noticing what they are doing…and the malicious accusations they are spreading.
The focus is too rarely on the poor integrity and character, of the people behind these campaigns…It’s usually on the accusations they are spreading…
…And the victims of these smear campaigns, are left to sustain and deal with the damage…
The primary villain here…is this person [or the people] behind “QAnon”…
If there is any justice in this world…the identity of this coward [or these cowards] will be discovered, and they will be brought to justice for this treachery.
However…indispensable in this travesty are all the gullible people…as well as the people who know better, but who are playing along to “support the greater good”, according to their worldview.
There are a lot of villains in “pizzagate” [aka “pedogate”]…but in order to identify them, we must look under the surface of the campaign itself.
“Pizzagate/Pedogate” is a psychological operations campaign.
