Navigating The News - Or... Pet Masters - Sott - Net

4/25/2015
Navigating the news - Or how to cut through media lies -- Puppet Masters -- Sott.net
Navigating the news - Or how to cut through media lies

Nick Lerch
Sott.net
Sun, 08 Mar 2015 22:06 UTC
We are swamped with news every single day. We all say that the media lie, but there's a
problem: most events are usually portrayed in a contradictory fashion in different media outlets.
So while we have access to a lot of information and we know that a large part, maybe even the
majority of the reported news in mainstream media (but also in alternative media), is either
wrong or plain propaganda - COINTELPRO - how can we know what's really going on?
Take the recent murder of the Russian politician, Boris Nemtsov. Most Western mainstream
media squarely point to the Russian state as the perpetrator, or some rogue elements within it,
and by extension, to its president Vladimir Putin. At the very least, they suggest it and perhaps
attribute some attitude of facilitation or laissez-faire in order to harvest any potentially beneficial
political fallout. The other side calls it a false-flag operation, aided and abetted by Western
powers to create chaos and inflame tensions within Russia, to create a "critical mass" that
would, at some point in the future, get rid of the current leaders of Russia and impose a new
government more in line with Western economic and geopolitical aspirations.
How can we ever get a clear idea of the truth behind the news and where the responsibility lies
for what happens in the world with any degree of certainty?
http://www.sott.net/article/293593-Navigating-the-news-Or-how-to-cut-through-media-lies
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In order to get to a reasonable understanding of current - or past - events, and to get to a

reasonably well-defined idea of who is pulling the strings behind any given event, we're going
to need a useful methodology. Of course, for some events it is easier than others. Sometimes
information is scarce and the party responsible will do everything to cover their tracks. Some
events are buried in the past and much of the information is simply not easily accessible
anymore, altogether missing, or available only to a handful of specialized individuals with the
right access and accreditation.
The components of this methodology are the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
History tends to repeat itself

Facts - especially, early facts
Cui bono
Bias
Intuition
Let's have a look at each more closely.
1. History
It is a sad fact, that history tends to repeat itself. For any
given event, there is likely another that has been
orchestrated in a similar manner. False-flag operations
are a good example. The history of false-flag events is
as old as human history.
The burning of Rome in 64 AD is commonly attributed to
the emperor Nero, although he probably wasn't
responsible for the fire. It seems to have been that a
combination of strong winds and the geographical
location of the fires resulted in Rome burning for 5 days.
Nero is often portrayed as a maniacal psychopath who sung from his balcony as the city was
engulfed in flames. But whoever Nero was, and whatever he did or didn't do, one thing that
Nero certainly did - after the fire was brought under control - was to 'not let a crisis go to waste':
if anything bad happens, point the finger at your enemy. Nero's enemy happened to be a new
religious sect, whose followers refused to worship the emperor and shunned personal
possessions. Luckily for Nero, the presence of this group in Rome gave him the pretext he
needed. He spread the rumour that these Christians had started the fire, and ordered many of
them to be thrown to the dogs, crucified and burned. Manipulated events and scapegoats used
for political expedience go back a long way.
Another well-known false-flag operation was the burning down of the Reichstag, the parliament
house of the German Empire in 1933. Hitler assured everyone that 'communists' had started
the fire, which the next day led to the proclamation of the Reichstag decree, which suspended
most civil liberties and sent Germany firmly down the road to fascism and ultimate destruction.
Today it is quite certain that the Nazis were - directly or indirectly - responsible for the fire.
In modern times 9-11 comes to mind. For anyone who has studied the events only
superficially, the official version is incompatible with reason, facts on the ground, and even the
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physical laws of nature. It is almost inconceivable that a bunch of Arab terrorists, armed with
box cutters and operating out of caves in Afghanistan, would have been able to dupe and
overwhelm the trillion-dollar military and security apparatus of the US. At present it is not
entirely clear who really planned and executed the destruction of the World Trade towers (there
were three, not two, destroyed in the attack, by the way), and how exactly they did it, but the
evidence points to a mixture of 'rogue elements' within the Bush administration (Bush probably
being in the know too), members of the financial elite and elements of the Mossad (Israeli
secret service).
The point is, if something happens today that seems unique, it probably has happened before.
The diligent student of history will be able to see parallels and gain insight from it.
The problem here again is that mainstream historians more often than not just toe the party
line. A good example is the history of the First World War. Mainstream history teaches that
Germany started WWI. In reality, as Docherty and MacGregor show in their seminal work
Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War, a secret cabal of British officials and
financiers plotted and advanced an agenda to drag Germany into a war for over ten years
before it officially broke out. At the turn of the 19th century, German industry had begun to
outcompete the British and made an impact on territories abroad (mainly Africa) that the British
traditionally viewed as 'their own'. The authors meticulously describe the strategies employed
by this secret elite to further their war agenda.
And the same strategies are in place today, so history tends to repeat itself, as the same timetested elements of control and manipulation are used again and again on an unsuspecting
populace.
Briefly summarized, they are: control of the press; control of the political parties, so that it
doesn't matter which party wins; control of the economy through banks and multinational
corporations; and buying and corrupting 'suitable' persons of influence, who then (willingly or
forcibly) do the bidding of their masters.
And once you know these strategies, you can more easily see through the lies and deceptions.
It's an old game.
2) Facts - especially early facts

In the early stages of an event, when everything is
chaotic and the pullers of strings haven't yet been able
to scrub inconvenient facts and guide the narrative in the
direction they want, facts often surface that directly
contradict one line of argumentation. They will later be
removed from any official record, and will commonly be
debunked as "conspiracy". Whenever someone cries
"conspiracy theory", you can almost be sure that he is
protecting or obscuring some vital information.
"Debunking" some inconvenient facts is most efficient
when its bearer is ridiculed, so that the information is
made unimportant due to the standing of the messenger. Who believes a clown, a crazy nutjob?
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Take for instance the 2012 Aurora cinema mass shooting, in which witnesses consistently
spoke of there being two shooters present in the cinema during the shootout - a fact that was
quickly scrubbed from the internet and newswires. Again, the Aurora shooting had all the
hallmarks of a false-flag event, and the presence of two shooters directly contradicted the
meme of the "lone shooter" who allegedly perpetrated the crime. So it pays to note any details
early on in the aftermath of these events, especially details that might not fit the official
narrative. This recurring pattern is itself a clue that the real perpetrators are never uncovered.
And those ill-fitting facts will quickly disappear in the fog of unfolding events.
Some facts that reach public consciousness cannot be easily scrubbed, even by the Powers
That Be. These inconvenient facts get a special treatment - again a time-honoured process.
They either get vastly underreported, swept under the rug, or completely ignored. If that is not
possible, they will be discarded as "irrelevant", as an "anomaly", or the media will again
insinuate an evil agenda on the part of anyone who dares bring them up for debate. Common
practice is to denigrate the questioner as "unpatriotic" or as taking side with the "enemy" - "you
are either with us, or you are against us!" Thus a discussion about the pertinence of these
inconvenient facts is stifled. These inconvenient facts, once dropped from the official narrative,
quickly vanish from public consciousness in our ever faster news cycles. Another item - often
very trivial in nature - is wheeled out for public consumption, usually a sporting event, or the
misdeeds of some celebrity.
Facts speak their own language, and whoever wants to get to the bottom of things should pay
attention to them - especially to those items that seem to suddenly go missing from the
mainstream narrative and that are reported at the early phases of an event, when spin has not
yet been able to cover the tracks.
3) Cui bono
The third point I'd like to raise is cui bono - Latin for "to
whose benefit?" This is probably one of the most
important points in analysing events in the world. Very
few events - if any, with the exception of accidents - just
happen randomly. Most of them are carefully staged and
executed. The organisation of such events may be quite
complex and require thorough preparation and a
considerable amount of money. So there needs to be a
benefit for the perpetrators to go to such lengths.
Take the above-mentioned murder of Nemtsov. It just
doesn't make any sense that Putin would order this murder (or let it happen), as the Western
MSM implies. Nemtsov was a political nobody, even within the weak political opposition in
Russia. Russians firmly stand behind Putin, as recent polls have demonstrated - to the tune of
up to 85% of the population (compare that to any Western leader!). What possible benefit could
Putin ever derive by killing him? He would be pouring oil onto the fire and would make his own
position even more difficult.
But now take the Washington elite: they have everything to gain from this assassination. They
can point the finger at Putin, again, compare him to Hitler and rouse anti-Russian sentiments,
within Russia and abroad. The West is hell-bent on starting a war with Russia - through the
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Ukraine crisis - because Russia is in the way of the hegemonic plans of the Western elites. The
general population's appetite for war is always low; but for psychopathic, neoconservative,
hawkish elites in Washington, NATO and the EU, it's always high, now more than ever as they
try to prevent the USA's downfall into political and financial oblivion - hence the need for
another war. To follow their leaders down the path of war, the people need to be whipped up
into a frenzy. The best way to achieve this is through fear of an enemy that has only one wish 'our destruction'. This legitimizes 'our self-defence', a cause for which millions of young soldiers
have gone to war and to their slaughter. War is always a distraction and, according to
Clausewitz, the great strategist on war, always serves two fronts - within the country and
without. And, for the most part, the inner front is the more important.
So by answering the question 'who benefits most?' from any controversial event happening in
the world, we are already a big step closer to understanding who is pulling the strings. This is
the extended version of 'follow the money'. Often it is not money directly that points in the right
direction, but power over certain groups or countries, and thereby access to resources and
potential, future sources of money-making.
4) Bias
Bias is human and affects all of us. Bias is defined as "an inclination of temperament or outlook
to present or hold a partial perspective, often accompanied by a refusal to consider the
possible merits of alternative points of view". Bias can be overcome by rational appraisal of the
facts. When I hold a certain viewpoint, and I am presented with facts that directly contradict this
view, and the facts prove to be grounded in objectivity, the obvious thing for me to do would be
to change my view. Unfortunately, not all people seem to be able to do that. One personality
type especially - the 'Authoritarian Follower', as described by Bob Altemeyer in his book The
Authoritarians - is unable to change his of her view in the face of contradictory facts - UNLESS
his or her established authority figures change it for them. Altemeyer characterises
authoritarian followers as follows:
They are highly submissive to established authority,
aggressive in the name of that authority, and
conventional to the point of insisting everyone
should behave as their authorities decide.
They are fearful and self-righteous and have a lot of
hostility that they readily direct toward various outgroups. They are easily incited, easily led, rather
uninclined to think for themselves, largely impervious to facts and reason, and rely
instead on social support to maintain their beliefs. They bring strong loyalty to their ingroups, have thick-walled, highly compartmentalized minds, use a lot of double
standards in their judgments, are surprisingly unprincipled at times, and are often
hypocrites.
But they are also Teflon-coated when it comes to guilt. They are blind to themselves,
ethnocentric and prejudiced, and as closed-minded as they are narrow-minded. They
can be woefully uninformed about things they oppose, but they prefer ignorance and
want to make others become as ignorant as they are. They are also surprisingly
uninformed about the things they say they believe in, and deep, deep, deep down
inside, many of them have secret doubts about their core beliefs. But they are very
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happy, highly giving, and quite zealous. In fact, they are about the only zealous people
around nowadays in North America, which explains a lot of their success in their
endless (and necessary) pursuit of converts.
Altemeyer estimates the percentage of these Authoritarian Followers in the US to be about
25% of the overall population - so quite a high number. They will follow what authorities tell and
demand of them without much - or any - thought, and without much - or any - moral reasoning.
It's enough for them to know that orders 'come from above', from the authorities, whether this
be the government, their religion or their boss. 'Daddy knows best!' is their motto. And if they
are presented with facts that run counter to their beliefs, they will become very aggressive and
'attack the messenger', and this will paradoxically increase their adherence to their erroneous
beliefs.
So the first thing anyone who wishes to get to the bottom of events needs to do is to be
conscious of their own beliefs and world views. We take a lot of things for granted, because
that is what we were inculcated with in our formative years, and these often don't hold up to
scrutiny. To change one's view, to 'kill the sacred cows', is often an enormously painful, but
essential, process, if one is to develop the faculty of analysing events in a dispassionate frame
of mind. Only when we know our own vulnerabilities, our own mechanical beliefs, are we then
able to accept viewpoints that might be contrary to what we held dear up to that point.
5) Intuition
This last point is the most vague, and also the most
problematic. It is very much under the influence of bias.
Who hasn't heard this small niggling voice accompanied or viscerally expressed in their gut ('gutfeeling') - telling them that something just isn't right? But
we often disregard these signals, if we detect them at all
- and wonder, after the fact, why we didn't heed their
call. Intuition alone is not very precise and effective, but
combined with rational thought it can be quite helpful. Intuition is associated with the brain's
right hemisphere, which often can read things the more conscious left hemisphere blissfully
ignores.
But to be able to use it in an intelligent way, we first need to be aware of our biases and
irrational beliefs, because allowing them to continue running unfiltered and unchecked is to
allow them to completely overpower that small niggling voice or hunch.
In the same way, intuition can guide us in regards to information. The right hemisphere is able
to recognize patterns that the left hemisphere is unaware of. But to fully engage this process, it
is important to make it conscious. Once the pattern has seeped into the conscious mind, it's
the left hemisphere's job to validate it with facts and reasoning.
These are the five components I try to engage when analysing news and trying to get a handle
on complex events that unfold 'in real time'. More often than not, you will see the MSM trying to
obscure the facts, and if that fails, they'll just 'disregard the screamers'. The MSM in our world
are largely controlled by just six behemoth corporations, and they are all firmly entrenched in
the military-security-industrial complex. In that sense, the internet is a boon and a curse - a
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boon, because we get access to news agencies and bloggers outside the direct sphere of
influence of the MSM; a curse, because the Powers That Be have of course realized the same
thing and are actively managing and influencing discourse on the net by inserting trolls,
attacking dissenters and creating controlled opposition, thus effectively neutralising and
drowning out opposing voices.
And that is the reason why we need a methodology to sift through the heaps of rubbish, to
extract that grain of truth that will lead us to a better understanding of current events.
Because, after all, knowledge is power!
Nick
Nick currently lives in the Top End of Australia working as a medical professional. He has been part of the SOTT network since 2008. His interests
range from health & nutrition, current affairs and new media on the net. He is also involved in the SOTT translation group.
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4/25/2015

Navigating the news - Or how to cut through media lies

In order to get to a reasonable understanding of current - or past - events, and to get to a

History tends to repeat itself

Let's have a look at each more closely.

2) Facts - especially early facts

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