I think that there was a lot of undisclosed money that came into South Dakota, driving a message to paint me as a Washington partisan, which I don't believe that I am, but it was a message that resonated, after pounding it away for a number of weeks.
The purpose of propaganda is not to provide interesting distraction for blasé young gentlemen, but to convince... the masses. But the masses are slow moving, and they always require a certain time before they are ready even to notice a thing, and only after the simplest ideas are repeated thousands of times will the masses finally remember them.
To attract people, to win over people to that which I have realized as being true, that is called propaganda.
Nevertheless, this type of propaganda has a special value, for it serves to convince those who sign the appeal, of the necessity for carrying on propaganda; so a corps of propagandists, if I may use the term, is thus trained.
There is no doubt that the actions of ISIS are designed to amplify their power and the threat that they pose. That helps them recruit. That adds in the twisted thoughts of some young person that they might want to have carry out an action that somehow they're part of a larger movement.
It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale.
I have said that propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation have always been part of political warfare. Social media and other new platforms have given it a new life and reach through which the fake news phenomenon can reach everywhere.
I think we all realize too that there are some people in this Capital City whose task is in large part to stir up dissension, and to magnify normal healthy disagreements so that they appear to be irreconcilable conflicts.
You can see examples of this, such as where [George W.] Bush lied to the public, and as a result 72 percent of America was in favor of the Iraqi invasion. Yet now the truth has presented itself and they are trying to save face by appealing to the public's national-istic persona, talking about winning and honor and everything as a reason to continue that illegal immoral occupation.
The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon the methods employed, not upon the doctrines taught. These doctrines may be true or false, wholesome or pernicious it makes little or no difference.
It is essential to persuade the soldier that those he is being urged to massacre are bandits who do not deserve to live; before killing other good, decent fellows like himself, his gun would fall from his hands.
