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Memories of the 28th Century

Disinformation

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I have written about the persistence of ignorance before, and I wish I had adequate data to determine the cause. I don't think that actual scientists are very likely to hold onto information that has been shown to be false, because they research their subject before they go further into it. Unfortunately, there are some people who write articles on scientific matters who do not bother with researching.

Earlier today, I looked for articles about the “ozone hole”, because that has yielded articles based on ignorance in the past, and it didn't disappoint this time. There was an article from Smithsonian in 2016 that asserted that man-made chemicals in the atmosphere, without even mentioning that hydroxyl radicals breakdown large molecules tin the troposphere and stratosphere. And that article even asserted that there was a hole in the ozone layer, even though the seasonal depletion of ozone has never completely eliminated it, as far as has been measured. But it appears that the “ozone hole” had become part of the cultural background, even though it is mythology.

This is only one of many myths that have been taken into the American book of TRUTH. Some of the other things that are taken as facts without regard to reality include the rationale for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Ideas come to be accepted as true if they fit the model that is being pushed by the news media, regardless of accuracy. It makes me wonder whether the video of Colin Powell declaring in detail that Iraq was in complete compliance with the conditions laid out by the UN after the first Gulf war is still available. And I won't mention the current disease outbreaks in that regard, because the story has changed so many times. There are many examples, and many of those give the appearance of being deliberate attempts at obfuscation of something.


Disinformation is “deliberately misleading or biased information; manipulated narrative or facts; propaganda.” https://www.dictionary.com/browse/disinformation Using that definition, most of the examples I found are disinformation. The information that led to the Iraq certainly was disinformation, and what led to the Afghan War might have been worse. In the Summer of 2001 Mullah Omar offered to pin down Osama bin Laden, so the U.S. Could capture him and take him away for prosecution (Osama was the enemy of all governments). For no discernible reason, the G.W. Bush administration decided to let Osama go, even though he already had been accused of crimes.

The Iraq war produced another example of disinformation that is even more amusing. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a rocket attack on a training base in northern Iraq. He was struggling to get away, slowed by a prosthetic leg. That turned out to be convenient, because he had been a good trainer and leader. So good that U.S. Military intelligence continued to report that he was the leader of various missions for the next few years. They finally pointed to another corpse as al-Zarqawi.

Other recent examples of disinformation or attempted disinformation include most times when Trump opened his mouth, but those aren't having any lasting result, because he is soon to be prosecuted for various misdeeds. And there were the accusations by his minions that antifa and BLM were behind the invasion of the Capitol. That lie went nowhere.

Then the has been the way that Covid 19 has been handled. Information has been carefully edited, and little was said about SARS, which was an earlier version of coronavirus, but certain people wanted to treat the disease by making people afraid of the disease, even though it turned out to have a mortality rate of about one percent, and that is lower than flu.

But I shouldn't ignore Democrats. Over time, Democrats have used lies at least as much as Republicans, and no one will ever forget Bill Clinton's persistent lie about sexual intercourse, but that was mostly humorous. Obama also used disinformation especially when he was attempting to rule by edict. Biden hasn't had much of an opportunity to apply disinformation, but we can be certain that he will.

One place that has been a consistent source of disinformation has been the Middle East, and Israel has been working on their game recently, and the world watches in horror.

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