INFORMATION Warfare - When what we learned in school is OUTDATED

Relearning lessons around Capitalism, Debate and Media Studies - Collective Sensemaking to combat the Information War Machine

This

versus

this

In the upper image, the brains of the viewers/readers/listeners are mostly in receptive mode … receiving messaging created by others — by people they don’t know and whose existence they don’t even perceive. They are consuming meaning rather than creating meaning, totally unaware that their “data is the new gold”.

In contrast, in the bottom image, the brains of the participants are engaged in the moment, involved in negotiation, turn taking, problem solving etc. Producing meaning. Together.

Many other writers have written extensively and well on topics like the benefits of collaborative and outdoor physical play vs solitary, sedentary, indoor consumption of online play-like programs.

I will be coming from another angle…

As an educator, I am giving thought to the INFORMATION WAR going on all around us… There is a whole army of voices seeking our attention. There are whole forces competing for our choices, our eyeballs on screen, our life-long brand loyalty. Our beliefs and values.

This is war of a different kind. How do we teach our young people about this war when we too are the targets?

https://www.a-i-m.com/research/trends/social-media-as-a-weapon-in-the-information-war/

Back when I was a junior high student, my media “consumption” consisted of the nightly news on TV, plus a weekly episode of my dad’s favourite: The Beachcombers and my mom’s favourites: Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons. Imagine that, outside of the news, spending only 3 x 30 minutes a week watching TV and then being outdoors, reading or helping with housework for the rest of the week! Occasionally, when out babysitting the neighbour’s kids, after they were in bed, my viewing options expanded to Three’s Company, Laverne & Shirley, and/or Love Boat!

Then one day, I was outraged during a Language Arts media unit when the teacher told us that WE THE VIEWERS are the PRODUCTS BEING SOLD to the networks. I had thought that when I and my family watched TV, we were simply enjoying the luxury of a laugh, a bit of entertainment of our own choosing. But then, the teacher explained that networks promise advertisers a certain number of eyeballs on the screen, which is why they produce programming in the first place, and simply lure us in like a fish to bait!

Now WE CONTINUE to be the product, but no longer just for numbers of eyeballs on screens. Now it is all of our “data” that is the PRODUCT being bought and sold whenever we log in online for some viewing or gaming pleasure. Heck, even to read and write these Substacks, our access to the Internet via some kind of log-in amounts to “data” of some kind! This data includes our sign-in info, time of engagement, types of engagement, purchasing history, purchase credentials, etc. not to mention that to “verify” us, someone buys and sells other other bits and bytes of data: the name of our first friend or our mother’s maiden name, etc. etc. Do we really trust those promises that confidential data is anonimized and parked behind firewalls? What happens to those promises when companies merge or buy each other out? And what happens when digital currencies, and government control thereof, are added to the mix? (As an aside, it should not be news to anyone these days that governments have been flagging citizen accounts to social media giants with the claim that the social media corp’s own “community standards” were being violated — this when the citizens were simply providing proof that the governments’ narratives were scientifically or otherwise flawed.)

So back to us…here we are… watching TV…or some show on some device running on some platform or other. Advertiser driven. We see an advertisement for a skin cream like Aveena. Or for a competing product like Lubriderm. Another time, we might see an ad for a pain reliever like Motrin. Or another competing product, like Tylenol. The makers of these products want our attention. They want us to buy their products. Sounds fine. No problem. It’s all part of capitalism, we say. Yet, we have no idea that these ‘competitors’ are all owned by the same multinational corporation, like Johnson & Johnson, for example.

(Note, they don’t show the J&J Covid-19 vaccine product in their line up!!)

And we certainly do not pay attention to which corporations, in turn, invest in companies like Johnson & Johnson. Thanks to stockzoa.com, we find that…

Remember learning about capitalism back at school? Company A and Company B both produce a similar product. Which consumers buy which one is what drives our economy. Supply and Demand drive Profit while forcing each company to work hard at improving their products or services. Profits in turn via Taxation build our society…the roads we drive on, the schools we learn in, the hospitals and doctors we rely on. Profits are good. They are what allows the company owners and workers to feed their families. And maybe afford a holiday from time to time. All good.

And we learned that Competition drives innovation, like Pepsi versus Coke, right?

But what if pretty much the same main investors hold stock in both companies?

Where is the competition then?

And back to the kids and what they are watching… Netflix? or Disney Plus right?

And what kids are playing…. Microsoft’s Xbox versus Sony’s Playstation?

Upon closer examination (by looking at the top investment group of Sony, Primecap Management Corp, we find, for example, that Microsoft invests in Sony as do other tech companies like Google and Adobe along with pharmaceutical companies like AstraZeneca and EliLilly. And the top investors in Microsoft?

And so when kids play Fortnite on their Xboxes, “saving the world” while “gathering resources” “evading the enemy”, “defending equipment” and “fighting off zombie like opponents”, they are likely not aware that the investment groups who profit from their gaming dollars are also those who profit from the real life corporations who are currently profiting from the military actions in Ukraine and elsewhere around the globe, corporations like Lockheed Martin whose primary investment groups once again, include shareholders like Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard and yes, even Klaus Schwab Investment Management.

So if competition between product manufacturers - a cornerstone of what we learned back in our school days - is no longer a “thing”, what else has changed without us knowing?

Remember debate classes in junior or senior high school? Both sides of an issue get equal air time…

Source: https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide/classroom-debates.shtml

and it’s not who wins that matters but “how well teams prepared for and delivered their arguments” that matters.

Nope. That’s no longer the case as well.

Welcome to today’s world:

We now have tech & social media corporations like Microsoft, Google, Facebook(Meta) (with the same investor groups more or less i.e. Blackrock, Vanguard & State Street) “partnering” with what were once “trusted” news media like Associated Press, BBC, CBC/Radio Canada, Reuters, etc. etc. to ensure that only ONE side of every debate comes out as winner in the end… The other side of course simply labeled as “fake news” and as mis, dis, or even more ominously sounding, as mal-information.

The other side - if it does not drive market shares to the investor groups - is to be seen as an obstacle that needs to be “managed” as Canada’s Privy Council had advised Cabinet members to do with regards to vaccine injuries. or removed altogether.

This is war, folks, INFORMATION WARFARE 101.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_warfare

Recent polling has trust in the legacy (or mainstream) media at its lowest level ever (only 4 in 10 or 42%). It appears that nearly 6 in 10 have lost trust.

If there is warfare, who is at war against whom? For which aims?Why?

How might media be fitting into these answers?

Maybe we should seek guidance from military and intelligence professionals on questions like these.

Here is how Canadian veteran Lieutenant (Navy) Andrew MacGillivray sees the information battleground in which we find ourselves these days - The battleground is divided into 5 units.

ONE PERCENT of the population is made up of Elites, like our PM Trudeau Jr. who, along with other globalists no longer believe in the concept of nation states, but rather see Canada as “the world’s first post-national state.” Wouldn’t that not just amount to us being as a cog in a larger global wheel with those outside of our borders taking on decision making roles on our behalf?

FOUR PERCENT of the population are the “Technocrats” - those who rely heavily on the god of Technology to solve our problems. These include schools, universities, the media, whether public or private as both have become reliant on government funding to keep their operations intact. This also includes the RCMP & the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

TWENTY PERCENT of the population fall under the term “Progressive Left” with a tiny portion of those (known as “Antifa”) leaning toward more radical opinions and violence. People who see themselves as social justice “warriors” often claim themselves to be more “awake” to injustices often regarding identity politics, thus the term “woke.”

TEN PERCENT of the population can be known as “Patriots” — “awake” and engaged citizens, often “anti-woke”, pushing back at the messaging from the elite, the technocrats and the progressive left. Included in this group are the independent media. Just as Antifa is a tiny fringe on the “progressive left”, so too is there a tiny militant group (the sovereign citizens) on the fringe of the “Patriots”.

Lt. MacGillivray explains the difference in orientation behind the small violent fringes on the edge of both the Progressive Left and the Patriots. While “Antifa”members come out and cause damage to windows, buildings etc. “Sovereign Citizens” “just want to be left alone.”

SIXTY-FIVE PERCENT would be the battle ground, the target of the information war being fought from both sides around them. This is the working class, the “middle class”, often people so busy with their daily lives that they are not very engaged in politics. Most of them have no idea that that their minds and thoughts are the targets of this multi-billion dollar warfare that sprung up all around them.

For a deeper dive into the minds of the “technocrats” and their perception of the need for wokeism, please listen to this discussion between former CBC (now independent) investigative journalist Trish Wood and Jacob Siegel, the author of: Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century — Thirteen Ways of Looking at Disinformation. https://www.trishwoodpodcast.com/podcast/episode-163-jacob-sigel-harold-jonker (The whole conversation is compelling, the technocrat part is at a round the 40 minute mark.)

In describing the Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) of the Technocrats, Lt. MacGillivray begins by discussing media ownership (notably the aforementioned investment behemoths: Blackrock, Vanguard, etc.). Additionally, he explains that in order to receive government funding, academic institutions now need to apply Diversity, Inclusion and Equity metrics in their operations, whether these are relevant to their situations or not. The technocrats have also been forcing a sort of “utopia” on the progressive left - the idea of governments giving people a Universal Basic Income for “doing nothing” without anyone asking how this should be funded.

Thinking about the war in Ukraine, we can turn to a similar group of former highly regarded intelligence professionals for their view on the matter. We learn that back in 2020 the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) were advising President (elect) Joe Biden against escalating tensions with Russia. As for another tactic of the technocrats, we see how Wikipedia only needed to claim a connection between the highly regarded members of VIPS - intelligence PROFESSIONALS who had the lives and wellbeing of millions in their care prior retirement - and QuAnon and other so-called “Conspiracy theorists” for these high-value voices to become sidelined/ “cancelled”/censored. NO proof of this claim was provided.

Trish Wood, in a substack entitled “We are out of Time” illustrated another TTP - the technique of teaching journalists that there should be NO OBJECTIVE REPORTING - that it is their duty to advocate for one or the other side, to ensure they become the “social justice warrior” as they report the news.

So as teachers, instead of TELLING students how things are (especially if we are simply telling what we believe to be true based on what was true when we were still in school or on what mainstream media reports feed us with) we need to be humble and admit that we too are needing to learn to navigate today’s world and all its rapidly changing components at the same time as our students. As teachers, we are truly “influencers” .. high-valued perceived authorities among the young, among those who can be shaped into being life long consumers of certain brands for example! Whenever, at teacher’s professional development opportunities in the past years, were full on debates with both sides of an issue as models presented to us - models of how we can set up open discussions in our own classrooms on topics that matter without the need to “shut down” one side or another?

We know that in the search for guidance and information, young people today look to the adults nearest to them first, but with the internet at their fingertips, they too have access to this bewildering smorgasbord of purveyors of truth that the rest of us have trouble sifting through.

It behooves us as teachers – information professionals – to not fall into the easy trap of spreading only the mainstream narrative…(which many of us did, two years ago especially if we repeated what we were hearing all around us… “when we are all vaccinated, things will get back to normal.” )

Rather we need to help our young people navigate the world which is so vastly different than it was when we were getting our formal education. Many of us, in the rat-race of life, working, raising families, doing eldercare, etc. have not been able to invest the time to look beyond the mainstream headlines and might need reminding that the paradigms that we have been teaching (Allies/Axis; NATO/USSR; left/right) no longer apply. Today’s neo-liberalism has nothing in common with yesteryear’s liberalism for example. The sources we learned to respect as reputable (encyclopedias, esteemed newspapers, public broadcasters) have come under the control of anti-democratic pro-globalist interests. No longer is it enough to tell students to refer to “Trusted” news sources if we don’t at the same time teach students how to “follow the money” to determine if these organizations are funded by those with an undemocratic, globalist (uberglobalist) agenda.

Helping the next generation navigate its surroundings, to detect any and all dangers coming at them, has been the primary goal of all manner of societies the world over, from the animal kingdom to the human species. It seems to me this is the first time the adults of this world are equally caught up in distraction, that they are neglecting to point at dangers just in front of collective eyes. Many of us are having to start admitting that we were too timid to “rock the boat”, to “make waves”, to question the narrative we have been given. For example that all we need to do is to mask up, keep distant, follow orders and all will be well soon!! It is time for us unmask the greater picture - both for ourselves and our students.

One of the things we could do instead is to jointly demand that open debate be restored. Another is to demand the holders of the mainstream narrative to reveal their sources, numbers, statistics, proven treatment protocols in the same time and space (virtually if need be) as their parallel researchers who have been pointing AGAINST the mainstream findings that “COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.” Instead of tolerating slander of opposing perspectives we should have transparency and cooperation and demand equal time and focus for opposing views, followed by a proper examination of the arguments and supporting data on BOTH sides. Currently the holders of the mainstream narrative are claiming that to have open debate would be to give their opponents a platform. Of course! That is the entire point! We should we be demanding that as part of the ordinary, normal learning process and not arbitrary deciding without evidence that to express another viewpoint is to drive
”misinformation.”

May space for civil academic discourse be reopened, free from the financial sway that the money trail provides. We who believe in the value of democracy, by demanding that the public space for discourse be reopened, can help do our part. Just imagine opportunities for discourse between those experts being interviewed by the mainstream media and those experts whose only platform has been off the mainstream, for example at the National Citizen’s Inquiry (aka NCI.)

Media literacy nowadays needs to include how our data is being seen as valuable. And how corporatism aka fascism works. We need to show students the power corporations have to sway government policy through organizations like the World Economic Forum as it pushes for “a new kind of capitalism known as stakeholder capitalism” as often stated by the CEO of the WEF, Dr. Klaus Schwab. When the CEOs of many of the largest global corporations, including Pfizer’s Albert ‘Imagine the Compliance’ Bourla and Blackrock’s Larry ‘Dodo versus Phoenix’ Fink, are “Agenda Contributors” to an organization, it behooves us to teach students to look closely at what the leaders of that organization are saying. Contributing to an “agenda” today amounts to shaping the future tomorrow, a future that our students will need to live with all their lives long! And that future starts NOW, as Schwab et al already told us that by 2025, 85 million jobs will be phased out and replaced with 97 million new “roles.” Two years ago, advisor to the World Economic Forum, Yuval Noah Harari, foretold that those people pushed out of the job market would turn to “a combination of drugs and computer games.” Do we let our students and their parents know that those who invest in pretty much everything our Western economies produce envision this type of a future for all of us, our young included?

What would be our first steps?

Teaching media literacy would include being able to critically analyze whatever is presented on the surface as good and positive and to trace back to see who benefits financially from that so-called goodness without being blacklisted as being a “conspiracy theorist.” Teaching critical thinking skills and developing resiliency and 21 century survival skills would include lessons like this:

Source: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-08-24/conspiracy-theories-aside-there-is-something-fishy-about-the-great-reset/

As we recognize that the world has shifted drastically, we as educators need to question our assumptions on pretty much everything. And teach students to do the same. Collective sense making is the order of the day, making sense of the changes in our world together.

PS: Another tool in our arsenal can be a free subscription to the newsletter put out by Reclaim the Net