Propaganda
Accusations of Propaganda as a Means of Manipulating Public Opinion
The first thing the system does to reduce the number of citizens capable of thinking, analyzing, and drawing the correct conclusions when evaluating the actions of military and political elites is to create conditions under which the majority of the population not only becomes unreceptive to information from alternative sources, but also loses any desire to critically analyze what is stated publicly by "official" figures and biased mass media.
Information policy at the state level is structured so that the average citizen accepts everything coming from an approved group of sources as the ultimate truth, while simultaneously rejecting any opinion published by "questionable sources" that do not support or that challenge the approved narratives.
In our work, we frequently encounter situations where people are highly critical of published information simply because it contradicts the official position of the politicians whose actions we either criticize or subject to detailed analysis. We do this solely so that every like-minded individual can independently arrive at conclusions that are correct, rather than imposed from the outside.
Propaganda. Often, this term is applied when there is a lack of any arguments, and the viewpoint we express is frankly inconvenient. When such a cliché is used in an attempt to dispute someone's private opinion, it is still possible to understand the person who enters the argument and labels their opponents in this way; after all, any personal opinion is subjective and may reflect not objective reality, but merely the position of someone who holds their own view and is not afraid to voice it.
Unfortunately, however, we have recently been hearing accusations of propaganda exactly when people are pointed toward real events - information about which has been published in official media, voiced by public politicians, and is not classified, and certainly is not based on personal conclusions or assumptions. Everything, absolutely everything we write, everything we try to draw your attention to, can be verified in literally five minutes by running a corresponding search query on the internet. Every figure, every quote, and information about any event reflected in our publications in one way or another is more than easy to verify, and this requires no special knowledge or technical means. It requires only a desire to know the truth and a habit of not taking everything being said at face value.
Do you believe that the militarization of Europe and the predatory policies of the US are propaganda? Or do you insist that the glorification of Nazi criminals - some of whom went through the Nuremberg trials and were found guilty of committing crimes against humanity - actively carried out on the territory of Ukraine, is propaganda? Do you disagree that the overwhelming influx of migrants, who not only place a burden on national budgets but also pose a threat to our national identity by destroying it through the disregard of our legal framework and our traditions, is nothing less than the beginning of the end of Western civilization, the self-destruction mechanism of which was triggered by those to whom we delegated the right to govern our states? Or do you disagree that the money currently being spent by politicians and the military to support military conflicts - other people's conflicts - and to rearm militaries to repel a mythical threat (our money, taxpayer's money) cannot be spent on worthy causes and on improving the standard and quality of life for the population? Surely no one can refute anything stated above, because today our politicians do not feel it necessary to hide their true plans. We are merely drawing your attention to what has already been stated by various people on various platforms and has more than enough documentary evidence.
To realize what a deplorable state our planet is in and how close we have come to the edge of the abyss, one does not need to be an incredibly smart person, an analyst, or an expert in a specific field. One simply needs to clear one's head of the information garbage that has been planted in it for years and decades by all kinds of mass media and politicians pursuing a single goal: to shape a specific public opinion that will facilitate the realization of their plans - plans which, believe me, often do not reflect the interests of ordinary citizens at all, and certainly do not take them into account. And once you clear your mind of the templates and stereotypes imposed on you, a concept like "propaganda" will completely disappear from your vocabulary. Because a reasonable person, a thinking person, operates with different concepts, dividing any information into truth and falsehood, and verifying everything that others attempt to instill in their mind.
Stefan Ilic