Misinformation and Disinformation
The title of this Substack is ‘Medicine for the Dead’ which is a tongue in cheek takeoff of a quote from the great American (England born) Thomas Paine:
‘To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture’
- Thomas Paine
Since I’m pretty much a cynical type, much of what I say and write, in my opinion would indeed be “medicine for the dead” because civil discourse has taken a bit of a vacation in most cases.
But, we press on and try to do our part however small.
I’ll cover this later in more depth as we evolve here, but tonight’s topic Misinformation and Disinformation was borne from a seemingly off the cuff (but it wasn’t) remark by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (yes he was reading from a script you see) today in Parliament:
“…and after a flood of misinformation and disinformation washed over Canada, including from foreign sources, it became clear that local and provincial authorities needed more tools to restore order and keep people safe. I ask all members of parliament to stand up for Canada this evening.”
Couple of observations here:
When the Prime Minister delivered that last line, he had a look of disdain and arrogance (yes, we see this quite frequently now that we in the US are getting more familiar with how this puppet operates).
Here is a screencap of that face when he delivered that very line:
This is a person (I won’t call him a man especially with those girly mitts you see there) who is delivering a message of sheer intolerance for any rational discussion which makes him, in my opinion, very unfit for his position.
But, we all know, he is simply doing what he’s told. (And we’ll delve into this down the line as well)
These terms were not throwaway lines.
The fact that Trudeau, and to be fair, the Opposition Leader Candice Bergen were both reading from scripts, (which troubles me but I’m a newbie with how Canadian Parliament conduct their business) used these two words in one sentence was very obvious to me to weaponize both words as a way to belittle and minimize anything said in opposition to his amazing Prime Ministerial skills.
Side note; Joe the Puppet Biden does this as well with his crooked sneer to try and demean anyone who comments in rebuttal to anything he says or does.
“C’mon man!”
It’s a tactic to throw out very carefully chosen words to throw a blanket indictment over anything “unsavory and unacceptable for public discourse that has no place to even merit any discussion.” (This is my description - not an official narrative).
The idea is to say that anything that someone like Candice Bergen said is not even worth the Prime Minister’s precious time to even rebut thoroughly, so he just generalizes that her and her ilk’s rhetoric is unworthy of a detailed response.
Thus the scripts I guess?
In summary, be wary of the tactic to use language like this to discredit an opposition’s argument to dismiss out of hand anything counter to their narrative without adding any meat to counter an argument.
Just toss out a couple of well chosen words to tamp down the debate.
So let’s back up a bit to what led to that exchange and language being applied.
Candice Bergen asked:
“Can the Prime Minister tell us exactly what powers the Emergency Act is giving him today that do not already exist? I know he said he needed the act to force to trucks to tow trucks away, but as he’s already said, the trucks are gone. So we don’t need tow trucks any longer. What power is needed right now, today, under the Emergency Act that doesn’t already exist under current Canadian law?”
To which Trudeau rebutted with a mass of lies and exaggerations that have very much proven to be absolutely false to anyone who watched the events of the past few weeks closely:
“Mr. Speaker, after the weeks of people being harassed in their neighborhoods and seeing small businesses forced to close. After billions of dollars were stalled in trades when people’s livelihoods at risk. After evidence of increased ideologically motivated violence extremism activity across the country, and after a flood of
Wait for it:
misinformation and disinformation washed over Canada including from foreign sources, it became clear that local and provincial authorities needed more tools to restore order and keep people safe. I ask all members of parliament to stand up for Canada this evening.”
None of those horrible events happened from truckers and protesters until the goon squads were called in (some wearing nondescript uniforms so they couldn’t possibly be identified).
And who forced businesses to be closed over the past two years and assuredly allowed professional rioters to harass in their neighborhoods and cause violent extremism in their cities?
I don’t think any truckers or protestors did…
So there you have it. This is how words are used to never give any detail just generalize and demonize the opposition without rebuttal.
This is how it’s done.
You can see the exchange below:
And in closing, I’ll leave with these videos to see who’s harassing who.