180°
By: David Deschesne
Editor/Publisher, Fort Fairfield Journal
April 22, 2020
As many of you know, I have no formal training as a journalist. I have always been, and remain to this day, a commercial sound system contractor, providing support to businesses for their paging systems and concert production for fairs and festivals over the past thirty-plus years (see picture of me, above - it has nothing to do with this editorial topic, I just threw it in for fun).
I’ve never attended a college or university. I wasn’t even that great an English student at Fort Fairfield High School. I still don’t fully understand when to use “who” or “whom” in a sentence - though people have tried to teach me - and still confuse exacerbate and exasperate. I am, however, perpetually curious and always trying to observe how things work. From how a gear in a transmission turns to how a mouse is sneaking into my house; all the way up to how criminals in government ply their trade to steal the fruits of our labor. I like knowing how things work because that knowledge can be used for my benefit. All I’m doing with this newspaper is sharing what I’ve learned, even if a lot of people think I’m a kook and would rather remain comfortably and hopelessly enslaved to government programs and edicts.
Since I didn’t attend college or university, I never learned to be a raging flip-flop-wearing socialist who skews and slants the truth toward a leftist, communist agenda. I prefer freedom and personal responsibility to the command and control authoritarian model the Democrats and many Republicans want us to suffer under today.
Where I did learn to write the way I do now, and to research, is from reading books, lots of books, big books - you know, the kind that don’t have a lot of pictures in them and generally have an index and bibliography in the back. In other words - non-fiction reference, science and historical books. It is a culmination of all those writing styles that has influenced both my own style and in part, my conservative, small-government ideology. I’ve seen where communism and left-wing authoritarian socialism takes societies and it’s no fun place to be - I don’t care what the mainstream corporate news media tells you.
Over the past 16 years of publishing this newspaper I’ve attended many events and have been able to observe the media both at the local and national levels. While I don’t think the individual reporters at the local level are bad, or liars, they do all work for large mega-corporate media companies that do have an agenda and will dictate how a story is told - or if it even gets told - if it will benefit a left wing agenda. This newspaper I write is the only newspaper in northern Maine that is independently owned (by me) and not held hostage to a corporate owner further up the food chain.
Following the ownership tree to the top you will find only about a few mega corporations ultimately own nearly all of the media from the top, nationwide outlets all the way down to the bottom, local sources. When not spewing left wing communist propaganda, they just fill their pages and airwaves with powder puff stories that are completely irrelevant, and in many cases destructive, to the maintenance of a free and prosperous society.
I have found a way to decode their propaganda on the high profile, life- and society-changing stories. It’s actually a pretty straightforward process. Simply take a story or narrative - it doesn’t matter what it’s about so long as it’s purpose is to change society in some way. If most, or all, of the different media are giving the same story and incessantly beating the drum for it in unison all you need to do to get to the truth is take the complete opposite position. That is, turn 180 degrees from their version of events and you will be pointing closer to the truth than you ever would be otherwise.
That is my default position on any major news event being reported by the mainstream media. I instantly take the position 180 degrees from theirs as my starting point. The louder and more incessantly they are promoting their ‘version’ of a story, the faster I turn the other way.
Let me now elucidate my points by giving a few very brief thumbnail sketches of major media stories from the early twentieth century through today to show how you can take a media narrative, turn it 180 degrees and get closer to the truth that way. This list is by no means a complete list, just a primer for you to get the gist of what I’m trying to teach. After that, you can apply this methodology to all the other mainstream media narratives past or present in order to point you in a direction that gets you closer to the truth.
The Lusitania (WW I)
On May 1, 1915, carrying 1,195 passengers, the Lusitania left New York harbor on its way to England. Six days later it was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German submarine. The mainstream media screamed for vengeance as Germany had just deliberately sunk an innocent passenger ship. That media narrative is what convinced the people in the U.S. to enter World War I.
The real story is that while the Lusitania was built as a passenger ship, it was also designed to be easily converted into a covert military supply vessel disguised as a passenger ship. The Germans knew this and took out ads in fifty U.S. newspapers warning people not to travel on that ship while a state of war existed between England and Germany.
Minutes after the torpedo hit, a second, mysterious explosion tore an enormous hole in the ship, sinking it in eighteen minutes. Survivors who worked in the boiler rooms attested that there were no problems with the boilers. The “authorities” in 1915 were in a hurry to craft the story in the media and cover it up because it seems the ship may have in fact been covertly carrying munitions to England and it was the explosion of those munitions that caused the second, much larger explosion.
Also, international financier and banker J.P. Morgan was selling war bonds for England in the U.S. When it looked like England was going to lose - and thus the investors lose, too - an impetus had to be created to bring the U.S. into the war on behalf of England. Morgan-owned New Haven Railroad which had more than 1,000 New England newspapers on its payroll, costing $400,000 annually so he was in a position to craft his message his way. This isn’t to say the Lusitania was purposefully blown up, but its accident was conveniently used by the mainstream media to coax us into the war.
Pearl Harbor (WWII)
On December 7, 1941 the Japanese commenced a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Or so, that’s what the mainstream media narrative of the time stated.
The reality is Washington knew the attack was being planned weeks before, and knew the planes were on their way on the morning of the attack, since the U.S. military had cracked the Japanese codes earlier that year. This much has even been admitted by the U.S. Congress. If you want to read it, find a copy of House Resolution 4205 from July 13, 2000 and read through section 576 on pages 227-235.
Back in the year 2000, when I read this information, I even took a copy of that document to WAGM TV in Presque Isle and dropped that story in their lap - on Pearl Harbor Day. Did they run the story? Absolutely not! All we heard on their 6:00 pm newscast was how Arnold Brook lake froze over. Cutting-edge news! From that day on, I stopped watching WAGM television newscasts.
Another point to consider is the U.S. was actually instigating a conflict with Japan when they froze all Japanese assets in the U.S. the summer of that year. That was apt to get the attention of the political and military leaders in Japan for sure, and force them to take countermeasures. Was any of this reported in the mainstream media narrative of the time? Nope. We were in a financial depression and war spending was needed to get us out of it. We did get out of the Great Depression, but that whole recovery was financed by borrowed money. Ooops. The mainstream media forgot to report that, too.
Gulf of Tonkin (Vietnam War)
The mainstream media claimed the U.S.S. Maddox was attacked by Vietnamese vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 4, 1964. This was used as a pretext for the U.S. to enter the civil war going on in Vietnam at the time between the North and the South portions of that country. The mainstream media narrative at the time was that we entered the war to “make the world safe for democracy.” However, the only real purpose of that war was to make profits for the banks and corporations who provide war material in the military-industrial complex.
The real story about the Gulf of Tonkin is the ship was never attacked. What they did was put ghost ships on the radar to make it look like they were Vietnamese ships. The Maddox was never attacked. Rather, it was a false flag to enable the U.S. to declare war on Vietnam and reap untold millions of dollars in profits to supply that military action.
Gulf War I
In 1990, the CIA-installed dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait sparking world-wide outrage. The U.S. instantly instituted military action in order to “liberate” the downtrodden Kuwaitis from their evil oppressor and geared up for a lightening fast war that ended with Hussein curiously still in power but with billions of dollars of contracts for U.S. companies to go in and rebuild the area that was destroyed by U.S. bombs. The mainstream media cheered the war on, feeding us a daily diet of video camera feeds from the front end of “smart” missiles.
The real story is Hussein found out oil companies in Kuwait were slant-drilling for oil on his border to steal oil from under his country. He asked his handlers in the U.S. for permission to address the situation and was given approval. After he invaded, the U.S. then used that as a pretext to start a war and make a whole lot of money for the military-industrial complex yet again. In this respect, Hussein was either a patsy, or a scripted stage actor working for the U.S. Since he was employed by the CIA, I suggest it’s the latter.
911
On September 11, 2001, a gaggle of Muslim terrorists hi-jacked four commercial passenger jets and flew them into selected targets in New York and D.C. - or so that’s what the mainstream media narrative was. The “war on terror” was on.
I’m not going to go into all of the minutia about 911 illustrating it was an inside job by U.S. government operatives because I’ve already done that in past issues of this newspaper.
Suffice it to say, the mainstream media failed to report months later that the supposed hijackers were found to be alive and quite well in select locations around the world. It was also lost on the media that the U.S. air defense system, NORAD, was conveniently conducting a training drill on 9/11/01 where passenger planes were being simulated as flying into buildings in New York and D.C. This is why the military was ordered to stand down - though one squadron from a state Air National Guard unit on drill maneuvers didn’t get the message and was able to shoot down the airplane over Pennsylvania - the alleged “Let’s Roll” media fabrication.
Sandy Hook
On December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school was attacked by a lone gunman and twenty young children killed. Or so, that’s the story the mainstream media screamed for months afterward.
Former Florida State Trooper, high school principal and school safety consultant, Wolfgang Halbig conducted an independent investigation of the events and found the whole story to be a complete fabrication. The reality about Sandy Hook is that it was an abandoned school building that was no longer in operation. A FEMA active-shooter drill was conducted that day with child and adult crisis actors who had signed non-disclosure agreements in exchange for large sums of money and threat to their lives to keep quiet.
The drill then got reported out as a real event and amidst all the cacophony and confusion in Newtown on that day, even the locals were buffaloed into believing the mainstream media narrative.
Mr. Halbig’s research was included in a book by Jim Fetzer and Mike Palecek entitled Nobody Died at Sandy Hook: It was a FEMA Drill to Promote Gun Control (ISBN 978-1518650840) The book was available for sale briefly on Amazon before it was pulled. YouTube has also purged all independently produced videos from its servers that do not conform to the official mainstream media narrative. The book is now available in pdf format if you search around for it online.
Halbig finally gave up his research and speaking engagements when he received death threats on his life and the lives of his family members.
The purpose of this particular exercise was to create a pretext to push forward more gun control and confiscation schemes in Congress in order to disarm Americans and the mainstream media dutifully filled their role as propaganda ministers to that end.
COVID-19
The most recent media-created event is one that we are currently living (some suffering) under now.
COVID-19 coronavirus was incessantly hyped in the mainstream media as a virus that was going to cause millions of deaths in the U.S. and worldwide. Panic, fear and hysteria was whipped up to never-before seen levels as state governors scrambled to arbitrarily shut down nearly all business and economic activity in their states. Private clubs and religious groups also got in on the fear-fest as they voluntarily opted to cancel events and services even before government mandates were issued.
As of this writing, now in mid-April, 2020 we’re in the midst of what was supposed to be a millions of people dead pandemic. However, no more people have died from the infamous coronavirus than do in a normal flu season, anyway. Yet, the results of the mainstream media fear-based hyped-up newscasts will be felt for years as society has been programmed by an irrational fear to be afraid of their neighbor as one who could be potentially be harboring a deadly virus that could kill them.
Or so, that’s the media narrative.
Now take that narrative and turn 180 degrees. That’s your starting point to descramble this event and others that are sure to come out of the mouths and keyboards of these media propagandists in the future.
