Phyllis Beveridge Nissila

*Monarchist: One whose primary and ultimate allegiance is not to man but to the King of Kings.

Access series here.

Sound familiar for today?

We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false. (1981, attributed to former CIA Director William Casey)

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. (George Orwell, from 1984)

Sound almost too good to be true?

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. (Jesus, from Matthew 5:37) 

“Yea” and “nay” as in yes and no, right and wrong, truth and lie, good and evil in every context. As in yes, Virginia, there are such things as right, true, and good as well as wrong, lies, and evil. And all shades of gray in-between.

For anybody paying attention these days to what seem to be increasingly successful efforts to convince the populace that good is now evil and vice versa, the first two comments above ring particularly true, prophetic even. Sadly.

Jesus’ words also ring true, but are often forgotten or muted in the rhetorical melee ginned up by psychological operations rooted in semantic manipulation, in other words, in lies dressed up as truth. And for additional effect, lies repeated, as in The Big Lie Theory.

For the people who like what’s going on, that is to say, who want to flip the good and evil switch, it is a gleeful time–and wicked–not that Jesus did not warn us of such a time as this...

Semantic Psyops?

For just one example of semantic manipulation, certain politicians and “social influencers” talk about existential threat this and existential threat that–whether true or not–in anxious, tremulous tones, referring to everything from even the most minor of troubles.

And this approach is generally effective, at least at first, until most people catch on that if every little thing is now an existential threat, i.e., something that threatens our very existence, then the expression loses its teeth.

I mean, you can only “cry wolf” so many times.

Especially once truth surfaces.

Nevertheless, by referencing the term, it does give the politicians and influencers at least a little more time to garner support for whatever their cause is.

Of course once the facts emerge, they can always suppress, censor, and/or de-platform those who disagree with them by means of a closely related psyop and another semantic trick which is to label people with opposing views purveyors of  “disinformation,” “conspiracy theories,” and so on, which also works on some people. For a while.

But you better be quick about all that suppression because it doesn’t take people long to figure things out. Another expression comes to mind:

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. (Abraham Lincoln)

But there is some good news, here, for truth-seekers.

When once the pattern becomes apparent, whether it is The Big Lie Theory, or the fear-mongering, “existential threat psyop,” it’s easy to know that now’s the time to start digging beneath the pile of, well, you know. Starts with “B,” ends with “T,” and smells pretty bad.

And when the truth of it hits the fan, you know it’s time to back off, back up (and not just because of the smell, so to speak), resist the emotional psyop (pairs well with all the others) and use your critical thinker.

So by utilizing logic, reason–and the wisdom of the ages–you and many others do just that, and the resistance begins or picks back up where it left off in the psyops melee.

And by thinking critically–and praying for some of that ancient wisdom, as per the Monarchists–it is possible to get at truth–not relative truth, reflexive  truth (something brand new in lawfare), or Newtruth (similar to Orwell’s Newspeak and Doublethink), but good old absolute truth, the “yes and Amen” at the foundation of all that lasts.

I mean, if you think about it, could lies ever really sustain themselves for very long before not only the thinking but also the doing get all tangled up in one big, deceptive, hot mess? Another truism, and analogy, comes to mind:

Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive. (Sir Walter Scott) 

Because there comes a time when even high I.Q. types fail the test of consistency and forget the lie they told yesterday as they contradict it with today’s lie.

And they tend to forget that irony is taught in the early grades.

But educated or not, even kids–along with everybody else with seeing eyes and hearing ears–can tell when politicians are slinging some of that B that ends with T…

Thus truing the motive, in this case the political motive, begins.

Truing the Motive

Arguably, the first event of all resistance to deception begins with discerning truth. Note: not the truth, as if there were options of equal merit (which defines the notion of truth popular just now called situational ethics) but truth that stands alone, above local and contemporary politics; truth that stands the test of time and of critical, honest thinking.

Mostly, honest thinking.

Monarchists would add: truth, both literally and figuratively speaking, that powers all that is–and all that remains and sustains–citing the Source of Truth (the K of K) Who continues to thwart, immediately or at length, every effort to destroy.

(Now there’s a hint about the real “existential” brand of threats that are, at their core, well, good versus evil, that is to say,  real good versus real evil.)

As per faith knowledge (and common sense awareness), “good” is that which is life giving, preserving, and sustaining; “evil” is that which is the opposite.

From the ancient writings, here’s a way to tell, keeping it simple, to the point, and powerful, as per Jesus’ example, above: truth shows up in the “fruit”. Here is one of many proof texts:

By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.… (Matthew 7:16-18)

That’s the compass rose (tree, if you will) on the map of both temporal and eternal success, a way to discern who and what to follow, who and what to resist.

On that “good fruit” specifically, the kind that lasts and leads to life, here is an expanded text:

But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Regarding “bad fruit,” (or results that emanate from the spirit of evil) that do not last and lead to death here is perhaps the best proof text of all:

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; (John 10:10)

So to the wordfare operatives: semantics schlemantics–it’s not too hard to tell the difference between good and evil when you dig  deep enough.*

In short, when it comes to truing the motive, goodness is truth; evil is deception.

Yea to the former; nay to the latter.

Part 3 will begin (and continue from previous posts) discussions on effective warfare “on the ground” and “in the spirit”.

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*For a listing of classic psychological operations and the history of this kind of warfare, here’s a good reference, though there are many good references. Knowledge is power–and the beginning of effective resistance. Monarchists would add: along with certain spiritual preparations (also featured in Parts to come).