Re: 'Surprise, surprise, the government used 'Russian Disinformation' laptop as evidence' [Village News, Reeder letter, 6/20/24]

With our modern-day 24/7 news cycle, with one story after another usurping the headlines every month, week, day, and even hour, coupled with our massive societal “Attention Deficit Disorder,” the sleight-of-hand maneuvers the media plays upon us are simply too easy to perform.

As a society, we are overwhelmed with news and our attention span is horrifically weak – and so we get played, over and over and over again. Julie Reeder’s article on how information within the news often goes unvetted, and how it plays into the hands of both deceiving politicians and crony capitalists who make their fortunes off it.

Once a false narrative sticks as gospel truth, once a bull ring is inserted in the nose, the public can be easily led around at will. Anyone who questions the “gospel truth” is then branded as a conspiracy theorist, a crackpot.

You do not believe this? U.S. history is replete with examples of false narratives and bull rings being inserted into our noses.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident, specifically the second attack, was entirely fabricated, used by the Johnson Administration to escalate the Vietnam war effort in 1964.

Decades later we experienced “the weapons of mass destruction” narrative in Iraq, which again was totally made up. If you questioned the official government narrative though you were branded a disturbed idiot.

Questioning the Covid narrative was just as bad, if not worse. So, when the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop and our involvement with China and Ukraine broke, it was instantly discredited as Russian misinformation by the Liberal Establishment, and this lie stuck.

We are often told things so definitively that eventually wind up being lies. Questioning folks like Julie Reeder initially will be seen as crackpots – at least initially.

We are all far too familiar with the disconcerting quote from that famous Nazi dictator: Tell a lie loud enough and long enough and people will believe it.

Rod Smith