They really do. It’s not easy. They have to start a news network, start a publishing company, start a polling organization to legitimize the crap they say in their books and on their news network. And on top of all that, they have to finely tune the deception and obfuscation, lest the public catch onto their propagandistic ways.
Poor propaganda machine. They desperately need some relief. Fortunately, I have a brilliant solution, but it may take some behavior modification on your part. Let me walk you through what you have to do step by step so that you don’t get confused about your role.
The first (and most important) step is that you must be willfully ignorant. Let me be clear on this point; you can’t just be passively ignorant, you must be proactively ignorant. So if you’re channel surfing and happen upon a news network, IMMEDIATELY change your channel to something in the teens so as to ensure that you land comfortably on an episode of Seinfeld or Friends. They will serve as your snuggie of ignorance, enveloping you in a warm embrace of cluelessness. Another thing that you must be aware of, is the pitfalls of the internet. Surfing the internet is fine, but only if you take a few precautions. Step one is to hide any of your Facebook connections that might be aware of the world around them. Step two is to make sure to avert your eyes when you stumble upon a news story. So if you come across something about WikiLeaks and Afghanistan, you should definitely move your gaze to the portion of the screen that has Lindsay Lohan’s mug shot on it. That last one is very important because it’s not only the best way to be proactively ignorant, but it’s also your duty as an American not to jeopardize national security by reading such things.
Never mind the fact that some people have risked their careers and their very freedom to get the truth out there, ostensibly because what they’re being asked to do goes against the military code of conduct, or is so shocking to their conscience, that they felt compelled to get the information to the public. You have a duty to, as a patriotic American, not to know what the truth is. You see if you know the truth, you jeopardize the American way of life and the very freedom that our troops are fighting to protect. Not the freedom to be informed with the truth about your government, but all of the other ones like gun ownership and the freedom to stop your gay neighbor from marrying their lifelong partner. Those are the important freedoms that must be protected at all costs.
So in the interest of protecting national security, and of alleviating some of the pressure from our propagandists, stay ignorant. And by “stay ignorant” I mean work hard to be ignorant. Otherwise you’re just a bad American.