Derek: 00:27

Welcome back to the Fourth Wave Podcast. When you think about propaganda, or at least when I think about it, I immediately associate propaganda with the military. Now it makes a lot of sense to associate the two because propaganda as we know it was largely birthed in the early twentieth century, growing and being refined significantly by its effectiveness in the first World War. Propaganda, the wielding of information for power, goes hand in hand with violence. As we saw in our earliest episodes, the manipulation of information is really just the masking of violence, the reduction of the cost of governing.

Derek: 01:06

The goal of manipulating information and sentiment is to suppress uprisings or dissent at the lowest cost possible. But, of course, if that doesn't work, you've got a backup plan, and that backup plan is to suppress through the use of force. That's why propaganda goes hand in hand with the military. Military flex is what happens when propaganda and charisma have been ineffective. Nevertheless, we've seen throughout the season that propaganda is carried out in a wide variety of forms by both large groups as well as by individuals.

Derek: 01:38

Why is it then that we have tended to think about propaganda, at least until very recently, as something enacted almost exclusively by the military? I don't know for sure, but I think there's a good reason for it. It seems to me that we have historically recognized that propaganda exists, but we've associated that propaganda with foreign governments and militaries. The Russians or the communist were propagandists. The Chinese are propagandists.

Derek: 02:05

Their governments and militaries are trying to weaken us. Of course, we were never propagandists because we're the good guys. The information that we give is true. What our government said about our actions abroad and the stories our military told us about their heroic endeavors or their denials of atrocities committed, those stories are all true. They weren't propaganda.

Derek: 02:28

We've always seen propaganda and deceit as occurring on the military level because the propagandist enemies were out there beyond our borders. It's harder both emotionally and intellectually for us to imagine that there could be propagandists among us. Our friendly neighbor who abuses his wife, our church deacon or our favorite apologist who molest children, our favorite teacher who teaches us myths of our group's benevolence and exceptionalism. If we believe that those who raised us, that those who loved us and still love us, those who formed our community could all be propagandists, we'd go insane. Right?

Derek: 03:08

It's not our community, the group that we've been formed to be like. It can't be that they propagandize us. It has to be those people out there, those on the outside who are the propagandizers. If we did believe that we could be propagandized from the inside, we'd go insane. Just look at the state of the American mind right now, when our enemies are no longer out there, but within.

Derek: 03:32

When the nation doesn't trust journalism in general, but only the journalism of one's own brand. When those who ought to be moral luminaries aren't trusted because we realize how so many have used positions of respect for garnering power, exerting dominance, and gaining advantage. We're going insane because our framework for truth and trust have disintegrated. I'm not at all saying that this deconstruction is a bad thing because exposing the greengrocer sign, as Vaclav Havel puts it, might be important. I think it is important.

Derek: 04:05

It's just also a very depressing and difficult process to go through. But despite what I think is a clear historical failure to discern propaganda in other areas of life beyond the propaganda of foreign powers, there's still a very good reason the military is most strongly associated with propaganda today. They are some of the biggest implementers of propaganda on the globe. Not just foreign militaries, mind you, all militaries, including our own. Now we've already touched on some of the military propaganda throughout this season.

Derek: 04:36

I mentioned McNamara's morons in our section on race and discussed how the US government hid its recruitment of cannon fodder behind a disguise of benevolence. We also discussed message force multipliers in our media section as we looked at how the government used planted correspondence to give the messages the government desired leading up to the second Iraq war. And, of course, if you've listened to this podcast for any period of time, you've heard me mention major general Smedley Butler, one of, if not the most decorated marines in American history, and his book entitled War is a Racket. The military and propaganda certainly do go hand in hand. But like I said, it's not just the militaries of foreign countries which propagandize.

Derek: 05:19

It's also our own. And our own military's primary target often is its own people. Now most spend their time worrying about what foreign militaries are doing to propagandize us, when in reality, it's what a military does to its own people that is most terrifying. So in this episode, we're going to dig into some of the basics of how military propaganda functions internally and why that's such a big deal. As I'm preparing this episode, a big debate is raging on in The United States about certain social media platforms like TikTok.

Derek: 05:52

There are a lot of people who are worried that the Chinese government is manipulating the American people by filtering harmful content through TikTok. Is that true? Probably. Now I really don't doubt that this is the exact type of thing that China would do, and I know it's something that they can do. Well, I don't think foreign actions are unimportant.

Derek: 06:11

The external propaganda of foreign powers is nothing compared to the power of internal propaganda. And the way that our government will use this threat of China to exert exert more dominance, to make more laws, to gain more power. At best, China's propaganda is going to weaken the intelligence of Americans or play on our factionalism and exaggerate our fault lines. All significant things. Sure.

Derek: 06:36

But they'll never get Americans and any great number to join the Chinese army and fight for them. At most, the Chinese government will weaken American resolve and capabilities. Now that's nothing compared to what our own military and government can do. Our own government can weaponize us. In my lifetime, there's no clearer example than post nine eleven war years.

Derek: 06:57

I was a junior in high school when nine eleven happened, and I'll never forget the atmosphere of solidarity and hate that followed. Solidarity for us, US citizens, the in group, and hatred towards them, you know, people in The Middle East in general. Right? There is there is anti Islamic sentiment going around that that didn't just extend to terrorists. Right?

Derek: 07:19

We saw lots of anti Semitic anti Islamic sentiment going around. I remember, you know, junior in high school, I'm driving, and, I'd be driving down country roads, now blasting this one particular song by Toby Keith called, Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue. I'd have my windows down, smelling the fresh cow manure of the the farm fields in beautiful Pennsylvania, and it was it was wonderful. I blast this song. Now if you haven't heard it, here's here's just a little sample to give you an idea of of the song that came out pretty soon after, after 09:11.

Derek: 07:57

So here we go. Quote. Now this nation that I love has fallen under attack. A mighty sucker punch came flying in from somewhere in the back. Soon as we could see clearly through our big black eye, man, we lit up your world like the fourth of July.

Derek: 08:12

Hey, Uncle Sam. Put your name at the top of his list, and the Statue Of Liberty started shaking her fist. And the eagle will fly, man. It's gonna be hell when you hear mother freedom start ringing her bell, and it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you, brought to you courtesy of the red, white, and blue. Justice will be served, and the battle will rage.

Derek: 08:33

This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage, and you'll be sorry that you messed with The US Of A, because we'll put a boot in your ass. It's the American way. End quote. Now now right there, nine eleven was used to aim my generation and securing US hegemony all in the name of fighting for freedom. Of course, that's easier for me to see on this side of things now that I'm I'm able to see what the war in Afghanistan truly was.

Derek: 09:02

And after we see how politicians tried to use nine eleven as a springboard to fight other wars and false pretenses, you know, to to enact all sorts of legislation, like the the Patriot Act, and go go into Iraq after so called WMDs. It's a lot easier to see when you're not an indoctrinated 18 year old who knows nothing about the history of the Middle East and why terrorists really hate us. Just a hint here. They don't hate us for our freedom. But we'll hopefully touch on on that aspect a little bit more in a few episodes from now when we talk about the true conspiracy of government in regard to imperialism.

Derek: 09:42

Anyway, in total, these wars have cost something like 500,000 lives as a result of direct warfare, which doesn't even count all of the indirect deaths from things like starvation and exposure. And, of course, this doesn't count all of the long term violence done by groups like ISIS or whatever they're called right now, who, who arose in response to American actions. Right? There's there are lots of dominoes that fell, and so the deaths that we're counting here in this 500,000, that's probably a drop in the bucket of, of all the dominoes that have fallen from our actions. So say what you will about Chinese run TikTok.

Derek: 10:21

It's not gonna propagandize us into being tools of war for China that are responsible for 500,000 direct deaths. It's not gonna stir up war fever and a bunch of impressionable youth and call them to their deaths or to the killing of hundreds of thousands, of people who are often civilians and who have no idea what's going on in the world. Of course, this whole spiel here is directed at Americans. But, you know, I'd say the same thing to other groups. Right?

Derek: 10:51

It it doesn't matter what country you're in. It works the same way. It's generally not your enemies that you have to worry about the most when it comes to propaganda. It's often the group that you're closest to because they're the ones that hold a spell over you. You're not so critical about them.

Derek: 11:07

Just take our favorite example here, the Nazis. The Jews didn't have to worry that they'd be allured and deceived by Nazi propaganda. Jews weren't all of a sudden going to desire to send their kids off to Hitler Youth to learn how to hate Jews. There's the average German, the in crowd who are deceived and weaponized. So when it comes to propaganda, you usually have to be most concerned about skepticism when it comes to your own group, and then you can worry about the internal propaganda of your enemy.

Derek: 11:35

And when it comes to evaluating your enemy, the same thing goes. It's generally not the propaganda that your enemy is trying to use on you that you should worry about. It's usually the propaganda that's aimed at their own people. That is what should get you worried. So in our Nazi example, of course, right, the Jews didn't have to worry about being propagandized by the Nazis.

Derek: 11:55

But they did have to worry about, the the German citizens being propagandized by the Nazis, by their own in group. Okay. That was kind of a long and meandering introduction, but I think it was an important one. So now it's time that we jump into the core content. Let's talk about the military as religion, because that really is how they tend to function, like a brotherhood, like a cult.

Derek: 12:22

Stanley Hauerwas has some great writing on the military that runs along these lines, some things that I I might reference before this piece is through. But in case I don't, make sure that you check out the show notes for some great articles that I'll link to in regard to this. This is actually gonna be one of those shows where, I I really, really recommend that you dig into the show notes. There are lots, of other episodes that have extensions that are good if you wanna dig into. But for this this episode in particular, there's gonna be a ton that I I, am not able to touch on that, that you're gonna find through other sources.

Derek: 12:57

So I I really recommend you dig into the resources of this episode. Anyway, so military as religion. First, the military deals with sin and purification. They tell us what's wrong with the world and what is wrong with us, and they show us how to fix it. For the citizens of The United States, we view the world's problem as a lack of freedom.

Derek: 13:21

Often, this shows up in countries where there are tyrannical leaders and in countries where there are aren't democracies. Our military often goes into countries with bringing democracy as one of its stated goals. Freedom is our ultimate value and its suppression the ultimate sin. As good American citizens then, it's vital that we embrace the virtue of freedom. We can express our love for freedom or purify our beings through various rituals and celebrations.

Derek: 13:49

Parades, fireworks, tailgating, beer, voting. I mean, there are plethora of ways we show our belief in freedom. There are also many sub values of freedom that we hold dear, though they differ depending on which side of the aisle you're on. If you're on the far right, you probably believe that our freedom to own guns is vital to the preservation of ultimate freedom. To give up that freedom would literally be sacrilegious if, if your religion is America.

Derek: 14:16

At the same time, if you're on the far left, you may feel as though your freedom to the pursuit of happiness should guarantee you safety from harsh words. And you may define hate speech much more liberally than someone on the right. Affirmation or at least a lack of disaffirmation, freedom from disaffirmation, is required for your pursuit of happiness, for you to feel like you're living free. However, it is that you envision freedom. It seems to be the core value of The United States.

Derek: 14:46

We are kept wholly by daily walking in our freedom. The problem is we live in a fallen world, and there are always those who seek to take away our freedoms. For a sin as egregious as the taking away of freedom, there must be sacrifice to atone. The military runs the sacrificial system for the country. They tell us which enemies can be sacrificed to our God.

Derek: 15:09

A holy war offering or herem in the Hebrew Bible, people that we can devote to destruction. I remember the first time that this kind of hit me a little bit, just a few years ago. I was in a pretty conservative church, back in Georgia, and it was like right around Memorial Day. Well, during the church service and and this this church had like a American flag up front and stuff too. But at this church service, they asked all of the vets to stand up.

Derek: 15:45

And so they stood up and, you know, it was the first time I had I had been in a church like this after, becoming a pacifist. And I thought to myself, like, I looked around and I was like, holy crap. Like, every every male in this church has served in the military. So that that was like, holy crap, number one. Holy crap, number two was, oh my gosh.

Derek: 16:08

I I can't believe that they're doing this in church. And I was just thinking about, the way that the church is supposed to be. It's supposed to be, a group of diverse people, not just diverse skin colors, but, you know, ethnicities. We're gonna be from every tribe, tongue, nation, all that stuff. And I was thinking, if there was somebody from Iraq here, you know, an immigrant from Iraq, and they, you know, they had fought in one of the Iraq wars, would we expect that on Memorial Day, we would honor that Iraq, war vet and the war dead?

Derek: 16:42

I mean, I know Memorial Day is is to, memorialize those who have have died and sacrificed. But you still like in church and and some other things, like, a lot of times, they'll still honor vets and things on that day. So would you do that? What about, somebody who served for the the North Vietnamese? I could imagine maybe honoring them in in that, situation.

Derek: 17:06

So long as our assumption was, you know well, now that they're in The United States, they must have recanted and repented of being on the wrong side. So we can honor the, you know, the that transformation. But, like, how weird is that? That that we honor people who've gone out to kill other people, in a church that is supposed to be a kingdom that that supersedes borders and that is that consists of every tribe, domination. But, like, we honor our war heroes.

Derek: 17:40

It's just really strange. But it's not so strange if your religion is The United States, America, Nationalism, whatever you wanna call it. Because, those people that we go to fight are haren. They're devoted to destruction. They're, they're people that, when our commander in chief dictates it, can be destroyed without recompense, without without thinking about it.

Derek: 18:06

Like, it's just, like, free pass. And so the military helps us to determine who we can sacrifice to the cause of freedom. It helps us to, to not only see who we can sacrifice, but to to justify that and say, well, it's a it's a free pass here. But the military also validates our sacrifices to freedom. So when we send our boys and girls, men and women off to war, and they're maimed and killed, it's tragic.

Derek: 18:39

Yet, we view it as both a necessary and a worthy sacrifice. For as sad as it is to get it also gives us a warm feeling of love and solidarity that a pure specimen, a young lamb in its prime with so much life ahead of it, would be led to the slaughter on my behalf. It not only preserves my freedom, that I that I currently have, but it also gives meaning and value to that freedom. I use my freedom to vote because men and women died for me to have that freedom. Right?

Derek: 19:11

I mean, to not vote, that's kind of like spitting on the graves of of all of the men and women who've gone before us and died for that freedom. The sacrificial system binds us together and purifies us of any notions which deviate from this holiness of of living out that freedom, which is itself a memorial to, those sacrificial lambs. So we've seen so far that religion of military deals with sin and sacrifice. But there's one more component that we need to discuss here, and I would call that component discipleship or catechism. We have to be trained and reinforced in our beliefs and in our actions.

Derek: 19:52

There are a lot of ways that this is done, a lot of traditions and forms of education, which teach us to value the military and our particular notions of freedom. But since I'm gonna be talking about Hollywood in our next episode, let's zoom in on this this form of catechism and discipleship. What do the vast majority of Hollywood war films do? They instill particular ideals of freedom and sacrifice. They identify an enemy who's usually not American.

Derek: 20:22

They offer a mechanism for holiness, usually a way to weed out the evil and to purify oneself. And then they offer up an eschatology, a way that the world should be and will be if we only believe and fight. Now since Top Gun two is the most recent American war movie that I've seen, let me just unpack that really quickly in this light. In Top Gun Maverick, you have two basic problems. First and most obvious is the existence of an enemy nation who's seeking to gain nuclear weapons.

Derek: 20:54

Of course, this isn't viewed as a nation trying to keep up with other nuclear nations and defend itself. Right? It's not a noble thing that they're seeking nuclear weapons. But rather, it's viewed as a threat to to our freedom. Right?

Derek: 21:06

Even though they might view our, our holding of nuclear weapons, and they're not holding them as a threat to their freedom, that's irrelevant. We're talking about our freedom here, and that's what matters. So and while the enemy country isn't named, I'll link an article in the show notes, which which shows that there's a lot of evidence which points to Iran as being, a possible enemy. I don't know that anybody really had somebody in particular in mind. But, you know, to use to use some of the situations and things that they did, they're they're obviously going to want to be relevant to our current concerns.

Derek: 21:41

So it is an interesting read, but I I wouldn't link that up too closely. But, you know, who knows? Who knows? The point is that we have a clear enemy which threatens freedom in the movie, and freedom is our religion. But we also have some antagonism or tension internally in the main character.

Derek: 22:02

Tom Cruise, someone who has been a hero in the past, seems to have lost his way. He doesn't have a lot to offer anymore, and he doesn't have much hope or much drive. But over the course of the movie, Cruise's character is made worthy to sacrifice. He feels the need to honor the life of his wingman, someone who sacrificed his own life in the fight for freedom. His character also needs to help this, man's son, his his former wingman's son, to survive and find value in his own life so that he can live the life his father sacrificed his own life for.

Derek: 22:33

While Cruz's character never dies, he is made a worthy sacrifice, and and he is purified by his actions over time. He defeats both the external and the internal enemy. He honors the legacy of his friend's sacrifice. He brings meaning and honor to the military system. Evil is weeded out, this evil which is antagonistic to, both freedom, right, represented by the enemy, but as well as personal, like internal purpose and freedom of the main character, Tom Cruise.

Derek: 23:04

So evil is weeded out and the good prevails. Honor, courage, sacrifice, all that good stuff, they abound. And there was purification when the evil was pacified, and and, Cruz made a willing, worthy sacrifice. And all of this in the context of the US military as pitted against a hypothetical enemy. We'll get into more of the Hollywood stuff later, but for now, I I wanna do a quick recap.

Derek: 23:35

While all propaganda tends to identify enemies to some extent, the military arm of the government perhaps does this the most. And that's probably because they have the greatest means to subdue evil, the way that most of us think true evil must ultimately be eradicated through violence. But while a lot of people don't understand, this aspect, what they may understand even less is that the military also offers us a way, which they claim will purify us from our own waywardness as well. By propping up the military as a sacrificial system, we ourselves are made holy and purified. Now for a much extended argument on this, definitely make sure you check out Stanley Hauerwas' article linked in the show notes entitled The Sacrifices of War and the Sacrifice of Christ.

Derek: 24:22

He also has an extended book on the topic, I think, which I'll I'll link as well. But if you begin to understand government and especially the military as a religion, you'll understand more and more how so much of what we see in our culture is a catechism of this religion. Pledging to the flag every day in school. Hand over your heart for the national anthem. Military showcases at football games.

Derek: 24:44

Seriously, if you can't see the propaganda anywhere else, how do you not see it there when they they spend thousands or hundreds of thousands? I don't know how much money to fly fighter jets over football stadiums. It's insane. And then, of course, Hollywood. It's all over the place.

Derek: 25:03

And once you take a step back and really evaluate it, it's really strange indeed. But especially for a Christian who's supposed to be an alien in any nation, except for the kingdom of God, it should be even more bizarre. Religious systems hold a lot of power because we're all looking for enemies to devote to destruction, And we're all looking for meaning and value in ourselves, personal purpose and freedom. We're and we're all looking to be purified from our unholiness and to make things right in the world for what's wrong with the world to be fixed. The military offers all those same things for us, and they bid us to come and die.

Derek: 25:41

Or if you're more into a vicarious sort of atonement, to honor those who do. The kingdom of God, of course, honors the dead as well. But it honors all the dead, because all humankind is created in the image of God. And those who are honored most of all are not those who kill their enemies, but those who lay down their lives, conquering as Jesus, the Christ conquered. You know, that's why one of the tattoos that I have, on my arm I only have two tattoos.

Derek: 26:08

But, one of them that I do have, is the famous Christian cross, if you've, if you've ever seen it. It's especially common in Orthodox, Orthodox context. The, I C X C Nika, which is Jesus Christ Conquers, you know, from the the word Nike. Right? To conquer.

Derek: 26:28

And, I have that on a cross, but the cross is actually a sword. So it's a sword that looks like a cross. But at the bottom of the the cross of the sword, the sword is broken. It's shattering into pieces. And it's representative of, you know, when Jesus Christ came to conquer, he conquered very differently than everybody was expecting.

Derek: 26:53

You take a look at the book of Revelation and everybody thinks, oh, blood and Jesus conquering and sword and all that stuff. What's really fascinating about it is, the blood and all but maybe maybe one of the instances, is the blood of Jesus or the blood of the martyrs, where it's symbolic. Like, you know, the moon turns into blood and stuff. All but maybe one instance. Because, the book of Revelation is about how Jesus conquers.

Derek: 27:21

And so while we see Jesus show up on the scene as a lion, it's only a couple chapters, in into the the book of Revelation that John does a double take. He looks away from the lion. He looks back, and, oh, there's no more lion. But what is there? The lamb who was slain.

Derek: 27:37

And the saints are to conquer in like fashion as the lamb. And how does the lamb conquer? By being slain. Now that shouldn't be too difficult of a concept for Christians to grasp. I mean, the very early church seemed to grasp that pretty quickly as they made their way to the arenas and sacrificed of themselves financially for, to take care of people.

Derek: 28:02

Right? James tells us that true religion is to take care of widows and orphans in distress, to sacrifice ourselves for them. The military religion, on the other hand, is primarily to devote others to destruction, which makes the widows and the orphans that the church is supposed to care for, I guess. And that seems like a slight conflict of interest for the Christian. At least it does to me.

Derek: 28:26

So my hope for you from this episode is that you'll understand a little bit more, the intricacies of military propaganda and how it functions as religion. And and that shouldn't be too hard to grasp. If you look back through, through history and even in into modern stories, and you talk to people who were in the military, right, it it is like it's like a brotherhood. It's like a cult. There's this, bond that you get with, with people who are there.

Derek: 28:55

And I think Howard Wies talks about that in his article, but it may be, in his book. But there's just something unique to it. It is a religion. And if you see it as a religion, and you understand how religions function, and you understand the power of religions, and you understand, how it disseminates information and, creates, propagates, disciples creates disciples, then I think that's gonna go a long way in seeing through whatever country you're from, seeing through the propaganda of your your military and government. But we'll get a little bit more specific in our next episode when we uncover military propaganda, specifically, true conspiracies.

Derek: 29:38

So anyway, I hope you enjoyed the show, and come back soon for the next episode. That's all for now. So peace. And because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost network.

Derek: 30:14

Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to nonviolence and Kingdom Living.