Trendpost

The fact-ignorant, saber-rattling media is, of course, nothing new. In 2013, when the scope of the war in Syria was expanding dramatically and the threat of chemical weapons became more serious, the Trends Research Institute analyzed the unfolding crisis by outlining the “four steps to war:”

“Taking the nation to war requires winning popular support, a process that follows a typical pattern. First the public is alerted to dangerous developments going on in a foreign country. Then come warnings of the dire implications of those dangerous developments. Third, the alarm is sounded that the worst fears had been confirmed and the offending nation was about to carry out an atrocity. Step four pushes the panic button and fine-tunes a scenario that requires immediate preventive action.

“In the case of Syria, the process began with repetitive “official” warnings that Assad had chemical weapons. Once that message had been drummed into the heads of the public, it was told Syria was preparing to use those weapons against its own people. When that story had been repeated often enough to be accepted as fact, it was time to sell the idea that to save the Syrian people from their brutal government, a preemptive military strike by freedom-loving, God-fearing, humanitarian nations was both justifiable and necessary.” (Trends Journal, Winter 2013.)

Tracking trends is an understanding of where we are and how we got here, to forecast where we’re going. Tracking thinly reported news coverage in the tight three-day window of the chemical attack is a case study of how presstitute propaganda and lazy, press-conference-driven coverage feed a false narrative and provides “cover” to commit acts of war and immorality.