Re: Jeremy Corbyn could do with some Caity Johnstone advise Archived Message
Posted by margo on March 3, 2019, 10:11 am, in reply to "Jeremy Corbyn could do with some Caity Johnstone advise"
Great piece as usual. Her how-to section is spot-on. Her last piece of advice - "force a conversation about the despicable tactic that they are employing" - is most important. It's always effective to focus less on what they say and more on (a) what they *don't* say and (b) their tactics ... so that silent onlookers see what's actually happening and learn to recognise the techniques. Previous Message extract This is not how you beat these creeps. The way to beat them is to attack the smear directly. I’ve been the target of smear campaigns myself, and I’ve had blunders and successes in dealing with them. The fact that I’m still here speaking to a large readership without my influence having been killed off means I’ve picked up a clue or two about dealing with attempts to manipulate the public narrative about me, so I’m just going to share what I’ve learned here in case it’s useful to anybody. Anyone who attempts to control the dominant narrative about who you are and what you stand for is trying to control you and your voice. It is a direct attack on your ability to influence your world, and if it succeeds you will necessarily be rendered impotent. It is therefore necessary to fight a smear campaign about you as directly and aggressively as any other attempt to rob you of your faculties or capabilities. This means not ignoring your smearers, nor capitulating to their demands, but engaging their smears loudly and publicly in a way that fully exposes what they are attempting to do to you. If you are being lied about by someone attempting to influence public opinion about you, debunk that lie and loudly draw attention to it. If your position is being misrepresented by someone attempting to influence public opinion about you, correct that misrepresentation and call attention to how manipulative and dishonest your smearer is being. Explain their real motives for coming after you and dismiss their false stated reasons for the bogus justifications that they are. They are trying to control the narrative about you, so the idea is to take back that control of your narrative. You don’t need to convince everyone that you’re right, you just need to prevent their malicious narrative about you from becoming the one everyone accepts as true because that’s what everyone else is saying. Most people believe things not because of facts and evidence, but because other people in their life believe those things. If you can create enough doubt in the malicious narratives being circulated about you and enough trust in your own, you can punch through that dynamic of unanimous consensus and keep your influence from being killed. When you see it for what it actually is, a smear campaign is actually really gross to look at. People have a natural revulsion to manipulation and deception once they’ve seen it, especially when it’s done in the service of the powerful against the interests of the disempowered. All you need to do, then, is forcefully draw attention to what they’re doing to the point where their engagement in the smear campaign makes them look worse than they’re trying to make you look. This will kill their ability to manipulate public perception of you. It sucks to have to do this. It feels really gross to keep having to wade into the muck and fight your smearers on their level, but the alternative is letting them control the narrative about you, which is the same as handing them control over your voice and, to an extent, your life. Because you can be one hundred percent certain that they will not cease working to kill public trust in you and your words if you just ignore them or be nice to them hoping that they will stop. Remember, they are not actually concerned about you being a Nazi/antisemite/Putin-lover/Assadist; they don’t actually care about fighting antisemitism in the way you or any healthy adult does. They have one simple goal, and that is to kill off your influence over the herd. Keep putting out your own message as well; don’t let fighting smears become the majority of your output, but don’t give them a single inch of control over the public narrative about you, either. If you see someone smearing Corbyn, Omar, Gabbard, or any other target of establishment smear campaigns like Julian Assange, the best way to help them continue to disrupt the narrative matrix is to (A) refute the smear, then (B) aggressively expose the smearer for what they are and what they’re about. Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, and whoever controls the narrative about a particular thing controls that thing. If that particular thing is something or someone you care about, don’t let them control the narrative about it. Never treat an argument made in bad faith like it’s an argument made in good faith. Expose their lies and force a conversation about the despicable tactic that they are employing.
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Message Thread: | This response ↓
- Jeremy Corbyn could do with some Caity Johnstone advise - Poster123 March 3, 2019, 8:49 am
- Re: Jeremy Corbyn could do with some Caity Johnstone advise - margo March 3, 2019, 10:11 am
- Dump the punch-pulling Grauniad stooge, Milne, replace with Caity Johnstone! nm - Wiccaman March 3, 2019, 1:19 pm
- It's too late, Corbyn's finished, like I told you so - Keith-264 March 3, 2019, 1:52 pm
- Re: Jeremy Corbyn could do with some Caity Johnstone advise - brooks March 3, 2019, 2:06 pm
- JC really does seems not to have a clue ! - Poster123 March 3, 2019, 2:21 pm
- The Witchfinders are now ready to burn Corbyn by Jonathan Cook / February 28th, 2019 - fredjc March 3, 2019, 2:50 pm
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