Absolutely. Narrative control is the reason for existence of most of our intelligence agencies. TV and internet are absolutely swamped with propaganda. However, I think it can also be dangerous to suspect anyone aggressively following the "party line" of being a bot or shill - in real life, people are less likely to be confrontational about these issues than on the internet. Propaganda works because humans are herd animals that like to follow the crowd, and only constantly challenging and checking our beliefs can have a chance of keeping them reasonably sound.
The return of Cold War-style Russiaphobia of the past decade or so is a bit over the top though. Even Iraq and Afghanistan ("support our troops!") didn't seem to be this overt and heavy.
Not really, no. The founding colonies were mostly corporations - the startups of the gunpowder era. The religious outcasts came because they were ostracized and chased out for being assholes, but were only a small number overall. The actual revolution was mostly about taxes, and a lot of distrust in autocratic rule from on high.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 25.8 ms ] threadThe return of Cold War-style Russiaphobia of the past decade or so is a bit over the top though. Even Iraq and Afghanistan ("support our troops!") didn't seem to be this overt and heavy.