I’ve been watching the mainstream Western media critically since about 1991, when Gulf War I took place. That’s a total of nearly 25 years.

Including this blog, I’ve written literally tens of thousands of pages about news images and stories. Tens of thousands.

For academic superstars, Marxist professors, State Dept honchos, and intelligence operatives.  They were not fools and none of them took me for a fool.

Here is what I’ve learned:

1. Don’t be overwhelmed by detail and “noise”. You’ll lose the big picture. The noise is where the propaganda is. Tune it out.
2. Don’t leap to take the bait. Let things come out on their own and then try to fit the pieces in.  Don’t force the pieces. Instead, change the narrative.
3. Follow the money.
   
4. Follow the money.
5. Follow the money.
6. What happened yesterday, happens today, and will happen tomorrow. History repeats itself.  Read history. Fit the politics into the history and not the other way around.
7. Follow the money.
8. Everything in the mainstream is suspect.
9. Everything in the alternative media is also suspect, in a different way.
10. The truth is not hidden. It’s hiding in plain sight. It’s hidden by fog, noise, and distortion, not by outright concealment.
11. Listen to outsiders, the unknown, the marginal.
12. Follow facts, not people. Trust no media figure completely.
13. Follow the money.
14. Look inside yourself to understand other people’s motives, responses, and reactions. People are not different.
15. Look outside yourself to understand other people. People are different.
16. Embrace cognitive dissonance. Learn to entertain contradictory interpretations in your mind without striving  prematurely for a conclusion.
17. Learn to live without certainty about many things. Probabilities are good enough, most of the time.
18. Don’t study any phenomenon in isolation. Study it from as many angles as you can. Connect.
19. Don’t discount any theory, however outlandish. Reality is much weirder than you think it is…..or can think it is.
20. Follow the money.