This is a silly post. This really is a very silly post and it really shouldn't be upvoted.

The essence of the OP, "people fall for propaganda because they want to", is literally a classic "personal responsibility" argument with the underlying effort of deflecting blame from the system and environmental conditions (the all-encompassing propaganda apparatus influencing peoples' opinions) and attributing it to an individual's vague inherent qualities instead.

"You fall for propaganda because you want to" is frankly idiotic victim-blaming. Propaganda is highly manipulative and often appeals to people's empathy. You conveniently picked an absurd example of course, but Hamas killing Israeli civilians because of religious extremism and antisemitism, for example, is a much more believable narrative that would require active research to dispel, active research that many people literally don't have the online literacy or critical thinking skills to do. Because of their material conditions and the environments they live in.

People fall for propaganda because their environment has primed them to believe it. It wasn't Radio Free Asia that told me propaganda about China and North Korea, it was my parents and my teachers, people I trusted growing up. It was never as simple as saying "I don't believe it". I grew up thinking China and North Korea were bad and it took years of slow deprogramming until I was able to properly change my mind.

What is everyone else's excuse in your opinion? With how the sentence is phrased as a rhetorical question, do you think there isn't one at all, do you just ascribe other people's failure to reject propaganda as a personal, moral failing? In that case, are they lost causes, are they just inherently less virtuous than you are?

This post is completely reactionary in nature and everyone who upvoted it should question how uncritically they're consuming posts from a platform they trust. It attempts to take the current frustration we all feel from our environments believing propaganda narratives, and uses it to spread complete nonsense about how our ability to reject state propaganda somehow means we're somehow innately better than others. It is, ironically, a great example of how one's trusted environment can make one susceptible to dumbass, reactionary narratives.

Propaganda doesn't mean people don't have fucking agency.

Agency just means that the mechanisms that determine behavior in response to stimulus occurs within us. It doesn't mean we have control over it. People swimming in propaganda all their lives are going to behave using that propaganda they've epxerienced to judge other propaganda. You might as well pick a fish up out of water and say, "just breathe air, bro."

This is no different from "you have agency, you can just not commit crimes" personal responsibility rhetoric we see from the right. Either we believe people's material conditions influence their behavior in a way that at least lessens their responsibility or we don't.

I am immune to propaganda actually im just built different

Why don't you believe it, though? Have you always made that choice? Did you always notice it was Radio Free Asia? What about the New York Times quoting Radio Free Asia? How about a teacher or your classmates remembering something they read somewhere (the NYT quoting Radio Free Asia)? Did you always refuse all capitalist propaganda in all its forms? Do you do so right now?

Hell, we literally can't escape some of it because the most pernicious form is in controlling our focus and that's forced on us by the media and every other human following media narratives.

There is, of course, a point where people deserve blame for acceptance of propaganda narratives, but most of the time it is unconscious and shaped by the ideology of capitalism in which they are steeped and have had little chance to escape due to the left being a small presence or incompetent.

The problem is its easier/harder depending on your upbringing and country. Like for example as Teenager I was taught the Soviets were the main guys who defeated the Nazis. While there was some talk about them being authoritarian, stuff like the industrialization under Stalin made them seem like "just" another really cool Empire in History (plus they kicked the Nazis) ass. So I had a pretty positive view of the Soviets. Same with Communism I was never taught it was evil or bad. Just another system to organize society/economy. Having a pretty neutral starting point made IT MUCH easier for me to slowly fall out with mainstream liberal narratives and to question things. Obviously im not Amerikkkan.

If you directly ask if something is propaganda they're legally required to tell you the truth.

Apparently learning doesn't exist to hexbear lmao. You can 100% do due diligence, find reliable information, educate yourself, and try to form a principled and informed worldview. You are not ever immune to propaganda but acting like everyone is equally credulous and willing to simply blindly follow reactionary propaganda is silly IMO. This doesn't have anything to do with inherent differences or vulnerabilities, but material conditions which can allow for this, and there are people who despite upbringings steeped in this propaganda manage to shake it and investigate, be critical.

Maybe I'm off base but I didn't even jump to the "everyone is dumb but OP and the smarties who are propaganda immune" interpretation of this post at all. I think the best way to look at vulnerability to propaganda is not with a sense of superiority but as an opportunity to educate oneself and others to help recognize the signs of this reactionary propaganda. And no, I don't think both sidesing this is fair at all - aren't leftists supposed to have the basis of our political ideology founded in theory and analysis of history? That's certainly a more rigorous interrogation of preconceived notions than what any lib absorbs to form their worldview.

You have to believe something, and you can't experience everything first hand. So to some extent we are beholden to media to tell us what's going on in the world. I've never gone to the white house and checked if joe biden is actually the US president, nor has anyone I know, but I see it in the media....

The key is outside of commie circles and some corners of the internet, a lot of the counter narratives are effectively banned, and simply going "nah, don't believe it" is an instinct that has to be honed with life experience, and one that will eventually get it wrong, so you still need alternative media sources.

But yeah, a lot of stuff is obviously self serving and outlandish if you have any frame of reference besides US liberal mainstream media. or sometimes even if you don't tbh.

I'm sure there was a time when you were completely wrong about something.

You literally summed up https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/#fn15 a la Liberalism...

Lordy. Some people dont have the time. Or someone in there life to teach them about politics. It is not want or not. We as leftists should take this upon ourselves to understand this and help bring people to truth.

OP believes that they are just smarter and more built differenter than other people because theyre so cool and smart and superior

You are not immune to propaganda. 

When I was a lib there was a certain level of "If they can just say that insane shit apparently uncontested it must be at least partially true. They couldn't just lie right?"

Then I learned that they do just make up insane bullshit.

You are too confident in your ability to recognize propaganda… you don’t get to choose what you believe anymore than anyone else.

https://hmachine1949.substack.com/p/conspiracy-as-proletarian-truth

Most people continue to speak a certain way about President Kennedy, Oklahoma, 9/11, COVID-19, Election 2020, or vaccines not because evidence convinces them one way or the other, but because their class position skews their understanding of what evidence and truth are.

For a middle-class rewarded with minor gains and token recognition within a class hierarchy, the truth necessarily emanates from those who control the productive forces of society. Those who buy into these fake narratives do not themselves choose to cheer on these forces; they hardly know these forces exist at all. Instead, they too believe they earned their identity by wresting their thoughts from the void via their own individual choice and willed acts of transcendence, as much as Kant or any other short-sighted academic scholar

I don't understand how anyone can think that the US education system, media industry, and iron-fisted grip on the press form the most ruthless and effective propaganda apparatus that has ever been seen in history, and then turn around and say "but actually anyone under its influence could just stop being influenced by it if they wanted to". Only one of those things can be true.

i tried to read this comment section and then i blacked out.

 The fundamental unit of propaganda is not facts, it's emphasis.

Also this is vulgar idealism.

Yeah, I think there are clearly items that can be labeled as propagands and ignored, however, it's not always that easy. Nobody is immune to propaganda, but mainly because sometimes really banal ass information is also just a lie.

You don't have to believe anything. The default state is head empty, it should be fine to be head empty.

People dont belive the state department because they are smol beans whos brain have been fried by pro usa laser beam, they do it because it makes sense for them People on the other side of world are barbarians.

I mean look at the muh Hamas beheaded 40 babies.

People dont belive that because its convincing they do it becsuse they already think that fits how Palestinas act according to them

the horror movies are inoculating you. they're the glasses from They Live.

simply don't fall for propaganda reverberates in my head, bouncing off every surface

As I watch ~~years~~ centuries of indoctrination (particularly Catholicism) rip apart ndn communities. The effects linger today, just ask any LGBT ndns living on the rez for example.

Everyone’s decisions are entirely influenced by their life circumstances and experiences. Despite popular belief, this does not justify serial killers, nor imperialists, because a reason for something happening is not the same thing as an excuse for the behavior.

The only alternative is that things simply happen for no reason.

my cat's breath smells like cat food