If you’ve read previous articles on this site, you probably noticed that the word “agenda” is used often. Very often. That is because this site analyzes mass media. And pushing agendas is (and always has been) the primary function of mass media (read the article How Mass Media Shapes and Molds Society for more information).

Merriam-Webster defines “agenda” as:

an underlying often ideological plan or program

The word “underlying” is crucial as it refers to the fact that agendas often lay “below the surface” of popular culture. Agendas hide behind news headlines, all forms of entertainment and the words of powerful and influential people. And, since its inception, The Vigilant Citizen website has been about rooting out the underlying agenda in popular culture. It is about highlighting the artificial emphasis placed on specific issues to make them seem more important and relevant than they truly are. In Communication sciences, this concept is called “agenda-setting”.

Agenda-setting is the creation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by the news media. As well, agenda-setting describes the way that media attempts to influence viewers, and establish a hierarchy of news prevalence. Two basic assumptions underlie most researches on agenda-setting:

1. the press and the media do not reflect reality; they filter and shape it;
2. media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues.

A classic representation of the agenda-setting theory.

While the concept of agenda-setting was identified decades ago, it is all the more obvious today. Since all major media outlets are now owned by a handful of mega-corporations, a specific message can easily and quickly saturate the entire world.

In 2019, the agenda-setting was blatantly obvious. In fact, there’s a clear constellation of agendas being simultaneously promoted, all emerging from elite think tanks and expertly calculated to generate a specific response. Here are some of them.

Witchcraft as a Tool of Feminism

In my article about the Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, I highlighted the main message of the series: Witchcraft is a potent tool to fight men and the entire patriarchy.

A symbolic image: A witch sacrifices a virgin boy.

The first season ended with Sabrina handing over her soul to Satan himself to become a super-witch. And this is presented as a feminist power-move. Sabrina was told:

“I know you’re scared, Sabrina. Because women are taught to fear power. Own your power. Don’t accept it from the Dark Lord. Take it. Wield it. Save your friends”.

The article on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was written nearly exactly one year ago. Since then, the witchcraft agenda literally took flight. But not on a broom.

In the movie K-12 by the pop singer Melanie Martinez (which is also marketed to young girls), the same exact concept is promoted: Witchcraft is the best way of fighting back against boys and the patriarchy.

While entertainment strives to make witchcraft appealing to young girls, “news articles” attempt to make it sound reasonable to older people. Here are some of the headlines that popped up this year.

An article by The Guardian linking Trump, feminism and witchcraft. The image featuring AOC and Sabrina the witch is highly symbolic.

The conclusion of the article is basically a call to action to aspiring witches.

“There is a fire on the horizon. You can see it burning, out on the edges of the world. The violence we have survived can be our guide to what needs to change. The fire that burned the witches can be the fire that lights our way. Our power is waiting for us, out in forbidden spaces, beyond the world of men. Step forward and claim it. Step forward into the boundless and female dark.”

Another headline from The Guardian.

The article explains how casting spells is better than prayer.

“It is more about the individual than, say, a prayer, which is very hands-off. You pray to a higher authority to make something happen, whereas a spell is totally personal and down to the individual to make sure it’s right.”

The following headline just straight up says it:

The link between feminism and witchcraft is also heavily promoted by powerful organizations, backed by powerful people.

The feminist organization Women’s March posted this image on November 5th that says “Casting spells Casting Votes”.On the popular site Reddit, a subreddit called WitchesVsPatriarchy has gained quite a following. Here’s one of the top posts ever.

This is one of the top comments:

While mass media is hard at work associating witchcraft with feminism and empowerment, it also does a great job ignoring what it is truly about: The invocation of supernatural powers to control people or events in practices typically involving sorcery or magic. And, despite what they’re trying to tell you, witchcraft is (and has always been) mainly about black magic. And any true occultist will tell you that dabbling in black magic without fully understanding what it is truly about is the dumbest and most dangerous thing one can do.

In Dogmes et Rituels de la Haute Magie (a book that is a must-read for anyone aspiring to practice witchcraft), Eliphas Levi writes:

Black Magic is really only a graduated combination of sacrileges and murders designed for the permanent perversion of a human will and for the realization in a living man of the hideous phantom of the demon. It is therefore, properly speaking, the religion of the devil, the cultus of darkness, hatred of good carried to the height of paroxysm: it is the incarnation of death and the persistent creation of hell.
– Eliphas Levi, Dogmes et Rituels de la Haute Magie.

In short, under the guise of “empowerment”, mass media is selling the exact opposite: Submitting one’s soul to dark forces.

The Greta Agenda

A couple of months ago, I published the article The Elite Machine Behind Greta Thunberg which explained the powerful agents behind her rise to world prominence. Through her famous and very connected parents, this 16-year-old autistic girl got the support of powerful organizations that are backed by extremely wealthy people. A few weeks after this article was published, the agenda was confirmed:

Greta was named “Person of the Year” by Time, which is a BIG DEAL in the mass media bubble.

After a year of protests and touring the world, one can ask: What was truly accomplished by Greta and the machine behind her? No concrete actions were taken to crack down on the world’s biggest polluters which are transportation, industry and electric power – all owned by major corporations.

The fact is: The Greta agenda is not about action, it is about emotions. It is about instilling fear, panic and even hopelessness to the youth. Here’s a recent headline that sums up the true effect of the Greta agenda on the world.

A headline from the Canadian newspaper National Post.

This article explains how a group of 2nd graders was shown one of Greta’s speeches, alongside a clock ticking down to their imminent death. This is nothing less than psychological torment meant to scar minds that are too young to deal with this kind of distress.

A Toronto mother says a confusing school presentation involving teen activist Greta Thunberg and a ticking clock left her young daughter fearing Earth’s imminent demise, and schools should be more careful about what they’re teaching seven-year-olds.

At least one child yelled “I don’t wanna die” during a presentation on climate change delivered to a Grade 2/3 class on Oct. 4. A group of seven- and eight-year-olds had gathered in the library of Elmbank Junior Middle Academy in Etobicoke to watch a video of a speech Greta delivered at the UN Climate Action Summit on Sept. 23.

After Greta’s five-minute speech, a large carbon clock was displayed on the projector screen, counting down from eight years — the estimated amount of time it will take to emit enough carbon to warm the world by 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change.

This campaign of fear and panic orchestrated by mass media is so effective that it is actually causing mental health issues in pre-teens, teens and adults.

The underlying agenda behind Greta is not the environment: It is creating a generation of anxious and depressed people that are easily manipulated through fear-mongering. Who profits from this? Those who control mass media. The elite.

OK Boomer: The Agenda

At first “OK boomer” was a meme that made fun of baby boomers (the generation born between 1946 and 1964) who are out-of-touch with young people. Then, as it is often the case with memes with “agenda potential”, OK boomer got “weaponized”. It became political and it was used to dismiss opinions that did not fit the agenda.

The younger generation is being taught that the planet will die in a few years, that there are more than two genders and a bunch of very debatable notions. Despite waves of propaganda, most older people are not buying any of this. Indeed, the “woke” agenda has a very low success rate in people who’ve lived a little.

The answer? OK boomer. The plan? To create a wide gap between young people and their elders. Instead of relying on their elders for adivce, guidance, and perspective that can only come from experience, young people are taught to hate, dismiss and resent them.

OK boomer is a shortcut. It is dismissive. Instead of rationally debating an issue, one can say OK boomer which actually means “shut up old person”.

Even more insidious: OK boomer implies that all young people should think alike. I personally saw this comment pop up on The Vigilant Citizen several times in the past months … even though I am technically a millennial.

The meme gained notoriety when it was used by a New Zeland politician (parliament member for the Green Party of Aotearoa Chlöe Swarbrick) to retort to a heckling politician.

In Conclusion

This article explored some of the top agendas that permeated mass media in 2019. Although they address different issues, they have lots of points in common. First, they were all artificially amplified by mass media to create a “buzz”. Second, they’re all perfectly in line with the elite’s agenda based on fear, hatred, and division. Whether it be about equating satanism with empowerment, panicking over imminent death, or hating and dismissing elders, these agendas are all part of a mass media curriculum that is raising a younger generation according to specific values.

And, these values are not good. Although all of these agendas boast a shiny, virtuous surface, the underlying agenda is everything but. It is toxic.

At the risk of being “OK boomer’d” … here’s my advice: Think for yourself and, more importantly, hate is never the answer.

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