The Power of Media Propaganda

#آگاهی The power of media propaganda Let me begin with a question. This is genuinely worth reading, so stay with me while we unpack it. Who invented electricity? Who transformed human life? Thomas Edison is probably the first name, perhaps the only name, that comes to mind. The truth is that we cannot credit one person. The electricity we use today grew out of the work of many people, including Benjamin Franklin, Alessandro Volta, whose name gave us the word voltage, Michael Faraday, Ernest Rutherford, Thomas Alva Edison, Nikola Tesla, and others. So why did Edison get all the credit? It would be unfair not to acknowledge the incandescent light bulb among Edison's inventions. We still use that kind of bulb to some extent. But his work was based on direct current, which could not readily be transmitted over long distances. It was Nikola Tesla who introduced alternating current, a development that transformed human life and made it possible to send electricity many miles away. Perhaps, without Elon Musk and the Tesla car company, fewer people would even know Tesla's name. I do not want to get lost in the details here. Read about the War of the Currents and see what kind of man Edison was despite his inventions, and how media propaganda pushed Tesla out of public memory. Without Tesla, electricity, the internet, and many other things might not exist in the form we know today. We might have remained dependent on General Electric. Tesla, whom I regard as the greatest inventor in human history, helped make our modern technological lives possible. The internet, smartphones, smartwatches, and even artificial intelligence appeared in his predictions and imaginings. As a young man, Tesla worked for Thomas Edison. He brought Edison an idea for an alternating-current motor, but Edison rejected it. Edison then gave him what seemed an impossible task: improve his direct-current system. He promised Tesla $50,000. When Tesla succeeded, Edison broke his word and said he had been joking. That was the beginning of their conflict, and Tesla left Edison for good. Tesla joined Westinghouse and advanced rapidly. Edison, seeing that he was losing ground, used the financial power of General Electric and the backing of the American banker and financier J. P. Morgan to launch a campaign against Tesla and alternating current. They even organized protests and hostile articles against the technology, much like today's leftists. Edison's people publicly electrocuted animals with alternating current to frighten people away from it. Terrified, the public began to see Tesla and his invention as sinister. Edison did not stop at animals: he promoted execution by electric chair as another way to make Tesla and alternating current seem frightening and hateful. He personally assured the court that the method would be painless, though no one knew what voltage would be used. The first prisoner, a man convicted of killing his wife, was strapped into the electric chair. A current of 1,000 volts made him convulse and then fall still. Seconds later he began to groan. He was not dead. The voltage was raised to 2,000; smoke and the smell of burning rose from his body. He suffered for more than eight minutes before he died. Yes, I lay all this ugliness at Edison's door. He wanted to stop Tesla and the advance of alternating current because otherwise he risked losing his money, income, and fame. Tesla ultimately won the War of the Currents. But Edison's money and influence in the American media kept Tesla in the shadows, and even today few know what happened. Look closely and you will see other Edisons and Teslas in our own time. The global left, with its money and power, has distorted public opinion. Negative campaigns have tried to vilify the Shah and the Pahlavi family, to whom today's Iran owes so much. They are doing the same thing to our Iran and to Reza Shah II even now. Awareness is our strongest weapon. Let us help one another see clearly. For more on Tesla's life, I recommend the Rokh podcast. Long live Iran. #جاویدشاه