It was seen as diminishing and received refutation from some parts of the LBGT community (if it can be said to exist). They were terrifically threatened by the smallness of the fugure. They immediately set out on damage control: about how the stats don’t reflect the reality many or most of whom (they claim) are in the closet because of this oppression. Some claimed (wildly, and without much support) that as much as 30% of the population is gay.

In the end, synthesizing sociologists settled on a figure somewhere around 5% – and still many people were surprised. People were surprised because of the sheer power of information propaganda of the last twenty years. I bring this up to point out a measure of the LGBT community’s success in the USA in struggling for rights, but as a statistician it points out something else: that the projection of their strength in numbers as a direct result of their campaign for rights and identity has ballooned out of proportion to reality.

By comparison we have an excellent control group when it comes to information propaganda.

Q: How many U.S. Americans are in the military?

Answer: around 2%

and yet the information propaganda generated by these 2% and their families (who may not be in the military, but are trained to parrot the propaganda brought to them by their soldiers) projects an immense BELIEF in the military and its goals upon our entire society.

At 4th of July parties around the country, soldiers and their families dominate the conversation about matters of state and war and are given credence and weight, when in fact the entirety of the military is a highly structured hierarchy which includes disinformation and propaganda based on a need-to-know basis(witness the belief that Afghanistan is the “right war” or the false claims of the existence of a “dirty bomb” or the mythical lies about Pearl Harbor or the sinking of the Maine among this community which persist).

Add to this that the military dominates the electoral process and voters perceptions of “realities on the ground” in the spheres of war and we have a serious problem.

We have come to the point – thanks to the wonder of the Internet and technology – that it is possible to know far more facts about the realities on the ground than most soldiers who rely solely on what the military tells them about any given situation.

Yet, if we are NOT in the military or are NOT gay, it is difficult to say anything about matters which concern these pocket communities.

We are being driven by information propaganda authored by a very few who project an image of our world that isn’t real.