For months leftist analysts have been warning that the increasingly hysterical anti-Russia narratives being aggressively promoted by the western media would eventually be used to target the political left. Those warnings went largely unheeded in the United States where the Russiagate narrative was being ostensibly used to undermine the Trump administration, and the McCarthyite feeding frenzies which have become normalized for American audiences have now metastasized across the pond to the UK.
As a result, the Poms have now quickly found themselves in a political environment where anyone who remembers the Blair government’s lies about Iraq is smeared as a “useful idiot”, a private British citizen can be falsely labeled a Kremlin bot by a mainstream publication without retraction or apology, and a BBC reporter can admonish a veteran military analyst for giving a truthful analysis about the alleged Douma chemical attacks on the grounds that it could hurt the “information war” against Russia.
And now, in what is undeniably a whole new level of Russophobic shrillness, Russia is being blamed for the gains made last year by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.
Tomorrow's front page: Russians tried to swing election for Corbyn #tomorrowspapertoday pic.twitter.com/zNR76jL99k
— Times Politics (@timespolitics) April 28, 2018
According to a tweet from The Sunday Times, tomorrow’s headline will read, in all seriousness, “Exposed: Russians tried to swing election for Corbyn”. According to the text in the preview, the Times has allegedly found evidence that Russian bots have been retweeting publicly available posts supporting Labour and criticizing the Tories. Not creating fake news, not even circulating articles from RT or Sputnik, but retweeting conventional, publicly available political commentary.
This would be the same publisher, by the way, whose expertise on Russian Twitter “disinformation” recently led to a false allegation against an antiwar Finnish grandmother in an article about Kremlin trolls.
Tomorrow’s Times front page features Corbyn against a red background in very much the same way the BBC superimposed his image in Soviet-looking garb against a red-colored Kremlin skyline last month, with a red Twitter logo plainly intended to evoke Cold War memories of the USSR flag. They’re intentionally calling up old, generational fears of communists to smear a leftist politician as a Kremlin tool. It’s about as subtle as a kick in the throat.
Hey, Sunday Times? How about fuck you, actually? Fuck your brazen attempt to keep the British people from reclaiming what is being stolen from them by an increasingly corporatist neoliberal government. Fuck your shameless “information war” which places the agendas of plutocrats and intelligence agencies above truth and honest discourse. Fuck your relentless propaganda campaign which smears anyone who remembers the lies they were told about Vietnam, Iraq and Libya as a “useful idiot” and arbitrarily labels any discussion of the very real phenomenon of false flag attacks as a “Kremlin talking point”.
This is as fascinating as it is infuriating. By attacking literally anything which poses an obstacle to the loose alliance of western plutocrats and secretive government agencies, the social engineers who are fueling this Russia hysteria are actually closer than ever before to openly admitting that the west is truly ruled by those plutocrats and agencies. They are now this close to saying “Russia is our enemy because it stands in opposition to the corporatist Orwellian oligarchy which is your real government.”
This is a really extraordinary time to be alive. The nationless power establishment which looked completely unshakeable a matter of months ago is now flipping out like a meth addict whose stash just got stolen and publicly overextending itself in an amazingly conspicuous way. The mechanics of western imperialism and the deceitful nature of the mass media propaganda machine which holds it all together have never been as exposed as they are today.
Keep pushing against the machine, clear-eyed rebels. Truth is winning. Truth will prevail. The bastards are about to fall.
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17 responses to “Fuck You, Actually.”
Get article that says it like it is.
I guess since the dis-information blitzkrieg is working so well to keep Americans in the dark and incredulous to another viewpoint and the real, they are doing in in the UK. I know very little of UK politics, mostly what I glean from watching British films and shows. I do know Corbyn support was greater than expected. So was Mr Trump’s election here. We are awash is a veritable hearty stew of dis/mis-information and blatant propaganda. The talkers on the Sunday morning broadcast network”news” shows are all on the same page regarding the going narrative. Even Tucker Carlson was taken to the woodshed and is ‘on board’ now. I don’t have cable, I read about this online. The only Fox News I get is Sunday morning. Keep plugging along to help stop the madness that is pervasive in today’s media.
It is not as clear to me as it is to Caitlin that the increasingly repressive tactics of the power elite are a sign that they are about to fall. This has certainly not been the case with numerous authoritarian regimes throughout the world. It is just as likely that the public will believe the lies and be cowed into submission. As P.T. Barnum once said: Never underestimate the stupidity of the common man.
I sincerely hope that this is not how it plays out.
Oops, got that quote wrong. It was H.L. Mencken who said something to the effect that no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Mencken was a world class cynic.
Caitlin,
Thanks for continuing the work. I suppose I’d already had a bellyful of our Media Masters before 9/11, but the accelerated trajectory of their decline since has been stomach churning. Each time I think we’ve hit rock bottom, some new low cleaves into view. Even for those watchers who have long been aware of this, the current uniformity in nonsense-peddling by the MSM as Information Warfare adjuncts is appalling–and their readiness to turn on progressives (or to turn, as progressives) should be evident to their next targets, but largely isn’t, it would appear.
Though I think you have cause to point out what seems like blundering panic–in the Skripal poisoning affair and the White Helmet / MSM collaboration in East Ghouta–our Media Masters (TM) are also lowering the bar on what they seem able to get away with. The number of MSM voices prepared to break ranks seems now vanishingly small–Tucker Carlson, Peter Hitchens, Mary Dejevsky, Robert Fisk, with only the latter even somewhat to the left of the Centre-Right–it must be clear by now that to do so may well be a career killer.
Keep up the good work, you are absolutely correct. It is 1933 all over again, with USA, UK and Israel as ‘Germany/Italy’T he rest of the world is looking on mostly uncaring, most baffled by what’s going on. Some like us fearfully, with a good idea of what’s really going on but trying to what little we can. War is coming and nobody can win.
Thank you, Caitlin, for another great piece. I forward these on to as many people as I think will – or NEED to! – see through the tsunami of bullshit inundating us.
Toward that end: without dialing down the righteous anger one little bit, could you please explain the occasional Aussie expression that pepper your prose? In this case, “Poms” was a completely new one to me, requiring a look-up. Most times context provides a clue, but not for this one.
Poms is an Aussie term for British People
Yup, just don’t call a Glaswegian a Pom or they’ll probably nut you!
The hysteria may actually be a sign that the Neo Lib/NWO agenda isn’t working as well as they hoped for — so they are stepping things up. Something that doesn’t get reported much in the MSM over here is that Trump is decimating the State Department, forcing people out and refusing to hire replacements. His last budget proposal included massive cuts in funding for the CIA. The two presidents who went after the CIA didn’t fare too well – one got assassinated and the other was forced to resign. If you notice Trump is protected by his own security team, the Secret Service is relegated to the perimeter. I’m not a Trump supporter (I voted Green), but I think what he’s doing over here would make more sense if people saw him as a Libertarian style president and not a Republican. I’m hoping he finishes them off before he’s gone.
The US will keep pushing its imperial boundaries until it implodes from unsustainable debt and the resultant collapse of our currency and credit. We just can’t help ourselves.
You really shouldn’t bottle up your emotions. Let us know how you really feel. 🙂 Another great article! Keep up the awesome work you do!
I used to think that the reason people couldn’t see what was going on right under their noses was a combination of stupidity & ignorance, and that if presented with the truth in easy-to-understand terms they would see the light and then react accordingly.
Now, I see the reason as a combination of the above PLUS a large dose of fear (of the consequences of seeing the light) and belligerence (“I refuse to believe such a thing could be true”). It means that the vast majority of people are letting this happen willingly – they are deliberately burying their heads in the sand hoping it will all go away, or at least pass them by.
In Europe in the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s, I lived under two dictatorships, in Portugal & Spain. Arguably they were relatively benevolent dictatorships, whereby as long as you didn’t get involved with politics you could pretty much live as you wanted. Ironically, most of the people were a lot happier (but that is another story as to why).
However, the big difference between then and now was that then there was no educated middle class. There was the usual 1% who had 95% of everything, and the remaining 99% who had virtually nothing. The poor had very little to lose. Now, however the 99% is much better educated, and has a lot to lose – which, in the final analysis, may make all the difference.
When we reach the tipping point – and in the USA it may be closer than we think because the middle classes are starting to lose a lot. I think the reactions are likely to be quite severe when it reaches that point.
But back to your story, and the attempts to smear Corbyn. I’m not so sure it works quite the same way in the UK as in the USA (or elsewhere). Remember, the UK has a long history of left-wing politics, and the association with Russia isn’t the same ‘reds under the beds’ McCarthyism hysteria as in the USA. It will only work for those described above who can’t / won’t think for themselves, and even then they won’t actually believe the media propaganda but they won’t vote for Corbyn either.
I can’t speak for UK politics though I follow what US ally the UK does. The hysteria here in the US has reached new levels that even stretch the very real ideological battles of the cold war. Most Americans are incredulous to real facts. They’ve been fed lies so thick and so often that the mental barricade is almost unbreachable. As Empire starts decaying as it has been this century, greater and greater will be efforts to clamp down on real information. Now I can still get it with careful searching directly after an event. The info is “disappeared’ in fairly short order.
Some of my friends in Europe have asked me not to post political articles anymore. Even my Trump friends don’t ask me that. So disconcerting!
Great article Caitlin (and husband)!!
I’d love to play poker with those assholes. Their tells are so clear and obvious, that I could, overnight, become one of the top 1/10th of the top 1/10th of the top 1%. then, I could really cause some trouble.