“Russia and other adversaries may not need to hack the election if they can hack something else: our minds.”
So begins a crazy, paranoid Washington Post editorial titled “The U.S. may be safe from foreign interference in this election. But what about perception hacking?”, cautioning readers not to let Russia make them crazy and paranoid.
“Perception hacking”. Apparently this term is the latest fad for the elite liberal commentariat in the category of noises one can make with one’s face in order to sound well-informed about Russian influence operations, from the same line as “kompromat”, “dezinformatsiya”, and “useful idiot”.
https://twitter.com/leftiblog/status/1312883315519627265?s=20
Before we begin, I must clarify that this maniacal screed was not authored by some random unmedicated lunatic to whom WaPo mistakenly granted a spot in its Opinion section due to a Nyquil-induced filing error. It was authored by the actual editorial board of The Washington Post (Democracy Dies in Darkness™️). They sat down, they consciously wrote it out, probably re-wrote it a few times, and then knowingly published it as a representation of the esteemed outlet’s official position, completely on purpose.
WaPo starts off by saying America is safe from Russian influence operations, which would be news to the US politicians who’ve been breathlessly shrieking the exact opposite. It then goes on say that what Russia is now doing is tricking Americans into thinking they’re not safe from Russian influence operations.
Don’t think about it too hard. You’ll hurt yourself.
Thank you to our sponsor @Facebook and to those who joined us for Perception Hacking: Threats Real and Imagined, Ahead of 2020 Election at #TheAtlanticFest this afternoon. Tune back in this evening at 7:00 p.m. E.T. / 4:00 p.m. P.T. for our Ideas Stage speakers!
— The Atlantic Festival (@TheAtlanticFest) September 23, 2020
“The technique of choice heading into the election is something experts have come to call ‘perception hacking,’ which essentially means manipulating people into thinking they are being manipulated,” WaPo explains, as though it has not played a central role along with the rest of the mainstream media in promoting the idea that we are surrounded by Russian agents working to deceive and misinform Americans at every opportunity.
“During the Cold War, the Soviet Union discovered the effectiveness of laundering its narratives through unwitting sources in target nations to lend them more legitimacy,” the Post tells us. “Today’s Russia exploits the same tactic: dangling fantastical scoops in front of low-profile journalists to bait them into writing conspiratorial false stories, in the hope that reputable publications will eventually mention them, even as rumor.”
Excuse me? Only low-profile journalists have been writing conspiratorial false stories about Russia? You mean low-profile like MSNBC’s top pundit Rachel Maddow, whose deranged conspiratorial false stories have included (but are in no way limited to) fearmongering about Putin cutting off US energy during the winter in order to freeze Americans to death, speculating alongside her fellow MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell that Putin may have orchestrated a 2017 chemical attack in Syria in order to allow Trump to retaliate with a missile strike that will make him look good, and circulating stories about Russian election interference that were already publicly known to be false?
You'll never guess who is seizing on life-threatening cold weather in the U.S. to fear-monger about… Russia! pic.twitter.com/deo2H4SBBQ
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) January 31, 2019
Or low-profile like New York Magazine‘s Jonathan Chait and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes laying out the ridiculous case that Trump has been a Russian asset since 1987?
Or low-profile like CNN analyst and Harvard professor Juliette Kayyem, who has on no basis whatsoever been promoting the narrative that Russia has infiltrated the Walter Reed Hospital where Trump is staying for Covid-19 treatment to such an extensive degree that Russian intelligence agencies know more about the president’s condition than the public?
It is very likely that Russian intelligence agencies — through signal and human intel sources at Walter Reed, etc — have more information about the President's condition than we do (though I think we all know how the president is doing.) #doctorslietoo
— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) October 3, 2020
Circulating false conspiratorial stories about Russian influence in the United States is not the purview of low-profile journalists who’ve been influenced by Russia, it’s the purview of some of the most influential voices in the western world who do it of their own volition. False conspiracy theories about Russia have been an extremely common mainstay within literally all mainstream media outlets in America, especially those which take an oppositional posture toward Trump, ever since it became publicly acceptable to allege without evidence that Vladimir Putin has taken control of the highest levels of the US government. For WaPo to suddenly try to pretend it’s some sort of fringe anomaly which only occasionally infiltrates high-profile news media as a result of Russian influence operations is brazenly deceitful.
After all, The Washington Post itself has been one of the more egregious offenders on this front, not because of Russian influence but because of its blind pursuit of clicks.
In December 2016 WaPo published a story claiming the Russian government had penetrated the US electricity grid, which if they’d done their due diligence instead of hastily publishing they would have discovered was completely false and did not happen. In November 2016 WaPo published an insanely paranoid exclusive of just the sort its editorial board is warning us about today, claiming based on amazingly ridiculous sourcing that alternative media outlets that are critical of US foreign policy are “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda.”
The fact that this same outlet is now placing itself above the dynamic of media-induced Russia paranoia instead of a key facilitator of it is jaw-dropping in its dishonesty.
“Especially clever is planting tales of supposedly far-reaching influence operations that either don’t actually exist or are having little impact,” today’s editorial continues.
You mean like the ones you yourselves plant in one of the most influential publications in the western world, WaPo?
Breaking: Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont https://t.co/LED11lL7ej
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 31, 2016
In fact, “tales of supposedly far-reaching influence operations that either don’t actually exist or are having little impact” would be a perfect description of all mainstream media reporting on the influence of St Petersburg’s Internet Research Agency in the 2016 election, which as Aaron Maté explained for The Nation in 2018 was in fact “small, amateurish, and mostly unrelated to the 2016 election.” A search of WaPo’s website brings up hundreds of references to this supposedly far-reaching influence operation that in reality had little or no impact.
“The declaration on the day of the 2018 midterm elections by a group claiming to be the Russian troll farm the Internet Research Agency that ‘we are choosing for you’ might have seemed ridiculous a decade ago, and it is still ridiculous today,” WaPo continues, without a trace of irony in their advancement of unproven claims by unknown people involving Russia.
“The salvos don’t have to succeed. They only have to scare us into thinking that there is a Kremlin agent messing with every machine, and a troll writing every Facebook post,” WaPo warns while also accidentally describing the paranoid and Russophobic environment that WaPo and other mainstream news outlets have spent four years actively creating.
“Leaders and everyday voters alike now confront the challenge of preparing without panicking — of being alert without being paranoid,” concludes WaPo’s editorial board, which is plainly both highly paranoid and highly lacking in anything that could be described as alertness.
"OK, so this thing we've been talking about for years isn't true. But what if it were?" Hard hitting journalism from the Washington Post editorial board. pic.twitter.com/DuNbZoWCnw
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) October 4, 2020
Despite the bizarre schizoid ramblings of The Washington Post editorial board, there is no amount of “perception hacking” Russia could inflict upon the American mind that could possibly rise to the tiniest fraction of that which has been inflicted by media outlets owned by American billionaires. People are paranoid about Russian influence operations because the American plutocratic media have made them that way, and have reaped massive ratings rewards for doing so.
As is so very, very often the case, the American accusation being leveled against Russia is something the accuser itself does to a far, far greater degree than the accused.
These are the kind of people who are shaping public thought in the nation with the world’s most powerful government. Destructive, dishonest, stupid, hypocritical, irresponsible, xenophobic, McCarthyite, willfully amnesiac, gaslighting manipulators who are employed by the world’s wealthiest plutocrat.
No wonder everything’s so messed up.
___________________________
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39 responses to “WaPo Publishes Paranoid Screed Cautioning Readers Not To Let Russia Make Them Paranoid”
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Quote: CJ
“Circulating false conspiratorial stories about Russian influence in the United States is not the purview of low-profile journalists who’ve been influenced by Russia, it’s the purview of some of the most influential voices in the western world who do it of their own volition. False conspiracy theories about Russia have been an extremely common mainstay within literally all mainstream media outlets in America, especially those which take an oppositional posture toward Trump, ever since it became publicly acceptable to allege without evidence that Vladimir Putin has taken control of the highest levels of the US government.”
* * *
The above, in a nutshell, is not only a sordidly accurate assessment of western MSM coverage of the Russian Federation with regard to alleged “Russian influence”, not only by U.S. mainstream media outlets, but also very noticeably here in Europe as well. What all of this “coverage” has in common, and what can be immediately verified upon reading, is the utter lack of any tangible evidence ever presented to back up the allegations made. Juliette Kayyem’s above tweet, beginning with “It is very likely that Russian intelligence agencies…”, is a perfect example of this type of cynical manipulation both Americans and Europeans are being subjected to on a continuous basis.
I believe one is well advised to always disregard any assertions made by any media on either side of the Atlantic, which does not provide clear, substantiated evidence in their coverage for any allegations they have made. Clearly lacking that, it is all just another piece by the ministry of propaganda.
For a while I’ve felt the MSM had made “The Onion” redundant.
They have finally done it. The MSM has “Jumped The Onion”.
I like Russia and I like Putin. Seems almost as if he is gonna be another “Washington”. Imagine leadership like that.
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Now, let me tell you about one crazy SOB who told it like it is:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)
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As they say in the Pogues song….”John Brown, here John Brown….”.
John Brown, here John Brown…
John Brown, here John Brown…..
John Brown, here John Brown…John Brown, here John Brown…..
John Brown, here John Brown…
John Brown, here John Brown…..John Brown, here John Brown…John Brown, here John Brown…..
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You get the point, but just remember John Brown got hung, and so somewhere he must of made a mistake….either that, or he just didn’t care anymore because he was man of principle. Not many like that left these days….least of all in DC……the ones running it and the pretenders as well.
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John Brown…..hear John Brown.
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Main Stream Media ought be hung up.
THE WASHINGTON POST & OTHER MSM OUTLETS, ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR DEMOCRACY DYING IN THE DARKNESS!
THE WASHINGTON POST & OTHER MSM OUTLETS, ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR FAKE NEWS ON THE CORONA VIRUS, AND CORVID-19, AND PCR TEST RESULTS!
THERE IS NOW AN INTERNATIONAL CLASS ACTION BEING LAUNCHED AGAINST ALL THOSE RESPONSIBLE, INCLUDING THE CDC, WHO, NIH AND OTHERS!
I PERSONALLY, AM GOING TO TRY AND JUMP ONTO THIS INTERNATIONAL CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT, AND WILL KEEP THIS BLOG POSTED.
HOW FUCKING DARE THEY!
Millions of people around the World are victims of the fear campaign. Panic prevails. Day after day, the persistent impact of media disinformation concerning the Killer Virus is overwhelming.
“Fear and panic, coupled with outright lies prevent people from understanding the logic of these far-reaching economic and social policies.”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-the-corona-fraud-scandal-crimes-against-humanity-corrupt-agenda-international-class-action-lawsuit/5725776
Why not join us folks? These bastards have gutted our lives, our work, our freedom and liberty! JUSTICE NEEDS TO BE SERVED UP TO THESE SCUM!
Russiagate has never been my fate, to me it does not rate.
I have a bad habit of wanting to understand reasons behind things. Make an accusation and I want evidence. Make a serious accusation and I want serious evidence. I despise taking things on faith.
The lack of evidence and the idea that Russia could influence a nation where Homeland Security watches everything that goes on is ridiculous. The idea that Russia could influence America without any one of a dozen three letter alphabet American agencies shutting the operation down hard is ludicrous. At least one of the three letter agencies knows what I am typing right now! That may be in part because I managed to give George Bush the finger once, but still. Does Putin sneak over when everyone is asleep and whisper in our ears or what? Where does Putin get these magic powers?
How could Putin possibly pull off election rigging and why would he? An uncertain benefit could not possibly be worth the potential cost if he were found out. There would be evidence and every propaganda outlet in the nation, the New York Times and the Washington post among them would be running special editions with it. The reaction would be extreme and exploited to the max. Potential tiny benefit for a potential enormous cost. It makes no sense and never has.
But considering that evidence might only matter to me and a minority of others perhaps I should pay more attention.
It’s all a necessary part of actually achieving “full spectrum dominance,” Caitlin. If we want to be absolutely tops in every stinking thing, we’ve got to be the world’s foremost practitioners of bullshitting and fearmongering in addition to all that other stuff. Moreover, we’ve got to be totally blatant and brazen about it, so there is no doubt that we are the greatest and not just some dipshits who got lucky. We have refined and honed our dipshittery to a high art… the very highest, of course. USA! USA! USA! In your face, Universe!
It looks like the Bidenites are afraid that something showing Russiagate is irrefutably total baloney is going to come out this month and they are pivoting. Has that toadie Barr come up with it?
I don’t think there’s a fleshed-out plan behind these sorts of articles, more like aristocrats with media connections squirming to find a way to say they were right about Russiagate all along even though Trump is still president and there’s still no proof of their long standing claims that it’s Russia’s fault.
Aha, the Central Intelligence Agency very brazenly still uses so called media to hawk its wares. The WaPo and lots of others should be forced to disclose that they are all shills for the deep state owners and masters running the clown show in this country.
The Washington Post and its deep state allies have already hijacked the minds of most Americans. Many believe absurd things like that Russia invaded Ukraine.
“that what Russia is now doing is tricking Americans into thinking they’re not safe from Russian influence operations.”
Don’t think about it too hard. You’ll hurt yourself.
I think that is called Pretzl Logic. Or if our narrative don’t fit, force it….
“Perception hacking… it’s the purview of some of the most influential voices in the western world who do it of their own volition… The Washington Post itself has been one of the more egregious offenders on this front, not because of Russian influence but because of its blind pursuit of clicks. The fact that this same outlet is now placing itself above the dynamic of media-induced Russia paranoia instead of a key facilitator of it is jaw-dropping in its dishonesty.”
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Someone or some organization who warns about perception hacking can be deliberately positioning themselves as the great moral agent dutifully saving the World from false ideas and bad actors. Nice psychological ploy but utterly false and disingenuous when they who warn about perception hacking are among the biggest perception hackers and destroyers of all. And they know they are. That’s what they’re paid to do. That’s why they promote certain stories and narratives and bury lots of others. Lead people astray and pick up your checks. Business as usual, but leaving a long trail of pain and wreckage along the way.
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And they’re also deliberately working on you, the reader and listener, on a subconscious and subtext level. They want to gain your trust. They want you to lower your guard so you will let their poisonous ideas in and welcome them in the future.
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How to trust whether someone is hacking your perception? Remember what The Great Sage says, “By their fruits you shall know them…”
I love Caitlin’s work, but how important or necessary is it, at this point in the game, to dissect and explain each successive act of propagandist prostitution which pours forth relentlessly from the MSM? Those who get it have gotten it, I strongly suspect. So how are things improved or furthered by incessant preaching to the choir? Are there other, more potentially fruitful avenues to explore to expand the base of the awakened? Am I the only one who got bored long ago with endless explanations of obvious deceptions? Don’t have answers, just questions.
Greed (the “profit motive” above all else) is, in the end, NOT good. Why? Because it has led to the present “situation”. (And do not fucking tell me that the present situation exists because people were NOT greedy enough!) But, as you say, describing the fatal flaws of the present “arrangement” is not enough. What is badly needed is a detailed description of a better one.
“…. but how important or necessary is it, at this point in the game, to dissect and explain each successive act of propagandist prostitution…?”
I sort of agree with you, (except that prostitution should not be used as a pejorative), but in this case I would not want to miss the delicious, indeed, hilarious irony of WaPo directly denouncing exactly what it has been doing for years upon years and attributing it to some kind of mystic ESP. It’s getting harder and harder to tell WaPo from The Onion.
Also, I wonder if there is anyone left who actually believes the stuff they put out?
And in any case, what are we going to do about it? Plutocrats will hire liars and lawyers until Daddy’s money runs out.
Hello Newton, you are right. readers on this page got the message long ago. Caitlin’s descriptions of propaganda and mind control in America, like most other countries, makes good reading. But now we need practical steps which will start a revolution to precipitate the end of this civilization and the opportunity to build another much better world.
more of this here: https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-dark-side-of-america-s-friendship-with-south-africa/21889
Thanks for sharing a similar opinion. Couldn’t agree more about the glaring need right now for practical steps we can take together to end the neoliberal nightmare. The first one I suggest has already been fleshed out by leading economists of the MMT persuasion. It’s a job guarantee by the federal government (which has the sole power to create and invest fiat money) to every American citizen who can’t find viable employment in the private sector. A living wage and decent benefits would be components of the package, and the jobs, regionally organized and administered, would be focused on doing what the private sector has utterly failed to do; i.e., take tender loving care of people and planet. Automatically, a new minimum wage and benefit package would be put in place which the private sector would have to meet or lose existing employees and fail to attract new ones. Also, the jobs created by this new federally funded program would be able to respond seamlessly to public health concerns. When it’s OK to go to work, people would work. When hunkering down is necessary, people would be paid for staying home as directed by their employer, their own federal government. There’s no way to get into all the details of the job guarantee proposal in an internet comment, so I invite people who are attracted to the concept to visit Bill Mitchell’s blog (billyblog), search under job guarantee, and read some of the numerous posts which more fully explain it. Well I know the political opposition that would have to be overcome to get such a federal program adopted, but at least this one is “shovel ready” thanks to the work of economists who practice the kind of economics that the late great E.F. Schumacher advocated. Lest we forget, the tagline to his once wildly popular “Small Is Beautiful” was “economics as if people mattered,” to which we merely need to add “planet” to get a firm fix on our ultimate goal. Then and only then, we can begin to organize and raise all kinds of hell and push with everything in us to insure that initial steps, like the federal job guarantee, be taken toward it without further BS and delay.
Hello Newton, Irrespective of whatever system of government, constitution, institutions, financial and economic models and international treaties we have in place, society will continue to reproduce all the social ills and problems of the past until we drastically modify and improve the human gene pool. Scientists have known this for at least 70 years. The world’s greatest Liberator said to those who took Him seriously: “If you keep to my Message (what I teach) you will indeed be my students and you will know the truth and the truth will liberate you.” (Accurate modern translation of John 8:31-32) He spoke about political, social and financial liberation and I thought intelligent people today would understand His brilliant strategy and revolutionary tactics and then put that into practice to instigate a global crisis. However, I didn’t consider His other statements about timing. We need a serious global crisis to set the stage for revolutionary action.
Most Americans know that they live in the best country in the world. With the best military, even though it has not won a a war since 1945, with the best medical care, though it is a tad expensive, with the largest debt, the most obesity and the best universities that only the 1% can afford.
Knowing all this the average American also knows that they also have the best media that always tells them the truth. They know that they can trust the NYTimes and the WaPo because they are the best of the best!!!
The main “threat” of Russia, having come through her terrible reset into a state of good health, is Russian reasonableness. Russia has a reasonably functioning economy, and a reasonable, diplomacy-based foreign policy, which does not betray “friends”, but is also not easily manipulated by “partners”.
Russia is not as foreign to American principles as China is, and likely embodies original American principles far better than the current parasitic oligarchy does.
The threat is that Russia worked the problem out and came to some solutions that would be far better for America than what America now has. Not perfect, just sensible, and with flexibility to adapt.
I may be perception hacked by a friend of mine. He’s all on board with all the Russia narrative and trying to convince me of Putin’s control of Trump and all the firings to pave the way for Russia friendly appointees. He’s trying to convince me I’m being manipulated by reading you and Aaron Mate , Jimmy Dore, the Grayzone. It’s challenge but hopefully by sending him these articles it may put a chink in his armor.
Ask him for evidence for his beliefs.
What does evidence have to do with it. Cant read the book, we burned them last month.
Indeed, the far biggest threat to American’s liberty, property, livelihood, and their very lives is not in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, or Venezuela. It’s in Washington DC. The only way to get on a sane track is for the sheeple to figure this out. Too bad sheeple aren’t typically capable of such grand calculation.
As long as our culture is all about money, we will be on the path to self destruction and poisoning our relationships to other humans and our precious planet. If you don’t change that $obsession then all your efforts to to make a better world will be for naught.
Absolutely right. Jesus, echoing Jewish and other religious traditions, reportedly taught that there were only two deities: God (or, for secularists, the best in the human spirit) and Money (actually mammon, which includes the power that money brings). He further reportedly taught that human beings were so constituted that they couldn’t help but serve one of these deities or the other. How many so-called “Christians,” enraptured by the caricature of “American Jesus,” are even remotely aware that their treasured capitalism is based upon values which are the polar opposite of those of the early Jesus movement, which awaited the immanent end of the world by living a communal/communist lifestyle? A prominent Orthodox theologian, who recently translated the entire Second Testament, is catching a lot of flak these days for repeatedly pointing out these solid historical facts.
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/christs-rabble
Not quite right: “early Jesus movement awaited the immanent end of the world” They expected the end of their civilization, not the end of the world. Their expectations were not met because the great Liberator called on His patriots and supporters to join His revolution but those He called did not add action to their faith.
Aliens! Fockin aliens and their increasingly out of control, ever evolving AI which has infected the world-wide internet’s whole system. The only cure is to completely shut the whole entire complete thing down for at least two weeks while injecting “bleach” and smashing with hammers any and all “chipped” electronic devices. You know you want to anyway. Follow this up with a beer and vodka summit with plenty ‘shrooms, but not the massive fireball kind.
The US has a war-based economy. Don’t take my word for it. VIP George Kennan spelled it out just a few short years before the end of the Soviet Union.
“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
What Keannan said was not hyperbole. He meant exactly what he said, and what he said is even more true today than in Kennan’s time. The US must have enemies in order to justify the US govt. borrowing of hundreds of billions of dollars for war corporations year after year after year, FOREVER!
Do you truly understand that ramifications of this “system”? The US economy will LITERALLY collapse without that annual DoD injection. Tens of millions of direct and indirect jobs will cease to exist without that annual DoD injection (AKA “stimulus package”). It would be an economic disaster.
THIS is the reason for all the WaPo and NYT and CNN and Fox and MSNBC, CBS, NBC, NPR anti-Russia/anti-China propaganda. The owner/controllers of these rags know full well that what Kennan said it true, and, therefore, that all these corporate-controlled businesses have the RESPONSIBILITY of maintaining and inventing enemies that justify that annual borrowing and injection of DoD dollars into the US “economy”. They will falsely accuse anybody who disagrees with their propaganda of being a de facto Russian or Chinese foreign agent. (Remember what they all called Tump when he shook hands with Putin and said that he believed Putin when he said that Russia did not hack the DNC servers and did not meddle in the ’16 election? “Traitor!” “Putin’s puppet!” Etc. They’re doing it to this very day.)
The sad thing is that the tens of millions of voters who realize that they would lose their jobs if for any reason that annual injection did not take place, will vote for the candidates who spew the anti-China, anti-China, “the US is under attack!” vitriol, even though most probably know that it is not true. They rationalize it to themselves as “just looking out for No. 1”.
This is pecisely the kind of situation that has historically led to “unexpected”, “accidental” world wars.
Any economic losses brought on by an abandonment of the Military Industrial Complex would be almost immediately balanced out by an increase in actual creation of wealth, as opposed to the increase in debt that the Pentagon budget creates. The parasites would be forced to account for their worth to the nation. By finding real jobs. The same is true for most of the similar parasites that populate nearly all of the Federal government if budgets were cut to the point of solvency. At which point government would be forced to become what it should be, a thing not relevant in our day to day lives, instead of the prime focus of our attention.
Truer words have never been spoken.
I agree with your assessment except for this: “Do you truly understand that (sic) ramifications of this ‘system’? The US economy will LITERALLY collapse without that annual DoD injection.” The presupposition is that the MIC, given the political will, could not be reconstituted and redirected to employ its immense resources in service to people and planet as opposed to causing the death of both. The possibilities involved in such a transformation are as inspiring and encouraging as they are remote, but we err in not recognizing how the monster, under the most hopeful scenario, might be redeemed to become a significant part of the solution instead of a major part of the problem.
“The presupposition is that the MIC, given the political will, could not be reconstituted and redirected to employ its immense resources in service to people and planet as opposed to causing the death of both.”
In theory, it could, but how many Rs and Ds are proposing a detailed plan to do this? Even Bernie supports the continued operation of MIC:
https://vtdigger.org/2019/09/11/on-military-industrial-complex-sanders-actions-diverge-from-his-rhetoric/
One thng is for sure, if you want four more years of what you’ve been witnessing for at least the past 30 years, only ever-increasingly worse, just vote for more Rs and Ds in November; makes no difference which.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Closure of US embassy in Baghdad would bring Iraq’s ‘economic collapse’: PM Kadhimi”
https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/031020204
And just exactly WHEN did Iraq’s addiction to printed-out-of-thin-air USD begin? Why, right after the US MIC invaded and infected Iraq.
“How the US sent $12bn IN CASH to Iraq. And watched it vanish”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1
All the money from Iraqi oil exports goes to the USA, which decides who in Iraq gets any. That is the issue.
Oh, Caitlin! I laughed out loud at the “Nyquil-induced filing error”. The desperate depths to which the mainstream press will sink in their attempted brainwashing of the public takes one’s breath away (which is not a good thing during a pandemic of respiratory disease). What has happened to rationality? Critical thinking? Instead, we get what should probably be called “voodoo media manipulation”. It goes well with “voodoo economics” and all of the other insanity that has replaced enlightened discourse in the 21st century. Keep it up! These WaPo nutcases and their billionaire boss, Bezos, have gone completely off their nuts.
Little big man- are you reassured now? https://youtu.be/xWGAdzn5_KU?t=37
“I’m Jeff Bezos and I approve this message.”