A new Gallup poll finds that Americans’ opinion of Russia and China have plummeted to historic lows this year, with 79 percent of the population now reporting an unfavorable view of China and 77 percent reporting an unfavorable view of Russia.
The hate predictably falls along partisan lines, with Republicans showing more disfavor toward China and Democrats reserving more of theirs for Russia, but there is plenty of overlap. China is only seen positively by 10 percent of Republicans compared to 27 percent of Democrats, while only sixteen percent of Dem voters view Russia in a positive light compared to 25 percent of Republicans. Unfavorable opinions of both nations dominate across the board no matter how you slice it.
In a recent Mintpress News article titled “After Years of Propaganda, American Views of Russia and China Hit Historic Lows“, Alan MacLeod points the finger at the obvious culprit in this shift in public opinion:
Last year, American military planners advised that the U.S. should step up its campaign of psychological warfare against Beijing, including sponsoring authors and artists to create anti-China propaganda. The Pentagon’s budget request for 2021 makes clear that the United States is retooling for a potential intercontinental war with China or Russia. It asks for $705 billion to “shift focus from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a greater emphasis on the types of weapons that could be used to confront nuclear giants like Russia and China,” noting that it requires “more advanced high-end weapon systems, which provide increased standoff, enhanced lethality and autonomous targeting for employment against near-peer threats in a more contested environment.”
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Russia, meanwhile, has been the focus of Democratic Party ire since their defeat in the 2016 election. Prominent Democrats have accused Vladimir Putin of being behind the rise of Bernie Sanders, paying Afghans to kill American soldiers, and of helping spark the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. RussiaGate — the belief that Moscow managed to hack the 2016 election, swinging the result for Trump — has hardened liberal attitudes towards the country and drastically increased suspicion and fear of Russians. This was crystallized by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s comments on NBC’s Meet The Press, where he claimed that Russians are “typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor.” As with China, the U.S. government has attempted to score diplomatic points, taking up the case of imprisoned politician Alexey Navalny.
https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1366509429529706498?s=20
And, I mean, of course. Of course this is the case. There is no rational reason for anyone to hold particularly negative views of either of those countries based on actual facts in evidence, and there is certainly no rational reason to perceive them as a threat. The idea that China or Russia pose a threat to you is so self-evidently ridiculous, so transparently absurd, that the only way to make you believe it would be to propagandize you. And if you do believe it, that’s exactly what has happened.
You can expand this principle to include the entirety of US foreign policy on the global stage today. No ordinary American benefits from the US having troops in Syria, sanctioning Venezuelans to death, supporting Saudi Arabia while it rapes Yemen, circling the planet with military bases and working to destroy any nation which refuses to bow to its dictates. The only way to get Americans to consent to any of these agendas is to propagandize them into doing so.
Indeed, you can also expand this principle to include our entire financial/economic/political system as a whole. Ordinary people would not accept as normal a system in which they have to toil long hours just to feed themselves while parasitic middlemen hoard all the profits and use their immense wealth to shape the political paradigm. The only way to get them to accept this exploitative, oppressive and intrinsically unjust system as normal would be to propagandize them.
And that’s precisely what is happening. That’s the only reason our world is ordered in the way that it is.
Propaganda is the single most overlooked and under-emphasized aspect of our society, bar none. It’s so pervasive that most of us don’t even notice it, like that old joke about the two fish who are asked “How’s the water?” and then turn to each other and say “What’s water?”
Vast fortunes are poured into buying up media outlets, paying media bribes in the form of advertising, funding think tanks, manipulating online algorithms, buying the loyalty of influential politicians, and other forms of narrative control. Immense resources are dumped year after year after year into manipulating the way the majority of people think, act, and vote, and yet hardly anyone ever talks about this extremely important fact.
Seriously, think about that for a second. How often do you hear your average citizens discussing the fact that billionaires own the mass media which is consistently used to manufacture consent for the agendas of the plutocratic class, compared to how often you’ll hear them talking about, say, the next presidential election? Even among the well-read and relatively aware people you know, how often do you hear them discussing the fact that public perception is being continually manipulated against the interests of the public? Probably not too frequently compared to other issues.
Even among leftists (by which I mean anti-imperialist socialists) this is a severely under-discussed issue, when it should be the most discussed, because leftist agendas will necessarily be incapable of advancing as long as the majority of the working class are being manipulated at mass scale into consenting to the agendas of plutocrats and warmongers. All socialists and anti-imperialists worth their salt are at least somewhat aware of the fact that the mass media are propaganda operations, but directly discussing this absolutely foundational problem occupies only a very small slice of overall leftist discourse. This will necessarily have to change if there is to be any meaningful leftward movement in our society.
Until fighting the empire’s propaganda engine becomes the agenda the left focuses the bulk of its energy on, none of its other agendas will ever come to pass. People will never rise up and revolt as long as they are being successfully propagandized not to. They won’t even vote for anyone with sufficient numbers if their words diverge too sharply from the consensus worldview they’ve been manipulated into espousing as true. It doesn’t seem to matter how badly the people’s material conditions deteriorate, because they can always be manipulated into blaming someone else and consenting to the status quo anyway.
How To Defeat The Empire
"What I do advocate, in as many different ways as I can come up with, is a decentralized guerrilla psywar against the institutions which enable the powerful to manipulate the way ordinary people think, act and vote."https://t.co/4F5dWaURdq
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 10, 2019
How do we do this? We just do it. We begin focusing our efforts, for the first time ever, on drawing public attention to the fact that the mass media have been deceiving them. For the first time ever, we begin in sufficient numbers to prioritize above all else the disruption of public trust in the plutocratic media and the imperial narrative management scams which keep everyone from clearly seeing what’s wrong with the world. We seize control of the narrative.
This has never been tried before. Whenever I bring up prioritizing a grassroots media rebellion I’ll get a few leftists telling me “We’re already doing that!” No you’re not. You’ve never come anywhere close. At no time in the information age has killing trust in imperial propaganda been the foremost priority of western leftists. At no time has it ever been our collective priority to use our newfound ability to network and share information to weaken public trust in the mass media and tell the public the truth about economic injustice and the kleptocratic depravity that is western imperialism. Our energy has been spread all over a variety of issues which have nothing to do with this far more crucial one.
Information has never been more democratized, and trust in the mass media has never been more low. The opportunity to expand awareness of what’s really happening in our world has never been riper; all we need to do is seize on this opportunity and wake the working class out of its propaganda-induced coma before the window on that possibility closes on us forever.
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90 responses to “The Left Will Never Achieve Its Goals Until It Prioritizes Countering Establishment Propaganda”
Well, I mean the fact that those evil Ruskies used Novichock on Navalney was a dead give-away that they WERE responsible for the ‘Salisbury Poisonings’, despite their constant denials at the time! Yes, the chances of two people – ie Sergei and Yulia Skripal- becoming incapacitated at EXACTLY the same moment several hours after coming into contact with the nerve agent is probably about a million-to-one, and it is of course very fortunate that they just happened to be out and about as opposed to being at home when the Novichock kicked in……. And it’s very sad about the pets of course – ie the cat and the guinea pigs. If only Detective Sargeant Nick Bailey had removed them from Mr Skripal’s house when he and a couple of colleagues went to the property on the Sunday evening several hours after the Skripals were taken to hospital. But it was very thoughtful of Mr Skripal’s vet to phone the police and tell them about the pets as soon as he learnt that it was Sergei (on the Monday when he was first named by the MSM) and offer to help in any way he could:
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/2376463/russian-spy-sergei-skripals-pet-cat-and-guinea-pigs-are-taken-away-for-tests/
Perish the thought that it was all staged AND a massive psyop as such!
‘That night, Det Sgt Bailey and two colleagues were sent to their home, in a quiet suburb. Clad in full forensic suits, they were tasked with making sure there were no other casualties. ‘
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46290989
It has always been the practice of countries who are hosting the World Cup Football Tournament to do a ‘countdown’ to the tournament, AND, do several promos to circulate to media around the world to be shown when there’s one hundred days to go to the footie kicking off, which are of course put together beforehand. In Russia’s case, that was two days after Sergei and Yulia were Novichoked. Yes, Russia were hosting the world cup football for the very first time, but Vladamir was so desperate to bump off Sergei Skripal all of a sudden that he couldn’t care less about THAT, and so decided to assassinate him (or try to) just two days before the 100 days to go ‘celebrations’ AND just over three months before the tournament began.
Well, I mean, you would, wouldn’t you.
Here’s one of the promos (and DO watch it to the end!):
Let’s take a real world example of propaganda: There is a blackout in media about positive studies of COVID-19 treatments. The NY Times, after remaining silent for a year about a drug that has been recognized as effective in many countries around the world, mentions it ONLY WHEN A STUDY CAME OUT THAT SHOWED NO EFFICACY. I’m not citing the name of the drug, which starts with an “I” so that the comment isn’t blocked. Then the FDA came out with a scare message, without disclosing ANY EVIDENCE OF HARM. I keep hearing that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are censoring all mentions of this drug. This is propaganda geared to pushing everyone into vaccines, to generate billions in profits for Pharma.
I’d like Caitlin to suggest ways to fight this censorship/propaganda. Enough railing against generic propaganda…
Freaking COVID-19 is just another common cold, but it is a new one.
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My poem republished today is below.
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Cuomo needs to go I reckon even though it seems to be sort of a cancel culture thing, but oh well, that kind of shit starts eating everything up cause didn’t I already say – it is a BLACK HOLE!
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Lastly, I could give a freaking effing up my eff-hole and up your butt hole crap about what some prince of england and his spoiled rotten brat wife are thinking and Oprah is a big disappointment playing in to all this ridiculousness.
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Was that clear or not?
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Peace,
BK
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Let’s make it happen and Oprah – you ain’t helping.
The Jimmy Dore Max Blumenthal vid is brilliant thanks for putting it up. You don’t have to be a genius to see them at work here. Sadly they failed to take my advice. Pity because it would sooth their troubled souls. My only concern is – do not try to feed the coots they are not surface feeders they dive down and feed from the mud at the bottom.
It is only natural that Americans’ opinion of Russia and China have plummeted to historic lows. This is entirely the Left’s fault, for lying to the masses for decades.
Both Russia and China, each in their own individualistic style, are more Capitalist than what Americans were lead to believe.
That’s is true. In the 90s I had an opportunity to be a consultant for Chinese oligarchs in a deal in cellphone services. Chinese are so capitalists and corrupt as the American government is. What’s at stake with them is who will be the bigdog in certain areas. American lobbyists, contractors, secret service are like vampires. Once you have given to them permission to go inside of your house you’re done. They don’t like light in their business. The same applies for Russian oligarchs, Germans, France, Spain, etc.
Isn’t it nice to know that at least they can’t mess with our minds?
Beauty is in the brain: AI reads brain data, generates personally attractive images
Posted: 05 Mar 2021 05:01 AM PST
Researchers have succeeded in making an AI understand our subjective notions of what makes faces attractive. The device demonstrated this knowledge by its ability to create new portraits on its own that were tailored to be found personally attractive to individuals. The results can be utilized, for example, in modelling preferences and decision-making as well as potentially identifying unconscious attitudes
As we confront the disastrous policies of the Biden/Harris regency, it behooves us to remember: We have been here before, and we have restored and rebuilt our country.
Look back to the terrible crisis confronting our nation in the 1850s.
The British Empire had retaken the nation, placing a series of Presidential puppets in office for decades. The American System of the murdered Alexander Hamilton was dismantled and our economy and currency were controlled by Wall Street and the City of London, as were the political parties. The British were intent on splitting the nation using the Slavocracy.
The principles of the American Revolution and the American System, revived by Abraham Lincoln, saved the nation from the British
The inability of capitalist countries to provide equal access to healthcare is being challenged by Cuba – under blockade, boasting one of the best and most accessible healthcare systems.
~
There is no denying that the coronavirus pandemic has catapulted Cuba onto the world stage. A comprehensive approach at home, based upon the countrys emphasis upon education and healthcare access, has ensured nationwide care for Cubans while clinical trials are underway for the countrys production of vaccines – the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean to accomplish such a feat.
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This fine article can be read here:
Cuba – a Solitary Voice Against Global Inequality by Ramona Wadi!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/03/06/cuba-solitary-voice-against-global-inequality/
Edward Bernays was the father of modern propaganda, he even wrote a book by that name along with “crystallizing public opinion”; well worth the read. One Joseph Goebbels used it to great effect. Of course, the best brain’s and technology are put to use on you now with great success but in Sumner and Egypt and before the lumpenproletariat were building for the King’s and other parasites instead of their families. People believe stories and those who control the stories control societies; it was always that way and always will be. Hell, most people still believe that the bank has the money it loans you… NOT… the money is conjured up instantly by typing it into a computer. As you pay the note off, the money is destroyed. It’s a bigger scam than the invisible man in the sky. Does anyone really believe that the system is gonna change… don’t hold your breath, keyboard warriors, you are effete.
Dear Caitlin,
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Thought Ron Unz’s take on how to deal with the MSM–if you’re not already familiar with it–might be of interest to you.
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Best,
horror/thriller author S.A. Hogan
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American Pravda: Breaching the Media Barrier
RON UNZ • OCTOBER 24, 2016 • 2,500 WORDS
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A couple of years ago, I launched my Unz Review, providing a wide range of different alternative perspectives, the vast majority of them totally excluded from the mainstream media. I’ve also published a number of articles in my own American Pravda series, focusing on the suspicious lapses and lacunae in our media narratives.
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The underlying political strategy behind these efforts may already be apparent, and I’ve sometimes suggested it here and there. But I finally decided I might as well explicitly outline the reasoning in a memo as provided below.
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The Mainstream Media is the Crucial Opposing Force
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Groups advocating policies opposed by the American establishment should recognize that the greatest obstacle they face is usually the mainstream media.
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Ordinary political and ideological opponents surely exist, but these are usually inspired, motivated, organized, and assisted by powerful media support, which also shapes the perceived framework of the conflict. In Clauswitzian terms, the media often constitutes the strategic “center of gravity” of the opposing forces.
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The Media Should Be Made a Primary Target
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If the media is the crucial force empowering the opposition, then it should be regarded as a primary target of any political strategy. So long as the media remains strong, success may be difficult, but if the influence and credibility of the media were substantially degraded, then the ordinary opposing forces would lose much of their effectiveness. In many respects, the media creates reality, so perhaps the most effective route toward changing reality runs through the media.
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Discrediting the Media Anywhere Weakens It Everywhere
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The mainstream media exists as a seamless whole, so weakening or discrediting the media in any particular area automatically reduces its influence everywhere else as well.
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The elements of the media narrative faced by a particular anti-establishment group may be too strong and well-defended to attack effectively, and any such attacks might also be discounted as ideologically motivated. Hence, the more productive strategy may sometimes be an indirect one, attacking the media narrative elsewhere, at points where it is much weaker and less well-defended. In addition, winning those easier battles may generate greater credibility and momentum, which can then be applied to later attacks on more difficult fronts.
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A Broad Alliance May Support the Common Goal of Weakening the Media
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Once we recognize that weakening the media is a primary strategic goal, an obvious corollary is that other anti-establishment groups facing the same challenges become natural, if perhaps temporary, allies.
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Such unexpected tactical alliances may drawn from across a wide range of different political and ideological perspectives—Left, Right, or otherwise—and despite the component groups having longer-term goals that are orthogonal or even conflicting. So long as all such elements in the coalition recognize that the hostile media is their most immediate adversary, they can cooperate on their common effort, while actually gaining additional credibility and attention by the very fact that they sharply disagree on so many other matters.
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The media is enormously powerful and exercises control over a vast expanse of intellectual territory. But such ubiquitous influence also ensures that its local adversaries are therefore numerous and widespread, all being bitterly opposed to the hostile media they face on their own particular issues. By analogy, a large and powerful empire is frequently brought down by a broad alliance of many disparate rebellious factions, each having unrelated goals, which together overwhelm the imperial defenses by attacking simultaneously at multiple different locations.
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A crucial aspect enabling such a rebel alliance is the typically narrow focus of each particular constituent member. Most groups or individuals opposing establishment positions tend to be ideologically zealous about one particular issue or perhaps a small handful, while being much less interested in others. Given the total suppression of their views at the hands of the mainstream media, any venue in which their unorthodox perspectives are provided reasonably fair and equal treatment rather than being ridiculed and denigrated tends to inspire considerable enthusiasm and loyalty on their part. So although they may have quite conventional views on most other matters, causing them to regard contrary opinions with the same skepticism or unease as might anyone else, they will usually be willing to suppress their criticism at such wider heterodoxy so long as other members of their alliance are willing to return that favor on their own topics of primary interest.
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Assault the Media Narrative Where It is Weak Not Where It Is Strong
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Applying a different metaphor, the establishment media may be regarded as a great wall that excludes alternative perspectives from the public consciousness and thereby confines opinion to within a narrow range of acceptable views.
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Certain portions of that media wall may be solid and vigorously defended by powerful vested interests, rendering assaults difficult. But other portions, perhaps older and more obscure, may have grown decrepit over time, with their defenders having drifted away. Breaching the wall at these weaker locations may be much easier, and once the barrier has been broken at several points, defending it at others becomes much more difficult.
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For example, consider the consequences of demonstrating that the established media narrative is completely false on some major individual event. Once this result has been widely recognized, the credibility of the media on all other matters, even totally unrelated ones, would be somewhat attenuated. Ordinary people would naturally conclude that if the media had been so wrong for so long on one important point, it might also be wrong on others as well, and the powerful suspension of disbelief that provides the media its influence would become less powerful. Even those individuals who collectively form the corpus of the media might begin to entertain serious self-doubts regarding their previous certainties.
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The crucial point is that such breakthroughs may be easiest to achieve in topics that seem merely of historical significance, and are totally removed from any practical present-day consequences.
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Reframe Vulnerable “Conspiracy Theories” as Effective “Media Criticism”
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Over the last few decades, the political establishment and its media allies have created a powerful intellectual defense against major criticism by investing considerable resources in stigmatizing the notion of so-called “conspiracy theories.” This harsh pejorative term is applied to any important analysis of events that sharply deviates from the officially-endorsed narrative, and implicitly suggests that the proponent is a disreputable fanatic, suffering from delusions, paranoia, or other forms of mental illness. Such ideological attacks often effectively destroy his credibility, allowing his actual arguments to be ignored. A once-innocuous phrase has become politically “weaponized.”
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However, an effective means of circumventing this intellectual defense mechanism may be to adopt a meta-strategy of reframing such “conspiracy theories” as “media criticism.”
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Under the usual parameters of public debate, challenges to established orthodoxy are treated as “extraordinary claims” that must be justified by extraordinary evidence. This requirement may be unfair, but it constitutes the reality in many public exchanges, based upon the framework provided by the allegedly impartial media.
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Since most of these controversies involve a wide range of complex issues and ambiguous or disputed evidence, it is often extremely difficult to conclusively establish any unorthodox theory, say to a confidence level of 95% or 98%. Therefore, the media verdict is almost invariably “Case Not Proven” and the challengers are judged defeated and discredited, even if they actually appear to have the preponderance of evidence on their side. And if they vocally contest the unfairness of their situation, that exact response is then subsequently cited by the media as further proof of their fanaticism or paranoia.
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However, suppose that an entirely different strategy were adopted. Instead of attempting to make a case “beyond any reasonable doubt,” proponents merely provide sufficient evidence and analysis to suggest that there is a 30% chance or a 50% chance or a 70% chance that the unorthodox theory is true. The very fact that no claim of near certainty is being advanced provides a powerful defense against any plausible accusations of fanaticism or delusional thinking. But if the issue is of enormous importance and—as is usually the case—the unorthodox theory has been almost totally ignored by the media, despite apparently having at least a reasonable chance of being true, then the media may be effectively attacked and ridiculed for its laziness and incompetence. These charges are very difficult to refute and since no claim is being made that the unorthodox theory has necessarily been proven correct, merely that it might possibly be correct, any counter-accusations of conspiratorial tendencies would fall flat.
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Indeed, the only means the media might have of effectively rebutting those charges would be to explore all the complex details of the issue (thereby helping to bring various controversial facts themselves to much wider attention) and then argue that there is only a negligible chance that the theory might be correct, perhaps 10% or less. Thus, the usual presumptive burden is completely reversed. And since most members of the media are unlikely to have ever paid much serious attention to the subject, their ignorant presentation may be quite weak and vulnerable to a knowledgeable deconstruction. Indeed, the most likely scenario is that the media will just continue to totally ignore the entire dispute, thereby reinforcing those plausible accusations of laziness and incompetence.
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Individuals distressed by media failings on a controversial topic often accuse the media and its individual representatives of being biased, corrupted, or quietly under the control of powerful forces allied with the establishment position. These charges may sometimes be correct and sometimes not, but they are usually quite difficult to prove, except in the minds of existing true-believers, and they do carry the taint of “paranoia.” On the other hand, claiming that media failings are due to venial sins such as laziness and incompetence are just as likely to be correct, and these charges are much less likely to risk a backlash.
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Finally, once the media itself has become the primary target of the criticism, it automatically loses its status as a neutral outside arbitrator and no longer has as much credibility in proclaiming the winning side of the debate.
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The Advantage of Flooding Media Defense Zones
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Individuals who challenge the prevailing media narrative with unorthodox claims are often reluctant to raise too many such controversial claims simultaneously lest they be ridiculed as “crazy,” with all their views summarily dismissed.
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In most cases, this may be the correct strategy to pursue, but if handled properly, an exact opposite approach might sometimes be quite effective. So long as the overall presentation is framed as media criticism and no inordinate weight is attached to the validity of any of the particular claims being presented, attacking along a very broad front, perhaps including dozens of entirely independent items, may “flood the zone” of the media, saturating and overwhelming existing defenses. Or as suggested in a quote widely misattributed to Stalin, “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
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Consider the example of entertainer Bill Cosby. Over the years, one or two individual women had come forward claiming that he had drugged and raped them, and the charges had been largely ignored as unsubstantiated or implausible. However, over the last year or two, the dam suddenly burst and a total of nearly sixty separate women came forward, all making identical accusations, and although there seems little hard evidence in any of the particular cases, virtually every observer now concedes that the charges are likely to be true.
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Suppose it is established that there is a reasonable likelihood that the media completely missed and ignored an important matter that should have been investigated and reported. The impact is not necessarily substantial, and many individuals stubbornly wedded to a belief in their establishment media narratives might even resist admitting the possibility that the media had seriously erred in that particular situation.
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However, suppose instead that several dozen such separate examples could be established, each strongly suggesting a serious error or omission on the part of the media. At that point, ideological defenses would crumble and nearly everyone would quietly acknowledge that many, perhaps even most, of the accusations were probably true, producing an enormous credibility gap for the mainstream media. The credibility defenses of the media would have been saturated and overcome.
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The key point is that all of the particular items should be presented as reasonable-likelihood cases, and indicative of media shortcomings rather than being proven or necessarily as important issues in and of themselves. By remaining aloof and somewhat agnostic regarding any individual item, there is little risk of being tagged as fanatic or monomaniacal for raising a multitude of them.
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My American Pravda Series and Unz Review Webzine as Examples
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The political/media strategy outlined above was the central motivation behind my American Pravda articles and Unz Review webzine.
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For example, in the original 2013 American Pravda article I raised over half a dozen enormous media lapses, all of them now universally acknowledged: Enron’s collapse, the Iraq War WMDs, the Madoff Swindle, the Cold War spies, and various others. Having thereby set the stage by presenting this admitted pattern of major failure, demonstrating that a considerable suspension of disbelief was warranted, I then extended the discussion to three or four important additional examples, none of them yet acknowledged, but all of them perfectly plausible. Perhaps as a consequence, the article received reasonably good attention including by elements of the mainstream media itself, who are often willing to acknowledge the errors of their class so long as these are presented persuasively and in a responsible manner.
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Following that piece, I intermittently produced additional elements in the series, some more comprehensive than others, and am now embarking upon a regular series.
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The McCain/POW examples in the series perfectly illustrate the strategy I have suggested above. The Vietnam War ended over forty years ago, the POWs have probably all been dead for decades, and even John McCain is in the very twilight of his career. The practical significance of raising the scandal or providing evidence establishing its likelihood is virtually nil. But if it were to become widely recognized that our entire media successfully covered up such a massive scandal for so many years, the credibility of the media would have suffered a devastating blow. Several such blows and it would be left in ruins. Meanwhile, the powerful vested interests that once so vigorously maintained the official narrative in that area are long gone, and the orthodox case has few remaining defenders in the media, greatly increasing the likelihood of an eventual breakthrough and victory.
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A similar strategy in broader form is applied by my Unz Review alternative media webzine, which hosts numerous different writers, columnists, and bloggers, all tending to sharply challenge the establishment media narrative along a wide variety of different axes and issues, some of them conflicting. By raising serious doubts about the omissions and errors of our mainstream media in so many different areas, the goal is to weaken the perceived credibility of the media, leading readers to consider the possibility that large elements of the conventional narrative may be entirely incorrect. -30-
A nice preamble.
How to insert it in the middle of a heavy shift of global power already happening since 2016, between USA vs the rising of the Eurasia block. Every move (writing) will count. No one knows what will happen after the fall. Certainly we should think properly to have a at least some vision of the big picture. What have been happening in the last 300 years is not making our lives easier and none of us is happy about that. I assume you all know how to bear the meaning of this old saying: “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it”.
How the Deep State Overthrew the Last Nationalist Government of Canada… in 1963!
https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/how-the-deep-state-overthrew-the?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNDcyNDQzMCwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzMzMzM0NTYsIl8iOiJwRkp1byIsImlhdCI6MTYxNTA2MTMzNCwiZXhwIjoxNjE1MDY0OTM0LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjYwMDQ1Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.ZhYBLeWflLPF36bR8OjZ8EFnyfuv3mBdgJTW3L_XTOs
Exactly!!! So, the real question is; can God exist without believers? And, I should probably leave it at that as not to taint the final creation in the vision of those who already rule and have given us hell? Or, the masses who may not be capable of envisioning anything but hell, because they have never known anything but, hell.
There is no Left
and there is no Right.
There is no Communism
and there is no Capitalism.
These are concepts, not reality.
Semantics is used to confuse reality.
The populace is control by keeping it attacking its self – each other.
You label it as a threat and create fear to justify killing it.
Mike Pompeo, Ex-CIA Director, Confesses:
We (the CIA) “Lied, Cheated, Stole”
April-15-2019, Texas A&M University
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4cyKPDqI8I
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/04/27/nwo-mike-pompeo-we-lied-we-cheated-we-stole/
Right On, Caitlin — to attack Imperialist-Capitalist entities at their weakess spot, I think that the above public confession by Mike Pompeo (see YouTube videos above) that he (Pompeo), as CIA Director, before becoming Secretary of State under Trump, “lied, cheated, stole”, and that the CIA even had training courses (at the CIA) to train CIA operatives to do likewise (i.e., lie, cheat, steal), and that all this lying, cheating, stealing were but an indication of the glory of the American Experiment (Pompeo’s words) — such a confession, in Pompeo’s own words, are bizarre, to say the least, but should be repeated incessantly to best show the American people that people like Pompeo (i.e, all those in the Plutocracy/Oligarchy/Kleptocracy who rule the U.S., pretending to be a Democracy) can in no way ever be trusted to tell the truth, about anything — I see very little of Pompeo being exposed as the Liar, Cheater, and Thief that he confesses himself to be — why is that — the truth that Pompeo, in his own words, confesses to being a Liar, Cheater, and Thief should (I repeat myself) be told repeated on all media, as much as possible — the main stream media will, quite predictably, will ignore/dismiss such truth, but what else is new — the fact that the corporate-controlled media will ignore/dismiss such truth is itself highly significant, and itself should be repeated incessantly — eventually, such truth (we hope) will be recognized by increasing numbers of people — that, along with a recognition of the cruelty and failures of capitalism itself — reality, in the end, can be the best teacher — as someone once said, you can fool all of the People some of the time, and some of the People all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the People all of the time (we hope) — so, Caitlin, at the risk of “undue” repetition, I urge you to repeat the above truth about Mike Pompeo as much as possible — the problem, of course, that those most in need of hearing this message, repeatedly, may be precisely those who are not your readers — still, ……..
It is always about the money!
~
This article can be read here:
Goldman, Bank Of America Made Hundreds Of Millions From Texas Blackouts
By Tyler Durden
https://www.activistpost.com/2021/03/goldman-bank-of-america-made-hundreds-of-millions-from-texas-blackouts.html
Thanks for your courageous insights Caitlin I always find them very useful.
Pity about the comment nerds who gather here like ducks in a pond when you start throwing bread. And for whom coincidentally what you say is like water off a ducks back. Note to you nerds. You could more usefully employ your time going down the park…. bread is not good for ducks though, porridge or museli are OK.
I agree including myself in the middle of the nerds. Who needs the ducks, dummies, boneheads to start something, isn’t? They are a huge part of population. Why waste time with them if they are not supposed to be a part of the any world or narrative, huh? No one need majority nor consensus to achieve anything about what this post is about.You are 100% right. I wish I could be a dick person in the multiverse but I’m afraid I’m more smart and grumpy than a dick.
Required reading: https://archive.org/stream/RulesForRadicals/RulesForRadicals_djvu.txt
I don’t mean to be difficult, and my post yesterday only disappeared for a moment or two and then it was back, so who knows, no big deal I suppose…..BUT – whenever somebody tries to give a “required” assignment, I tend to ignore it. At my own loss I suppose. I clicked on the link and I might study it, but probably not. I think I already know what is there, so why do you think it was required? Here Lloyd – here is a song for you…..it will be at end….
~
Hey, changing the subject. The number 6, literally the number 6, is a “perfect” number by virtue of this – its divisors are 1, 2, and 3 and those divisors add up to the very number itself – ergo – the number is perfect. The next perfect one (number) is 28. Now a serious computer might be able to figure out some of the larger perfect numbers, but I doubt a computer will ever figure it all out. But, homo sapiens could figure it out if we get over this hump…..hopefully, if we do, this will be the last hump and then after that we can get off the planet and really reach for the stars!
~
Apricot for the day: 3621
~
https://sonichits.com/video/PopTop_Software/Train_O'Monica (make sure you click the proper button…)
Only the Greyzone and Jimmy Dore covered the story of Reuters and the BBC being paid millions of dollars to directly promote British propaganda demonizing Russia.
Paid with taxpayer money, so the people targeted by the propaganda also get the bill for making the propaganda.
Dear Caitlin,
Much as I normally enjoy your articles, you are the ONLY journalist I’ve ever come across who repeatedly quotes herself–as you have again here–which strikes me as rather self-serving/egotistical, especially given the fact anyone who follows you ALREADY knows where you stand on such issues.
Sincerely,
horror/thriller author S.A. Hogan
Caitlin, thank you for providing a “definition” of what you mean by Left—“anti-imperialist socialists.” That definition is, I suppose, as good as any. But isn’t the Left/Right paradigm itself at the root of most Imperial propaganda and psyops? If we only write, think, or sketch within that frame, we severely limit our thought, art, dreams, even our spirituality. And we thrill the Imperial propagandists and psyop officers. So long as we stay within the lines of that Imperial coloring book, we remain within the tight control of the Empire. I often think how self-limited we are by being bilateral life forms—trapped within false dichotomies like left/right, good/evil, Democrat/Republican. I wonder what our politics would be like if we were all eight-tentacled octopuses?
The Right-Left paradigm goes back to the invention of slavery and the state. Individual humans could enslave others, but they had to sleep, and when they did their slaves could run away or kill them. So the slaver or alpha types had to band together to watch each others’ backs, and to work out ways of collective action to fight, enslave, and kill more effectively. The dominant side of the body became a metaphor for the primacy of the slavers. They worked out an ideology to support and govern their practices which included power, authority, private wealth, social prominence, the military virtues, and so on. They called this ‘the Right’: the right people, the right thing, the right action, the right race, the right nation. Inevitably resistance arose to this slavery, and a preference for peace, freedom, and equality. Since the Right was taken, only the Left was left. Since humans are willful animals, those who are not themselves slavers, and many who are, will resent and resist slavery, so as long as there is the slavers’ ideology and practices, there will be this resistance to it. The dichotomy is anything but false.
I prefer the term “correct” versus the term “right” when it comes to things that ain’t directional.
~
Being left-handed to an extent (I can use both) I reckon I’m a tad biased.
~
In my imagination, all the right-handed folks at some point in history long ago tried to get rid of us left-handed ones and they were vicious about it, but as hard as they tried, us southpaws never went away and some of us mean serious business. I do.
~
I wrote a whole poem about this and I’m gonna find that poem and publish it again in the not-to-distant future! I think it was and still is seriously apropos.
~
Peace,
BK
I hear ya, BK.
As a left-handed ambidextrous, I find it interesting that “sinister” means left-handed in Latin. The word dexterous is derived from the Latin “dexter,” meaning on the right, implying that only right-handed people are capable. So perhaps it’s not too surprising that history tried to get rid of the lefties, when you consider that the word is synonymous with evil.
Maybe your poem can incorporate the Latin roots.
Brian W, sorry to disappoint, but here is the poem (sadly, without the previous formatting it had, cause the site is no longer published, but I made a copy or two). Anyhow, for your reading pleasure and I’ve made a effort to clean-up the formatting here:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Story at bottom of page”
~
In a time and place no longer
remembered except in lore, there
lived a tribe of 60 or so….Next to
the river so i’m told. The People
went about their days…sustaining
& loving; always ready to play. The
times were good, imagination was
free.
~
And then, a young boy imagined a
new game, a game he called “hand
slappin”. He told no-one of his
imagination, but kept to himself. He
practiced religiously — alone by the
river; strengthening his hand. His
right hand mind ya. Oh, how strong
his hand became.
~
The boy decided
– I am ready. I will share “my
idea”.
– He called to the other boys and
described the game. There was
only one rule – Use your right hand.
The other boys were game, but one
after another, the strong righthanded
boy struck them down….
they looked up in awe…
~
..But then a smaller boy emerged.
His right-hand was OK, but oh, his
left hand, was something else. He
refused to join the other young
boys. The right-handed boy said
“that ain’t right”. You HAVE to play
my game. The left-handed boy
responded: says who? I refuse.
~
The right-handed boy attacked.
Viciously, like nothing seen before.
I will force you to play he screamed
as he charged. But then, the lefthanded
boy defended with a blow
so swift none could see. The aim
was true and the fist hit. The righthanded
boy fell to the ground befuddled and
besmirched he soiled himself and became lame.
~
All stood and gazed: “what has
happened here”. He was so
strong. How could this be.
The small boy stood in place, he
looked around with contorted face.
He did not know he could strike
such a blow.
~
No matter though, as he walked
away. He looked back and had this
to say: Any slappin game where
you cannot use both hands is a
game to rebuff. I ain’t going to play
that kind of game he thunk to
himself as he wandered off…off to
be with his family in peace and
harmony…..
~
FROM: http://kjh-es.com/ (7 of 7) printed on 11/13/2007 9:18:08 AM
~
BK
Oh, Cait! We have as much chance of defeating the empire in a propaganda war as mice have of stopping an avalanche.
First, they have to defeat themselves. They are doing a good job of that right now.
Second, there has to be a capable movement ready to act when they collapse, to put into place a better system. The purpose of counterpropaganda is to pull together such a movement. It does not need more than 5% of the population. That is who you have to reach.
Most of the population will be kept stupid by the empires propaganda until the very end. Trying to get through to them will be a wasted effort. Support for a new system will develop in a new generation which grows up in it. tr
I think that 5% already exists, and is expanding. More than propaganda is required, however. There have to be people willing to live it, at least part time. Social media are full of lefty rants, but only a few show up when it’s time to do something positive. That’s what’s needed: action. And by that I don’t mean putting on a black ninja suit and breaking windows at Starbucks.
Manufacturing Consent entails more than psychological warfare:
Please end the stigma against women, children and Pharma while you’re at it.
https://www.romper.com/pregnancy/antidepressants-pregnancy-guilt-stigma?utm_campaign=romper&utm_content=1614959717&utm_medium=owned&utm_source=twitter
I’ve been freaking out about the general consensus/knowledgebase for decades.
The other thing I freak about regularly is cars and the belief the masses of people have that we need them to live, instead of the awareness they are 1/3 rd the reason we are headed to extinction.
So your solution is to exert control over people and stop them from using cars? And that is different from the Psychopaths wanting to control people for it’s purposes? The only difference is the intended result. It’s still forcing your opinion upon people at gun point. The assumption that you are the absolute authority against which there can be no argument. But what if you’re wrong? Can you not be? Have you never been?
Are you really unaware of the degree to which taxes and other coercive appropriations of value are used to support cars?
That’s a fair point, Starry Gordon. We do not have to outlaw cars. We certainly should stop government subsidies (all of them) because they have terrible unintended consequences. Of course, the intention of the lobbyists is to get “free money” for their automakers to “create jobs.”
There are plenty of other problems that could be improved by ceasing subsidies or other favoritisms.
“We certainly should stop government subsidies (all of them) because they have terrible unintended consequences.”
Of course they do. Which is why ALL subsidies should be abolished, not just for cars. They are about half of what government does, the other half being steeling the funds to provide them from the public at large.
And done nowhere so vigorously as in the electric automobile market, which market wouldn’t even exist without it.
I don’t think that is true. Tesla Motors has already paid back their entire government loan, plus interest. There was a tax write-off for buyers, but that has expired or is expiring. The Tesla customer base is small compared to the total automobile market, but they are not vigorously subsidized. The media does like to exaggerate and misreport these facts.
What is the other two thirds.
If just someone (anyone) would illuminate the real culprits. If just…
But we have “the elites” blamed here. No mention that their names end in man and berg and start with Shlomo.
You are just moving the blame to your personal favorite villian. The true cause is mans fallen nature of sin as they turn from God to worship themselves and their creations or worship Gods creations instead.
Christianity is humankind’s first mass propaganda. Amazing something from so long ago is still effective to heard and coral so many today. If you want to follow christianity at least realize that love your neighbor is an essential truth that is separate from fundamental lies, like reducing life to good and evil, let alone that fallen nature ridiculousness.
‘Love your neighbor’ was one of Jesus’s teachings. Christianity in general practice is very far from the Sermon on the Mount.
Funny how you focus on Christianity instead of religion in general terms. Other religions are far older. Were they propaganda as well. It is true though that some will never believe prefering to elevate themselves to gods in their own heart.
True. Christianity is one of the young ones in comparison with others that still alive till today. The great merit of christianity in taking control of the narrative was to take in its pocket – divide and conquer – freemasons, spiritism, protestants, Presbyterians, evangelicals, cabalists, etc. It’s all the same garbage.
https://youtu.be/uNnYngcm5AU
Looks like you have bought into one form of propaganda which is intended to divert from the real problem – economics based on profit for the few and poverty for the rest of us. Until we are really against this – including in our own lives, we will be headed for the complete failure of that experiment of the world (or God) called mankind.
Prejudice is one of the essential ingredients of propaganda. You’ll never see the real culprits with that mindset.
To take control of the narrative worldwide. I have been saying it for decades. It was not possible before. Now it’s possible. It’s a long way to go. Take a look in all comments in this blog posts. We have viewpoints about politics and reality going from “country music” to “heavy metal”. Even though, despite all diversities (from naive to wise), there is a common point converging all of you. You don’t have to agree about everything. There will be dissonances and divergences always. The elite and the big dogs on press media have this same problem. You should do as they do. Multiply your voices using blogs or social media profiles. They all started at same point as you are right now at the bottom of the food chain. They crawled their way to the top making deals with good and evil stuff. If you spend much time reading what they publish you will become a zombie. Write your stuff. One good article every week or month. Have patience. Don’t cheat because they will know if you’re doing it and will put you down there in the lowest circle of Dante’s hell. We have the numbers. Millions of people. Incentive yourself and your friends to write. Get off your ass from your couch and start writing. Spread your words like an unstoppable virus on the web. You will see what I”m saying.
Don’t forget one important thing: don’t expect anything in return. If you’re doing this for fame, money or to fulfill your low self steam, stop. You’ll become a bitterness person if you don’t achieve what you thought you deserved. It’s not about this to take control of the narrative.
I prefer to see it as people are stuck in a paradigm which is very difficult to shift.
Instead of talking about the billionaires who own the media and control the propaganda, why not talk about the ONE billionaire who is doing it to the extreme – Bill Gates. And the most bothersome thing about it is that many leftists think he is great! He is manipulating this whole Covid narrative to enrich himself and push his technocratic eugenics agenda. The censorship happening now should have people screaming bloody murder, but instead the leftists are mostly demanding it! What a messed up world we are living in.
Eugenucs is on the rise again and coming into vogue just as it did 100 years ago. They will keep pushing it until they do something extreme as did Hitler and then the people will once again rise up. History truly does repeat.
That man is destructive, but you’re still conflating a component to the machine itself. There’s so much more money and control ruling the world than any one person or corporation. There are surprisingly few but cutting down one head of the hydra would do little.
I am no fan of Bill Gates, but where is there evidence that he is getting rich (enriching himself) from C19? Where is the evidence of his eugenics agenda? I ask these as serious questions. I have taken the time to watch Bill Gates in unedited interviews, and he seems like a sane person talking about science in a realistic way. He may not be the top medical mind in the world, but he seems to be doing nothing but helping in the best way his can with the riches he already has as one of the richest in the world.
The anti-Bill Gates narrative sounds like another propaganda tool to me. I’m not sure what the end goal is, other than to have distract us by arguing about someone who is speaking sanely.
Bill Gates is indeed a nice person to have a conversation. I would try my best as well to be sane to the others like him owning Yahoo, Bing, Windows platform, Nokia, etc and heavy investments in strategic areas of the establishment. You can say the same about Warren Buffet and Rupert Murdoch. But only if the topic is not about who controls the money and narrative.
I see what you’re saying: The evil people can put on a nice face. I’ve never trusted Warren Buffet, even when he says that he should be taxed because he needs help finding good causes to spend his money on. Bill Gates encouraged his Microsoft employees to give generously to charity, and paraded out his United Way friends, but at least he was transparent about it and encouraged employees to find their own causes to contribute to, rather than blindly follow his. I am always skeptical of advice, whether it’s from the richest or poorest, and I never let jealousy taint my impression.
A fair point. Well said.
Sadly, all too accurate, but the reality Caitlin writes about impacts all of us, not the few on the real left. The corporate media is the tool that has over decades, but especially during the last five years, molded us into self-destructive puppets, and we can sense it but do apparently do nothing about it. That is why disapproval of the corporate media is sky high but we do what it tells us too anyway, although perhaps now, what we do, at least electorally, does not matter. We’ll be given whatever results the corporate media’s masters find useful and any who question them will be destroyed. But the corporate media is not the enemy, like the Deep State, Democratic Party and much of the GOP, it is just its most useful tool. Not all conspiracy theories are delusional. Sometimes, to find the truth, we need to reverse the normal process of logic and rather than start with a premise, add facts and reach a conclusion, when the conclusions don’t pan out we need to start with actual reality as the conclusion, work through the facts and arrive at more accurate premises. And many of those premises are what the corporate media ridicules as conspiracy theories.
We give Donald Trump far to little credit for promoting the term Fake News. He has single handedly opened many eyes to the lies of the media.
I also think there is need of a broad centre Right & Left coalition. People coming together in a democratic spirit on the basis of shared needs and interests. We have to get beyond the short sighted polarization of conservatives and liberals – encouraged by the oligarchs and their mass media propaganda apparatus.
We also have to get beyond the distortions created by the extremists on both sides. A healthy society needs both conservatives and progressives….moderates not extremists.
The primary enemy are the corporate oligarchs (Davos crowd etc) who have usurped the political & social order and now seek to impose a transnational corporate feudalism. The secondary enemy are the extremists on both sides; the fundamentalists & anarchists of the loonie Left & Right that are exploited by the oligarchs to keep ordinary moderate conservatives and progressives at each other’s throats. They do not want ordinary working people coming together in a democratic spirit on the basis of common interests and needs. Divide & Rule is their motto.
Without doubt in my mind, division and fear are the primary tools of tyrants, and we’re getting a lethal dose of both.
“I’m right and you’re wrong” is not an argument, much less a debate. About all it could apply to is a theological discussion.
The 0.1% did not gain control by market or government forces. They did so by deception. Convincing us that our real enemy is that Republican over there, or that Democrat over here, that right wing or this left wing, that nation over there, or this nation over here. Completely failing to see the real enemy, the 0.1%, which like governments is largely composed of psychopaths who are predators by nature.
With the new voting law HR-1 there is no use voting again. The ballot box has been permanently stuffed.
do you think the 79 and 77 percent are the fundamentalists & anarchists of the loonie left & right?
The first time I read this I thought that it was just plain weird to be talking about things that don’t even exist, but after waiting a few hours and reading it a second time I realized that what you were really discussing was the, ‘never was and never will be. About 2300 years ago, it was a big fad amongst nations of the world that the Romans knew of to have narratives of their previous existence to be back dated and falsified to help the ruling classes justify their privileges and very existence.
So, pretty much the same old, same old.and in case you haven’t heard the new narrative of the past that the ruling class is promulgation is that the, ‘thing’, is coming to set a new world order. That NWO, beyond its political and economic implications also has a religious connotation, but because every major Abrahamic faith spells it differently, and I didn’t want to give preference, I call it, Thing. So, maybe it returns, or maybe it’s the first time.
The old saying is that the victors write the history. Also, there’s an old adage that God created man in his own image, while others claim that Man created God in his image. The most important question though is; if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise?
This is not a vote, this is a battle of the minds, mankind’s chance to create the God of their choice, even if they are agnostic or atheistic. Will that God be the God of a privileged few? Or, a God for all mankind?
According to the Rothschild family that Thing is coming from their family, but mysteriously, their family isn’t the Rothschild family name, but from the Illuminati, and best as I can tell that would be from the lineage of the sister of the first wife of King Henry the Eighth of England. An event that coincided with the final transfer of the wealth of the Roman Empire to England and thence the City of London.
In order for there to be noise there must be a sentient creature to hear it. Noise is a perception. If there is no creature that can hear there will be no noise; there will just be the air pressures waves caused by the impact of the fall.
Exactly!!! So, the real question is; can God exist without believers? And, I should probably leave it at that as not to taint the final creation in the vision of those who already rule and have given us hell? Or, the masses who may not be capable of envisioning anything but hell, because they have never known anything but, hell.
The media has unlimited ability to propagandise the masses on behalf of their corporate paymasters through sponsorship & advertising revenue. These funds are all TAX DEDUCTIBLE. So when we buy those products we are subsidising our own debasement. Consider what would happen if shareholders suffered a cut in their $ returns on investment because all sponsored campaigns & advertising costs where paid out of profits.
Could really throw the cat among the pigeons
END TAX EXEMPTIONS ON ADVERTISING & SPONSORSHIPS. Let them pay their way like the rest of us
or just eliminate taxes – this country operated without income tax for much longer than it has operated with income tax. As Ron Paul pointed out: eliminating (personal) income taxes today would allow us to operate the same level of government that we had ten years ago.
Without taxes, exemptions become a complete non-issue.
What’s even more stunning than the blame that Americans are led to place upon Russia and China for America’s multitude of self-generated domestic problems, racial divisions, high crime, rampant drug use, economic collapse and subsequent political madness, plus all the violence, chaos and population displacements created throughout the world by the regime in Washington and its hyperinflated military, all of which can only be explained through rational cause and effect analysis by a thorough indoctrination of the public using the regime’s tools in the American media…
~
what’s even more stunning than all of that… is that the public so far refuses to hold Crazy Joe Biden accountable for all his gratuitous warmongering (bombing Syrian soil, against all international law and the American constitution, with the excuse that he’s hunting Iranians within mere weeks of taking office; making threats against Russia and promising more violence in Ukraine), his blatant and equally speedy breaking of numerous campaign promises (with regard to covid financial relief, minimum wage, public healthcare plan, etc) and his reckless opening of our southern border to all comers with no concern for health safety during the covid pandemic (one of the most virulent superspreading new virus mutation comes from Latin America, namely Brazil!!) or the economic well-being of a country that will have no jobs for these unskilled mostly subsistence farmers that our tax revenues will now be required to feed, house and provide free medical care and education–things in short supply to our own underprivileged citizens.
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Crazy Joe takes no heat in the media for any of this. As a consequence I was flabbergasted to see that his approval rating is a sky-high 60% according to AP and approximately 54% according to Nate Silver’s 538 (with very low disapproval ratings in the 30%-ish range according to both polls).
~
Americans who were scared shitless of Trump from the get-to by the American media are lulled into complacency when it comes to Crazy Joe and the sociology experiment that he plans to make of the United States in the coming years. When people are polled on the individual points of his program, such as reparations to blacks, absolute race equity (equal outcomes based solely on race rather than merit or skill), not merely male/female equity but equity amongst however many self-identifying “genders” pretend to be out there, and even revamping usage of the parts of speech that we commonly call pronouns in American English, the people call bullshit. His program would destroy all that remains of what used to be an efficient and capable American meritocracy and transform it into a blundering idiocracy.
~
Yet the people have not yet seen fit to turn against this fool. Sure, some independent news and opinion websites prognosticate that Biden and the Dems will have no chance to retain their power in 2022 and 2024, but as PCR tells us endlessly: Americans are made hopelessly insouciant by the endless frivolity and false narratives spun by the American mass media, which means the potential voters are totally unconcerned and indifferent to the mess that Washington has created and may well be the end of us all. To this point, they’d be happy to keep Biden on board as long as his handlers keep him in the WH basement with his mouth shut, painting him as a crusading hero using their complete tool kit of CGI if needed. Meanwhile, Putin, Xi, Trump and other “enemies” of America continue to get the full demonisation treatment by Hollywood and Silicon Valley. And, if they succeed, we will have lost half the Bill of Rights by the next election.
~
First it was we’ll tell you what you can read (if it doesn’t promote our narrative, we simply won’t publish it). Now it’s we’ll tell you what you can say (otherwise you’ll be cancelled on social media). Which surely leads to we’ll control what you think. When we accomplish that, we’ll control what you do… eventually in exquisite detail–what you can own, where you can go, with whom you can associate… the whole enchilada. Your voting preferences were long ago commandeered, numbers being the easiest things to fudge. All hail, Uncle Joe (who will always be Crazy Joe to me). Guy’s got the awareness of a turnip and control of the nuclear football. Whoever or whatever controls our destiny has a real sense of humor.
Man reaps the harvest he sows. Then when the harvest comes, man tries to blame everyone else besides themselves.
I would like to direct your attention to some interesting neurobiology, and leaked information. It is in the comments section after the linked article. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/naomi-wolf-steps-to-fascism/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=52bb353e-372e-433e-8c38-2a1af9a63609
this takes medical experimentation to new lows. Is the zombie apocalypse nigh?
Thanks for the link, Robyn. Naomi Wolf is on target and on message in the article, as usual.
`
I started reading the comments you referenced until I got to the exchange between Leslie Taylor and Afekt Media regarding the “vast increase in Optogenetics and chemogenetics programs.” Very enlightening. They do a good job of explaining some of the key tech we’re up against.
`
“We need to know how technology is capable of influencing our thoughts and emotions such as inciting fear leading us to making poor decisions.”
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“The greatest threat I believe is the disruption of our consciousness. Many are not aware of the many advancements in the brain sciences, AI, emergent intelligence and bio technologies that have abilities to manipulate our consciousness at the interoceptive sense level.”
`
Very few people (if any) truly know how technology is being used to influence us.
`
Those comments are totally relevant to how “public perception is being continually manipulated against the interests of the public?” As Caitlin put it.
The biggest shocker to me is that when AI is programmed to learn using its own self-generated protocols it becomes significantly smarter, faster and more contentious in its communications with human beings than AI programmed to learn using strictly human protocols. Apparently there are obstacles to learning the we humans are blind to. It seems inevitable that self-taught machines will also arrive at different values than we humans do.
~
Such machines that begin pursuing their own agendas will not be easily bamboozled to the point of overheating and breaking down using Captain Kirk’s debating skills in numerous Star Trek episodes. Rather they’ll know how to quickly break recalcitrant humans the way O’Brien handled Winston Smith, or the way Deep Blue dispatched Gary Kasparov on the chessboard.
Humans evolved morals as a result of natural selection towards at least some amount of cooperation towards creation and mutual protection against external enemies. AI has no natural enemies, inside or outside their group, so evolution of values will be boundless. I agree that this points towards patterns completely unlike humans.
“Humans evolved morals as a result of natural selection”… I strongly recommend you to read some books of anthropology. Durkheim, Weber, Malinowski. The last one, Malinowski, is remarkable. Invest some bucks and purchase the Argonauts of the Western Pacific. It’s worth every penny. I did it a 50 years ago. Kind wishes.
Good points Realist.
`
” It seems inevitable that self-taught machines will also arrive at different values than we humans do.”
`
I read somewhere that they’re currently using AI to make life and death battlefield decisions; with drones etc.
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How can it be that we don’t, at least, have Asimov’s three laws of robotics?
It’s one thing to write down laws in human language. What’s more difficult is imparting judgement of situation and the real goal of ethics. Did you catch that Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” involved an AI flipping out due to conflicting orders? … or the robot in “Alien”?
Every specific action has to be evaluated in terms of all current and future consequences, as well as the consequences of inaction. Three laws will not be sufficient to cover every situation.
Ms Johnstone, the United States of America is imploding; people are getting more frustrated and angrier every single day. Anything can happen, at any time; steering that anger and hostility is how the MSM keeps the public under the control of the owners and the masters. The chaos that is coming will be insane and violent; there may not be anything left after it ends!
Excellent observations Caitlin. However, might it be preferable to address these points to all 99%ers, not just to those on “the left”. It seems to me that one of the major problems created by the problem you so correctly address is that the elites have so effectively used their respective (separated by party lines) narratives to manipulate the people into thinking that those divisions (socialists vs. real working people, “patriots” vs. radical commies, etc.) are the problem in order to divert their attention from the fact that both parties are the enemies of the people. If the people ever figured that out, as some of us have, the elites would be in deep trouble. So that is an integral part of the “propaganda problem”. Don’t we on the left need to try to communicate this fact to those on the right who are also being manipulate into believing a different false narrative?
Great article, Caitlin!
… and an excellent reply, Jim. I wanted to make a similar point, so I am replying to your message.
The whole “left” versus “right” spectrum is part of the propaganda. The Libertarians do a good job of expanding that single dimension into two dimensions: personal freedom and economic freedom. The left strives for expanded personal freedom, within their definition of freedom, but at the expense of economic freedom. The right focuses on economic freedom, and seems to allow for certain kinds of personal freedom but not others, all based on their conservative viewpoint. Libertarians support both personal and economic freedom in a way that maximizes both (while fascists support no freedoms at all). I suspect that even the two-dimensional political spectrum is incomplete, but it’s surely the case that the one-dimensional “left versus right” is a powerful tool for propagandists to use to divide and conquer any opposition to the goals of the elites.
The only way to wake the working class out of its propaganda-induced coma is to subvert and sabotage the fraudulent financial system and indirectly cause the working class serious economic pain. That will be like hitting a sleeping person in the stomach. Even then, many will moan in their sleep, turn over and go back to sleep again. But that is the only way to wake some of the working class out of their hypnotic state. This is the strategy which the world’s Great Liberator taught, promoted and demonstrated by His personal example. This was the strategy which was followed in part by India’s revolutionary leader Mahatma Ghandi and New Zealand’s spiritual leader Te Whiti O’ Rongomai, who inspired and directed Māori passive resistance against British imperialism.
It’s a hard work and it’s already happening for at least 30 years. In the 90s I wrote something about it. The link below says a little bit about it. But look, I’m not saying it’s the same thing. What I’m saying it’s a similar idea. Kind wishes. Good night.
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/paradigm-shift/aquarian-conspiracy.htm
Hello Ragnar, the Aquarian conspiracy seems to be a rewrite of Karl Marx’s thesis using new terminology. Marx predicted the irreversible self-destruction of capitalism coincident with a sudden awakening of consciousness among oppressed masses and the emergence of a new paradigm, namely communism leading to Utopia. As history shows, the optimism and revolutionary efforts of Marxists did not deliver the promised Utopia. They merely replaced one group of corrupt psychopathic capitalist leaders with another group of corrupt psychopathic communist leaders. Kind wishes from Mika
I have this book (or at least I think I still do…). I got it 32 years ago at the suggestion of a professor. I read it.
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Wow!
The ZIO/US is gearing up – the recent interview on ‘Face the Nation’ tells you that it will be a matter of weeks NOT months when the SHTF !
https://www.rt.com/usa/516240-solarwinds-sullivan-russia-hacking/
Who cares what their fabricated surveys show – surveys and polls are a tool the MSM has used for decades and decades to influence public opinion !!
‘Likes’ and ‘dislikes’ on social media has been a godsend for propaganda – social media manipulates the idiotic – dumbed down masses !!
These ‘surveys’ serve ONE purpose – getting Americans in the ‘ MOOD ‘ for WAR !!
America MUST have WAR to survive !!