Listen to a reading of this article:

There’s so much more to propaganda than just manufacturing consent for governments and wars. It trains us what to value. What to think a successful human being looks like. Where to place our interest, energy and attention. It shapes our very personalities. It warps our humanity.

Show me someone who doesn’t think propaganda has much power and I’ll show you someone who’s been highly propagandized.

If people could understand the massive, yawning gulf between the world as it actually exists and the narratives we’ve been fed about it since childhood, there’d be immediate revolution. The real world is as different from the propaganda world as it is from any work of fiction.

The CIA is officially forbidden to conduct operations in the US. What the CIA is not officially forbidden to do is hand an unscrupulous American news reporter a bombshell scoop about a foreign government which just so happens to build a narrative in the US that advances CIA objectives.

That which has been presented without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. It applies to arguments, it applies to claims by US intelligence agencies.

Propaganda has distorted people’s perception of reality so severely that Twitter cares more about musicians pulling their content from an app because they don’t like a podcaster than the fact that the most powerful government in the world is flirting with nuclear war.

 

America’s buddies Saudi Arabia and Israel have been bombing their neighbors constantly with extensive US support. The friendship between these nations and the US exists not in spite of their nonstop military butchery but exactly because of it.

If all the countries involved in a dispute say there won’t be a war and only one country says that there will be, it’s not hard to figure out who the aggressor and instigator is.

There are easily ten thousand issues in this world that are of greater concern than the fact that Russia annexed a small territory that overwhelmingly wanted to be annexed in 2014.

It’s not that I always side against the US, it’s that I side against whatever side is in the wrong and that tends to be the most powerful and destructive regime in the world. If you don’t think believe the US could be consistently on the wrong side of foreign policy disputes, it’s because you’ve been extensively propagandized about its behavior on the world stage.

It can’t rightly be called anti-US bias if your criticisms of the US are unassailably correct. You simply cannot dispute the fact that no other government is doing anything that rises anywhere near the level of depravity as spending the 21st century killing millions of human beings in wars of aggression. It’s not that I have some arbitrary grudge against the United States and frame all my positions on every issue to fit that bias, it’s that the US really is quantifiably and demonstrably the most tyrannical government on earth by an extremely wide margin and thus naturally tends to be in the wrong.

The social engineers will always prefer to censor dissident voices online via algorithm manipulation rather than overt deplatforming when given the choice, simply because it silences a lot more people with a lot less public outcry.

If you agree with an ideological faction on every issue it’s not because you share the same values and principles, it’s because you suffer from a lack of values and principles. You’re just a blind follower of the herd.

Gonna go get a degree from an Ivy League university and become a senior fellow at a prominent think tank so I can make extremely intelligent observations like “Vladimir Putin is Adolf Hitler and Ukraine is Poland” and “Xi Jinping is Adolf Hitler and Taiwan is Poland”.

We’re seeing the narrative that Tucker Carlson is a Russian agent aggressively pushed by mainstream pundits not to attack Carlson himself, but to manufacture the consensus that anyone who criticizes US policy on Russia is suspicious and untrustworthy.

If you get your information about the world from Tucker Carlson you’re just as MSM-brainwashed as if you get your information about the world from Brian Stelter or Rachel Maddow. The brainwashing just happens in slightly different ways. Sure Carlson might say true things I agree with sometimes, but so does Anderson Cooper; they just tell different truths and different lies. Propaganda doesn’t work if it’s all bullshit all the time; there has to be some truth mixed in.

The people in my mentions who regurgitate MSM talking points on China because they heard it from Tucker Carlson think they’re so very different from the people in my mentions who regurgitate MSM talking points on Russia because they heard it from Wolf Blitzer, but they’re not. They’re exactly the same.

The TV man is not your friend.

If Russia was an actual threat they wouldn’t have to keep lying about it all the time.

In ancient history our stress hormones were used on saber toothed tiger attacks. Now they’re used on made-up mental narrative fluff like whether we’re adequate, what others think of us, a podcaster saying things we don’t like, Vladimir Putin annexing Eastern Europe, or China taking over the world.

It’s not legitimate to complain that people talk about problems without taking action or offering solutions. Spreading awareness that there’s a problem is taking action toward a solution. All positive shifts in human behavior are always preceded by an increase in awareness.

You’re not going to get to solutions until a sufficiently large percentage of the populace understands and accepts that they are needed. Even if you do come up with the perfect solution on your own without the help of the collective, you won’t have the numbers to enact it. Maybe you’ve read a bunch of books and got a fancy degree and you’ve come up with the perfect utopian model for society, but it’s going to make jack dick difference if only you know it. People first need to understand that our current systems don’t work, and then to understand why.

______________________

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71 responses to “Propaganda Warps Our Very Humanity: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”

  1. ….i don’t think there would be enough barf bags for all who claim that “revolution” is the “solution”….if that really comes to pass, ALL of US will do things that we never thought we’d ever do….. the HORRIBLE and the WONDERFUL……many will perish doing the former and the latter…..to survive…..the realization of who and what we are up against, agreement on that point, and establishing some kind of organization to make that point in unison called a movement are the main calls to any action…..i don’t have an answer as to how or when, but i do think some very serious attempts to change the dynamics of all the spectacular presentations put forth are in order…..ok chew me up and spit me out comrades…..wherever i splat i’ll still ask…..so whatcha got????…..i’m not squeamish, so don’t ask me if i got an extra barf bag……

  2. […]People first need to understand that our current systems don’t work, and then to understand why.[…]

    The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose
    From the Book:

    Preparing the Reader

    What you read in this book will, in all likelihood, go directly against what you have been taught by your parents and your teachers, what you have been told by the churches, the media and the government, and much of what you, your family and your friends have always believed. Nonetheless, it is the truth, as you will see if you allow yourself to consider the issue objectively. Not only is it the truth, it also may be the most important truth you will ever hear.
    More and more people are discovering this truth, but to do so, it is necessary to look past many preconceived assumptions and deeply ingrained superstitions, to set aside one’s life-long indoctrination, and to examine some new ideas fairly and honestly. If you do this, you will experience a dramatic change in how you view the world. It will almost certainly feel uncomfortable at first, but in the long run it will be well worth the effort. And if enough people choose to see this truth, and embrace it, not only will it drastically change the way those people see the world; it will drastically change the world itself, for the better.
    But if such a simple truth could change the world, wouldn’t we all already know about it, and wouldn’t we have put it into practice long ago? If humans were purely a race of thinking, objective beings, yes. But history shows that most human beings would literally rather die than objectively reconsider the belief systems they were brought up in. The average man who reads in the newspaper about war, oppression and injustice will wonder why such pain and suffering exists, and will wish for it to end. However, if it is suggested to rum that his own beliefs are contributing to the misery, he will almost certainly dismiss such a suggestion without a second thought, and may even attack the one making the suggestion.
    So, reader, if your beliefs and superstitions – many of which you did not choose for yourself, but merely inherited as unquestioned “hand-me-down” beliefs – matter to you more than truth and justice, then please stop reading now and give this book to someone else. If, on the other hand, you are willing to question some of your long-held, preconceived notions if doing so might reduce the suffering of others, then read this book. And then give it to someone else.
    […]

    Read the book and if you like it, buy a copy or two to reward Larken if you have enough money to spare.

    CYBOTRON – Industrial Lies – (Inspired by Alvin Toffler and his books “Future Shock” and “The Third Wave”)

    1. Oh, I overlooked that recently you have to be logged in at archiv.org to read the book. Those who have an account there can do that, those who don’t can create a free account there, or search the net for other sources, like there[1].
      There is also an audio version of the book at archiv.org[2] and at Youtube[3]. You can download that to listen to it offline and on the side if necessary.

      [1] freeyourmindaz.com/uploads/1/2/8/3/12830241/the-most-dangerous-superstition-larken-rose-2011.pdf
      [2] archive.org/details/tmds-full-audiobook-by-keith-knight
      [3] youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLnZMpC0fqV6u0NI3wsi6EHQP71bv8AmV

  3. You’re not going to get to solutions until a sufficiently large percentage of the populace understands and accepts that they are needed. <– No S*** Sherlock.

    Listening to a small dose of main stream as that is the only way I dose myself with main stream S***. I hear that BLOOD has been moved to Putin's Troops in preparation for battle.

    And how the F*** does anybody know that? Propaganda sword rattling is what it is.

  4. The most aggravating thing about the ubiquitous American propaganda is its complete and utter transparency. It’s an insult to our intelligence. They seem to think that we will all totally accept their “opposite world” version of reality. The whole “war is peace” etc schtick is so old by now. Sorry, but American warmongering is still warmongering, whether you are shooting people dead or starving them to death with “sanctions.” You liars cannot honestly want peace when you constantly take provocative highly bellicose actions meant to damage and enrage your target countries. I’m sure there’s a word for this sort of hypocrisy in pop psychology.

    1. MAGA? Mach’ Amerika großartig abermals!

  5. Biden seems to be listening to focus groups telling him foreign policies to grandstand and who to blow up to try to get his % ratings higher. He’s called “weak” so he blows up some Syrians.
    ~
    He’s called “ineffective” by black voters who saved him from being destroyed by Bernie, so he’s by God gonna pander a black lady all the way to the Supreme Court with his clear majority needed in congress to push her through.
    ~
    The day the focus groups say the country thinks he isn’t pleasing his wife, I guess we’ll see him reprieve Bob Dole’s viagra ads.
    ~
    Trump was clearly better at the “entertain and be ahead of the news game.” He also seemed to grok immediately that’s the moral maze the system is selecting for, so Trump didn’t bother to do much else.

  6. The CIA is officially forbidden to conduct operations in the US. What the CIA is not officially forbidden to do is hand an unscrupulous American news reporter a bombshell scoop about a foreign government which just so happens to build a narrative in the US that advances CIA objectives.
    :
    During the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, “independent and retired” military men became constant commentators on media programs. That was not illegal, they were acting on their own, independently. Behind the scenes, though, these military men were scurrying back and forth between Pentagon meeting rooms and tv broadcast programs – they were being run by a program in the Pentagon. Totally illegal.
    :
    The Pentagon had these retired military men by the balls. In their retirement they all worked for military contractors and weapons producers. They were the intermediate agents between weapons producers trying to sell their wares and buyers in the Pentagon. If these retired military men didn’t play ball and participate in the Pentagon’s propaganda program then they would be locked out, unable to be intermediate agents. It would be the end of their gravy train.
    :
    So, what to do? Along comes Barack Obama and it becomes legal for the Pentagon to push propaganda on the American people.
    :
    Article:”Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand”
    https://archive.fo/aThed
    :
    Article:”U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans”
    https://archive.fo/1aNyD

    1. Yep, Obama the Peace Nobel Laureate, did essential work to expand American Wars and War Propaganda. There is a record of Lockheed Martin stock price attain new growth after Obama’s 2nd election.

    2. That first paragraph I meant to put in quotes as it comes from the above article by Caitlin.
      :
      Also, where I wrote “So, what to do?” should have been preceded by a short paragraph:
      “The illegal propaganda Pentagon program was discovered, it was out in the open, the Pentagon was caught with their pants down breaking the law.”
      :
      So what do you do when you are caught breaking the law?
      Answer: change the law

  7. Great Article!
    It is smart to know the truth, and so, stupid to believe in lies. Jesus said the truth will set us free. I believe it.

  8. Talking about propaganda, you’ve got to admire these MIC guys! Now the Russian invasion is not imminent anymore:
    https://www.rt.com/russia/548132-ukraine-invasion-imminent-psaki/?
    “Sorry Volo… Lost in translation… But you can relax… Now for the weapons you’ve received, I’ll send you the bill shortly, with of course the little extra for the Amazon express delivery… It was a business doing pleasure with you.”
    Of course Volo will find it difficult to sit for a few days but there you are… Can’t escape reality. A good balm and a goose feather cushion should help.
    Apparently Ukraine is rich in natural resources anyway. That should go a long way into footing the bill. Except that the main one is coal which is not all that popular these days with the carbon footprints et al. Lil Greta is liable to whizz in any time: “How dare you?!”
    Does she speak Ukrainian at all?

    1. Republicofscotland Avatar
      Republicofscotland

      Pascal.

      Neither Russia or the US will confirm that they might have come to an agreement with regards to Ukraine, its Nato membership and missiles.

      The supposed deal is one that if Russia promises not to invade Ukraine if certain types of missiles (Tomahawks) are removed from sites in Romanian and Poland, and the US would be given the choice of where it would like missiles removed from inside Russia.

      The Spanish newspaper El Pais, is said to have seen the secret documents (written replies from the US and Nato) and it has published them, the US document is marked as confidential “Non-Paper”
      .

      The paper then goes on to add that the US will need to consult its Nato allies on the offer.

      1. You mean Volo will get a refund on the arms he was sent in an emergency amongst an all out panic (with the UK and US withdrawing their diplomats from Kiev) blown out of all proportions by the media under the influence of CIA agents “who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to the press” while these alleged talks were going on?
        You mean you don’t admire these MIC guys for their business acumen and selling skills? :o)

    2. So you’re mad at Greta? Why?

  9. “If people could understand the massive, yawning gulf between the world as it actually exists and the narratives we’ve been fed about it since childhood, there’d be immediate revolution.”
    …………….
    “That which has been presented without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. It applies to arguments, it applies to claims by US intelligence agencies.”

     
    And it also applies to propositions made by Rogue Journalists like Caitlin. For just one example among several in this article, what evidence or argument does Caitlin present to support her proposition that “if people could understand the massive, yawning gulf between the world as it actually exists and the narratives we’ve been fed about it since childhood, there’d be immediate revolution”?
     
    As far as I can tell, none, other than the internal assumption that people already “can not understand” the “yawning gulf between…” etc. — presumably, the way Caitlin already understands so clearly. (BTW, is how Caitlin makes a living her version of “revolting”?)
     
    Therefore, not only will I, as Caitlin recommends, reject Caitlin’s proposition that she presents without evidence or argument, but I will make a proposition of my own.
     
    Even though a great number of people, including me, Caitlin, people who comment here and probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of other people ALREADY understand “the massive, yawning gulf between the world as it actually exists and the narratives we’ve been fed about it since childhood” and need absolutely no more “education” about it, up to this point in time, as far as I can tell, we still have not only NOT “revolted” (unless typing articles and comments IS “revolting”) against those who not only create and publish the narratives, but We, the Woke, We Who Already Understand continue to vote our false-narrative-creating oppressors’ bought-and-paid-for R and D agents into public offices time and time again!
     
    What, exactly, does the word “revolution” mean in Caitlin’s phrase “there’d be a revolution”? Is there universal agreement on what the word “revolution” means? If there is, please tell me precisely HOW people “revolt”? What would the BEHAVIOR of “revolting” be? Would We, the Woke, We Who Already Understand be picking up guns and running down the streets with our hair on fire, each of us yelling in perfect synchronicity with the collective “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!”? Would We, the Woke, We Who Already Understand be guillotining some VIPs on the White House lawn? Would We, the Woke, We Who Already Understand be marching hand in hand down Penn. Ave. demand, demand, demanding that the Elite behave better, or else? (“or else” just exactly WHAT?!)
     
    Here’s what you, me, We, the Woke, We Who Already Understand are eventually going to HAVE TO DO because
     
    there. is. no. other. way. to remove our false-narrative-creating oppressors’ 536 Rs and Ds from federal elected positions of power. (If you know of another way, please spell it out, right here, right now and, BTW, reading another hundred really great books that tell you who’s holding the reins of power in one hand and your balls in the other, wishing upon a star, dream, dream, dreaming; hoping and praying and deep, deep, deep self-study and drug-trips are not going to do that job.)
     
    THIS is how you “revolt” — If you do not want More Of The Same that you’ve gotten after every election in the past, do not vote for another R or D, ever, no matter what an R or D promises! Jimmy Dore explains EXACTLY why. (If you DO want More Of The Same, when you walk into the voting booth, just vote for another R or D, makes no difference which. The latter is what the tens of millions of direct and indirect employees of, and the investors in, the MIC are going to do this November. They’re going to vote for No. 1 and they don’t give a shit if doing that ultimately leads to WWIII; they know precisely what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. )

    1. Friend, you seem to be devoting a lot of time to this. I think I have seen this message in some form quite a few times before. You are not the only person who thinks that he/she has got the answer that everyone else needs to be told. Who knows, I might be like that myself.
      What I think is worth pointing out is that your answer has been tried quite a few times before. Your American first-past-the-post voting system forces everyone to pick one of the two major parties, so makes it very hard for any new train of thought to gain a foothold, except by infiltrating one of the major parties. That sometimes happens. In countries that have some sort of a proportional representation system, as we do in our Senate in Australia, there is a little more opportunity for minorities to get some degree of representation in their own right.
      The idea that you can organise some sort of boycott of the major parties and force change that way is naive in the extreme. There is more hope of forcing change through violence, as the Black Lives Matter people have been trying to do, than there is of that.

      1. If the violence of the BLM protests had any bearing on policy I’ve yet to see any, and I’ve been following the action since the early ’60s. Cops still bash heads, the FBI has ‘agent provocateurs’, or the cops themselves, and cops still murder unarmed blacks far more than unarmed people of other colors. We the marginalized will never have any say other than places like this tht don’t deem to cancel us; like Medium did to me. Peace

        1. did you see the Civil Rights Act passed? that would not have happened if not for the Black Panthers, Malcolm X and the like. Reagan started putting gun restrictions on the population when the Panthers armed themselves.
          Unions would have not have attained the success they did without wildcat strikes, or without pushing back against and fighting the goons the employers employed to take their jobs or gun them down.

  10. Maybe we could try being as smart as the government and the media. We can read books about psychology, and neurology, and how to examine what people say coldly and objectively. For example, if nobody outside of Europe and North America believes that Russia is about to attack Ukraine, then there is a good reason to be skeptical. And if someone claims to be an expert on viruses, but don’t understand basic principles like that viruses spread because they are trying to mutate until they are strong enough to overcome their hosts’ immune systems, then they are obviously unqualified. Same with the ones who say they did their own virus research. If they don’t say which microscopes they used, they probably only think they did research.

    1. Which microscope did you use? Was it endorsed for the blind and visually impaired?

      1. Or just for the deaf and dumb?

      2. If I had said I did my own virus research, I would have. I used basic lit-from-underneath microscopes in college, but not for virus research. How about you?

  11. I agree. Governments start propaganda in the schools and universities first. Once you indoctrinate enough that train of thought begins to dominate. I remember when antioch college was considered a socialist/communist thought college in the 70s. I thought then to myself that this would spread to other more prominant institutions.

  12. IMHO
    The divide and rule tactical strategies of the elite rulers have always been based in the falsity and fraudulence of the proposition that ‘race’ underlies the division of humanity.
    Yet the fact is “We are all one (humanity). Only egos, beliefs and fears separate us (each from the ‘other’). The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” – Nikola Tesla, 1856-1948; one of the most formidable factual scientists of the early 20th century.
    Ethnicity and Race are part and parcel of the same coin of Homo-Sapiens! All are, without exception, of the one human race. Ethnicity is merely the language of the evolving, thinking mind, applied to describe the derived linguistic, and cultural variations etc., of so-called global civilizations.
    The attempts at ‘race’ differentiation are a creation of these ‘uncritically thinking’ minds; upon which, the now long overdue crumbling bedrock of hypocrisy, was once prehistorically based.
    Today what most people misunderstand is that religions are founded in the evolving diversities of culturally inculcated belief systems and mores, and NOT solely and soullessly ‘race’ based. If they were, we would all recognize that religion is nothing but the opposing sides of the same coin that is humanity.

  13. You go, Caitlin, you are my spirit animal. Unfortunately, I try to introduce you to people in my life and I get nothing but system error. These aren’t highly political folks, maybe some might have Maddow on in the background while fixing dinner. They say, oh my, that just can’t be true and move on in their relatively comfortable lives. Mad mothers put a stop to drunk driving because of the loss of their children. It might take some change in material conditions before the comfortable can hear you. Otherwise, your words don’t seem to compute.

  14. I think it is also important to note that propaganda works not because it is believable but because it’s not it is a show of force.

  15. Wow. I must have offended the thought police. My reply to Bob Nemtusak was removed. I wonder if this will post?

    1. Never mind. Must have been a glitch. Now it’s there, unless it’s only on my computer?

  16. Most definitely the most important thing any of us CAN DO to help shift what is happening in our world

    IS to UNPLUG from the Oligarchy/Corporate Main Stream Media

    I understand that it isn’t easy… we are tribal and there is a certain degree of feeling of safety and acceptance in being able to agree with those around you and share their same views… however warped they may be.

    I understand what it feels like to have people call you a conspiracy theorist for examining narrative and being interested in facts.

    The U.S. Oligarchy/i.e. the rich people hiding behind banks, corporations, govt, wars, media, etc
    THAT RULE OUR COUNTRY & BELIEVE THEY SHOULD RULE THE WORLD!
    do not have ‘our’ best interests in mind, they do not have noble motives….

    They are more like ADDICTS for ‘MORE” money, power & control…
    That cannot stop themselves and MUST GET THEIR NEXT “FIX”!

    The oppression we are living in is daunting… the first and most important thing any of us can do

    IS TO “UNPLUG”!

    1. Carolyn L Zaremba Avatar
      Carolyn L Zaremba

      This is why I got rid of my television ten years ago. Television is the most efficient brainwashing machine invented. It is worse than just the advertising that swamps the programming. The majority of the programming is designed to present a picture of the world that is false, to provide distraction to the frazzled citizenry, and–in the case of the “news”–to outright lie and/or fail to mention anything casting doubt on the righteousness of capitalist oligarchy.

      1. Buy! Buy! Buy! Things make you happy. Go buy today.

      2. Plus TV puts your brain in a state of hypnosis!
        https://www.psychmechanics.com/how-tv-influences-your-mind-through/
        Excerpt: “Your mind slips into the hypnotic trance state within seconds of watching TV. This lowers your brainwaves to a lower ‘alpha state’ commonly associated with meditation and deep relaxation. This is believed to be caused by the screen flicker and explains why you feel sleepy while watching TV. Under this state of trance, your subconscious mind becomes highly suggestible and whatever information you receive from the TV becomes part of your memory pool.”

  17. Tony Gainsbrook Avatar
    Tony Gainsbrook

    “You’re not going to get to solutions until a sufficiently large percentage of the populace understands and accepts that they are needed.” I think that a large percentage of the population does understand that the system does not work. The real problem is reaching agreement on what utopia looks like. Two prime contenders are Donald Trump’s utopia and Bernie Sander’s utopia.

    1. Replacing Biden with Trump or Sanders is no choice. It may appear so to many but it is actually no change.

      1. I guess you’re one of those jaded cynics who doesn’t believe New Improved Spraz with Added Enzymes is a significant change from New Improved Spraz with Enzymes.

      2. Carolyn L Zaremba Avatar
        Carolyn L Zaremba

        Of course it isn’t. Until capitalism is replaced with socialism there will be no change. Biden even made that a point in one of his speeches.

    2. Carolyn L Zaremba Avatar
      Carolyn L Zaremba

      Humanity does not need a utopia. It needs a society that enables everyone to live a decent life with adequate housing, free health care, free education, a clean environment, a living wage and a comfortable retirement. It needs to end the rule of the obscenely wealthy, confiscate their ill-gotten lucre and use it to help create the conditions of a decent life for everyone on the planet.

      Look at the universe and how the only habitable planet we know of within light years is the one we are standing on. Until we are truly able to travel outside our solar system, we need to learn how to take care of this planet which provided conditions for the evolution of life.

      A decent life should be a given. Not a privilege.

      1. This is right. How do we get there?

      2. That is a very feminine way of looking at it. It suggests that we should all be one big happy family. It may be that it could be done, for a while. But then things would start to run down, and people would start to get hungry, and we would start to fight over food, and then to eat each other.
        I have seen an account of the pre-white history of New Zealand that was like this: everyone was happy while they were spreading across the country, but then they ran out of new space, and their technology did not advance, so they took to fighting over resources, and eventually to eating each other.
        When we are congratulating ourselves, Americans and Australians, on our wonderful institutions and our inventiveness and our fairmindedness, we tend to leave out of the account the fact that we have been spreading over largely empty continents in which the local people had fallen a LONG way behind in their ability to exploit the natural resources amongst which they lived. Our lucky way of life hasn’t all been because we are so much better people than our rellies in Old Europe: it’s because we brought knowledge that they had painfully developed over centuries with us, and applied it to fresh, unused resources.
        We can vegetate and try to settle down and be a more-or-less happy family under feminine rule, OR we can go on struggling to make a liveable future for ourselves as far as we can. I know that at present we only have one liveable planet, and that our technology may never advance to the point that we can get out of the Solar System and find another one, but there is still much that can be done to make use of what is in the Solar System to make life more liveable. We can bring home resources to replace some things that we may run short of – such as agricultural fertilisers. We can harness power sources to allow us to maybe create more of those scarce elements right here if we have to. This means that we shall have to continue to have a system in which there are losers and winners, and some BIG winners.
        I am not defending the way things are now. Without offending the culture of this blog (if that is the right word), I can mention that we live under the corruption of Keynesian economics and inflation. Our governments create a corrupt environment. Business adapts to that corrupt environment, as it must. Then the government people throw up their hands in horror and send business people to jail. I would be happy to go along with the most insane leftist in what I would do to the government people. In fairness, of course, one must mention that it is a bit hard to pin down who is really responsible. There is probably a great deal of stupidity involved.

        1. most leftists I know, love the government

  18. What is propaganda but the government exercising its right to freedom of speech?

    1. FYI, propaganda is a deliberate attempt by governments to fool the people they are elected to serve, which is quite different from merely exercising one’s freedom of speech. You question is like asking “What is planting cocaine in someone’s home to arrest them but the government exercising its right to put people behind bars?”

      1. “Quite different” eh? Wherein, exactly, lies the difference?
        And you attempt to change the subject is utter nonsense. There’s no such thing as a “right” to put people behind bars.

        1. the difference is the government backing up it’s “free speech” with its monopoly on violence.

          1. America is a barbaric, violent state, and the government has no monopoly on violence. “Freedom of speech” has nothing to do with it.

  19. On a somewhat different topic (or is it?) –
    Not so long ago, Caitlin and her commenters were discussing the USA’s new Space Force. It appears its members, perhaps following Platonic governance doctrines known as Guardians, are having a hard time getting taken seriously.
    .
    A Space Force captain traveling with their spouse stood stunned at the Spirit Airlines ticket counter this past October hoping to take advantage of the company’s waived baggage fees for active-duty service members.

    But there was a problem: The Spirit employee didn’t believe the Space Force exists.

    The officer showed a military-issued ID card, pulled up the official website on their phone and explained the recent history of the Space Force. The desk attendant believed the service member was no longer active in the Air Force, couldn’t comprehend the existence of the new branch and didn’t want to issue the discount.

    “In the moment, I was flabbergasted,” said the officer, who spoke to Military.com on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal by Space Force superiors. “We tried to take it on methodically and convince him that the Space Force was real.”

    It wasn’t until a Spirit supervisor got involved that the Guardian finally received the discount and the couple went on their way without paying the baggage fees. A few days later, the Space Force officer received an emailed apology from the airline, which was reviewed by Military.com.

    The incident illustrated what many Guardians have found all too familiar: a public that doesn’t understand America’s newest military branch or believes it’s just a tepidly reviewed Netflix series.

    https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/01/28/space-force-real-guardians-still-struggling-unconvinced-public.html

  20. “The CIA is officially forbidden to conduct operations in the US.”

    CIA agents are not forbidden from claiming retirement and then becoming head of all infrastructure security for Microsoft. – that happened

    1. Right, and now Microsoft keep issuing warnings about Russian hackers and cyber attacks.
      Microsoft probably employs some ex government official as their communications director as well.
      And, Microsoft was the 2021 stock of the year! You got to team up with the right people.
      No wonder US Government does not bring up antitrust charges against Microsoft.

      1. I don’t know about Microsoft but Facebook has definitely morphed into Facespook:
        https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/09/facebook-nato-social-media-censor-ben-nimmo-

        1. The going gets more warped every day!

        2. Bail out! Boycott facebook!

  21. “People first need to understand that our current systems don’t work, and then to understand why”…….before a solution can be found. So right Caitlin, and thank you for your article, again wise observations.

    As a retired systems consultant myself, having learned my craft with the help of Xerox in the 1970s, the mantra has always been: “People don’t fail, systems do”. It’s no good blaming the pilot after the crash that he should have pressed Button ‘B’ – the system must take care of it, as Boeing has found out. With this in mind I embarked on writing a book (Part 1) about the ‘Global Financial System’ which I likened to a jigsaw. It also served for my dissertation and is published here:
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358117070_THE_FINANCIAL_JIGSAW_-_PART_1_-_4th_Edition_2020

    The idea is to explain in as simple terms as possible how the system works and why it will soon fail with a repeat of 2008 – but on a grand scale. A free PDF is available on request to: peter@underco.co.uk

    A preview of Part 2 (14 pages) can also be viewed which may well add to your article here. Keep up the excellent work – I really enjoy your approach to life in this mad world of ours. My own postings are here: https://www.theburningplatform.com/author/austrian-peter/

    1. Yes, the global financial system is at the core of all other systems.
      This is why the biggest sanctions being waged at Russia are cutting it off from the global financial system.
      And recall we are all slaves to it as well. I do not have any debts and do not pay any interest if I can avoid it – it is my own way of resisting being a slave.
      My next step would be to not use credit card at all, so I do not pay the transaction fees. That will break their tiny banking hearts and stall their efficient banking brains.

      1. Boris Johnson invited bankers (and Bill Gates) to establish “Global Britain”, whatever that may mean. Maybe COVID shutdown for the next generation?
        https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2021-10-15/uks-johnson-invites-bill-gates-jpmorgans-dimon-others-to-dinner-the-telegraph

        1. Might he have meant this?
          “The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire, is a documentary film that shows how Britain transformed from a colonial power into a global financial power. At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it behind obscure financial structures in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth may be hidden in British offshore jurisdictions and Britain and its offshore jurisdictions are the largest global players in the world of international finance.”
          https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6483026/

          1. Thank you! I thought it might have smth to do with London being a financial center.

            1. The documentary’s on Youtube:
              https://youtu.be/np_ylvc8Zj8

      2. Unherd had a fairly good: article about UK banks and Russian money today:
        https://unherd.com/2022/02/how-britain-became-putins-playground/
        “[You] can’t understand London’s love affair with Russian money without understanding the story of how the City was reborn as both a financial centre and the engine of our national economy. They are, in fact, the same story.

        Once you understand this, you can see why government after government has been so reluctant to drive the oligarchs’ money away. They’re like doctors watching a cancer grow bigger and bigger in a vital organ: operating will cripple their patient, so they leave it in place, even though — eventually — it will kill.”
        .
        John le Carré wrote an excellent novel, ‘Our Kind of Traitor’, on much the same topic.
        https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/11/our-kind-traitor-carre
        .
        Neither the novel nor the Unherd piece lead me to think the UK’ll be too keen on cutting Russia off from the international banking system.

        1. I agree SVAY. I wonder if you have viewed this which explains the City of London and |Britain’s second empire:

      3. Yes INNA IMHO you are exactly right. When the GFC2 arrives the aftermath will require us to form local communities like we did in 18th century Britain. To get a taste of how this type of system works, it’s worth reading:
        https://www.amazon.co.uk/Diary-Thomas-Turner-1754-1765/dp/0952451603

        In that era they had little use for money except fora few coins and there were no local banks. They used credit in the form of Bills of Exchange drawn on credit-worthy traders, promissory notes (like IOUs) some covered by a chattel asset, and barter. It really is an eye-opener!

        1. In the History of Financial Crises (I am listening to the lectures), it seems each one of them had to do with some kind of financial innovation, and then speculation, and then loss of public trust, and voila!

    2. Ozzie Pete, you’re on the Deming trail of management, which is anathema to the bureaucracy. Lenin modeled the NEP after Taylorism, a much uglier method than TQM, but easier to control from the center of power. AI goes together neatly with Taylorism; AI will outstrip human intelligence, as the latter plunges into jerk-work. How do we break the trend?

      1. Good question Steve. You allude to the 1920s continuous quality improvement model which consists of a logical sequence of four key stages: Plan, Do, Study, and Act. I have worked with six sigma production engineers where these principles are enhanced – I learned the Japanese TQM method of 5 fundamental Kaizen Principles that are embedded in every tool and in every behaviour. The principles are: Know your Customer, Let it Flow, Go to Gemba (where the real work is), Empower People and Be Transparent.

        The Predatory Globalists are engaged in harnessing humans as slaves in their Great Reset agenda using such ‘clever’ methods but their Achilles heel is their lack of deep understanding of human nature and their need for compliance and submission in much the same way as you suggest Taylorism requires.

        Fayol believed that by focusing on managerial practices organizations could minimize misunderstandings and increase efficiency. His writings guided managers on how to accomplish their managerial duties and on the practices in which they should engage. Much like Klaus Schwab’s writings of today. The jerk hasn’t moved on from the 19th century. He has merely applied a 21st century dystopian technocratic approach.

        So to answer you question, we break the trend by not complying. We implement local communities using locally sourced goods and services casting aside the smart technologies and return to the life management systems of yesteryear forsaking the wage-slave, gig economy model.

        The Amish do it effectively today and is but one of many extant examples. I lived in Cape Town for many years and was pleasantly surprised how 35% unemployment (ie traditional model of wage labour) had no impact on the majority of the people who had developed their own off-grid economy – they were all economically active.

        I plan to return soon and join this vibrant community whist the northern hemisphere descends into stagflation and possibly social chaos if the supply chains continue to break down and the Fed finally loses control.

        I have written a book about this which was part of my dissertation:
        https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358117070_THE_FINANCIAL_JIGSAW_-_PART_1_-_4th_Edition_2020

        I believe that I have to understand a system before it can be fixed.

  22. When it’s all been said but what’s real
    And it’s all been heard but what’s true
    And the chasm that lies between black and white
    Yawns for the lack of a clue

      When it all hits home.    when it all hits home
      You find out real fast who’s first and who’s last
      When it all hits home

    When heart becomes lost in the distance
    And soul is chilled to the bone
    And the one you thought true is the one screwing you
    And you’re walking the plank all alone

      When it all hits home   when it all hits home
      You’d better beware of the tripwires there
      When it all hits home

    When top falls in on the bottom
    And bottom drops way down below
    The light is so dark like the belly of a shark
    And you’re counting fingers and toes

      When it all hits home    when it all hits home
      The bastards all lied and you want to go hide
      When it all hits home 

    Pull yourself back together
    Prepare for a long cold night
    Plug all the holes   blow on the coals
    And you never give up the fight

      When it all hits home.    when it all hits home
      Clean up the mess and hope for the best
      When it all hits home 

  23. Mourning Free Time Avatar
    Mourning Free Time

    “Framing” is a fun game-very lucrative and everywhere in theWest. Train the little humans [public k12] to perceive in one of two outlined ways and the resultant choice can be better managed [‘with us or the terrorists’, ‘care about others or hate science’, ‘allow greater reach into Europe, your pocket and/or your ass otherwise you hate democracy’]. Yep, fun game.

    The leading inference of an internalized, subjective (and often crafted, massaged & poll-tested) truth is unsustainable, however. We clever little beasts still want to be special & unique, so the line as built & presented is not the line that we swallow-the act of experiencing it changes it into something familiar.

    The inculcated deficiency that makes us good little consumers of product & idea from government & corporation alike creates an ongoing insecurity that desires if not demands validation-this is why we all hear something different, perceive something unstable and understand something as “theTruth” which is almost always egoistic projection.

    Another way to address the conditioned insecurity is to knowledgeable [Steve in an expert in Unicorns, Marci runs the best little 24/7 cotton candy shop in Texas], but the fundamental aspect of the human condition is not knowledge, but curiosity-the smaller humans have this without knowing and the institutions we as a species have erected to protect and perpetuate it (as a species) can no longer control information, direct knowledge or limit perception-there is too much available for anyone to be certain of anything outside the self.

    What to know? What can truly be known? That would be the most courageous of undertakings, and we in theWest are not conditioned to courage (and curiosity), quite the opposite, which makes us good little time slaves easily distracted by the latest bauble, be it a shiny toaster for a new bank account or chasing Pokemon with a device that could hold a digital form of innumerable books [SEE: knowledge] or a pundit reinforcing a tired world view for the low, low price of our only inherent commodity, before it’s converted to money and taxed.

    Institution or individual seems like the choice du jour. The parents know this, almost instinctively. Others who are truly liberal know this. Those who value life know this. The courageous & curious as well. Those incapable of independent thought [SEE: institutionalized] do not know this; their self-definition is unnatural as it has developed outside the self, by interested they will not see and won’t understand. That is part of the Thanatos instinct as well.

    Yep, fun game.

  24. But I just heard that Whoopi Goldberg’s a Nazi

    1. Whoopi seems to believe that Jews and Gypsies are white! Heaven forbid!
      I wonder what Hitler would have thought about having a Black Nazi?
      From what little I’ve seen (I don’t have TV), I find most of Whoopi’s views on The View to be almost opposite of my own, but I did like her role on Startrek from years ago. “A busted clock is still right twice a day.”

    2. I never realized until now but whoopi goldberg, her stage name, isc ctually making fun of the jewish people. Goldberg a very jewish name and whoopie which is slang for sex. So it comes out screw the jews. Very slick and overt dig by the name. Her open anti Israel stand comes as no surprise when taken from that slant. However, I may be totally off base with this one but it is interesting.

      1. Are you against racism?

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