Listen to a reading of this article:

If you use Twitter and engage with the subject of the war in Ukraine, you’ve probably noticed a verified account called The Kyiv Independent pop up while you’re scrolling through your feed which puts out highly biased content in favor of the Zelensky regime and the western powers which support it.

If you’re using a desktop browser, it will usually look like this:

Image

Do you see the gray text in the top left-hand corner of the image which says “War in Ukraine”? That’s a Twitter “Topic” that the page’s algorithm has recommended to me without my having subscribed to it, where posts from The Kyiv Independent feature prominently. This Topic is being aggressively pushed on Twitter users around the world, showing up over and over again in their feed until they adjust their settings to remove it.

As Pedro Gonzales recently documented in Human Events, The Kyiv “Independent” was slapped together a few months ago with what the Committee to Protect Journalists called “an emergency grant from the European Endowment for Democracy.”

The European Endowment for Democracy is a spinoff of the US government-funded “NGO” National Endowment for Democracy, which according to its own co-founder was set up to do overtly what the CIA used to do covertly, namely orchestrate coups and manage narratives to advance US interests. A page on an NED website says that “All EU member states are members of EED’s Board of Governors, together with members of the European Parliament and civil society experts.”

So this is a media outlet funded by a government-run “NGO” being forcefully pushed in front of millions of western eyeballs by a major Silicon Valley corporation that people have come to rely on for getting information about the world. In the same way Silicon Valley facilitates government censorship by proxy, it also facilitates government propaganda by proxy.

The Globe and Mail reports that the Canadian government also put $200,000 toward Kyiv Independent’s funding. The outlet is being so loudly amplified by Twitter that not only has its Twitter account secured nearly two million followers since its creation in November, but one of its reporters (who calls the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion his “brothers in arms“) has gained a million followers since the start of the Russian invasion.

Do you see how sophisticated just that one tiny component of the US-centralized empire‘s propaganda campaign is? How many seemingly disparate and unrelated elements it has? Multiple countries, NGOs, an ostensibly independent social media platform, an ostensibly independent news outlet. It’s very difficult to see how any of it connects at all if you don’t know where to look. And almost nobody knows where to look.

This highly advanced perception management operation is happening all around the world about any issue the empire has a vested interest in. As anti-imperialist author and podcaster Justin Podur recently put it, “The US Empire is based on the mastery of storytelling. Making reality through propaganda.”

Truly, one of the most under-appreciated and overwhelmingly powerful forces on this earth is the US imperial propaganda machine. The ability to manipulate public thought, not just within the United States but across vast swaths of nations, has allowed it to manufacture international consensus for whatever agendas it wishes to advance in a way that eclipses the collective organizing power of official international bodies like the United Nations.

We’re seeing it today in the way unprecedented acts of economic warfare are being used to attack the economy of Russia with the goal of fomenting unrest and toppling Moscow. There was nothing inherent in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which called for this specific response from all the specific nations who have chosen to participate in it, but that’s what ended up happening, and because of the power of the imperial propaganda machine the public has gone right along with it, even as it sends their fuel and grocery bills through the roof.

A big fuss gets made about the power of the US war machine, despite the fact that it tends to fail at the rather important task of winning wars. This is partly because the empire often doesn’t benefit from those wars ending quickly and partly because it’s hard to win wars when your entire military juggernaut is built entirely around generating the maximum amount of profit possible.

Where the real fuss ought to be made is the truly jaw-dropping power of the US propaganda machine. So subtle and sophisticated that even relatively intelligent and well-informed people fail to see the strings that are pulling at their minds, but so powerful it shapes the world.

In the book Inventing Reality, published all the way back in 1986, Michael Parenti makes the following observation:

For many people an issue does not exist until it appears in the news media. How we view issues, indeed, what we even define as an issue or event, what we see and hear, and what we do not see and hear are greatly determined by those who control the communications world. Be it labor unions, peace protesters, the Soviet Union, uprisings in Latin America, elections, crime, poverty, or defense spending, few of us know of things except as they are depicted in the news.

 

Even when we don’t believe what the media say, we are still hearing or reading their viewpoints rather than some other. They are still setting the agenda, defining what it is we must believe or disbelieve, accept or reject. The media exert a subtle, persistent influence in defining the scope of respectable political discourse, channeling public attention in directions that are essentially supportive of the existing politico-economic system.

This was long before Twitter, before Google, before Mark Zuckerberg, before Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act allowing for news media to be bought up and consolidated under just a few oligarchic megacorporations. And yet the exact same dynamic we see before us today was already in play, even back then. It’s just gotten a lot more complex.

You know what’s funny about this mad push to censor speech in the name of fighting “Russian propaganda” is that the people who are pushing it are indirectly admitting to a very important truth that they normally try not to draw too much attention to: the fact that it’s very possible to use media to manipulate the way people think, act, and vote at mass scale. The part that they don’t admit is that they themselves are far and away the very worst offenders in that area.

The status quo worldview requires two entirely contradictory positions to be held simultaneously: that Russian propaganda has a corrupting influence on public thought, but that orders of magnitude more wealthy and powerful oligarchic media institutions do not.

This is not sustainable. People are already struggling to keep their heads above water with the constant white-noise torrent of psychological abuse they’re being subjected to day after day. We’re on our way to finding out just how much mass-scale psychological manipulation the human brain can tolerate before it snaps if we don’t find some way to change our collective relationship with mental narrative first.

Or who knows? Maybe a healthy relationship with mental narrative lies on the other side of that snap.

__________________________

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64 responses to “People Overestimate The US War Machine And Underestimate The US Propaganda Machine”

  1. I’ve just started calling it ‘The Goebbels Machine’.

  2. The mock Non-Governmental Organizations are sometimes written as “NGOs” or even N”G”Os to indicate that they are fake or not what they seem. I’m not sure which variation I like better.

    Best wishes and keep up the great work. I especially liked the clarity you brought to bear on military spending by comparing it to health care spending; in a private system, both are organized primarily around making profits and, therefore, quick and “successful” wars and/or improved public health are not the key priority.

  3. Well, it’s a fine thing for me that I generally IGNORE the narratives that are PUSHED at me in that fashion (suggestions at the right of my profile feed NEVER what I’m interested in, and I have made more than one complaint about this, to no avail, of course). However, for those who don’t know about it, here is some helpful information > You can’t actually MAKE SOME those things disappear that they are pushing at you, but you CAN tell them you don’t want to see others. Just look for the three dots to the top right of each suggestion that has them (major news items that Twitter is pushing will not allow this, but the rest do), click on the three dots, and choose which option you want. If you do not wish to see the things pushed at you, choose “I am not interested in this.” If it is something sketchy/spammy, then choose the other option, “This is harmful or spam.” It will make that suggestion disappear, and will not show it to you again. But that only works on SOME of those suggestions, not all, so you can’t make it all go away, but you CAN ignore the rest of those you don’t care for. I do so ALL the TIME. =)

  4. Maybe CJ could write a paper asking the one question that nobody wants to go near.

    By what right and on whos authority –

    The US imposing sanctions, restrictions and bans on any person or country they dont like AND then get the EU, a couple of vassals such as Australia and the UK to impose these restrictions.

    Even when these actions are to the detriment of their own people.

    By what right? The US confiscating money from Venezuela, Iran, Afghanistan, to name a few.
    By what right do they invade other countries, list them and by the way, what happened to the gold reserves in Libya?
    By what right do they support insanity such as the war in Yemen.

    By what right does NATO invade and bomb countries – Kosovo, Libya, Afghanistan and more – by what authority.

    We know they spend billions on wars and nothing on peace, while the homeless numbers continue to grow in their own country. Why is war the only option?

    1. No one wants to admit the brutal (but most honest) answer to that question, Philip. The answer is very simple: Population control. Just one of the many reasons, but likely the main one. Have to control the population growth *somehow*, especially when humans get too far out of control and won’t stop breeding like rabbits, all the while consuming, polluting, putting such a strain on the very environment itself. I’m sorry to say, population control is an absolute necessity. I just don’t approve of their means (war). However, if humans won’t control their OWN population growth, then it will always come to war, because no one can ever seem to agree on anything anymore. At any rate, the short answer is just that: Population control, my friend. Our “beneficent rulers” have to find some way to justify the killing of millions/billions, and still make themselves *look* good (if they can ~ all in the name of “righteousness”, “truth”, and “democracy”, *hallelujah*!). And this is precisely how they do so. War, my friend, and the false “consent” generated for it by mainstream media’s propagandized manipulation of the masses. The real problem is that the poorest and most vulnerable people are the ones who suffer and lose the most. And anyone they don’t like and who doesn’t go along with the program and toe the line is fair game too, believe that. If you speak out and say TOO much the WRONG way, they WILL silence you. Welcome to the New World Order. But hey, don’t fret. This Beast can only suffocate and implode under it’s own weight, it cannot sustain itself, it must and WILL fail. It’s just a shame that mass destruction may take place among all nations before it finally does.

      1. If your theory is correct then it would explain the Vaccine hoax

        1. You mean this tiresome “plandemic” which they refuse to allow to come to an end and just be over? Yep, it explains that too. 😉

    2. By the right of threatening other people essentially, with nuclear weapons.
      Its always war bcs its the only thing the US still manufactures and that’s what supports the value of the USD, which is fiat money. Its only money bcs government says so.

  5. I bet Putin and his buddies are stamping their feet an whistling after reading the garbage you spew. Carlin, if you don’t like living in a free society why don’t you go to Russia. You can hang out with your paymasters in the Kremlin.
    I wonder how much Putin is paying you?

    1. I’m sorry to have to be the one to bring this to your attention, but nobody on any “side” of this issue has a clue that we are ALL being manipulated by ALL the major “world powers”, and that INCLUDES BOTH Russia AND the USA. NEITHER of these EMPIRES are our FRIENDS. If you think that America is so “great”, and you think Uncle Joe OR Trump ever gave a SHIT about you, you are naive. You have much to learn, and you can start by understanding that this is ALL part of the GAMES that they continually play ~ that ALL rulers have played since the FIRST “king” was ever crowned. Anyone who does not know that, knows NOTHING, and is nothing but an ignorant little pawn, too easily manipulated, and just SPEWING the filth they are fed daily by mainstream mass media. Putin AND Uncle Joe are BOTH giddy at all the inanity everyone here SPEWS back and forth at each other, because THIS is how ALL the major “powers” around the globe control the masses in general. And here YOU are HELPING them do it, that’s so cute ~ NOT. You clearly don’t see it, but you are blindly playing into BOTH of their hands, and HELPING to promote EVERYTHING that Americans CLAIM to be against, and you don’t even RECOGNIZE the fact, because they SNEAK it all by you, exactly like this. This is exactly how it is done, by keeping everyone at each others’ throats over petty BULLSHIT, and playing each faction against each other, all the time, all the while getting FAT off the proceeds. THIS is what makes the world gears keep turning, and you haven’t LEARNED that yet? Wow, you really ARE naive, aren’t you? Vladimir Putin AND Uncle Joe are BOTH laughing at YOU, buddy, BOTH getting fat and sassy off of YOUR blind ignorance, and that of countless others just like you (so easily led), and YOUR eagerness to promote WAR by supporting “no fly zones” and sanctions that are SURE to cause more conflict, because it only hurts the Russian citizens, and NOT Putin himself or his rich oligarchs. How do you not KNOW any of this? If you don’t know any of that, then you are one of the braindead obedient warmongering little “sheeple”, and you still have a very great deal to learn about the world, grasshopper. You plainly refuse to SEE how your own government PUSHED it all to this point. You refuse to SEE how your own government now PROFITS from the suffering of the Ukrainian people, and how much MORE they are still GOING to profit from all of this madness in the future (that is, if we don’t NUKE and blow ourselves up first). If you can’t see any of this, you are ignorant. No one is defending RUSSIA here. Putin is NOT our friend. NO one here is saying that he is, but apparently you are too blind and brainwashed to GRASP the plain and simple FACT that >>> NEITHER is Uncle Joe. NONE of these governments or rulers or their systems are your FRIENDS. They are ALL playing GAMES with the LIVES of the CITIZENS in their countries, and as for the good ol’ USofA, they DON’T give a blue FUCK about Ukraine or it’s people, they are keeping their eye on the ball, playing the game, and using YOU as a pawn in their game, because you are all to willing to go there, without any attempt to scrutinize the EVILS of your OWN government that FAR SURPASS ANYTHING Putin IS doing or has EVER done. When you actually UNDERSTAND that, and WHY, on a gut-deep and visceral level, then come back and chat some more. Haha! As long as you’re picking a side, you’re plainly one of the easily manipulated little sheeple milling about in the dark ~ “lost in the universe without a clue” as a friend of mine once used to say, all too apt a phrase, that, I just had to share. Have a nice day. =)

      1. Paul Rackemann Avatar
        Paul Rackemann

        I don’t think you need to argue that all the people in all the governments of the world are equally bad, or that they are all working together. I think it is the nature of government that it is and always must be made up essentially of soldiers, who live by force, and priests, who live by deception.
        In the old days the soldiers were the nobles, and the priests were, literally, priests of the Church. Today the soldiers are in the armed forces and the police. The ones in the armed forces are (usually) trained to fight the soldiers of other governments, and the ones in the police are trained to fight and control more-or-less helpless civilians.
        The priests today include all those professionals who lie by deceiving and corrupting the public. I won’t list them on this occasion.
        The longer a social order stays stable, I think, the more corrupt the soldiers and the priests tend to become. We have come out of a relatively good period in the last couple of hundred years because the old religion (Christianity) died, and it took time for the new religion (education, which people still think is the same thing as knowledge) to take hold. Today, knowledge is becoming less important and sycophancy more important in education with every passing year. The journalists too are now centrally controlled, as I understand it. Ask Julian Assange how many of them have stood up for him, or for anything apart from their salaries.
        The soldiers are certainly very much in love with their high-tech weapons, and do like killing people, but they aren’t as bad morally as the priests. Sometimes when things get very bad, they actually shoot some priests and clean things up a bit. I think this is actually our best hope. It is very much a hit-and-miss thing, though. If the officer corps have stupid ideas, a coup can actually make things worse.
        Democracy as we know it is a propaganda device used by the priests to make us think that what happens to us is our own fault.
        I know you can say all you (“Wind”) have said, and feel that it is true. But it’s emotion. We need to understand the mechanics, just as Darwin advanced knowledge by pointing out the mechanics of biological evolution.

        1. I understand and agree with all you have said. I don’t think what you said disagrees with what I said, I think it just reinforces it and points out other things as well. Overall, agreed. But the bottom line is that none of these empires/governments or their current mascots/talking heads/priests/politicians are our friends. NONE of them. And I don’t think anyone here is taking up for Putin, quite the opposite. The point that everyone here is trying to get across is what a HUGE role the United States itself has played in egging Putin ON in Ukraine. It’s a fact that cannot be denied, and the US is going to profit from this horrific situation either way, that’s the sickest thing of all. I just want my own fellow citizens to wake up to the fact and stop supporting the madness. Have a great week. Namaste & Blessed Be. =)

          1. Paul Rackemann Avatar
            Paul Rackemann

            Thanks for that. Btw, there is a typo in my third paragraph above. It should have read, “all those professionals who live by deceiving..” etc.
            I take it your fellow citizens are Americans. Mine are Australians, but some of us tend to think of ourselves as part of the American empire.

            1. Yep, mine are American, but I feel what you say. Peace!

    2. how much do you think it’s worth?

    3. Omigod, that tired-ass line has been brought out of mothballs! This is what people said if one thought bombing Vietnamese peasants was not an admirable act. Only you didn’t spell it correctly:

      Whynt-cha go over to Rooooo-sha?

      I don’t know where you live, Nigel, but my family has unfortunately been in the U.S. with the last immigrants arriving in the 1750s. And that old paymaster line; I’m sure Caitlin wishes someone would pay her big-time for writing, but you make the mistake of thinking the Kremlin has endless $$$$$$ when it’s the U.S. that has the endless $$$$$$ to pay people to publish propaganda.

      You are a bloody idiot getting paid to be a bot.

  6. I only know about the Australian military, particularly the Army. What is the point of a professional military?
    In Australia the Army exists solely to train civilians to fight wars. The overwhelming majority of our wars have been fought by civilians. Consider this… the only two wars fought by professional soldiers have been losses. Iraq and Afghanistan. Vietnam was a loss too but for different reasons.
    In the Army you have a Major and upward ranks to Lt. General to every 11 soldiers. We have the most lopsided Officer/other ranks ratio in the world. It is more akin to a third world military nepotism club.
    The old adage “Officers have careers, other ranks have jobs” is a truism.
    Among officers intelligence is not a priority – advancement and career are the priorities. And the bucket of cash at the end of it – and the chance of a second career in the public sector.
    War fighting is done by only a small coterie of other ranks. This can be seen by the ‘Sgt Schultz’ dogma of denial of control over a small section of Special Forces. “I know nothing”! Connection to command of wayward troops is a career ender. So you have a deliberate disconnect of command. Inside the wire is the domain of the careerists and outside the wire is the domain of the workers. Notice how all the war crime inquiries are on ‘other ranks’ and not officers?
    Despite all the money thrown at the military, ‘we’ are incapable of fielding and supporting a battalion sized group in any conflict overseas. Australia has no ‘natural’ enemies, not even terrorists. And those we choose to be an enemy quite often defeat us. Or we are self defeated by tanks we can’t use. Aircraft that can’t get to the end of a runway without refuelling, helicopters that are riddled with defects, subs on the never-never, aircraft carriers without planes, trucks without brakes – the list is endless.
    Our best policy would be to retreat into Mother Australia and wait for the Wet.

  7. I’m not familiar with the website, but this is what they reported a couple of days ago:
    .

    ‘War could have been avoided’: South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa Blames NATO For Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
    .
    Holding NATO responsible for the war in Ukraine, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he would resist calls to condemn Russia for invading its neighbour
    .

    Holding NATO responsible for the war in Ukraine, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday said he would resist calls to condemn Russia for invading its neighbour. Speaking in parliament, he said the war, which has entered its 4th week, could have been avoided if NATO hadn’t expanded eastward.
    .

    “The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region,” Ramaphosa said, a view also maintained by Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
    .

    https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/russia-ukraine-crisis/south-africas-president-cyril-ramaphosa-blames-nato-for-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-articleshow.html
    .

    NB Just did a quick search, and it’s been reported on Fox News and Al Jazeera AND Reuters, but most of the MSM (in US and UK etc) appear to be keeping MUM about it. I wonder why?

  8. History is an endless source of philosophy and my own favorite propaganda stunt, long before Twitter and Facebook, I owe to Emperor Constantine.
    In those days, Christians had been marginal freaks for three hundred years, building a few dioceses under the authority of bishops with scarce underground followings of weirdos constituting a myriad of different currents and creeds.
    Rome had had several official gods and the last one standing was Sol Invictus, meant to unify all the Sun worshipping people of the Empire, starting with the Egyptians.
    The Christians were tolerated but compelled to sacrifice to Roman gods or face imprisonment and execution, a law however rarely enforced until Diocletian tightened the noose in 303, particularly in the east (Syria, Palestine) where the Christians came from.
    For ten years, Christians were persecuted, tortured and martyred by bulls and lions in the theatres (the Twitter ban of the times) for the enjoyment of the straights. Then came Emperor Constantine who reversed the whole shebang, having opted to promote Christianity for various political reasons, like wanting to move the capital of the Empire to the east in what would become for over a millennium Constantinople and there were a lot of Christians there. In 325, he summoned the First Council of Nicaea where the bishops were invited to unify all currents into one single credo with canonic dogmas and laws. Out of hundreds of gospels, which had become a literary genre in the past three hundred years by people who had never known Jesus, they selected four, two of which were plagiarisms of the first one and a fourth by a guy obviously deranged from Patmos called John who came up with the psychedelic notion of the Apocalypse. They probably figured they could always use that kind of fear-porn to goad people along.
    These gospels were written over thirty years after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus that none of these authors (or any historical figure for that matter) had ever met and there’s objectively no way to find anymore veracity in that mythology than in Alice in Wonderland. But never mind! A final version got the seal of approval of the emperor and this was from now on what people had to believe. The bishops who still had in their flesh the marks of the tortures of Diocletian unleashed the same savagery onto the previous worshippers of Roman gods now called “pagans” and tortured, imprisoned and executed the ones who refused to believe that Jesus walked on water and Anthony Fauci was God.
    Now that was propaganda for you! With people toeing the line scrupulously, singing in unison idiotic songs in churches and going on pilgrimages even to this day because of the gaslighting of a small unhinged minority turned into an art form through the ages by clerical and secular politicians.
    Constantine was only baptized on his death bed fifteen years later after boiling his wife to death in her bath and executing his son, like all good Christians do.

    1. Later on, it was some of the first Popes in Rome who called for Crusades. And the primary motivation was to rob more cultured, educated and wealthy (due to trade) people in the Middle East. For example, at that time Europeans did not even bathe.
      Still later on, the Protestants objected to Catholicism precisely because the Catholic Pope were corrupt, from the very first one.
      IMO Bush’s bombings of Iraq destroyed the cradle of our modern civilization, and basically means the end of this civilization.
      The Western powers were not able to offer their own civilization to replace the one that originated in Mesopotamia. This is why all we have is endless wars, we are being ruled by wolves in the sheep’s clothing.
      No wonder they hate the actual wolves so much that they made them go extinct everywhere they set own foot.

  9. The Rothschilds own and control everything !

    The Media – the Courts – the Hague – the World Court – everything !

    Because they own the $US and the EURO they can do whatever they like !

    ” Give me control of a nations money and I care not who makes the laws ” – Meyer Rothschild

    The reason the Ukraine propaganda is so intense is because it is a massive assualt on the Rothschilds power !

    The BRI won’t require the Rothschilds Banking Cartel !

    1. I explained to my child today that infinite supply of (paper) money means money approaching zero value.
      It is about time the Rothschilds learned this valuable math lesson, like many greedy people before them had to learn, usually the hard way.
      They cannot ever possibly get enough military men and weapons to prop up their greedy money press.
      So, it is either nuclear MAD ending, or the crashing of modern financial USD system.
      Since these people obviously cannot stop themselves, the bust is unavoidable.

  10. Amorality and Realpolitik
    “Inter arma enim silent leges is a Latin phrase that literally means… For among arms, the laws are silent… but is more popularly rendered as in times of war, the law falls silent.”
    When was America ever, NOT at war? From the aforementioned perspective then, for the U.S., there is no law that is not what we say it is, at any particular given moment.
    Ergo, Russia’s intrusion, incursion, invasion, ‘special operation’ (call it what you will), into Ukraine’s internal affairs, IS illegal, and being that the U.S. sees itself as the unassailable hegemon sheepherder, the Western flock obeys – is coerced, to follow its lead into the “valley of death” abyss.
    When individuals die, those who knew the person, tend to grieve the loss, unless the person was regarded as a monster. On the earthly plane, however, all persons who die are relieved of any and all of life’s encumbrances and obligations, to self, and others, whether they were saints or sinners. The person is, thereafter, extinct; but a memory to those who live on. And so, it goes!
    Historically, the notion that ‘man’ procreates, in order to leave her/his legacy, is delusional from the get-go. If it is not delusional, then what it is, is self-serving ego. Altruism is an invention, a derivative figment of the intuitively creative, though at times delusional imagination of the powerful, and not necessarily substantively, of the deeper, more conscious, critically thinking aspects of mind.
    Such is the blind-faith perceptual belief, in all matter’s human, of the notion of American exceptionalism: “The term carries the implication, whether or not specified, that the referent is superior in some way” … “We can do no wrong!”
    Kind of like a “mass formation psychosis.” At present America is in an acute phase of this psychological affliction, with the resultant state of hypnosis in the present moment; owing to the successful domination of the communities’ mind by the highly effective implementation of the current propaganda narrative.
    Fact or Fallacy
    [America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.]

    —JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

    Was he correct, or simply prescient?

    1. America stopped calling wars wars because wars have rules. They are now armed conflicts and have no rules at all (except for foreigners). For veterans benefit purposes, America has been in “armed conflict” with no signs of stopping since 1990.

  11. Paul Rackemann Avatar
    Paul Rackemann

    Caitlin, thanks for this. I think it is pretty good. I usually learn something from the comments as well, but not this time. I don’t see why people try to be funny about something as serious as this.

    1. Humor is the politeness of despair.

  12. Keep your Australian propagandist Putin loving sack of shit opinion to yourself. All this bullshit you’re smearing on Ukraine is just a reflection of how unhinged the globalist alt right like your pathetic self have become. Suck a BLM dick you ignorant dickdaced moron

    1. you don’t have to read the column. just skip it, there’s no obligation.

    2. Lol. You dont know caitlin if you think shevis alt right. Yea, I know, the truth is very upsetting to you.

    3. Could you elaborate Chet?

      1. Sorry, Chet has just been taken away in a straitjacket.

  13. lots of people seem to think that economic ties will be restored when this is over.

    1. Probably it will be just the tip of the spear.

      Aussie Unauthorized Thoughts Meeting – The Censor Awakens

      Morrison – Bailiff, bring me the next alleged Russian asset
      Bailiff – Right away your excellency.
      Morrison – There you go, Ms Kate Bomb.
      Bailiff – Here is she.
      Kate – What the fuck am I doing here?
      Morrison – On the 3rd March you are accused of publishing Russian propaganda spreading misinformation. How do you plead, Ms Bomb?
      Kate – Fuck if I know what this is about.
      Morrison – They say you furiously, write lines of non authorized thoughts stirring up serious feelings of hate towards our democratic penal colony, hã,.., I mean, our democratic Australian government. Not enough you still sit for several hours straight in front of your electronic device used to write hateful stuff to exchange national security intel with Russians. Not enough, our anonymous sources say that seconds before publishing what can be considered the end of our Australian outbacks, a bolt of lightning strikes from your chair to the sky, taking out the electricity of all your neighbors. Moments later, the power is restored. What do you have to say in your defense, Ms Bomb, huh? huh? huh?
      Kate – Are you serious?
      Morrison – Ms Bomb, I’m straight as a die and completely in-corruptable. I won’t stand for any nonsense and I know all your tricks. I read all your stuff since the beginning. I’m a Bomb’s expert.
      Kate – Since you put this way… Lemme answer your question with another question. If I put a dollar in a vending machine, and a Coke comes out, does the Coke belong to me or the machine?
      Morrison – It’s mine of course. Who else would be the owner? Are you toying with me?
      Kate – Not at all. But. now it’s that part where my lawyer shows up saving the day.
      Morrison – I interpret the Constitution the way I read it.
      Kate – I interpret the Constitution the way it’s written.
      Morrison – The Constitution isn’t anything, until me and my American partners interpret it.

    2. They are in for a rude awakening.

  14. I belong to a few zoom based clubs where I interact with people outside my regular circle of friends. Have met people in them whom I respect as intelligent and good hearted. Now I am seeing the mass media turn them into Russia hating, war loving zombies. It is ghastly.

    1. Tragic, unfortunately for your friends but understandable from Boris Johnson tailor-made perspective as a former journalist who today 03/20/2022 said the Ukrainian war can be compared with the Brexit. My balls bursted right off the bat while my gastrointestinal tract became flat sending a strong message to Westminster:
      “So, another fine mess PM Johnson? Well, lemme get straight what you said. Of course, not considering your ridiculous comparison about the Brexit and the Ukrainian war. Are you really explicitly implying the Brexit was the only good reason for the UK to not become a part of the European Union back in the day because somehow you already had the Ukrainian war coming for you as a part of the European Union?”

  15. Klaus von Berlin Avatar
    Klaus von Berlin

    I strongly recommend reading M.PARENTI .to get a much firmer grip on theory and patterns Caitlyn got it right and Parenti both fill in the gaps Chomsky leaves undiscussed , primaly the class interest , including the class pattern to destruction inflicted on countries that get attacked and / or destroyed by western imperial powers .A striking example is Yugoslavia with a fairly high economic growth rate,free medical care.March -June 1999 came eleven weeks of round -the-clock us aerial attacks leaving Yugoslav economy in ruins.Private corporate sites were spared. the bombs fell on state -owned or worker-controlled factories , what amounted to privatization be bombing.

    1. Blessthebeasts Avatar
      Blessthebeasts

      Can we please leave Chomsky out of the conversation.

  16. zbigniew dzwonkowski Avatar
    zbigniew dzwonkowski

    Now President Putin fights the accumulated western hypocrisy which never wins…

  17. Ironic that the US has become far far better at propaganda than Russia, or the former Soviet Union, ever was. Yet the US acts as if everything the Russians say is propaganda, when the reverse is usually true. It is the claim a weak person makes when they know their own argument or position won’t bear scrutiny.
    Anyway, the Russians have no need of it anymore – they aren’t trying to hijack the world’s perception of reality or convert anyone to their ideology.

  18. ” … it’s hard to win wars when your entire military juggernaut is built entirely around generating the maximum amount of profit possible.”
    Exactly. “Butt hurt” is a phrase that has been popping up on the other side. They know the upper echelon of the US military is watching this operation with envious eyes, because not only will they never get to participate in anything like it, even worse, the machinery at their command is incapable of attempting anything remotely resembling it.
    I can’t stress this enough, professional soldiers are not in it to practice, practice, practice, they’re are in it to test their skills, in a real game, against a peer rival, and three-quarters of the officer corps of the US military machine are now destined to sit it out on the sidelines until retirement, the moment they graduate from their academies.
    That said, US combined air power; no nukes now, Marquis de Queesbury rules only, an agreement to fight like gentleman to the death; is a whole different ballgame. Forget combined arms operations with peashooters. Forget boots on the ground, armored columns sweeping around enemy flanks, deep penetrations, pincers movements. Who gives a flying fuck if half dozen carriers get sunk if they can even get to within range of battlefield, US air power doesn’t give a rat’s ass about any of that surface bullshit, if enough American pilots prove willing to fight and die for Ukraine, and American for-profit armories can provide the necessary missiles on time to see this to the end, then yes, victory is achievable.
    US combine air power will establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine, at tremendous cost, but if they have enough left to finish the job, then it will be hunting rabbits time. And if those Russian columns that are right now rolling and stalling and suffering logistical difficulties with near impunity all over this battlezone, think they can hide, think again, US air power will kill them all and anyone else that happens to be in the neighborhood.
    Will the Russian Federation, should they lose this coming airbattle, accept their death like gentleman? Well, that is question that may concern all life forms now, isn’t it?
    Same holds true the other way, of course. What would happen in this modern, completely untested battlespace, American and Nato pilots find they are flying nothing more than one way missions, the technological edge at this moment in the history of warfare, has shifted, as has happened so many times in the past.
    In depth surface to air proves to be a 21st century phalanx that cannot be overcome.
    What then America the Beautiful?

    1. zbigniew dzwonkowski Avatar
      zbigniew dzwonkowski

      Then… Could you pass the humanitarian message to all Ukrainian soldiers as follow, “Rest in peace in your sleeping bags” ?

    2. You know Ms. Johnstone, I don’t know jackdiddly about this conventional war shit. I kept a casual eye on developments over the years and now because I did, I feel like I’m honored bound to attempt to relay whatever information I’ve aquired on the subject, little as it is, because so, so many, including folk that are one or two heartbeats away from being President, are fucking clueless.
      Two examples of my lack of warnerd qualifications. One, I do know this Ukraine business will be all about ranges. What are the various ranges of the missiles involved. Now the B-52 is no longer a bomber. Slim Pickens doesn’t drop out of the bombay, he rides a missile in off the wing, or from a missile-rack that auto extends from the bombay. Today’s B-52 is stand-off weapons’ system. It flies to designated “safe” quantrant in the sky, fires its payload, and returns to base.
      Can our 75 B-52s simply lay waste to eastern Europe, along with all those S-400s, S-500s, Pansirs, and any other surfact to air the Russians have, from standoff ranges, using only conventional munitions? Are the Americans in a postion of total dominance here, if the conventional plays out to let’s say, Level 9? I have no fucking clue.
      Which means, if I want to know what is really going on here, I need to do a deeper dive into this shit than I have already, which is the last thing I want to do.
      Two, I know this, if conventional war breaks out between the US and China and it reaches Level 9, then everything becomes irrelevant but the Three Gorges Damn.* Can it withstand direct convential strikes? Thermobombarics detonating in the reservoir just behind the damn? China claims it can, because they have to, but that damn is toast and both sides know it if the Americans are willing to sacrifice it all to go get it.
      Are these the type of reasons the US thinks it slap “near” peer nations like China around despite the fact that China holds all the cards at this moment in history but one? They have an achilles heel smack dab in the middle of their country, they are no longer a viable nation if the damn blows, and the Americans know it, and this gives them what they believe to be, ultimate leverage?
      And isn’t this all but sheer fucking madness, that I, who have studied nuclear war my entire life; which is to say, I’ve put about 2 or 300 hours in, at most; am fully aware that Level 9 doesn’t exist, it will get by-passed, because once the escalation hits a Level way below that one, Level 3, Level 4, who fucking cares, it will skip to Level 10 and game over, but for some reason I feel forced to consider the “technical aspects” of Level fucking 9 because people way more qualified than me simply won’t?
      *The first time I read about it, in the 80s probably (doesn’t matter), my first thought was, what are they doing? Do they understand that a damn of such enormity will be labeled ((1)) in both the conventional and nuclear target packages in the Pentagon?

      1. Fucking insanity that I am honored bound as American to link to this network yet again.
        The bar is low of course, at the zero bound actually, but still, FoxNews continues to impress (?), because they alone seem willling to allow a couple of ounces of objective reality to be injected into this FUBAR narrative nearly everyday.
        And yes, a no fly thingy dingy is all about ranges, Madam Speaker.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW8JHomRWyw
        It must be in my DNA or something, but I simply refuse to believe there is no American inside the Beltway Complex operating on a level above kindergarten.
        It must be that we have our own Grand PuppetMaster pulling all the strings, and this all Sun Tzu-sian deception.
        “When you are brilliant, appear imbecilic.”

        1. My Algo keeps feeding me Tube videos of Russian vloggers explaining what life is like under santions. This number five now. A impressive young women, truth be told, on the effects of sanctions on her business, inflantion, new realities, on being a “Putin Puppet” etc…
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4EA8VSZdZ8
          Sanctions are causing deep, deep pain over there, that is clear, but it also clear, to me at least as I watch these vids, that sanctions are not working quite they were intended.

          1. russian-speaking refugees from mariupol who chose to flee to russia, are considered to have been ‘deported’ to russia by the mariupol city counsel.
            ‘westerners’ are really bad people, not all, but most, really.

      2. i am a cold war survivor.

        been a while since i did more than meditate on the ‘logic’ (schelling was tech advisor to failsafe) of nuclear crises.

        but….. last i remember: no war game where someone used a tac nuke ended in less than total mad!

        and when the dolts cheer about them running out of 106mm arty rounds the russians may take out the atomic arty…..

        plenty of these sitting around the bunkers somewhere.

        the reason they have no exterminated the nazis in mariupol is the nazis are hiding in the shelters….

    3. Some long to return to warrior days,
      But our new weapons, if now deployed,
      Will surely see us all destroyed,
      In the fires of modern frays.

    4. Never mind the “War Machine.” The entire US militaryfinancialmedicalindustrialmediaretirement complex is based on profit maximization. That’s why the entire US economy is being turned to trash, while we all get to watch and see how well the ‘Visible Classes” are doing. Until the end of the program…

      And the Visible Classes themselves seem to have no idea what is going on. However obvious it may seem to those on the outside mainstream echo chamber.

  19. A simpler and more obvious conclusion is that the US government is the real operator of Twitter, Facebook, Google etc.

    1. Johnny Conspiranoid Avatar
      Johnny Conspiranoid

      Yes, but if it said that on the masthead of every media it wouldn’t work. The ‘independance’ is part of the propaganda.
      As group living animals we are instinctively programmed to think like the group concensus. In civilised context we asses the group concensus by looking at the media. That the media looks like a bunch of independant actors reinforcess the impression of concensus.

    2. thorsjackhammer Avatar
      thorsjackhammer

      Almost, try the WESTERN ruling elite are the real operators. The ‘hidden in plain sight’ actual heads of the multinational corporations, controlling their front-men from the safety of shadows.

  20. When the MSM controls the outcome of the narrative surreal stuff like this one below is what happens. All these former UK Prime Ministers should be facing at least a lifetime in jail if not a death row sentence bundle.

    Pot and Kettle: Former UK Prime Ministers Demand ‘War Crimes’ Trial for Putin.
    Gordon Brown and John Major both played key roles in taking Britain into wars of aggression in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan, where multiple war crimes were committed, but neither man has ever faced investigation.
    https://sputniknews.com/20220319/pot-and-kettle-former-uk-prime-ministers-demand-war-crimes-trial-for-putin-1094011004.html

    1. Dumb & Dumber CIA contractors presents
      “The rise of the US-UK First Order”

      Character. 1 – MSM
      Character 2 – US-UK empire
      Character 3 – Russia
      Character 4 – Monster

      Character 2 – The evil Putin is not Real. I created it.
      Character 1 – And we nourished this illusion incessantly repeating brutal, criminal, hospitals, schools, children associating it with Putin and Russia.
      Character 3 – Yet, there is nothing I can do to deflect the MSM alone. Therefore, I saw the illusion you created clearly harnessing power among the masses.
      Character 2- Are. you not afraid now?
      Character 3 – So it exists. Am I to fear?
      Character 1 – You should.
      Character 3 – Why?
      Character 1 – We will use this harnessed power and consent towards Zelensky to create fear, panic resulting in undying support for our cause which will bring up one century of wars plenty of profits for us.
      Character 2 – And quiet fear is a double edge strategy also helpful to silence the masses.
      Character 3 – The opposite is also true.
      Character 2 – How so?
      Character 3 – Foster the fear and it breeds anger. Where shall that anger go? Have you not learned from all your past mistakes?
      Character 1 – We are in control of it, you are not.
      Character 3 – Let me remind you something about your “control”, then.
      Character 2 – Go ahead.
      Character 3 – Please, allow me to introduce something from your past NATO Middle East false flag wars, 9/11 Controlled Demolition, NATO Belgrade bombing.
      Character 2 – What is this about?
      Character. 3 – Are you not aware about the answer yourself yet? Lemme show you, then. Bring it on!
      Character 1 – Oh my god!
      Character 2 – What… is…. this?
      Character 4 – Look at me and listen to my words carefully now. Will that anger really justify your end goal?
      Character 2 – Who are you?
      Character 4. – I am the one you turn the whole world upside down every time you scratch your itchy ass. Now, depending on your answer I shall decide what happens next.
      Character. 1 – which is exactly who…?
      Character 4 – Wrong answer. Time to die.

      1. Biden – Who are you monster?
        Monster – You still think I’m the one people are afraid of?
        American Congress – What else they would be afraid of?
        Evangelicals, Jews, Muslins, Orthodox and Catholics – You have no power in this land, you devil.
        Monster – Now, now. A president, a congress, a Supreme Court who are unable to alleviate people’s strife. Priests of fake gods who never hear their prayers. To the people, you are the only true devil, the monster, not me.
        Pope – How dare you covet my throne?
        Biden – Excuse me?
        Monster – Yet, you held a long list of incompetent presidents, representatives. and governors only worried about bribery and the next election.
        Biden – If you monster don’t know how. this. game is played you are in the wrong job!!!
        Pope – Shut up, you moron!!! I’ll stay here. You go and give the order to kill Zelensky or we. die if the truth goes out there in the masses.
        Monster – One step and I’ll crush your skull Brandon. No one is leaving this place.
        Pope – What now? Are you going to kill us all, you monster?
        Monster – No. I cannot deny to them a taste of vengeance. You have been getting away from all your crimes for a very long time. No. You will stay here till the bitter end. Surrounded and hopeless among the masses crushing your bones and meat.
        Psaki – I need to pee.
        Blinken – Me too.

        1. Dumb & Dumber CIA Contractors presents
          The Fall of the First Order

          The monster trapped in chained all evil leaders, priests, representatives, MSM owners, Military leaders, Industrial conglomerates.

          Monster – So, you could have given the order to save 600 thousand Ukrainian soldiers but you choose not to. You had to think first about your military suppliers, partners in crime and elections before anything else.
          Pentagon – What noise is this?
          Monster – You disappoint me brave warrior. Have you not been in the battlefield listening and feeling the ground under your. feet to shake when thousands of warriors are running towards your position?
          Pentagon – That’s not how we fight in this century.
          Monster – Good. Now you will have a taste of what looks like to run out of ammo, gasoline, bombs, missiles while you are overwhelmed surrounded by waves of furious warriors coming to have a piece of you.
          Biden – You stupid beast! Don’t you understand? The. world needs us. That’s our way of living in this world.
          Pope – I told you to shut up your fucking mouth, you pedophile!
          Biden – A pedophile, me? Look who is talking!
          Pope – Why you didn’t listen to me when I told you to not expand NATO? Now we are done, you stupid!
          People – Here we are, good monster. Why did you call us.
          Monster – These. are the ones I told you about. Do what you wish with them. I’m off. Bye.

  21. https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/worst-enemy?s=w

    Diana Johnstone looks in detail at what has shaped Russia’s national perception of war, including the death of Vladimir Putin’s older brother under Nazi siege, before Vlad the lad was born.

    For Washington, War Never Ends

    “War” to a Russian, happens in Russia. “War” is real and personal.

    She closes with this.

    The American war aim is not to spare Ukraine, but to ruin Russia. That takes time.
    The danger is that the Russians won’t be able to end this war, and the Americans will do all they can to keep it going. https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/16/diana-johnstone-for-washington-war-never-ends/

    “Young Global Leader” Zelensky has just signed into law the first steps of Schwab’s Great Reset. He announced he is introducing a Social Credit Application combining Universal Basic Income (UBI), a Digital Identity & a Vaccine Passport all within their Diia app. He also says that because so much money is coming into Ukraine as he has become an international celebrity, he has legalized cryptocurrencies in Ukraine. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/ukraine-adopts-wef-proposals/

    NATO Calls Up Hundreds Of Thousands Of Troops, Ready To Begin WW-III

    The pressure to start World War III is on. NATO now expects that there will be a major war with Russia and the confrontation may come even in a few weeks. The NATO Secretary-General announced an increased war alert for hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Stoltenberg issued a joint statement with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, stating that hundreds of thousands of NATO troops were placed on high alert along with 100,000 US troops.

    The problem with war is that BOTH sides lie and twist the facts to support their own agenda. They paint their adversary as evil to stir up the troops to go fight and risk their lives typically for fake stories and agendas. [examples of current war propaganda, using old archived pictures follow] https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/nato-calls-up-hundreds-of-thousands-of-troops-ready-to-begin-wwiii/

  22. “Two entirely contradictory positions to be held simultaneously “ is cognitive dissonance & has been pushed on us at warp speed for at least two years now. The objective is total capitulation to the ever changing narrative or psychological compartmentalism, leading to psychological disorders, such as narcissism or proto- psychopathic or sociopathic behaviour out of sheer crisis – level psychic self defence. Choose your mental refuge before it’s forced upon you.

    1. thorsjackhammer Avatar
      thorsjackhammer

      Government engineered ‘fake news’ and rapidly changing (and flipping) narratives, are to keep people in a state of confusion so that they are more likely to follow their ‘leaders’. Cognitive dissonance is ‘successfully’ deluding oneself that a shit situation is somehow beneficial, when the reality is that it’s truly shit.

    2. It was called “doubleplusgooddoublethink” by Orwell years before the psychocrats got their hands on it.

  23. Pew research center sent an update today that they find the US propaganda about Ukraine is working. I don’t repeat their % numbers here, because even the poll questions are designed to influence people before they give the answer.
    The folks in charge obviously understand how to sway public opinion and also how habits are formed, and like to monitor the success of their endeavor with Gallop, Pew polls etc.
    The polls must mean that the Empire cares for you or at least your opinion.
    As to how this propaganda is funded, it is funded by printing paper and then the MMT story.
    Almost legendary Charlie Munger said that it is safe to bet that over long term value of fiat money has to go to zero.
    Before the COVID and Biden admin, 70% of US Economy was based on consumer spending, the country did not produce much even then.
    When a country produces mostly lies in exchange for its printed paper money the value of such currency is very close to zero (if not for the oil trade and petro-dollar).

    1. An honest pollster is something of an oxymoron – which is why they got it wrong all the time. The polling usually goes like this (I hardly caricature):
      Question: out of Joe Biden and Kim Jong-un, who would you like to be the next president of the United States?
      Answer: Joe Biden 98% – Kim Jong-un 2% (half of them deaf and dumb and the other half mentally challenged).
      Poll reported in the newspapers: 98% of Americans would like Joe Biden for their next president.
      Troubles begin when the pollsters and the politicians pulling their strings read the newspapers and believe their own propaganda.

      1. Well, the support for Ukraine questions was 50% or less, but that did not stop the pollsters calling it the support instead of the opposition.

  24. The Russian FM said there are a lot of countries under heavy political pressure to keep a positive support to Ukraine. Most of them fear to suffer heavy economic sanctions, insurrections, coupe e’tat if not aligned with US-UK. It’s clear the fate of this evil US-Uk propaganda machine it’s aligned with the outcome in Ukraine and how the international community leadership will reacts to it. There are many fortunes being exchanged in the background of this war while the soldiers are there playing their unfortunate part as civilians casualties as well. The political-economic order is a hostage of the dollar centralized imperial order. The security framework of Europe will change and no matter what they will have to withdraw to the 1997 NATO borders. It’s a fact so certain as the non European troops will have to go back to their countries with ballistic missiles. The international leadership has no interest anymore in a US-UK unilateral order. Heads will roll out, long time forced allies will turn their backs to the US-UK in order to stay away from the constant threat of economic sanctions. I don’t give a shit anymore to the US-UK. I run out of patience in the hope one day they would explode the Pentagon and CIA in order to start over again in a more reasonable way but it’s not. gonna happen. They are incurable warmongers always profiting from tragedy, wars and genocide. May Russia, China and other countries to lead. us to a new world of international law where there will not exist room for US-UK first order.

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