Listen to a reading of this article:
❖
It’s so important that the public have no real say in US politics that the empire not only set up two oligarchic puppet parties which pretend to oppose each other, but also set up fake populist movements within each of those factions which pretend to be fighting the establishment within those parties.
It’s a very clever illusion that sucks up almost all real opposition. If you don’t fall for the first kayfabe conflict and realize the game is rigged for the powerful, you can still end up buying into the fake populist movements set up to oppose them. I fell for them both early on in this commentary gig. But after a while of watching what they do (as opposed to just listening to what they say) and seeing where they actually stand and fight or refuse to fight, you see it’s all an Inception-level fakery. The opposition is controlled, and so is the opposition to the opposition.
It’s like when you dream you’re waking up from a dream but you’re actually in another dream; you awaken from the liberals-vs-conservatives puppet show and then turn to the fake progressive Democrats or the bullshit MAGA camp as a solution, but you’re still asleep.
This all sounds like an awful lot of work to go through until you remember that an entire globe-spanning empire depends on the ability to prevent the American public from either (A) voting in a disruptive government or (B) fighting a revolution. So much power rides on their ability to do this.
❖
Ever since the school shooting in Texas we’ve been watching an entire country learn that it’s not actually cops’ job to save anyone or risk any danger and the only reason they assumed otherwise was because of movies and TV shows.
❖
Idea for an action movie: The Rock needs to rescue his kid from an elementary school where there’s an active shooter, but first he needs to fight his way through an army of cops trying to stop him.
❖
You end mass shootings in America by ceasing to have America serve as the hub of a globe-spanning empire that’s held together by violence and nonstop mass media psyops. It’s not impossible. It’s not even difficult. It’s just not an option anyone in charge would ever consider.
❖
I’m finding myself having less and less patience with people who think the US is an innocent little flower regarding the Ukraine war. It’s like, come on. Grow the fuck up.
❖
Friendly reminder that for a fraction of the cost of funding a world-threatening proxy war against Russia the US could simply have protected Zelensky from the neo-Nazi militias who were threatening to lynch him if he tried to make peace with Russia and prevented this entire war.
❖
The airhead mainstream narrative that Ukrainian forces have been destroying Russian troops and humiliating Putin in epic win after epic win has become unsustainable:
Russian troops are making steady progress in Ukraine’s east. That's sparking fears they could be poised for a bigger breakthrough, and leading to increasingly panicked calls from Kyiv for more powerful weapons https://t.co/TbneLP3ABF
— Bloomberg (@business) May 27, 2022
Ukraine says troops may retreat from eastern region as Russia advances https://t.co/Xw5oM8OIcZ pic.twitter.com/KcHSb59CN2
— Reuters World (@ReutersWorld) May 28, 2022
Ukrainian leaders project an image of military invulnerability against #Russia. But commanders offer a more realistic portrait of the war, where outgunned volunteers describe being abandoned by their military brass and facing certain death at the front. https://t.co/YLu9M28Cx8
— Sudarsan Raghavan (@raghavanreports) May 26, 2022
Another shout out to all you big brave sofa warriors who’ve been screaming that a negotiated peace settlement is unacceptable and helping the US empire throw Ukrainian lives into the gears of a stupid proxy war for US unipolar hegemony while you sit safe at home eating Doritos.
❖
If you’re more hawkish than Henry Kissinger, you’re too fucking hawkish.
❖
Whenever I try to talk about the risk of the Ukraine war escalating into a nuclear holocaust I get people telling me if that happens it will be Putin’s fault. Like that would make it okay somehow. Like that would somehow validate all the steps our leaders took to get us to that point.
Of all the intensely stupid ways team loyalty and partisanship can express itself, I really don’t think you could come up with one dumber than “Our nuclear brinkmanship isn’t a problem because it’ll be the other side who launches the first nuke” if you tried.
Even pretending it’s certain that Russia would be the one to initiate a nuclear exchange, would that thought actually comfort you when you feel the earth shake? Would you feel any better about the decisions which gave rise to that moment by telling yourself Putin started it? I mean if there’s any time when it doesn’t matter who “started it”, it’s surely when the “Mutual” and “Destruction” part of Mutually Assured Destruction goes into action? I think at that point all our dopey team sports cheering and booing pretty much goes out the window, no?
❖
Nowadays whenever there's an agenda that's of high value to the US empire there is a 100% chance you'll soon see shitlibs using woke-sounding jargon to promote it. pic.twitter.com/KD56cBI4wo
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 28, 2022
❖
Hollywood lies about what American journalists really do in the same way it lies about what American soldiers and police really do, and it has just as disruptive an effect on people’s perception of reality.
❖
People who accuse you of having Kremlin loyalties when you question or criticize the US empire are admitting that they don’t care whether statements are true or false, only whether they demonstrate loyalty to our rulers. That’s the lens through which they examine the world, and it’s pure brain poison. How can people think lucid thoughts and engage in lucid discourse about ideas and events when they are continuously measured not by how truthful they are but by what loyalties they appear to demonstrate? They cannot.
❖
Empire loyalists have exactly two arguments:
1. “That foreign leader my government dislikes is comparable to Adolf Hitler.”
2. “If you object to what my virtuous government has planned for that leader it means you love and support that leader.”
❖
I honestly don’t understand how anyone can stay abreast of the day-to-day depravity of the oligarchic empire without a daily practice geared toward inner peace. Things are so insane and confusing and only getting more so; you’ve got to have a regular discipline to form stability.
Meditation, self-enquiry, healing and energy practices, whatever gets you there, but surely you’ve got to have something before you can stare into the face of the beast continuously without going mad. I can’t imagine looking at this thing every day without any kind of a practice.
________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
35 responses to “Kayfabe Populism: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
Practice or none, the deluge is affecting you more than you guess. “Knowing” you were being fed feces would not make it okay. When it comes to being force fed misogyny, racism, hatred, and violence along with all the conformity, compliance, and submission training, it’s damn near impossible not to swallow.
White supremacist attitudes toward the African diaspora is a hallmark of current black academics and authors. Even their anti-racism diatribes are delivered from a powder white point of view. No girl child in this culture makes it to ten without a shuddering distaste for and fear of her own sexuality.
One in a million media consumers have the freakish ability to reject a message bombarded at them from every angle at top volume day after day. Most of us need to turn the crap off and start making regular visits to RealityLand.
Zen notwithstanding, I would not be sane ten days watching the awful stuff you people take for granted, and most of you struggle with it constantly. Stop swallowing; turn away.
It’s a good article except the part about use of nukes is a little dogmatic.
1) There’s a big difference between small tactical nukes and big strategic nukes.
2) The only reason all these small wars, with massive civilian casualties, are even possible is because of the hesitation to use tactical nukes.
3) AQ Khan in Pakistan made blueprints for a simple nuke available popularly, and created some stability as a result.
4) A basic nuke is high school science, and soon the public will probably learn that, despite the best efforts of governments.
5) Once bioweapons, including viruses, become popular, i.e., very soon, people will daydream about the time when they worried about nukes.
This moment in time reminds me of the climax of the movie War Games from 1983, where the AI Joshua is launching nuclear weapons at Russia because it can’t tell reality from a computer game. Everyone at NORAD is frantically trying to get control of the computer, but can’t. Then David gets Joshua to play tic-tac-toe against itself. The game displays on the giant screens at NORAD, one game after another ending in a draw, faster and faster, then the game Global Thermonuclear War displays on the giant screens, one game after another, faster and faster, everyone watching the screens flash by, helpless, just hoping the machine can learn the game is unwinnable before the real world nukes launch.
.
That’s what it feels like to me, watching the Internet now. Chatter, noises, images, faster and faster, only instead of the AI, it is we the peasant class that has something to learn, and 2 seconds to midnight to learn it.
.
War Games is still as relevant today, horrifyingly. Everything it warned about is an even bigger problem now.
Ukraine has been among one-of the biggest virtual money laundering countries (to Western imperial globalists through shell-game tech companies often with U.S./U.K./CA./DE./AU. government contracts) since the Soviet Union broke apart. The U.S. neocon movement makes a literal killing off-of outdated, outright death merchant Cold War-era propaganda to try to convince people the geo polemics of the world are stuck in circa 1974-or-something (to then excuse the sickening level of graft taken from the $800 BILLION, of what should still be called, Dept. of WAR BUDGET).
The entanglement America has with Israel (in a situation now entirely identical to the way the British were involved in that region during the 19th century) to serve as an “outpost of Empire” in Russia’s backyard (again, an outdated -but profitable- world view which goes back to the 1950s: of trying to quell the -then- wave of Arab Nationalism from going over to the Soviet side) IS A MAJOR FACTOR BEHIND WHAT IS DRIVING THIS CONSTANT DESTABILIZATION AGENDA. America is scared sh*tless that the notion of a multipolar world is the biggest threat to the Dollar being the global reserve currency (and, in that case: the actual “value” of the Dollar would have to sink-or-swim based on it being $30 TRILLION IN DEBT).
It’s nothing but one, giant, incestuous corrupt circle at the top of the U.S. clownshow which does not care at this juncture whom gets run over by it.
“It’s a very clever illusion that sucks up almost all real opposition. If you don’t fall for the first kayfabe conflict and realize the game is rigged for the powerful, you can still end up buying into the fake populist movements set up to oppose them. I fell for them both early on in this commentary gig. But after a while of watching what they do (as opposed to just listening to what they say) and seeing where they actually stand and fight or refuse to fight, you see it’s all an Inception-level fakery. The opposition is controlled, and so is the opposition to the opposition.”
Wise observation 🙂 I fell for the same thing early on and still do at times.
“I honestly don’t understand how anyone can stay abreast of the day-to-day depravity of the oligarchic empire without a daily practice geared toward inner peace. Things are so insane and confusing and only getting more so; you’ve got to have a regular discipline to form stability.
Meditation, self-enquiry, healing and energy practices, whatever gets you there, but surely you’ve got to have something before you can stare into the face of the beast continuously without going mad. I can’t imagine looking at this thing every day without any kind of a practice.”
Another great observation and wise advise. Have found myself going in/out of going madness and apathy over the last few years regarding this issue. Easy to get sucked into the suck if you don’t practice what you advise here.
The truth will piss you off well before it sets you free…
The way I see it after the U.S. Oligarchy just approved 40 billion for themselves & Ukraine is that
THEY ARE WAGING A PROXY WAR AGAINST RUSSIA USING UKRAINE
And when someone like Kissinger goes public saying they need to negotiate and Zelensky says F U to the west… THAT IS THEATER… meant to make you forget
THE U.S. OLIGARCHY IS WAGING A PROXY WAR IN UKRAINE
A War U.S. Citizens DO NOT SUPPORT… not that the Oligarchy gives a sh*t.
Something has changed in the last generation. That something is the internet. It has pulled the curtain back on the wizard of Oz. People are getting informed on the true intent of their governments. This is causing the rise of authoritative measures instead of free intercourse. Governments loathe freedom. Control must be maintained. Welcome to the new reality.
There were a lot of cops on the scene. some of the good guys with guns stopped some of the other good guys with guns from going to the aid of the children while the bad guy with a gun shot them.
For the longest time one of MY favourite sayings is: ‘wherever the US goes, shit is sure to follow’. It hasn’t failed yet. And now it also follows the own country. No gun laws will help until this sick mentality changes and this will take some generations.
As the late great Frank Zappa once said AMERICAN POLITICS IS THE ENTERTAINMENT WING OF THE AMERICAN MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX so as far as the present conflict in the Ukraine is concerned then no one should expect the establishment to be anything but the actors they always are ,both political and media, we should know by now .
Your Rock movie idea was as perfect as perfect can be.
And what about your country Catlin? The land of OZ? Just a victim of The USA right. OZ is more fucked up than the US. Maybe you should comment on how corrupt your leaders are….
Australia may have it’s problems but absolutely no western nation is as fucked up as America. You’re a nation of psychopaths..
If the US tells OZ to hop it hops. We run OZ. And the US does not have Covid open air prisons for people who refuse the Clot Shot. OZ is an offshore US controlled military base. Your country is supplying weapons to Ukraine too.
Australia may be corrupt but it is the US that is infecting the rest of the world with this sick mentality. The American way of life…yeah, but not for me.
Very true and Australia and Canada go along with just about everything that the USA demands of its “Friends”
I once asked my father when I was little “What would the world be like if superman really existed”? His answer (a world war 2 Vet) “It would be HELL we’d all have to live like Americans!”
When you slam somebody for their assumed opinions on something, you waste everyone’s time and show that you’re willing to let everyone know you’re ignorant. Caitlin’s written some wonderful pieces about how her country has been colonized by the US and she’s not in favor. I’d guess they still could be found if you took time to look for them. If you think she’s wrong about it at that point, show us where or stfu!
No Comment (it speaks for itself):
.
https://neilakellymakeup.com/fashion/world-news/2022/05/26/snake-island-ukraine-russian-warship-battle-map-fight-keep/
it speaks for itself as a sad dive into misinformation right? please tell me thats what you mean..Actual History of “snake island” in Russo-Ukrop war..Russian warship evacuates 60 ukrainian marines in opening days of hostilities . Zelensky declares them dead and gives all hero medal. .Still living Marines are transported to Crimea where they are permitted to contact thier famillies then” booked” as POW’s . .. Embarrassing “snake island shakedown ” story seems to be over. ACT 2.. “Return to snake island” .NATO geniuses plan and prepare raid on “snake island” after being apparently, being baited into doing so into it by a Russian intelligence operation..60 Ukrainian soldier and western PMC mercenaries are wiped out in the trap along with 6 Ukrainian Mi 8 helicopters , and 2 “Ukrainian navy” patrol boats (two other boats escape). Reports emerrge that London and Washington demand that Kiev forces “retrieve” “their people” from “sake island” …Zelnsky says..it was your idea YOU go get them….Russian drones observe 30 human body’s floating in the surf near the shore that wash up onto the beach..Videos of bodies are published on Pro-Russian telegram war-porn channel l. they are still there, presumably. We all hope this is the end of the “sanke island; story
FYI.. the actual lcorrect translation of the name “snake island” would be,”serpentine island” because of its. twisty “snakey” outline
Wow. That sounds like a made for tv movie starring John Wayne. However, I think they plagiarized the script from The Alamo.
Maybe americans get all their ideas from John Wayne movies..The sad reality of the May 8.-9 snake island wipeout was too retarded even for hollywood.
When I say it speaks for itself Markos, THAT’s precisely what it does, assuming that one can see it for the propaganda piece that it is, which I’m sure just about everyone who follows Caitlin WOULD do the moment they started reading it. I had Caitlin’s article prior to this one in mind……..
https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/think-much-smaller?s=w
Pepe Escobar looks at the Eurasian Economic Union meeting last week in Kyrgyzstan
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov keeps stressing that, “the West has declared total war against us, against the entire Russian world. Nobody even hides this now.” …
..The EAEU comprises five full members – Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia – yet 14 nations sent delegations to the forum, including China, Vietnam and Latin American nations...
..The crucial point is that by 2025 they have to harmonize their legislation concerning financial markets. And that’s directly connected to what the executive body of the EAEU, led by Sergey Glazyev, is working on, extensively: designing the lineaments of an alternative financial/economic system to what the West would rather coin as Bretton Woods 3...
..President Putin’s speech to the plenary session was quite revealing. To really appreciate the scope of what’s implied, it’s important to remember that the Greater Eurasian Partnership concept was presented by Putin in 2016 at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, focused on a “more extensive Eurasian partnership involving the Eurasian Economic Union” and including China, Pakistan, Iran and India.
Putin stressed how the drive for developing ties “within the framework of the Greater Eurasian Partnership” (…) “was not the political situation but global economic trends, because the centre of economic development is gradually – we are aware of this, and our businesspeople are aware of this – is gradually moving, continues to move into the Asia-Pacific Region.”
He added, “in the current international conditions when, unfortunately, traditional trade and economic links and supply chains are being disrupted”, the Greater Eurasian Partnership “is gaining a special meaning.”
Putin established a direct connection not only between the Greater Eurasian Partnership and EAEU members but also “BRICS members such as China and India”, “the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN and other organizations.” …
..Lavrov this week said that Argentina and Saudi Arabia want to join BRICS, whose next summer in China is being meticulously prepared. Not only that: Lavrov mentioned how quite a few Arab nations want to join the SCO. He was careful to describe this process of converging alliances as “not antagonistic”.
Putin for his part was careful to define the Greater Eurasian Partnership as “a big civilizational project. The main idea is to create a common space for equitable cooperation for regional organizations”, changing “the political and economic architecture on the entire continent.” …
..The Eurasian Economic Forum has shown once again that this high-speed – economic integration – train has already left the station. It’s quite enlightening to notice the sharp contrast with the endless doom and gloom afflicting a collective West prone to inflation, energy shortages, food shortages, fictional “narratives” and the defense of neo-Nazis under the banner of liberal “democracy”. (It’s Globo-Cap what’s making “the west” so deathly ill, sez I.)
https://thesaker.is/the-eurasian-economic-union-steps-up/
“Hollywood lies about what American journalists really do in the same way it lies about what American soldiers and police really do, and it has just as disruptive an effect on people’s perception of reality”.
Silicon Valley too! I read an interview of Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal the other day about free speech during the Elon Musk exchange. Agrawal explained that Twitter was not favourable to free speech because they want to protect vulnerable minorities. Like for instance, he said in part, the free speech “absolutists”, as Musk describes himself, think that you can tweet anything about trans people in the name of freedom of speech whereas the Twitter folks think you have to impose censorship to filter out stuff that might hurt these guys’ feelings.
In spite of being a free speech absolutist myself, I thought this was a commendable attitude. I’ve met some very nice trans people in my life and I certainly wouldn’t like their feelings to be hurt.
This helped me understand a lot about Twitter’s censorship and how thoughtful it really is. Like why did Twitter ban the New York Post, two weeks before the election, after it published damning revelations about Hunter Biden’s laptop. These revelations were easily verifiable – and later easily verified – if you took the letter of the usual intelligence liars who said it looked like Russian disinformation for what it was, an in your face cheap (they didn’t even claim they had evidence to support their accusation) gaslighting attempt.
Well, it is clear now, thanks to Parag Agrawal, that Twitter banned the New York Post to protect Hunter Biden who is a vulnerable minority in his own right – a minority of one with a severe addiction to drugs and hard cash – or the other way round. Couldn’t get much more vulnerable than that! I wish they’d explained it at the time!
Why did Twitter ban Dr Robert Malone, an expert on mRNA vaccines as well as a whole bunch of like-minded medical luminaries after they said stuff colliding with the financial interests of Big Pharma?
To protect the vaccine honchos, another vulnerable minority! Let their bottom line take a dive and here’s their new yacht going down the drain!
Why did Twitter ban the sitting president of the United States without due process and a legal reason – which would have had to be a very good reason too because the guy, whether you like him or not, had been elected by half the nation’s voters contrary to the Twitter mob?
To protect Joe Biden who is definitely an increasingly vulnerable minority bordering on the endangered species!
If Twitter didn’t feel that responsibility to protect minorities (like trans people, billionaires and a particular brand of politicians which, according to polls, is doomed to become a vulnerable minority in November), you can bet they too would be free speech absolutists!
“Friendly reminder that for a fraction of the cost of funding a world-threatening proxy war against Russia the US could simply have protected Zelensky from the neo-Nazi militias who were threatening to lynch him if he tried to make peace with Russia and prevented this entire war.”
.
Really? The Ukrainian nazis were installed by the US, and for eight years, have been armed and trained by the CIA, etc, in their special brand of ‘statecraft’. The Ukrainian nazis subsequently have infested all the repressive organs of the Ukrainian state machine, particularly the secret police and the military/national guard. Most importantly, they’ve faithfully done US bidding in the Ukraine and continue to do so, and they’ve diligently acted as the US overseers to ensure Zelensky, including those before him and under him, always does as the US wants. It isn’t just ‘neo’-nazi militias — incidentally it’s all manner of nazis in the state machine, first and foremost the secret police — who would gladly kill Zelensky if he deviated an inch away from their and their master’s program. It’s the US and NATO.
.
And does anyone seriously believe that Zelensky wouldn’t have pleaded with his US godfathers for them to do something about the nazi threats against him? And does anyone seriously believe that they wouldn’t have responded simply with ‘suck it up’? As a result, no doubt with the help of a carrot of hundreds of millions of dollars deposited into secret bank accounts, Zelensky has become a chemically pure case of the Stockholm Syndrome.
.
But worse, what on earth does the US ‘simply’ protecting Zelensky actually mean? It means nothing less than the US going into the Ukraine with boots on the ground, if only to ‘initially’ somehow serve as his personal body guard to implement an ‘appeasement’ policy the US violently opposes! It’s an explicit call for imperialist intervention that fits well their latest mantra for imperialist marauding, ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P). The consequence of this of course would be the US militarily having to escalate and go after the allies it’s spent not just eight years but the last seven+ decades studiously cultivating, the Ukrainian Banderaite nazis. Never going to happen, never could have happened.
.
Under no circumstances is an imperialist intervention supportable, no matter how ‘worthy’ the cause it purports to ‘support’ might seem. None.
Caitlin – in her friendly reminder – was making a hypothetical point Stephen. She of course knows – and has said so repeatedly – that the last thing the US/Nato want is a negotiated peace agreement (in which Russia’s security concerns etc were addressed).
And the last thing any ostensible anti-imperialist should call for, hypothetically or otherwise, is an imperialist intervention. ‘Hypothetically’, the US could have stopped the Ukrainians shelling and bombing the Donbas and Lugansk for eight years; hypothetically, the US could have stopped the expansion of NATO; ‘hypothetically’ the US could have stopped being imperialist too; and ‘hypothetically’ an advanced civilisation could visit earth to tell us how to behave properly.
.
One should never confuse fantasy and idle wishful thinking with ‘rational’, ‘hypothetically’ proposed scenarios that might even come as an unvarnished ‘friendly reminders’. The ‘friendly reminder’ should at least have been qualified as “This is a totally unrealistic fantasy, but…”.
It was qualified Steven. From the provided link in the paragraph you highlighted.
“To be clear, what we are indulging in here is entirely an act of fantasy.”
Apologies Stephen, for the misspelling of the name.
And it should have been here too, not just in a link.
The US government exists only in MSM channels. What is there in truth is the mother of all ‘deep states’.
Or as Scott Ritter and Roy McGovern seemed to agree in an interview a couple of weeks ago, perhaps the intel agencies have let him live too long, if a peaceful solution to this operation is to be realised. Zelensky seems incapable of making up his mind about anything. At this point he is psychologically unstable. His word is absolutely no damned good. What happens to his army and civilian population is not a priority to him. Looking fire in his khaki tee may be, but I’m not sure even about that.
War talk makes people stupid.
I think they’re stupid first, then they talk of war.
At this point in the US-planned Ukraine war against ethnic Russians, I just hope Russia does whatever is necessary to shut it down. If that includes nukes, so be it.
In fact, it is the hugeness of the intellect and humanity of President Putin of Russia that keeps the conflict at a non-nuclear level. The NeoCons of the US have been poking the bear for decades, and when you explore their history you get why they feel cheated by Russia. That delusion and the fact that they’re insane.
Putin is not a huge intellect or a humanitarian. He just appears that way by contrast to the “leaders”of the west.