Listen to a reading of this article:
❖
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
None are more hopelessly ignorant than those who falsely believe they’re informed.
None are more hopelessly propagandized than those who don’t know they are propagandized.
Living in a liberal western democracy means having the freedom to criticize the tyranny of your government, but instead spending your time criticizing the tyranny of foreign governments who your government doesn’t like.
Free speech in a liberal western democracy means you have the freedom to say whatever you want about the abuses of your government, and the press has the freedom to hammer you with propaganda to ensure that you never do.
In a liberal western democracy you are free to criticize your government, but instead you are propagandized into criticizing the impotent puppets who get rotated in and out of office while your government continues doing all the same evil things regardless of who gets elected.
In liberal western democracies you are free to call the president “Drumpf” or “Brandon”, but you are not free to know who’s actually calling the shots in your country underneath the official government.
In liberal western democracies people say, “I’m so glad I don’t live in a country like Russia or China where people are forbidden to criticize their government. I live in the west, where I’m free to criticize Russia and China all I want.”
It doesn’t matter if you have freedom of speech if those in power can control what you will say. And in liberal western democracies, this is exactly what happens.
We grow up saturated with US empire propaganda in the west. We marinate in it. It pervades our consciousness. But because it’s all we’ve ever known, most of us don’t even notice it.
We think it’s normal that we’re always told our government is on the good and righteous side of every international conflict. We think it’s normal that we hear constantly about the tyranny of foreign governments while only occasionally hearing about bad things our own government did years ago (but it was an innocent mistake and it’ll never happen again).
“If we were being propagandized, I’m sure we’d have heard about it in the news,” we tell ourselves.
But the news is the propaganda. And it will never report on that bombshell story.
Propaganda is the single most overlooked and underappreciated aspect of our society. In controls how the public thinks, acts, votes and behaves, but hardly anyone ever talks about it. Because the sources they’ve been trained to look to for information never say anything about it.
So people say what’s on their mind, after what’s on their mind has been carefully curated by the imperial narrative managers who are responsible for controlling what information goes into their mind.
And they say it with complete freedom. Sure if what they’re saying goes against the interests of the western empire they won’t be allowed to speak on any large platforms where they might infect the mainstream herd with wrongthink, and sure if what they’re saying is really inconvenient they might get banned from even speaking on any of the major online platforms, but they still get to speak. Alone, where no one can hear them. Preferably into a hole in the ground.
And everyone else gets to ingest the mainstream swill. The authorized narratives that get amplified on traditional media and by the algorithms of Silicon Valley. The authorized narratives which mask the abuses of their own government — foreign and domestic — while magnifying and exaggerating the abuses of empire-targeted governments.
That’s why when some people hear my objections to the empire, they say “Well at least where I live we’re allowed to criticize our government!”
And that’s why I reply to them, “Okay. But you don’t.”
If speech wasn’t free people would realize they’re being oppressed, but if people started using their speech to voice real grievances about real power, they would swiftly discover that their speech is being ignored and power is doing as it likes. So inconvenient speech is curtailed by propaganda, by censorship, by algorithm manipulation and by media marginalization.
People are kept hopelessly enslaved by giving them the illusion that they are free, and any voice which interrupts that illusion is silenced by whatever means necessary.
That’s what free speech means in a liberal western democracy. You can say whatever you like, as long as it’s what they like.
_______________
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, buying an issue of my monthly zine, 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
109 responses to “Free Speech Doesn’t Matter If Propagandists Determine What People Say”
After being without work for 6 months, I started completing a simple online work over this website I found online, and I couldn’t be happier now. Results… (dcp-20) After 3 months of doing this my monthly income increased by 8900 per month by working for just several hours per week…Start by following the instructions here……… http://makepay24.blogspot.com
I had a nightmare today. I saw the UN IAEA team arriving in Kiev to inspect that nuclear facility in Ukraine which is under Russian control and suffering shelling by Ukrainian forces located 50 miles away from that facility using American HIMARS. After the arrival of that team I said: – What you guys are doing here? You are all going to die before reaching that facility. The chief inspector replied: – How so? I said – If you are going to be escorted by Ukrainian military till there, they will not come close and they don’t have intention to let you guys discover what will be incriminating Ukraine and USA as the ones shelling that facility. You were set up to die and your deaths will be used as leverage to incite the MSM to blame Russia for it. You should have done the other way around. Now you cannot leave Ukraine alive from Kiev. Then the inspector just smiled and decided to go anyways. They all died murdered by Ukrainian forces under instructions delivered by the US government.
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/russia-ukraine-crisis/the-day-has-come-iaea-inspectors-arrive-in-kyiv-ahead-of-visit-to-zaporizhzhia-npp-articleshow.html
Poor Elon Musk (of course not poor). Twitter’s fate will be decide in a Delaware court. Delaware should be a trustful place. Joe Biden used to be senator there. No one who knows Delaware ethics about cartels can say something otherwise.
I read where RT has essentially lost it’s access to a Western audience which is probably a good thing for Russia as it was obvious that it was infiltrated by traitors and therefore most likely the FSB is also full of traitors, the West may have done Putin a favor, but then probably not because if Putin didn’t know that RT was anti Russian the game is already lost for both Russia and the US the oligarchs brag about the 66 million that they killed in Russia and that they will do the same to America, but then, this is game everywhere in the world.
How works the privatization of public services for corporations?
The country needs to adapt the legal procedures in order to make it happen. Some fiscal legislation will have to be created to absorb new policies under the current constitution. The bill will become more expensive. Brazil has about 30 years of privatization policies in several areas. Electricity today is about 10 times more expensive than it used to be under public control. Telephone services about 30 times more expensive than it used to be not including internet and streaming services. Water started recently and it will follow the prices for electricity and telephone services. Mineral extraction, petrochemical stations, transport, infrastructure follow the same policies and contracts. Privatization is about making people to comply and deliver what they have to the government and corporations. Security and military are minimal to reinforce the police in protests. In the case of any major conflict such thing will be managed by the pentagon and partners. Take a look at Ukraine and you will not what it really means.
This example is the economic spirit of the neoliberal agenda. Economic colonies deliver all what they have and the Empire just check it through US embassies and the SWIFT system if the agreements are being fulfilled. That is how to Build Back Better making America First like it used to be in the old days of Britannia.
The irony is not lost on the US empire. They relished it. Once you open the doors of your country for corporations after embassies have figure out the truths which nations were upheld. It starts over internal assets gathered among the general military staff (Pakistan is a good example among many) neutralizing national security patriots closing the doors for foreign agents recruiting top political assets and, of course, learning how the president or king made agreements with local elites to rule. These are the most important powerful weapons of the US empire and it is not by chance the US military can reach a trillion of dollars most of it not spent in its own structure but to keep valuable foreign political and local elites serving the US empire abroad. With them, the US empire can destabilize governments, split societies and nurture rebellions among color revolutions. The irony so delicious to the US empire was what the truths were… secrets and lies.
Chile is about to make a new constitution. Under Pinochet iron fist regime they did everything to favor the US empire. Independent of foreign interference, once you start it a public manifest should be started to not compromise the welfare-wellbeing of all people relying in efficient low-cost public services to benefit foreign investors. But as those who already know, the lobbies defending the interests of the US empire are always around offering riches to local politicians and local elites. Follow the money of those going in the opposite direction of what is best for their own country. Even a comma intentionally left in the constitution can open the doors for corporations and corruption-impunity to be the state of the union.
Freedom of speech in the U.S. has become the right for working class people to argue about political theatre on social media.
The founding fathers would be turning in their graves if they weren’t already forever melting in hell while being whipped by demons masquerading as their former slaves.
Reply @ John Knox below: it is my experience that if you don’t walk like a duck and don’t quack like a duck, people are unlikely to call you a duck. When you urged folks repeatedly to get the jab as it was getting increasingly clear that the Covid hysteria was actually a money scam putting who died WITH (95%) and FROM (5%) Covid in the same basket, banning dissenting scientists and early treatments, when you called liars people who pointed that out as well as later the fact that the vaccines didn’t stop transmission or that most of the people who died were vaccinated or that the side effects included miscarriages, strokes and even death and answered any attempt at a reasonable conversation with gobbledygook, you ran the risk of being called a Big Pharma troll. Lucky you weren’t called a duck though! :o)
So you’re a liar. I’m not surprised.
See what I mean? Once a troll, always a troll :o)
Mad again? Wanna feel like you didn’t really lie after all? Can you name a single real live secretly-paid-by-big-pharma troll?
By their deeds shall you judge them. Stand in your claim with evidence. If you have none the game of trolls is to attack the man or woman, to insult or challenge to ptovoke.
Easy to recognise who is and who is not a troll – they show you by what they do and how.
I give up l know l can not be heard no matter what l try….. l know caitlin has said all there needs to be said over the years if she could be heard too then nothing more would need to be said it has been done time to start walking people the talk is over….. time to take the road less travelled all the best……
European winter is coming. The permafrost will hit harder without enough gas to warm up. It is the perfect time to talk about democracy, patriarchy, elites, communism, capitalism.
We grow up saturated with US empire propaganda in the west. We marinate in it. It pervades our consciousness. But because it’s all we’ve ever known, most of us don’t even notice it.
This is absolutely accurate. After decades of constant indoctrination through inculcation, most Americans become institutionalized. This dates me, but I was constantly warned that the USSR “brainwashed” their citizens; and of course as an adolescent, I couldn’t manifest what “brainwashing” meant. It was like some esoteric concept at the time; but at the time I had not evolved to use such verbiage and was ignorant about world affairs. Fortunately, I suppose I reached the age of logical reasoning and rational thought. Nevertheless, a horrendous calamity occurred that sparked an epiphany: 911…
I was fortunate to have the parents I had (they are both deceased); however, they attempted to teach me (2) positive attributes to live by: The Golden Rule, and you should tell the truth (I’m paraphrasing). Post 911 fostered copious questioning. For example, why did the US hastily expropriate the WTC debris out of the United States (i.e.- 911 was a crime scene and the debris was evidence; and it also facilitated forensics)? It was during this time that I had the epiphany; it was also around this time that I became aware of the concept of “manufacturing-consent”, say…for endless wars.
It doesn’t matter if you have freedom of speech if those in power can control what you will say. And in liberal western democracies, this is exactly what happens.
Not only do the profligate ruling-class have the power to control what you say, the working-class is repressed, to such a level, that affecting positive change is nearly precluded (e.g.- the Republicans and Democrats coalesce to sabotage 3rd party attempts). The article reminds us how the US’ (Politicians, Oligarchs, Corporations, weapons manufacturers, etc.) incessantly propagandize the US populace. The predator-capitalists have perfected the art of subliminal-propagandizing to the point that most Americans are not cognizant of the infection (i.e.-Americans, as host to parasitic-propagandizing, promote establishment narratives to detriment of patriotic, hardworking working-class).
Speaking of propaganda, Ted Cruise (and his ilk), exemplify sources of propagandization. Case in point: (salon.com – 8/29/22 – Brett Wilkins): Ted Cruz bashes “slacker baristas” now benefiting from Biden’s student debt relief.
In my opinion, Ted’s statement is dissimulation. That is, Ted is fomenting animosity of the Right (through manipulative propaganda), causing intended backlash directed at the Left. It seems the real intention, by Ted, is to lay foundation to union-bust (e.g.-200 Starbucks & Counting-4/13/22-democracynow.org).
“Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen, or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?” —
Kurt Vonnegut
–
Bernays described this elitist view of the world in 1928:
“Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays – Propaganda
–
“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.” —
Aldous Huxley, Tavistock Group, California Medical School, 1961
Interestingly, his brother Julian was the first director of the Unesco and Aldous’ Brave New World reflects pretty much Julian’s plan for the future.
The expression “freedom of speech ” needs clarification: no speech has ever been “free” but is and has always been tied to power. Ask Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, and many others. Ask the Palestinians. But generally, it involves a negative, as in the government will “refrain” from incarcerating or fining you for your expressed opinions. Within reason, and they will determine what that is. To the Jesuit mind, such freedom amounts to a right, as in the right to “freedom of speech”. But there is a basic difference.
Speech has been so thoroughly propagandized in the interests of power that practically no public statement can be taken at face value. And “rights” go down the drain with it. As the late philosopher Rumsfeld lately said on Iraq, “freedom (as a right) is the freedom to do bad things”.And domestically the whole West has the right and freedom to freeze and starve in the dark.
Within social intercourse, free speech has always been limited by punches in the face but on the scale of a society, the government has no right to intervene beyond the requirements of national security and that’s a very narrow scope. The rest, like targeting Assange and Snowden or the Patriot Act, is clearly tyrannical overreach based on sophistry.
Who appointed you to decide which rights those in government should exercise. Who are you to decide it is an overreach except in your own mind.
Well it is a fairly common assumption that the government has no business telling people what to do except in the domain of national security. It’s basically the spirit of the Constitution. Of course natural-born slaves see things differently and as Bob Dylan puts it,
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole that he’s in
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright Ma if I can’t please him
As we will watch Germany do in a few months.
I am currently making at least an extra $29,000 a month from home by doing extraordinarily honest and clean online work from home. t50) Currently be a district of this task and make more money online by accompanying trainings
on a specific website…….. http://justwork7.blogspot.com/
I’ve always wanted to be a district of a task…
who wouln’t?
You’ll never be a district of the task… it is beyond your dreams. However, you can, if you try really hard – become a sub-district.
Is that anything like a zone?
There are only two trains of thought. I am god, king, whatever and I have rights to live my life making my own rules as I go. The other is I am under the laws and dominion of God, king, whatever and am given the rights by my superiors. If I am unhappy or disatisfied I can complain or do something and pay the consequences. So what type person are you. Under dominion or not.
We’re only under the dominion of physical laws – like we can’t fly, we can only eat, drink or sleep so much. The rest is overreach by the power structure that we choose to obey or not depending on the risk of getting caught transgressing and the consequences.
Who is more free. A criminal who flaunts the laws of his god, king, superiors and ends up incarcerated or he who obeys his God, King, superiors and lives under a structure they define.
I have neither god nor master as they said in the old days, so I’m not in a good position to answer your question. I can just point out that not all the people who flaunt the law are criminals (driving beyond the speed limit for a stretch on a freeway with no vehicle in sight doesn’t make you a criminal) and all criminals don’t get incarcerated, especially war criminals like just about every American president “under the structure” they and their peers defined.
Hard to say, But I will say that you are using the wrong word–flaunts means to make a brazen show of something you possess. The word you want is flaut.
I looked it up and flaut doesn’t exist. The word we wanted (BB is in the first line of fire to take the blame) is actually… flout. Thanks just the same :o)
But Caity, the very existence of this site proves that the information exists and can be shared … see, I’m reading your great commentary all the way across the greatest ocean in the world here in California. So the information IS out there, it IS reachable and sharable by the public, and it is NOT censored (at least so far). And you’re not the only one … there are many other great news and commentary sites and entire hosting areas (like Substack) that carry interesting and truthful news and commentary. And this IS indeed different from some kind of actual dictatorship where the sites would be blanked out.
Your issue seems to be that the superspreader organizations, the Disneys and Foxes and Viacoms and Googles and Facebooks of the world, are following govt cues and their own owner-class interests and not supporting this and other sites. Well, yes, that’s correct … and how possibly would that surprise us? Do we actually think these sites “owe” us the facts? Why?
The problem is not that the facts are not out there, they are, though they may take a tiny bit more work to get to. The problem is that most people prefer the blue pill … they prefer to live in the “empire of lies” … they prefer to think themselves and their nation always virtuous and never knowingly blameworthy. “Mistakes were made” but have been corrected and did you see what Russia did today? Those b’tards; let’s sanction them!
Pogo said it long ago: we have met the enemy and he is us …
Yes, and as we squabble in the West about who was dissed or demonitized for SAYING this or that, Russia is ACTING without giving a flying fuck about our jabbering. On whom would you put your money, virtual world talkers or real world actors?
I don’t know if the propaganda reaches many people outside of the PMC. People become part of the PMC by being good, earnest, docile students, so official propaganda excites them, but I think among the proles, minorities, dissidents, malcontents, poor people, etc., you might find it being taken with a considerable grain of salt. The only poll I know that covered the ground was one taken during the War in Vietnam, when the proto-PMC of the time backed the war and almost everyone else disliked it. It might be interesting to take another look.
An interesting aspect of this whole thing is that the effectiveness of the narrative building does not seem to diminish much as people realize they are lied to. Witness the current very low level of trust common people have with the chief agents of narrative control (the MSM press and politicians) even while the messages of narrative continue to penetrate society and be accepted by most.
And so people think Russia, then Iran, then Saddam, then North Korea, then “terra”, then Russia again, now China is the enemy … and many truly internalize it. Or the concept that we truly cannot afford Medicare for all despite all industrial nations being able to. Or that us outspending the next 20 countries in the world on military matters is not only ok but indeed good and perhaps too little.
We know they lie; but it penetrates anyway … very interesting.
Why do we think these sites owe us the facts? That might be the best comment today. In the good democracy, not a utopia but a functioning system, citizens would likely choose to base their choices on accurate info. In our current system, the big outlets and social media platforms are the public square. So, they should owe us the facts to keep their corporate charters. The herd shouldn’t have to hunt down dissident, fringe voices. It is easier to blame ourselves for living in a system designed by powder wigged aristocrats to benefit themselves and which always benefited their kind and not the rabble. In the richest land in history, there shouldn’t be self blaming rabble. Everyone should be highly educated and cared for. Sorry, Pogo, the enemy isn’t us.
But it IS the public square … the big companies stand on their fruit boxes and yell their wares like anyone else … and most of “we the people” are choosing the Googles and the Facebooks and the NBCs and the Foxes quite willingly.
It really doesn’t take that much work to find this site, Consortiumnews, Moonofalabama, Antiwar.com, etc. etc. and get a varied and truthful account of things. Surely not too much to ask of citizens of a democratic republic?
“Do we actually think these sites “owe” us the facts? Why?”
Because they say they tell us the truth and will call lies and fake news everything different from what they say. That’s why. They actually pose as fact-checkers and tell us that this is what makes the difference between journalists and bloggers, as highlighted in the trial of Craig Murray. The judge considered that the journalists had a kind of moral duty to tell the truth the establishment agrees on in one way or another and that the society can’t tolerate outsiders who don’t submit to government censorship via their editors and/or the owners of the outlets they work for.
Now if the MSM tell us tomorrow that they’re bullshitting and/or spewing establishment propaganda, then we will stop thinking they owe us the truth. As simple as that!
They do need to spell. Oops nevermind, thats why they put voice activation on our phones.
I disagree. Here’s my analogy: a debate in a high school auditorium, between a guy who is not IN the auditorium but is sitting in an office with control of the PA system, and his voice is booming out from loudspeakers all over the auditorium, His opponent is standing on table, shouting until her voice is hoarse. But most of the audience in the auditorium don’t even know she’s there; even the people closest to her have to strain to hear her over the booming PA system. Sure, she’s free to speak whatever she wants. But people aren’t going to seek out her views if they’re not aware of her existence–an awful lot of people think the alternative to CNN is Fox. And even the people clustered around her table are influenced by the loud voice in their ears.
I like your analogy. I guess the difference we have is you believe there should be some kind of rules that either prevent the masters from dominating the PA system or forces them to broadcast the truth. I think this unrealistic and always has been and that it must be aware citizens who actively search for the truth, who block out the PA and approach the lady shouting on the table.
I mean, those of us here have made the effort; why would we not think others must as well? A poverty of expectation may be part of problem … there are responsibilities to being a citizen.
Currently, accessing Caitlin’s blog is accessible to us in the US but that may not be possible in the near future. If Russia is deemed to be a terrorist state, then this site will not only be de-platformed but the author may have her accounts frozen with no ability to make a living. I’ve seen contrary channels on YouTube taken down for such innocuous reasons as stating that IVM is safe and relatively effective or that Douma was a falsely attributed to the Assad gov’t.
As the Clash presciently wrote 40 years ago: “You have the right to free speech
As long as you’re not Dumb enough to actually try it.”
If you are actually a threat to those in power, one way or another, you will not be heard.
Talk to the foot-soldiers first, and fsce to face if you can and do not shout or argue. Be humble, be soft and do not waste your energy or time on those who do not eant to hear. Without foot-soldiers those who think the control will have nothing and nobody to do the dirty work for them – then they are nothing.
Generals do not fight wars, they order others to do it. Take away enough of the troops and there will be no war.
China’s gov’t is fighting against covid, climate change, and the propaganda of western imperialism. Western right wingers are fighting against vaccines, environmental protections, and libruls. Clearly, China’s gov’t is smarter and more honest than western right wingers.
What about Putin?
He’s also a shill for big parma and the deep state, why else would he get vaccinated along with the Russian military?
The Russian vaccines, Sputnik V, EpiVac Corona, CoviVac and Sputnik Light weren’t developed by Big Pharma but by the Gamaleya Research Institute and were not based on experimental mRNA technology that doesn’t stop transmission and has more side effects (including deaths) than the rest of the vaccines combined since VAERS has kept records of that.
So covid is real now? How about my paycheck from big pharma, is that real too?
You tell me….
When you said I was working for big pharma, were you telling the truth or were you lying?
I gather you are assuming they had something besides distilled water in those shots.
History will label this time The Age of Insanity.
Not more than previous periods. In the XVIIIth century, Voltaire wrote, “if there’s life on other planet’s then the Earth is the universe’s insane asylum.”
John, love the way you paint with a broad brush instinctively knowing how others think.
“So inconvenient speech is curtailed by propaganda, by censorship, by algorithm manipulation and by media marginalization”.
And by the people! I always like to restore front and center in the picture the clueless sucker who wants you jabbed with experimental shit or will accuse you of shilling for Big Oil if you say climate change is a scam.
Here’s a very interesting video…
https://expose-news.com/2022/01/20/a-destructive-plan-under-the-guise-of-climate-change/
… where James Corbett and Whitney Webb explain that in climate change’s clothing, the wolves of Wall Street are operating not only a “green” financial swindle but also one of the largest natural land resource grabs in the history of the planet.
The Natural Asset Corporations (“NACs”) and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (“GFANZ”) are only their latest attempts to get their hands on the world’s natural resources. The Rockefeller Foundation (say no more :o) played a pivotal role in the creation of these NACs which seek to bring about a new “asset class” (think BlackRock) that will put the natural world, as well as the ecological processes underpinning all life, up for sale under the guise of “protecting” them.
They claim they’ll use their funds to help preserve rain forests or undertake conservation efforts, like changing farms’ conventional agricultural production practices but even their creators admit that the ultimate goal is to extract near-infinite profits from the natural processes they seek to quantify and then monetize.
The climate change panic now pushed by the media to replace the worn out Covid one will be used to enable the same interests responsible for the current environmental crises. Forget about miracles and instant capitalists’ enlightenment!
Today, multilateral development banks (MDBs) are used to force developing nations, through loans and debts, to implement policies benefitting the interests of the Empire of Lies rather than their own. Tomorrow, they will be used to eliminate national sovereignty, privatize the “natural assets” (ecosystems, ecological processes…) of the developing world, and push yield-oriented policies designed by global governance institutions and financial think tanks on ever more disenfranchised populations.
Behind the lofty rhetoric of “saving the planet”, GFANZ’ ultimately plans a corporate-led (aka stricto sensu fascist) coup that will make the global financial system even more corrupt and predatory than it is now – no matter how challenging this may sound.
Whitney Webb lives in Chile, where there’s a lot of mining, and says that the “planet savers” have a clear tendency to put bags over the heads of the local dissenters and throw them off cliffs there.
But who doesn’t want to “save the planet”? The strength of the Empire’s propaganda, as opposed to more conspicuously authoritarian ones is that, as Malcolm X pointed out in substance, it will make you hate the people being oppressed and love the ones doing the oppressing.
Give good Samaritans a good reason to stone someone, as can be seen every day on Twitter, and the latter is as good as dead. We don’t even need algorithms. Propaganda is cloaked in good intentions and a sucker is born every minute.
i don’t think climate change is a scam.
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Final-Warning-Degrees-Emergency/dp/0008308578/ref=pd_rhf_d_dp_s_ci_mcx_mr_hp_d_sccl_1_2/134-7278809-1740269?pd_rd_w=p4x8l&content-id=amzn1.sym.0a853d15-c5a9-4695-90cd-fdc0b630b803&pf_rd_p=0a853d15-c5a9-4695-90cd-fdc0b630b803&pf_rd_r=AAQNFF1WA51BW4YT6V10&pd_rd_wg=5Ukew&pd_rd_r=73ba559e-f238-4ee7-92b8-699dc5c8ed1f&pd_rd_i=0008308578&psc=1
Climate change isn’t a scam, but the asset managers of the world are promoting climate change industries which only shore up their profits and do nothing to actually address climate change.
Bingo. Same with the pandemic.The last great conspiracy was 9/11, and we still live in its aftermath. With the so-called plandemic, many on the more radical left ran off the rails to the great glee of PTB. If everything is a conspiracy, nothing is.
Fair enough your perspective. It is not a scam. It happens since the day the universe was created. It does not matter what you do or don’t do, the universe will move on deaf to any political measure.
Climate Change in terms of helping people to collect trash, recycling, organizing work and work stations better are a good thing. Treatment of sewers is a good thing since early 20th century in London.
We have zero power to undo what nature does without asking permission but we have power to educate people. That is a good thing. Unless you are an Australian. That island is surrounded by the Pacific Ring of Fire. Only Australians can defeat volcanoes, Chinese, Russians, etc.
they’re promoting fossil fuel industries a hell of a lot more.
We need to understand nature and work with it rather that for our own desires that are all too often disconnected from nature.
The deceased writer Michael Crichton was a fierce critic of Al Gore and the birth of “Global Warming” which had to be adapted due to conflicts about science, truth and “universal truths” (agreed by all after grudges are settled) to Climate Change. Al Gore won the election by the numbers but you know how it ended up. To compensate the Environmental Al Gore lawyer the Al Jazeera was “given” to him among many other billionaire future “environmental” assets worldwide. If you ever wondered how much it is worth the President of the US position, that is how much it is worth for corporations and politicians that political position. Make no mistake, each one of them get about the same amount. Every US president has an official savings account to receive “donations” after the president goes for retirement and start a foundation to dodge the IRS. It is a legal procedure. No big deal.
Climate change has become more like a religion now anyway. Truth is, if you have a look at YouTube, you’ll find just as many arguments against the notion of anthropogenic global warming as in favour, with also scientists saying there’s nothing wrong with CO2 and above all, like everything nowadays, it’s been politically polarized. So if you say the climate change propaganda is a profit-making scam that hides real environmental problems, the die-hard shitlibs will call you right-wing. Same if you advocate Covid treatments over experimental (and especially mandatory) vaccines that kill and maim people. They think they have proved something by calling you names, which is generally the problem with having just one functioning neuron.
The best thing, if you belong to one side of the political spectrum (which I don’t) is to have a computer program that tells you every morning what you have to think “as a” leftist or rightist. Philosophical debate has become more like a football match with cheerleaders and nervous breakdowns. That’s how a civilization withers and dies.
Fair enough.
if you look at what scientists say, it’s not a scam. it’s not a philosophical debate. it’s not a religion. doesn’t matter what Al Gore says, or whatever other grifters you want to trot out.
why should anybody believe what Crichton said about anything. he was a science fiction writer.
If you say scientists all agree, you’re wrong. If you say 97% agree about climate change, you’re right. But they agree about what exactly? A voodoo incantation. There’s no strict definition of it. Plus guys are strong-armed through the grant system. There’s a lot more to this than meets the eyes. The IPCC is a governmental body and only has scientists for show. It’s the corporations that rule behind their scene. The notion of climate change was invented by Maurice Strong, an oil mogul friend of Rockefeller. The whole background doesn’t pass the smell test. General affirmations of the “I know what I like and I like what I know” type shouldn’t expect to change the world. Did you at least bother to watch the video I posted before commenting on generalities?
PS: Isn’t it weird that for twenty years, we never had a report on the impact of US wars on climate change? No carbon footprints there?
Too many so called scientists today on the government grant tit are science fiction writers as well.
Pascal, I wholly agree with your comment, and both human health and and the planet’s climate will, in the end, be thrown under the bus, all in the interest of greater profit.
Well… it’s Mammon’s world… :o)
> August 19, 2022, The New York Times (NYT) published the documentary “Superspreader,” featuring yours truly, on FX and Hulu, both of which are owned by Disney.
> The top institutional owners of The NYT are The Vanguard Group and BlackRock Inc. Combined, they have ownership in nearly 90% of all S&P 500 firms, and through their investment holdings they secretly wield monopoly control over all industries.
> The takeaway from the program is that my integrity is in question because I run a successful vitamin and organic food company.
> The same networks critical of how I fund my free information outreach with nutritional supplements and biodynamic foods advertised Hard Seltzer alcohol, Pop Tarts, Taco Bell and fad supplements, including a hair growth formula, a testosterone booster and a weight loss pill, during the program.
> The timing of the documentary also ended up being ironic, as just one week before the “Superspreader” program aired, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed all of its COVID-19 guidelines, thereby proving many of my positions on COVID correct.
>
Superspreader of Truth https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2022/08/29/superspreader-of-truth.aspx
I should also observe that Black Rock, Vanguard, State Street, Berkshire Hathaway emerged out of the 2008 financial melt down when they were bailed out to the tune of 5.5 trillion dollars by U.S. tax payers; take from the poor and give to the rich. Together they now control more than 30 trillion in assets, more than the entire GDP of the United States, and they are growing.
More than that, Larry Link, CEO of Black Rock, also sits on the broad of Vanguard, State Street and Berkshire Hathaway. This makes them interlocutory corporations where board members of one corporation sits on the boards of the other corporations. This makes these four corporations essentially a global monopoly. Actually it isn’t Larry Fink per se that sits on these boards, but each entity, Black Rock, Vanguard, State Street and Berkshire Hathaway own a major portion of the shares in each other. Plus they own a major portion of the shares of every other large corporation on Earth including the major Chinese companies. Who Owns the World?: Blackrock and Vanguard – https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/who-owns-world-blackrock-and-vanguard, Here are 9 fascinating facts to know about BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager – https://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-know-about-blackrock-larry-fink-biden-cabinet-facts-2020-12 ; Union Bank of Switzerland is also thrown into this mix.
Larry Fink is also a member of the Advisory Board, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, Beijing. This makes me ask, who is Xi Jinping, just a puppet? World Economic Forum – https://www.weforum.org/agenda/authors/larry-fink
While we are focused on the malfeasance of the WEF, we should be focused on these corporations because they own the WEF and through their interlocutory directorates perhaps all the major countries of the world.
This is the problem, not Beijing or Washington D.C.
Inside Job – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2IaJwkqgPk
Doesn’t it sound to you a bit of a leap to go from “Larry Fink is also a member of the Advisory Board, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, Beijing” to “This makes me ask, who is Xi Jinping, just a puppet? World Economic Forum” in the same breath?
It’s like saying Jack Ma is on the board of some US university and it makes you wonder if Biden is just a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party.
Wouldn’t it sound kinda far-fetched – even if some unhinged lunatics on the right are convinced that he is a CCP stooge in spite of being a 100% Wall Street sockpuppet from the Delaware fiscal paradise?
But if Larry Fink wasn’t on the board of a Chinese university, you would probably complain about their lack of freedom of speech…
Yes, but Black Rock also has huge investments in Huawei, perhaps others as well like Alibabba, I don’t have time to research all that right now, but will do so as I find time.
~
The impression I am getting is that this is truly a global economy with stock in Chinese companies being available to investors just as is the case in the West.
~
I think we ignore this trend at our peril. We may be going after world stage actors that no longer have a stake in major decisions.
~
By focusing on Biden and the U.S. government we are not noticing who the real power brokers of the world are.
~
Xi Jinping has said he was going to crack down on the Chinese tech industry, but can he do so without affecting it’s market value? Will he risk losing to western tech companies just to make sure that Chinese tech companies remain loyal to China? Or will it be the case as Deng Xiaoping once said, “To get rich is glorious.” https://theconversation.com/to-get-rich-is-glorious-how-deng-xiaoping-set-china-on-a-path-to-rule-the-world-156836 implying that market share is all important.
The problem with free market is that… it doesn’t exist. The US, which is always championing free market is the country in the whole universe that does the most to distort it with sanctions, tariffs, strong-arming, threatening, blackmailing and of course assassinating and warring. See John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. So, like everything the US elites say, we have to take this free market ideology with a grain of salt.
Casino capitalism as we know it nowadays, is everything BUT free market. And if the US decides to revert to free market, the dollar will collapse in less than an hour, triggering the mother of all recessions. It’s not black and white with directed economy (socialism) on one side and free market (capitalism) on the other. Both systems are hybrids.
Yes, I respect John Perkins, exchanged emails with him for a brief time many years ago..
I agree that Wall Street is casino capitalism. I agree with Andrew Sheng who said, “Why should a financial engineer be paid four times to 100 times more than a real engineer. A real engineer builds bridges, a financial engineer builds dreams, and when those dreams turn out to be nightmares, other people pay for it. – http://www.andrewsheng.net/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2IaJwkqgPk
That’s a good one!
Free markets exists at the level of Black Rock, Vanguard, States Street. But I have to admit that the Chinese asset management companies pale in comparison to these behemoths. In other words, in terms of the top ten largest corporations in the world, they are each competing with each other for market share. Anyone with less that a trillion dollars to play with have no business in free markets, I guess.
~
I found this interesting bit of information. Look at the top financial services companies operating out of Beijing.
~
https://www.glassdoor.com/Explore/top-financial-services-companies-beijing_IS.4,22_ISEC10010_IL.33,40_IM997.htm
~
I think we may be dealing with our dated view of world economics.
No that’s only the top financial services companies advertising in a Western outlet that they’re hiring in or near Beijing.
Anyway, even if the economic power is more global than generally thought – and I’m OK with that -, you can’t deny that the world is now in recession and people everywhere have to face severe hikes in energy and other prices because of the sanctions the US and the EU political powers slapped on Russia after doing all they could to provoke a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Even BlackRock & Co have to play second fiddle here.
And it is going to get intensely worse as a result of global capital and global hegemonic power.
~
War makes money. War between Ukraine and Russia makes money. This money is used to keep Wall Street afloat.
~
No one is being saved in Ukraine and the West had no intention of saving anyone in Ukraine. The West needed capital expenditures as a means of flooding money into their Ponzi scheme markets always on the brink of collapse. I guess you can call it a corpses for dollars.
~
Putin said that he had no desire to invade Ukraine. He said invading Ukraine would be like swallowing a porcupine. Putin was left with no other viable option. Who knows, it may well turn out that Putin is just part of this global financial chess game along with all the rest, just another player trying to carve out his piece of the pie; we won’t know until the dust settles.
~
In the mean time Ukrainians are getting ground up into hamburger; what a system.
“War between Ukraine and Russia makes money. This money is used to keep Wall Street afloat”.
If they still need to be kept afloat after the three Covid bail outs that brought about inflation, what’s next?
We might as well scrap the whole shebang and ask Xi to send us some Chinese economists to point us in the right direction because casino obviously doesn’t work!
caitlin has become my favorite go-to truthteller on the internet! her blog is awesome beyond compare.
i noticed the other day that one diana johnstone is on the board of directors of consortium news, among other notable independent (and thus relatively obscure) journalists like chris hedges. googling her, i came across a few interesting things, like this youtube video expressing views that seem as though they could have come directly from caitlin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSHoQHzxPxE
and this book, co-authored by diana and her father, paul h. johnstone, which looks like a terrific read:
https://www.amazon.com/MAD-Madness-Pentagon-Nuclear-Planning/dp/0997287098
i didn’t dig hard enough in this search to learn whether caitlin is indeed related to these stand-out iconoclastic voices of previous generations, but it seems very likely to me that she is. if this be the case, it’s another example of the apple falling close to the tree, and confirmation that as a radical truthseeker and speaker, caitlin’s the real deal.
https://dystopiananddoomed.blogspot.com/
My child in the US has a new class in 8th grade : “Western Global Perspectives” that is being passed on as Gifted and Talented Education. It should be titled “Western Imperial Perspectives.
And it is mandatory.
Here in the United States you so succinctly point out what most of the public does not recognize. Here in America you have a population that ignores homelessness but unwittingly allow $ billions to big corp, oligarchs, and an apartheid ally who touts “an unbreakable bond” while committing incessant crimes against humanity.
True but I always balk at the notion that we live “in a liberal western democracy” since its not liberal or a democracy, so one out of three? That should always be in quotes. Of course we know voting for the people that choose for us to vote for is not democracy. As the Princeton Study showed, the people have zero influence on public policy. Only money determines public policy, money wielded by the big banks through their lacky corporations. Also, we have a privatized, for-profit money system, capitalism. (capital = money) + (ism = system) = capitalism = money system. The central feature and source of awesome power for capitalism is the debt based private global monetary system we have been harnessed to. The most vital prerogative of democratic self-governance is to issue the money debt-free for the general welfare. That is not happening as we all know.
The issuance of debt-free money for the public welfare is what MMT has been advocating since its inception. So long as there are available resources to spend that money on, inflation will not be triggered. The conflation of MMT with the promiscuous printing of money linked to debt is but another example of the success of neoliberalist propaganda, akin to the conflation of Putin with Hitler. I’ll wager that many of Caitlin”s readers, not fooled by the latter conflation, are fooled by the former.
Well, then, you should differentiate the promiscuous printing of money from the policies which MMT would presumably inspire and justify. Money will usually get people to do things if they think they can get something for it. Usually, this connection is established by either labor (someone does something to produce value) or force (taxation, expropriation, etc). If you print a lot of money and hand it around, inflation is likely to occur, unless some mechanism is employed to reduce the excess quantity, like taxation. It doesn’t seem all that different from what we’ve already got.
The “debt” comes in because currency is usually a promise to pay something somehow valuable (labor, goods, specie, etc.) How else would you conceptualize it? This is not a rhetorical question.
On the federal level, in a country that issues its own currency, money is merely the means of making national investments. When such a federal government decides to do something, fiat money is called into existence to make it happen. For example, everyone who needs or wants a job could be employed on the federal level, and there would be little risk of inflation in this area until full employment was reached, each unemployed person being an available resource to invest money in. Because the money (in this case in the form of wages or salaries) is created ex nihilo, there’s no need to claw it back from the private sector via taxes or link it to bond sakes which provide windfall income to elites. Unfortunately, there’s no way to get into much substance about MMT or any other worthwhile subject in back and forth internet commentary. Another Australian blog, that of MMT and Marxist economist Bill Mitchell, offers a wealth of accurate info on what MMT actually says, as opposed to what neoliberals say it says. Thanks for the comment to mine, and I hope you take a look at Bill’s archives via the search engine hooked up to them.
in America people don’t give a shit about other countries unless it is something hurting everyone’s pockets. American military black ops can kill entire countries if they wanted to and in America no one will grieve for any of them. Just the right headline can shift the attention of anyone willing to discuss more carefully about what is really happening.
Where they learned?
Plenty of prior experiences through CIA coupe e’tat worldwide undermining foreign democracies to bend their interests to favor only American corporations.
Patrice Lumumba shot dead by a firing squad in 1961 with the tacit backing of former colonial power Belgium, his body was then buried in a shallow grave, dug up, transported 200km (125 miles), interred again, exhumed and then hacked to pieces and finally dissolved in acid. Back the day they had a lot of doubts about how to kill and get rid of bodies not without plenty of mockery about the deceased.
The turning point about how to kill leaders, cover up and sabotage of crime scene was mastered with Kennedy assassination. Impunity gained exponential freedom to allow America to amplify crimes of all nature.
All secrecy in docs involving the government is not about protecting soldiers, secret agents but to hide the proof and shame about political wrongdoings and the consequences which could lead many of them to face Death Penalty..
All true, but let’s also admit the obvious fact that people in every country, with some admirable exceptions, care little about people in others. The US government is uniquely evil, not its citizens, as blindly self-righteous as they have come to be.
@Garrison: with all due respect, it spells “coup d’état” (just out of lassitude of seeing this “coupe e´tat” neologism take root in this comment section :o)
Thank you.
You are right. I live in America despite not being an American (thank you, universe!). I’ve met amazing people here. As I’ve met amazing people in France, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, China, Philippines, Turkey, Spain, etc. The evil is deeply rooted inside the US government. It cannot survive a surgery to remove it. Sad.
To open an embassy’s doors in London to a police raid to take Assange out of it, the US engineered a coup, nasty militia and all, in the home country of the embassy.
Nothing on US news of course, and pretty much nothing on most of the world’s media about the killings, the brutality to any who would oppose and the complete corruption of a government and a country. Just like killing by drones, on ground and the air in effect.
BUT worldwide coverage showing the getting of Assange out of the embassy to show everyone both the power and to give a warning. Time for this to stop now – unchecked power destroys and always has.
Inquisition in the name of god and the church that claimed control of the creator and most everything else saw untold numbers racked, tortured and burnt all permitted by a population under mind control. The self catered BBQ’s might be in the past though the methods are not. Its the same gang with the same game just played differently. And the people are as mind controlled as ever.
Maybe this time…….
I often criticize the US government’s policies by writing my representatives, and in every case, even when I write to supposed “liberals” like Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, I get back form letters that spew boilerplate nonsense that has no bearing whatsoever on what I wrote about. At this point I assume it amuses the people handling correspondence in the government official’s offices to throw propaganda back in my face that they know will just irritate me. So yeah, you are free to criticize the policies of people in charge who will just laugh in your face and continue on with their destructive policies. Somehow that doesn’t seem like free speech, it seems like actively ignored speech.
Agree. They probably have standard circulars and the number of people who write again to say “you didn’t answer my fucking question for Chrissakes!” must drop like 90% from the number who wrote the initial complaints. Mission accomplished :o)
Its all done by computer. No one actually reads your letter.
Propaganda saturation in us oozes out as freedom of speech.
The great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky once wrote THE BEST WAY TO KEEP A PRISONER FROM ESCAPING IS TO MAKE SURE HE NEVER KNOW’S HE’S IN PRISON ,need more be added ,one fucking day those with an intact mind will pull the prison block to pieces
Maybe off topic … The official “narrative” involving Covid is that the virus began to “spread” across the world some time after January 2020. In this article (which I wrote), I present some of the compelling evidence this narrative is false.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/08/29/the-compelling-evidence-covid-19-was-spreading-across-the-u-s-in-2019-that-officials-are-ignoring/
I am currently making at least an extra $29,000 a month from home by doing extraordinarily honest and clean online work from home. w60) Currently be a district of this task and make more money online by accompanying trainings
on a specific website…….. http://justwork7.blogspot.com
God, are you lousy at marketing! I love insulting bots. You get some aggressivity out of your system while not hurting anybody – and above all you don’t risk prison time like if you shoot people for the same reason for instance.
Easy Pascal. Beware of Bot rage.